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Crisp: reviews and analysis
French shared inbox with a flat per-workspace rate, unlimited human conversations and an AI agent on a monthly allowance.
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Our verdict
Crisp is the European answer to expensive per-seat support: a flat rate per workspace, unlimited human conversations from the free plan and an AI agent included as early as the Mini plan, which costs 45 a month. It is made by CRISP IM SAS in Nantes, with no investors. Two pieces of fine print deserve reading first: the flat rate is not that flat, because each plan caps seats and contacts, and the AI is metered, with a monthly allowance that on running out stops answering and escalates everything to people. Its own site declares dollars to machines and shows the euro symbol to anyone whose clock is on European time.
Best for: Small and mid-sized European teams wanting several channels and an AI agent without paying for every seat.
What the internet says
Crisp is made by CRISP IM SAS in Nantes, with no investors, and its argument is price: a flat rate per workspace instead of per agent, with unlimited human conversations from the free plan onwards. The AI agent is included from the Mini plan at 45 a month, but with a monthly credit allowance that on running out stops answering and escalates everything to people. The flat rate is not infinite either: four seats and five thousand contacts on that plan. And there is a currency muddle that confuses even the trade press, because the page declares dollars to machines and paints the euro symbol according to the visitor's timezone.
What the web repeats in favour
- You pay per workspace rather than per person, so adding colleagues does not change the bill while they fit within the plan's cap
- Unlimited human conversations from the free plan, which is the exact opposite of the per-usage billing the rest of the segment applies
- The AI agent is included from the entry plan, with no separate subscription, on a declared credit allowance per plan
- A bootstrapped French company, active in the public company register and with data in the European Union, which for a European buyer is a purchasing argument rather than trivia
What the web repeats against
- The flat rate carries caps that do not show up when comparing prices: four seats and five thousand contacts on the entry plan, with additional agents billed separately on the higher plans
- The unlimited conversations are the human ones: those handled by the AI draw down credit, and once the month is spent the agent stops answering unless pay as you go is enabled
- The published currency is incoherent: the structured data of its four language versions declares dollars while the European visitor sees the euro symbol, chosen by their browser timezone over the very same figure
- Each workspace is billed separately, so managing several brands multiplies the cost and the volume discount has to be requested over chat
- Independent reviews agree on two product limits, thin widget customisation and a CRM that falls short, plus priority support only on the most expensive plan
Sweep sources: Official pricing · Docs · App stores · Review sites · Review sites · Communities
Pros / Cons
Pros
- A per-workspace rate rather than per person, so adding colleagues does not raise the bill until the plan's cap
- Unlimited human conversations from the free plan, with none of the per-usage billing nearly everyone else applies
- A bootstrapped French company with data in the European Union, and the AI agent included from the entry plan
Cons
- The flat rate carries caps you do not see while comparing: four seats and five thousand contacts on the entry plan
- The AI agent runs on a monthly allowance, and once spent it stops answering and sends everything to people unless you enable pay as you go
- The site declares dollars in its structured data and shows the euro symbol by timezone, so half the internet quotes the price wrong
TLDR: Crisp charges per workspace rather than per person, so putting three colleagues in the inbox does not change the bill. It is made by a French company in Nantes with no investors behind it and data held in the European Union. The entry plan is 45 a month and already includes the AI agent, which almost nobody does at that price. The two pieces of fine print to read before comparing: the flat rate carries seat and contact caps, and the AI runs on a monthly allowance that stops answering once spent.
What Crisp is and how it works
It is a multichannel shared inbox built around a pricing idea, and that idea is the first thing to grasp because it changes the whole comparison. Almost the entire segment charges per agent, so growing the team means making support dearer. Crisp charges per workspace at a fixed rate and advertises unlimited conversations even on its free plan. In its own FAQ it defends this with a phone-carrier argument: they would rather you did not have to watch a meter at the end of the month.
Inside sit the usual channels, website chat, email, WhatsApp and Instagram, with a knowledge base, campaigns and a widget that installs on the site and in mobile apps. The company is CRISP IM SAS, registered in Nantes, founded in 2015 and bootstrapped, which matters to a European buyer who wants to know where their data lives and who runs the product.
The AI agent is called Hugo, and here comes a pleasant surprise against the usual telling: it is included from the Mini plan, the entry one, with no separate subscription. It trains on your knowledge base and replies in chat until the enquiry closes or moves to a person.
What using it is like day to day
The profile it fits best is the small or mid-sized European company that wants several channels without building a department. Independent reviews agree it installs fast and that the widget does its job, and they agree on two limits worth knowing. The first is customising that widget, which falls short if you have a carefully built visual identity. The second is the internal CRM, adequate for knowing who you are talking to and thin for managing a real commercial relationship.
Two more complaints show up in separate sources and point the same way, at growth. The interface gets described as dated, and service-level metrics are absent, so a team starting to operate against response-time commitments has no tool to measure them with. And priority support does not arrive until the most expensive plan.
On the AI, what reviews describe is that it handles the repetitive well and that its cost is not as flat as the rest. That is the seam in the model and it deserves its own section.
Pricing and plans
The free plan exists and is not decoration: unlimited conversations, two seats and a working widget. The ceiling sits in contacts, a hundred of them, and in the absence of any AI agent.
The first paid plan is called Mini and costs 45 a month per workspace. The next ones are Essentials at 95 and Plus at 295, and no annual discount is advertised on the site, because that option is enabled inside the app once you have subscribed.
Now the caps, which is what almost nobody checks when comparing flat rates. Mini includes four seats and five thousand contacts. Essentials moves to ten seats and fifty thousand contacts. Plus goes to twenty or more, and there additional agents are billed separately at ten a month each. With that, the flat rate still comes out ahead of its rivals’ per-seat pricing, but it pays to count how many people will end up in the inbox before deciding.
Then the metered part. The unlimited conversations are the human ones. Those handled by Hugo draw down a monthly credit allowance each plan includes, about five on Mini, which their own documentation translates into roughly ninety automated conversations a month. Once that allowance is spent the agent stops answering and everything escalates to people, unless you enable pay as you go. The company itself puts the average cost between five and ten cents a conversation.
One warning about currency remains, and it is not a quirk of ours but a genuine muddle on their site. The published figure is 45, and the structured data of its English, Spanish, German and French versions declares dollars in all four. But the symbol you see is chosen by your own browser according to its timezone: on a European clock the euro sign appears after the number, on a London clock the pound, and everywhere else the dollar sign in front. The number never changes. Which is why half the trade press writes 45 euros and the other half 45 dollars believing they are quoting the same page, which in fact they are. The check that breaks the tie is its listing on the Shopify app store, where Shopify does the charging and the plans appear in dollars.
Who it is for (and who it is not for)
It suits a team of between two and ten people in Europe handling chat and email, wanting an AI agent without contracting it separately and preferring to know what they pay each month. It also suits anyone running a single brand, because each workspace is billed separately and several of them multiply the cost.
It does not suit anyone needing the AI to handle email as fluently as chat, nor anyone operating against service-level agreements who needs to measure them. If volume is high and repetitive and the business can pay per outcome, Intercom resolves more and costs considerably more. If support is mostly email and you want a human tone, Help Scout is built for that. And if you sell in a shop and want the agent touching the order, Gorgias does what is not done here.
The wider map is in the best AI office tools and the segment ranking lives in AI customer support.
Alternatives to Crisp
Within the same segment, Tidio targets the same kind of small business with more emphasis on building chatbot flows, and Help Scout competes for the team that answers by email, with per-seat pricing and an AI agent billed per resolution. Crisp’s real difference against both is the billing model, not the feature list.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the flat rate genuinely flat?
On human conversations, yes, and from the free plan up. On seats and contacts, no: the entry plan allows four people and five thousand contacts, and on the top plan extra agents are paid for separately.
Is the AI agent included?
Yes, from the Mini plan and with no separate subscription, but on an allowance. Each plan carries a monthly credit, about five on Mini for roughly ninety automated conversations, and once spent the agent stops replying unless you enable pay as you go.
So is it 45 euros or 45 dollars?
The figure is 45 either way. Its structured data declares dollars across all four language versions and so does its Shopify store listing, while the euro symbol many Europeans see is placed there by the browser according to timezone. It is published here in dollars because that is what the vendor declares.
Where is the data hosted?
This is a French company, CRISP IM SAS, based in Nantes with data in the European Union. For a European business with data-handling requirements, that is part of the decision rather than a footnote.
Does it work if I run several brands?
It works, but it costs: each workspace is billed separately. There is a discount for subscribing to several, it is not automatic, and you have to ask for it over the company’s own chat.