Crisp

What Is Crisp?

Customer support tooling has a pricing problem. Intercom charges per seat, per conversation, and per product module — a growth-stage startup can easily hit four figures per month before it's solved any hard support challenges. Zendesk layers complexity on top of cost. For European companies that need omnichannel messaging without the enterprise tax, that gap is significant.

Crisp was built in Nantes, France, in 2015 by Baptiste Jamin and Valerian Saliou as a direct answer to that problem. The company — still bootstrapped, still small — ships a platform that consolidates live chat, email, social messaging, a knowledge base, chatbots, and basic CRM into a single workspace. Not a collection of products with connectors between them, but a single shared inbox where every conversation from every channel lands in one place.

The pricing philosophy reflects the founding frustration. Crisp bills per workspace, not per agent or per conversation. The Plus plan at €295/month includes 20 seats and unlimited conversations. At Intercom's typical per-seat rates, that same team could cost ten times more. Crisp's free tier — which includes 2 seats, unlimited conversations, and a functional live chat widget — is genuinely usable, not a crippled demo.

Crisp operates from a lean team of fewer than 10 people. That creates real risks around support responsiveness and long-term platform development, but it also explains how the company maintains competitive pricing without external investment. Everything runs on EU infrastructure: core messaging in Amsterdam, plugin data in Frankfurt, with no data transferred outside the European Union.

Key Features

Unified Omnichannel Inbox

The shared inbox pulls conversations from website live chat, email, WhatsApp Business, Instagram DMs, Facebook Messenger, SMS, X (Twitter), and Line into a single threaded view. Agents see the full conversation history regardless of the channel where the customer is writing. Switching between channels doesn't fragment the contact record — the CRM profile updates across all touchpoints. For support teams juggling multiple communication surfaces, this eliminates the tab-switching that plagues multi-tool setups.

Co-browsing and Live Typing Preview

Two features give Crisp agents unusual visibility into customer sessions. Live typing preview shows what a visitor is typing before they send the message — agents can start preparing a response before the question arrives. Co-browsing lets agents view and interact with the visitor's browser screen in real time, without a plugin or download on the customer side. These tools were borrowed from high-end enterprise platforms and built into Crisp's mid-tier plans, making them accessible to teams that couldn't previously justify enterprise live chat software.

AI Chatbot and Workflow Builder

From the Essentials plan, Crisp includes an AI-powered chatbot built on a no-code visual workflow editor. Flows can handle FAQ deflection, lead qualification, routing to specific agents or teams, and handoffs to human agents. The builder uses drag-and-drop logic with condition branches, not scripted decision trees. Crisp integrates its own AI layer into the chatbot for natural language understanding, which reduces the rigid keyword matching that frustrates users on simpler bot platforms.

The chatbot is omnichannel: configure once, deploy across live chat, WhatsApp, and other connected channels without rebuilding flows per channel.

Knowledge Base

Crisp includes a built-in help centre for self-service deflection. Articles can be embedded directly in the chat widget, surfaced by the chatbot, or published as a standalone page. The editor is clean and supports rich text, images, and embedded video. It's not a dedicated documentation platform — it won't replace Gitbook or Notion for complex products — but for a team that needs a basic help centre integrated with their chat widget, it removes the need for a separate tool subscription.

Flat Per-Workspace Pricing

Most chat platforms charge per agent seat. As the team grows from 5 to 15 support agents, the bill triples. Crisp's model charges per workspace regardless of how many agents share access. The Plus plan at €295/month supports 20 seats and unlimited conversations — meaningful for teams experiencing rapid agent headcount growth without proportional revenue growth.

Pricing

Crisp's four-tier structure maps cleanly to business growth stages. The Free plan with 2 seats handles early-stage support. Mini (€45/month) adds professional touches — custom email domain, data retention, internal search — without jumping to full automation features. Essentials (€95/month) is where the platform becomes genuinely powerful: chatbot, knowledge base, analytics, and workflow automation unlock simultaneously. Plus (€295/month) adds ticketing, 100+ integrations, and white-labelling for teams that have outgrown the mid-tier.

The 14-day free trial on all paid plans requires no credit card, which removes friction from evaluation. VAT is excluded from all published prices, so European businesses should add the applicable VAT rate when budgeting.

The flat per-workspace model is Crisp's sharpest competitive differentiator against Intercom. A 10-agent team on Crisp's Essentials plan pays €95/month. Intercom's equivalent feature set for the same team starts above €800/month. The functionality gap is real but narrowing — and for most SME support teams, Crisp closes enough of it at a fraction of the cost.

EU Compliance & Privacy

Crisp is a French company — Crisp IM SAS — fully subject to EU law and GDPR by corporate structure, not just by policy choice. All messaging data is stored in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Plugin data is stored in Frankfurt, Germany. Crisp explicitly commits to no data transfers outside the EU.

A GDPR-compliant Data Processing Agreement is available on request. Crisp's privacy page documents the legal basis for each data processing activity, the sub-processors used (limited to EU-hosted infrastructure), and the retention periods for different data categories.

The infrastructure runs on DigitalOcean's EU subsidiary, which is subject to EU law. This matters: some cloud providers route EU-hosted data through US parent company agreements. Crisp's explicit EU-subsidiary configuration closes that gap.

There are no current ISO 27001 or SOC 2 certifications published — a gap for enterprise procurement teams with formal compliance requirements. For most SME and growth-stage teams, the GDPR-compliant DPA and EU-only data hosting will be sufficient.

Who It's Best For

Growth-stage startups with expanding support teams that can't absorb per-agent pricing increases. The flat workspace model means adding five agents doesn't change the monthly bill.

E-commerce businesses handling customer queries across WhatsApp, Instagram, and website chat simultaneously. The omnichannel inbox with Shopify and WooCommerce sync connects order data directly to conversations.

Teams replacing Intercom on cost grounds. Crisp's Essentials plan at €95/month covers most of what mid-tier Intercom provides, with the added advantage of EU data hosting that US-built Intercom cannot match.

GDPR-conscious teams that need written assurance of EU-only data hosting. Crisp's Amsterdam/Frankfurt infrastructure and available DPA cover the standard compliance requirements without enterprise negotiation.

The Verdict

Crisp occupies a defensible position: genuinely capable omnichannel messaging at a price that doesn't punish team growth. The co-browsing and live typing preview features punch above their price tier. EU hosting and a GDPR DPA satisfy most compliance requirements for European SMEs. The meaningful caveats are the small company size — support responsiveness and platform longevity depend on a team of fewer than 10 — and the absence of formal security certifications that larger enterprise buyers require. For cost-sensitive teams with 5-50 agents who want an EU-hosted Intercom alternative, Crisp makes a strong practical case.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Crisp GDPR compliant?

Yes. Crisp is a French company (Crisp IM SAS) and stores all data in EU infrastructure — core messaging in Amsterdam, plugin data in Frankfurt. No data is transferred outside the EU. A GDPR-compliant Data Processing Agreement is available on request.

How does Crisp pricing work?

Crisp charges per workspace, not per agent. The Free plan includes 2 seats and unlimited conversations. Paid plans (Mini €45/month, Essentials €95/month, Plus €295/month) add features at each tier. Adding agents to a plan does not increase the price — the Plus plan supports up to 20 seats at the same flat rate.

Does Crisp include a chatbot?

Yes. An AI-powered omnichannel chatbot with a no-code visual workflow builder is included from the Essentials plan (€95/month). It supports FAQ deflection, routing, qualification flows, and human handoffs. The same chatbot logic deploys across live chat and connected social channels.

How does Crisp compare to Intercom?

Crisp is significantly cheaper than Intercom for teams with more than 3-4 agents. Intercom's per-seat pricing typically results in bills 5-10x higher than Crisp's equivalent plans. Intercom has a richer product ecosystem, deeper CRM integration, and more mature enterprise tooling. Crisp trades that depth for substantially lower cost and EU-only data hosting.

Where is Crisp data stored?

Core messaging data is stored in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Plugin data is stored in Frankfurt, Germany. Both locations are within EU jurisdiction. Crisp does not transfer user data outside the European Union.