Fin AI vs Chatfuel vs Helply: Pricing and Features Compared

Choose Fin AI if you want a powerful AI agent integrated within Intercom’s platform, offering advanced automation and seamless handling of complex customer inquiries. However, it doesn’t suit small teams due to its costly, per-resolution pricing model and limited integrations outside Intercom.

Choose Chatfuel if you need a no-code chatbot builder focused on Meta platforms like Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp, ideal for marketing and simple customer support. However, it lacks omnichannel support, advanced AI capabilities, and multilingual features.

However, Helply is the best alternative for Fin AI and Chatfuel because it offers deep integration with existing helpdesk systems. It supports multiple channels and languages.

Helply automates support with advanced AI actions and continuously improves through knowledge gap detection. This delivers more efficient, personalized customer support at a lower cost.

Intercom Fin AI

Intercom Fin is an AI-powered support agent built into Intercom’s helpdesk platform. It is part of the larger Intercom suite and offers smooth automation for customer service. Fin AI leverages conversational AI to deliver natural, human-like interactions.

It works closely with Intercom, allowing fast replies and effective ticket handling. Powered by Intercom’s Fin AI Engine, it searches your content, creates responses, and passes complex issues to human agents.

The platform includes tools to analyze, train, test, and use the AI over different channels, while also providing insights into agent performance to help teams monitor and improve support quality.

Features

According to Intercom’s official information, Fin provides several important features for customer self-service options:

1. All-in-one workspace for analysis, training, testing, and deployment. Fin’s dashboard shows metrics like answered questions, deflection rates, customer satisfaction, and performance data. Users can train Fin by uploading articles or connecting data sources, set tone and behavior, and define actions. Testing lets you review before launching on live chat, email, and other channels.
2. Answers based on knowledge from multiple sources. Fin gets information from help center articles, knowledge base documents, and other files stored in Intercom’s Knowledge Hub. It can also leverage customer data, such as interaction history and preferences, to provide more personalized and accurate responses. Responses include source references to reduce mistakes.
3. Customizable tone, length, and behavior. Admins can change Fin’s voice, answer length, and rules. Fin can do tasks like cancel subscriptions or update orders in external systems.
4. Audience segmentation and multilingual capabilities. Businesses can decide which customers get automated answers or human support. Fin supports live translation in over 45 languages.
5. Automatic escalation and smooth human handoff. The system transfers complicated questions to human agents and connects with Intercom’s shared inbox and messenger.
6. Image and file understanding. Fin can answer questions about images or uploaded files.
7. Integration with external data sources and workflows. Fin links to outside systems through data connectors and can perform actions like creating tickets or updating records.
8. Native Intercom automation. Fin offers chat automation inside Intercom, working well for current platform users.

Pricing plans

Intercom includes Fin in its support platform with this pricing (annual billing, per seat, plus usage fees):

Monthly billing is more expensive than annual billing. Each resolved conversation costs $0.99, which can cause unpredictable bills for high-volume users.

Pros

• Quick setup and quality answers. Fin is easy to set up and launch with little technical skill, requiring minimal technical expertise, making it accessible to a wide range of users and good for small support teams. It gives good answers when trained with well-organized help center content.
• Strong feature set. Intercom combines chat, ticketing, knowledge base, marketing, and AI in one platform. Fin works well with Intercom’s messenger and shared inbox, offering useful analytics.
• Real-time insights. Fin provides instant analytics to help support teams track performance and customer satisfaction.
• All-in-one convenience with polished interface. Intercom’s sleek chat widget and product tours offer a professional experience without needing several tools.
• Fast return on investment. Fin gives value quickly since it only needs uploading key articles without complex data moves.

Cons

• Costly and unpredictable pricing. The $0.99 fee per resolved conversation on top of seat costs can lead to high bills, especially during busy times. The definition of “resolved” may include chats closed by users even if the answer was not helpful.
• Not suitable for small teams or SMBs. Due to complexity and cost, Fin may be hard for smaller organizations with limited budgets.
• Needs content migration into Intercom’s help center. Fin only works with knowledge stored inside Intercom’s articles, which can be hard for companies with documents spread across other tools like Google Docs or Notion.
• Limited integrations and features. It lacks Slack/Discord integrations, auto-tagging, private notes, and does not learn from past tickets. Complex workflows can be hard to manage.
• Struggles with complex or technical questions. Fin works best with simple questions and often needs to pass complex issues to human agents. Troubleshooting can be hard due to unclear support paths.

Who it’s for

Fin AI is best for:

1. Companies with well-organized help center content. Businesses using Intercom with clear documentation benefit most.
2. Organizations wanting quick deployment, omnichannel support, and polished customer experience. Small to mid-sized SaaS firms and startups like Fin’s fast setup and integrated messenger.
3. Businesses with high-value support interactions. Industries like finance, insurance, or B2B SaaS where automated answers can offset per-resolution fees.

Who it’s not for

Fin may not suit:

1. High-volume, low-margin support operations. Because of per-resolution fees, e-commerce or consumer apps with many low-value queries may find costs too high.
2. Companies with scattered knowledge bases. Teams with documents outside Intercom might face challenges moving content.
3. Organizations needing many custom workflows or integrations. Fin lacks advanced integrations and features like auto-tagging or private notes.
4. Teams handling complex technical support. Fin often needs human help for deep troubleshooting.

Chatfuel

Chatfuel is a no-code chatbot builder that mainly works with Meta’s platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and TikTok. It acts as an AI assistant for sales and support, operating 24/7 to handle tasks such as:

• Scheduling appointments and meetings
• Responding to common questions
• Qualifying potential customers
• Replying to comments
• Suggesting products

Chatfuel is especially popular among smaller businesses looking for affordable, easy-to-use chatbot solutions. While Chatfuel is strong on Meta platforms, it does not fully support multiple languages, which may be a limitation for businesses with diverse customer bases.

Chatfuel is easy to use and doesn’t require much technical knowledge—no coding skills are needed, making it accessible to users without programming backgrounds.

The platform also provides an official WhatsApp API with a verified green badge, supports unlimited agents on one phone number, and includes ChatGPT for more natural conversations.

It is especially favored by marketing teams for creating engaging chat experiences.

Features

• Always available. Chatfuel’s AI works nonstop, quickly adapting to user requests and sending unlimited messages.
• Visual builder with chat flows. It offers a drag-and-drop interface that lets users design and adjust chat flows easily. Chatfuel’s visual flow builders make it easy to design sophisticated chatbots without technical skills. The builder supports dynamic flows with branching options for personalized customer chats, helping improve lead qualification, scheduling, and sales.
• Proactive chat triggers. Chatfuel enables proactive chat triggers to automatically engage users based on their behavior, increasing customer engagement and conversions.
• Use cases. It manages appointments, answers FAQs, qualifies leads, responds to comments, and recommends products. Ready-to-use templates cover sales, cart recovery, upselling, re-engagement, and gathering feedback.
• Integrations. Chatfuel connects directly with Stripe, Calendly, Shopify, Zapier, Google Sheets, and HubSpot. It also offers API access, audience segmentation, analytics, and A/B testing tools to improve campaigns.
• WhatsApp business features. Provides a verified green badge, allows unlimited agents on one WhatsApp number, and has ChatGPT built-in for smoother conversations.
• Support and reliability. Promises 24/7 support with response times under five minutes, 99.99% uptime, and GDPR compliance.
• Analytics and targeting. Offers real-time dashboards, audience segmentation, and A/B testing to help refine messaging.

Pricing plans

Chatfuel offers a free plan and a free tier with limited features, allowing users to try the platform before committing to a paid plan.

Pros

• Simple to set up and user-friendly. Chatfuel’s visual flow builder is intuitive and requires no coding, making it accessible to beginners. Setup can be done in under an hour.
• Strong marketing tools. Automates messages, comments, and stories across Meta channels, efficiently resolving a high volume of customer queries without manual intervention. Runs broadcasts and sequences, tags and segments users, and includes analytics dashboards. Supports conversational marketing with real-time, personalized chats that help qualify leads and boost sales. Integrations with ChatGPT, Zapier, Stripe, and Shopify add flexibility.
• Affordable for small businesses. Plans starting around $20 per month offer good value. Free templates and trials help lower the entry barrier.
• Live chat takeover and mobile apps. Allows human agents to take over chats with live chat, and mobile apps support real-time replies.
• Segmentation and analytics. Enables tagging and segmenting users and uses analytics dashboards for targeted messaging to increase engagement.
• Support and reliability. Chatfuel provides responsive support with fast response times and 24/7 availability. Some users praise customer service and successful automation of sales and communication.

Cons

• No flow duplication or web widget. Chat flows can’t be copied across channels; each platform needs its own build. There is no native web chat widget, so usage is limited to Meta platforms.
• Limited language support and basic NLP. Mainly uses keyword triggers and lacks strong translation or language detection. Managing multilingual bots can be difficult. Its AI has basic capabilities with limited understanding of user intent.
• Visual editor can be cluttered. For large bots, the flow editor may become hard to manage. Customization options for visuals are limited, affecting branding.
• No omnichannel support and few integrations. Doesn’t natively support web or email channels. Lacks advanced features like auto-assignment rules and contact merging.
• Reliability and support issues. Some users report losing access to bots, inconsistent customer service, and platform downtime.

Who it’s for

• Small businesses, creators, and marketers on Meta platforms. Ideal for companies using Facebook, Instagram, or WhatsApp for customer interaction and marketing. Chatfuel’s no-code, drag-and-drop interface makes chatbot creation simple for beginners and experienced users alike. Its easy flow builder and affordable plans suit startups, e-commerce, and influencers, automating lead capture, product suggestions, and basic support.
• Teams needing fast deployment without coding. Chatfuel lets businesses launch chatbots quickly and test campaigns without technical skills or developers.
• Marketers wanting segmentation and basic analytics. Those who want built-in segmentation, tagging, broadcast tools, and simple analytics will find it useful.

However, Chatfuel may not be suitable for businesses that require dedicated phone support as part of their customer service strategy.

Who it’s not for

• Businesses needing omnichannel support and complex workflows. Companies that want chatbots across web, email, and social channels or advanced branching logic may find it too limited. Each channel requires separate builds, and there’s no web chat widget. Also, businesses needing advanced customization might require more technical skill than Chatfuel provides.
• Organizations with multilingual customers or advanced NLP needs. Its limited natural language understanding and translation features may not meet the needs of companies serving multiple languages.
• Users needing reliable service and strong support. Reports of service problems and weak support suggest it’s not suitable for businesses that require dependable service and quick assistance.

Helply

Helply is an AI-powered customer support assistant that manages inquiries across various channels, improving the efficiency of support teams. Helply’s AI-powered chatbots deliver efficient, automated support across multiple platforms. Instead of replacing your current helpdesk software, it works alongside it to quickly resolve tickets.

Designed mainly for e-commerce teams, Helply helps simplify order handling and customer communication.

Its multichannel support ensures seamless customer engagement across web, email, and messaging apps, making it a strong choice for online businesses looking to improve efficiency and customer satisfaction.

This self-learning AI can:

• Automatically resolve tier-1 support tickets
• Provide customer responses 24/7
• Learn and improve continuously from feedback

Helply integrates with popular helpdesk platforms such as Zendesk, Groove, Freshdesk, and Help Scout. This lets teams keep their existing tools while adding AI support.

It offers a no-code setup and quickly trains on your current knowledge bases and past tickets.

Helply’s unified inbox feature allows support teams to manage all customer conversations from a single dashboard, improving efficiency and response times.

Key Features

1. AI Agent Training

Helply’s AI learns from many sources, including help center articles (from Zendesk, Google Docs), websites, manually entered text, uploaded documents, and custom question-and-answer pairs.

It supports ongoing updates to its knowledge and studies user interactions to improve training and offer personalized replies. Analyzing customer conversations helps refine the AI’s responses and enhance support quality.

2. Agent Customization

Users can adjust:

• The chatbot’s look and personality (for example, friendly or playful), helping in maintaining brand consistency across all customer interactions
• Styling choices like bold text
• The way responses are given (such as brief answers)
• What happens when the AI can’t answer (like showing forms or suggesting contacting a human)

3. Actions

Besides answering questions, Helply’s AI can do tasks like sending emails, calling APIs (such as Stripe to get invoices), and running workflows (like creating help articles), making it interactive and able to handle transactions.

4. Personalization

It can customize replies based on user details, like subscription plans, to give relevant and tailored interactions.

5. Conversation Dashboard

You can review past conversations for training and quality control, and the dashboard also provides insights into agent performance, helping teams identify areas for improvement.

6. Knowledge Gap Detection

Helply looks at support tickets to find common questions the AI hasn’t learned yet, pointing out missing knowledge so you can train the AI on new topics.

7. Deployment

The AI chatbot can be embedded on websites or help centers and used across multiple platforms to reach more users.

Pricing Plans

Helply offers yearly subscription plans with monthly fees based on how many AI answers you use and what features you need.

Compared to alternatives like the Lyro AI Agent, Helply is designed for small and medium-sized businesses that want a cost-effective, easy-to-use AI support solution with flexible pricing and advanced features.

Pros

• Learns continuously: Helply finds knowledge gaps and can draft new help articles, improving your documentation and reducing repeated questions. It also supports more natural AI conversations.
• Action-focused automation: The AI can do more than answer questions; it can run workflows and retrieve data, making support interactive and transactional. Helply’s AI can also assist with lead generation by qualifying and capturing potential customers during support interactions.
• E-commerce friendly: It can help recover abandoned carts by reaching out to customers proactively.
• Quick, no-code setup: Easily connects with your current helpdesk without needing to move systems.
• Customizable personality and tone: Matches your brand’s style and voice.
• Supports knowledge base growth: Automatically creates drafts for missing articles to improve support content.
• Smooth handoff to humans: Ensures easy escalation when a human agent is needed. Helply works alongside support agents to ensure seamless transitions and efficient resolution of complex issues.

Cons

• Not a full helpdesk system: Helply focuses on AI automation and needs an existing helpdesk platform.
• Pricing grows with usage: Costs increase as you use more AI answers, credits, and agent seats.
• Needs well-kept content: Works best with well-maintained and updated knowledge bases, requiring regular content management.

Who it's for

• Support teams handling many repetitive tier-1 questions.
• Companies wanting to add AI automation to their existing helpdesk.
• Organizations focused on improving and expanding their documentation.
• Teams needing support in multiple languages (Helply supports over 40).

Who it's not for

• Businesses looking for an all-in-one system including ticketing and CRM.
• Teams without enough documentation or with very unique questions needing lots of new content creation.

Verdict

Helply stands out by offering advanced AI support with seamless integration into existing helpdesk systems, multilingual and multichannel capabilities, and no-code setup for easy deployment.

It provides cost-effective, scalable automation with features like workflow actions and knowledge gap detection, making it a superior choice over Fin AI and Chatfuel.

Ready to see how Helply can transform your customer support?

Book a FREE demo today and discover how Helply can boost your support efficiency!