Compare/message.com vs Crisp

Head to head

message.com vs Crisp

Crisp is a French-built chat and shared-inbox tool known for clean design, a generous free plan, and built-in co-browsing. message.com is a flat-priced unified inbox that handles chat, tickets, and phone calls on one bill, with grounded AI included on the Business plan. Both target small and mid-size teams, so the decision usually comes down to price predictability, channel coverage, and how soon you need AI.

The short version

Crisp is priced per workspace, not per seat: Mini is $45, Essentials is $95, and Plus is $295 per month, with AI features and the deeper inbox tools gated to the higher tiers. message.com is flat too, but lower: Chat is $6, Support is $12, and Business is $19 a month, all with unlimited agents and grounded AI plus a phone channel included on Business. Crisp wins on visual polish, its free plan, and native co-browsing. message.com wins on price at the AI tier, on bundled phones, and on a single inbox that unifies chat, email, and calls on one customer record.

Feature by feature

Head-to-head

Feature

message.com

Crisp

Entry price

$6 a month, flat

$45 a month, Mini

Pricing model

Flat, unlimited agents

Flat per workspace, seat caps per tier

Live chat widget

Included from $6 a month

Included on every tier

Email tickets

Included from $12 a month

Shared inbox on Essentials and up

Phone system

✓Included from $19 a month

Not native

AI agent

✓Grounded drafts on Business, flat $19

Gated to Plus at $295 a month

Co-browsing

On the roadmap

Built in

Cost at 10 agents

✓$19 a month, flat

$45 to $295, by feature tier

Free trial

14 days, no card

Free plan, then paid tiers

Pricing

Pricing, compared

Crisp is one of the few competitors that does not charge per seat. Its three tiers are flat per workspace: Mini at $45, Essentials at $95, and Plus at $295 a month. That sounds simple, but the AI features and the deeper inbox tools live on the higher tiers, so a team that wants AI assistance is effectively paying $295 a month for it. message.com puts grounded AI on the $19 Business plan and includes a phone channel in the same price. The calculator below uses Crisp tiers so you can see where the flat lines cross at your team size. See chat plans, the unified inbox tour, and why teams switch. Because both products are flat, the gap is about what each dollar buys: Crisp tiers gate features, while message.com bundles AI, tickets, and phones into one $19 plan.

Cost calculator

What you would pay, by team size

Drag the slider. message.com stays flat. Per-seat vendors scale with every hire.

Team size

10 seats

3102050100250

message.com

BusinessUnlimited agents

$19/ mo flat

Crisp

Mini$45 flat

$45save $26

Annual on message.com$228

Annual on Crisp$540

You save per year$312

Each competitor's lowest paid plan multiplied by seat count. AI add-ons, phone add-ons, and per-conversation charges are excluded, which makes the math kinder to them than the real bill. Pricing as published, May 2026.

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The verdict

Where message.com wins

Phones includedInbound and outbound voice, voicemail, and Smart Hold land in the same inbox as chat and email on the Business plan. Crisp has no native phone channel, so you would add a separate voice vendor and a separate bill. See the unified inbox.
AI at $19, not $295message AI reads your help center and live data, then drafts replies with the source cited. It is included on the $19 Business plan. On Crisp, the AI features sit on the Plus tier at $295 a month, so the AI economics tilt hard toward message.com. See message AI.
Flat pricing that still bundles everythingBoth products are flat, but message.com bundles chat, tickets, AI, and phones into one plan with unlimited agents. Crisp keeps the price flat by gating features per tier instead. Compare with Tidio and LiveChat.

Switching from Crisp?

Most teams move in a day. See the Crisp migration guide for importing contacts, conversation history, and saved replies, plus the widget customization docs. Keep both widgets live for a few days, then cut over.

FAQ

Questions

Is message.com cheaper than Crisp?

At the AI tier, yes, by a wide margin. Crisp gates AI to its Plus plan at $295 a month per workspace, while message.com includes grounded AI on the $19 a month Business plan. Crisp's entry Mini tier at $45 is cheaper than nothing, but message.com's Chat plan starts at $6 a month, so message.com is also lower at the entry point. Both are flat per workspace, so neither charges per seat.

Does message.com have co-browsing like Crisp?

Not yet. Co-browsing, the live screen-share-style feature Crisp is known for, is on the message.com roadmap but not shipped in 2026. If co-browsing is a must-have today, Crisp wins that feature. For chat, tickets, phones, and grounded AI on one bill, message.com is ready now.

Can I migrate my data from Crisp?

Yes. Crisp exports contacts and conversation history, and the migration tutorial imports them into message.com with thread continuity preserved on each customer record. Saved replies map to message.com saved replies, and widget color, position, and welcome copy carry over cleanly.

How long does migration from Crisp take?

Most teams complete it in an afternoon. The widget swap is a single snippet change, and contact plus conversation import runs in the background. We recommend keeping both widgets live for a few days and routing a slice of traffic to message.com before the full cutover.

Does message.com include phones that Crisp charges extra for?

Crisp has no native phone channel at all, so there is nothing to charge extra for. message.com includes inbound and outbound calling, voicemail, and Smart Hold on the $19 Business plan, all landing in the same inbox as chat and email on one customer record.

Does Crisp charge per seat?

No. Crisp is one of the few tools priced per workspace rather than per agent, at $45, $95, and $295 a month. The catch is that each tier caps the number of seats and gates features such as AI, so growing teams climb tiers rather than paying per head. message.com is also flat, with unlimited agents on every plan.

See why teams pick message.com.

One inbox for chat, tickets, and phone, with grounded AI included. 14 days free, no credit card.

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