A Crisp alternative when email comes first

Some teams meet customers in a website chat window. Others start each support day in an email inbox. Pipp is built for the inbox: a team inbox for answering customer email, with our AI and yours. Pipp AI, in beta, translates conversations, drafts replies in your style and summarizes them. Your own agent connects over MCP at no cost and can do nearly everything you can do in Pipp. The core inbox and agent access are free forever, with unlimited teammates, inboxes and conversations. Pipp AI is free during beta and fairly priced afterward.

Crisp’s Free plan starts with website chat and a shared inbox; shared email starts on paid Mini. On Pipp, shared email is free from the first day. Start using Pipp.

The short answer

Pipp is for small teams whose support starts in email. A thoughtful reply should fit into a founder’s day without turning support into a second job.

Crisp’s Free plan covers website chat and contact forms. Mini adds shared email; Essentials adds more messaging channels, a knowledge base, analytics, routing, and automation. If your customers write in by email, Pipp gives the whole team a shared inbox for free, where Crisp’s begins at $45 per workspace per month.

Pipp and Crisp at a glance

Crisp’s pricing page, Free plan guide, and Hugo billing guide support the Crisp facts above. We checked them on September 24, 2026, and checked AI, agent and pricing facts again on October 20, 2026, with Crisp’s guide to the MCP server.

Built for teams that answer their own email

Choose Pipp if your customer conversations mainly arrive by email and you want the whole team in one place. A founder or developer who still reads the support mailbox gets a shared inbox where everyone sees who is handling what, adds a note, and replies without stepping on each other.

Invite as many teammates as you need. The core inbox and agent access stay free forever, with fair daily sending limits. Pipp AI is free during beta and fairly priced afterward.

Pipp AI is in beta. It translates conversations so each teammate reads and writes in their own language and the customer gets theirs. It drafts replies in each person’s writing style and summarizes conversations. It’s off by default, and an owner or admin turns it on in Settings → AI.

Your own agent connects over MCP at no cost. Pipp works with any MCP agent, including Claude, ChatGPT (Dots), Codex, Grok and Grok Bot. It works as you, with the access you approve, and can do nearly everything you can do in Pipp: set up the workspace, domain and inboxes, invite teammates, assign, snooze and close conversations, write notes, and draft and send replies. Your teammates see what it did. Your own code can call the same 72 operations over an HTTP API. Crisp also has an MCP server for your own agent, starting with Essentials at $95 per workspace per month. On Pipp, agent access is part of the free core.

Who should keep Crisp

Keep Crisp when website chat matters today. Its permanent Free plan includes a chat widget, contact forms, two seats, and unlimited conversations. It also fits if you rely on its wider channels, knowledge base, automations, routing or analytics, which Essentials builds out.

Keep Crisp, too, if you want an AI agent answering customers on its own. Hugo handles conversations and hands them to people when it can’t. Pipp AI drafts, translates and summarizes for your team, and never sends a reply on its own.

What Crisp costs when email matters

Crisp lists prices per workspace per month, with included seats rather than a starting per-seat fee. The plan page displays a dollar sign but does not identify its ISO currency. Crisp offers yearly payment; we did not verify a separate yearly rate or discount. VAT is excluded where applicable, and some integrations, extra contacts, or seats beyond plan limits may add charges.

There is also a 14-day trial for new accounts. It is a trial, not a promise that Mini’s email inbox remains free afterward. A two-person team that needs shared email would compare Mini’s displayed $45 per workspace per month with Pipp’s free core inbox. The products differ in scope, so this is not a like-for-like savings claim.

Crisp describes Hugo credits as USD-denominated, token-based usage. The dollar credits are not a fixed conversation allowance. Crisp estimates a full Hugo-handled conversation at around $0.05 to $0.10. When included credit runs out, Hugo stops answering and hands new conversations to people by default. A workspace can opt into Pay-As-You-Go and set billing limits. Pipp AI is free during beta and fairly priced afterward; we haven’t set its price or billing unit yet.

What comes next

Email comes first, and chat is already in the works. More is coming soon. If you need chat today, Crisp has it.

Switching from Crisp

There’s no automatic Crisp importer yet, so run both side by side while you switch. Pipp is free, so that costs nothing, and visitors can keep using the Crisp chat widget. Crisp documents contact-profile CSV exports starting at Essentials, capped at 500,000 contacts. It says bulk conversations have no native dashboard CSV export; teams use its API or a third-party migration tool.

Questions about Pipp as a Crisp alternative

When can I use Pipp?

Today. Sign up free, add your domain and set up your inbox, then answer customer email with your team.

For now, each account can create up to 3 workspaces per day. Each workspace can send up to 100 recipient deliveries per day.

Each recipient in To or Cc counts separately. An email sent to 2 people in To and 1 in Cc uses 3 deliveries. Both daily limits reset at 00:00 UTC.

If you need the limit removed, email us at hello@pipp.so.

Is Pipp a complete replacement for Crisp?

For email support, Pipp gives your whole team a shared inbox for free, with agent access and Pipp AI in beta. If you need website chat or Crisp’s knowledge base and analytics today, keep Crisp for those.

Is Crisp Free really free, and does it include email?

Crisp’s Free plan is permanent, with two seats, a website chat widget, contact forms, and unlimited conversations. Shared email starts on Mini. Crisp separately offers a 14-day trial for new accounts.

Does Pipp have live chat or Hugo-style AI?

Pipp handles email today, and chat is already in the works. Pipp AI is in beta. It translates conversations, drafts replies in your style and writes summaries for your team. It’s off by default, and an owner or admin can turn it on in Settings → AI. It works alongside your team and never sends a reply on its own, so it doesn’t answer customers the way Hugo does.

Is Pipp free forever?

Our core inbox is free forever, for unlimited teammates and inboxes, and so is connecting your own AI agent. Fair daily sending limits apply. Pipp AI is free during beta and fairly priced afterward.

Should I cancel Crisp before trying Pipp?

No need. Pipp is free, so you can move your email support over and keep Crisp’s chat widget running alongside it.

Try an email-first alternative

If email is where your customers turn for help, Pipp is built around your working day. Its team inbox, with our AI and yours, is ready today.

Core inbox and agent access: free forever, for unlimited teammates and inboxes. Pipp AI: free during beta, fairly priced afterward.

Start using Pipp ↗

Sources

We publish this comparison. Pipp is a product of Telesoft AG. Crisp prices, packaging, AI, and export claims were checked on September 24, 2026, and AI, agent and pricing claims again on October 20, 2026. They may change. Agent and MCP claims were rechecked on October 27, 2026.

• Crisp pricing and plan comparison, for workspace rates, included seats, limits, channel scope, AI credits, trial, payment options, and VAT
• Crisp Free plan guide, for chat-first scope and shared-email boundary
• Crisp Hugo AI billing guide, for USD credits, token-based use, default escalation, and Pay-As-You-Go
• Crisp export guide, for contact and conversation export methods and limits
• Crisp MCP server guide, for connecting your own AI agent to a Crisp workspace