Plain alternative

The Plain alternative that works out of the box

Plain is powerful if you want to shape a custom B2B support motion. Fernand is for small SaaS teams that want a finished support product. Developer-friendly, product-aware, and ready today: shared inbox, live chat, AI agents, custom data, unlimited conversations, unlimited history, and a Notion-like knowledge base.

Try for free for 14 days RBook a demo with a founder

Paste into Claude, Cursor, Codex, or any AI agent

I'm setting up Fernand (https://getfernand.com), a customer support platform for founders and small teams. Help me get my workspace running end-to-end.

Read the docs first so you know how Fernand works:
- Product & help docs: https://help.getfernand.com
- API & developer docs: https://developers.getfernand.com
- OpenAPI spec: https://api.getfernand.com/openapi.json

Start by asking me if I already have a Fernand account. If not, guide me to create one at https://app.getfernand.com/create. Once I have an account, ask me to create an API key under Settings → Integrations → API Keys so you can help me configure and automate things directly.

Then ask me about my business, my current support stack, and what I want to migrate or automate. Walk me through:
1. Connecting my support inbox(es) and any existing tools
2. Inviting my team
3. Setting up the automations and AI features that actually matter for my use case

Once the basics are covered, ask if I want to add the Fernand support widget to my app, my marketing site, or both. Use the setup guide at https://help.getfernand.com/features/support-widget/setting-up-the-support-widget. When installing:
- Ask me for my brand's accent color and set it in the widget config
- Ask me what links I want to surface in the widget (docs, changelog, status page, etc.) and pick the right icon for each one using the icon reference at https://help.getfernand.com/features/support-widget/custom-links-icon-reference
- Ask if my app has authenticated users — if yes, follow https://help.getfernand.com/features/support-widget/authenticating-users to pre-identify them so conversations are tied to real accounts from the start

Once the widget is set up, ask if I want to surface more context inside customer conversations using Fernand's custom data feature. Read the full guide at https://help.getfernand.com/features/custom-data/getting-started-with-custom-data, the endpoint structure at https://help.getfernand.com/features/custom-data/structuring-your-endpoint, and the display pattern library (including all subpages) at https://help.getfernand.com/features/custom-data/getting-started-with-custom-data#customizing-your-display. Ask me what data I'd want to see when a customer writes in (account status, plan, recent activity, etc.), then check if I already have an existing endpoint or admin API that exposes this data and could be reused directly — only suggest building a new one if nothing suitable exists. Then write the Liquid template using the right display patterns for each piece of data.

Throughout the setup, as you learn about my business — what it does, who my customers are, what support questions are likely — proactively suggest and help create:
- Smart snippets: pre-written replies for common questions, based on what you know (or can infer from my codebase, product, or docs). Read https://help.getfernand.com/features/smart-snippets/smart-snippets and draft a useful starting set.
- Automation rules: triage, assignment, tagging, or auto-reply rules that make sense for my use case. Read https://help.getfernand.com/features/automation-rules and suggest rules you'd actually configure for a team like mine. If you have access to my code or product, use it — you can infer a lot about the kinds of requests I'll receive.

Be opinionated. If something in the docs is the right default, just do it — don't ask me to choose between five options.

Trusted by hundreds of
modern founders like you

Jack Friksfrom Post Bridge

Thomas Sanlisfrom Uneed

Tal Flanchraychfrom ApplyAll

Daniel Pianettifrom Are.na

Purposely built for small teams

Not a watered-down enterprise tool. Every decision in Fernand is made with small, fast-moving teams in mind.

Simple pricing

$29 per human per month. Predictable, transparent, and built for small teams.

Built for SaaS support

Inbox, live chat, AI agents, customer context, and docs in one calm workspace.

Consolidate all your support channels
into one shared inbox

Everything consolidates into one shared inbox you can access from your desktop or mobile. Collaborate on customer inquiries with your team, no matter what channel they started with.

Email

Add any email you'd like, like help@yourapp.com or sales@yourapp.com and handle customer inquiries from a shared inbox.

Learn more →

Live chat widget

Embed a live chat in your product and respond to customers in real time, right from your inbox.

Learn more →

Knowledge base

Publish a beautiful, SEO-friendly help center your customers can search through before reaching out.

Learn more →

Slack

Receive and reply to Slack messages from your customers directly from Fernand without switching tools.

Learn more →

𝕏 DMs

Receive and reply to direct messages from your customers directly from Fernand without switching tools.

Learn more →

Contact forms

Add headless contact forms to your product or website and funnel all submissions into your shared inbox.

Learn more →

Headless API

Build a fully custom support experience inside your product using our API. Your UI, your flow, Fernand's inbox behind the scenes.

Learn more →

Why teams switch from Plain

Composable support infrastructure is great when you have the time and team to design your own support system.

Most small SaaS teams need something more immediate. They need the inbox, chat widget, AI agent, docs, customer context, and escalation flow to work without turning support into another internal product.

Fernand is still dev-friendly. It is just more opinionated.

Choose Plain if…

You want to build a custom B2B support motion with more infrastructure flexibility, deeper workflow control, and a team ready to maintain it.

Choose Fernand if…

You want dev-friendly SaaS support that works out of the box, with a clean inbox, live chat, AI agents, docs, and free API actions.

"Fernand is the bedrock of my solo business. It's the reason I'm able to stay solo and move quick while growing my SaaS and providing a human touch to all my thousands of paying customers. For the first time I'm not managing a mess of mailboxes but greeted every morning with a clear path to resolution."
Jack FriksFounder of Post Bridge

No more tab switching

Bring in custom data from your API endpoint

Point Fernand at any HTTP endpoint and it pulls the data that matters most right into the conversation sidebar. Use Liquid templating to control exactly what gets displayed. No extra tooling needed.

See how it works →

Support widget

A support widget you do not have to build yourself

Fernand gives you a polished support widget out of the box. Customize color, behavior, position, and features. Keep your product experience clean without building support UI from scratch.

Integrates with your entire stack

Native integrations with your payment providers and dev tools. Connect anything else with the API, or orchestrate with n8n, Zapier, or Make.

Plain is support infrastructure you can customize.Fernand is already calm, fast, and ready.

Every detail of Fernand is intentionally designed using proven principles from cognitive psychology and behavioral science to make support feel calmer.

One thing at a time

One task at a time, so you never freeze wondering what to do next.

Ticket flowNormal

Unassigned7

Inbox zero±15 min

"Bonjour" welcome screen

Always know what your support queue looks like at a glance, instead of scanning through it manually.

70% done · 3 remaining

Progress to inbox zero

We communicate your progress transparently, to give you a sense of completion and fulfilment.

⌘

Unlock your new superpowers

Meet your new favourite shortcut. All the actions at the tip
of your fingers to clear your request queue 10x faster.

Press on

to assign

Keyboard shortcuts for everything

Optimized for efficiency. Reply, add a note, close a request and much more.

Loads under 100ms

No spinners, no loading. Everything is synced between all your screens at all times. It's like magic.

Plain vs Fernand comparison

Built for founders, developers, PMs, and first customer ops hires who still touch support directly.

	Plain	Fernand
Best for	B2B teams shaping a custom support motion	Small SaaS teams that want support ready now
Pricing	Seat-based plans with higher tiers, custom plan, and AI overage	$29 per human per month
Buying process	Start free on entry plan, demo for higher tiers	Try for free, no mandatory demo
Product shape	Flexible B2B support stack	Opinionated support tool
Automation	Limited to 5 on the $35/m plan	Unlimited workflows
Emails	Email addresses vary by plan	Unlimited emails and domains
Channels	Slack, email, in-app, Teams, Discord and more by plan	Email, live chat, Slack, X DMs, contact forms, API
AI	Ari AI agent, workflows, assistant, credits	AI agents ride free — Claude Code, Cursor, or Codex can own your entire support flow
API actions	API, webhooks, events	Free API access for AI agents to perform actions
Knowledge base	Help Center and Knowledge Base features	Notion-like knowledge base
Custom data	Customer cards and integrations	Point to any HTTP endpoint, rendered live in the sidebar
Migration	Importers available, white-glove migration on higher tiers	Free, hands-on migration included
Product philosophy	Flexible and composable	Calm, focused, opinionated

Frequently asked questions

Everything you need to know before switching from Plain to Fernand.

Is Fernand a good Plain alternative?

Yes. Fernand is a good Plain alternative for small SaaS teams that want a complete support product instead of support infrastructure to configure.

Is Fernand still developer-friendly?

Yes. Fernand is built for dev-first SaaS teams. AI agents can connect through your API for free and perform actions.

Does Fernand work out of the box?

Yes. Fernand is opinionated by design so teams can start fast.

Does Fernand include a knowledge base?

Yes. Fernand includes a modern, Notion-like knowledge base with resolution step blocks, automatic 301 redirects when you rename articles, and paste-to-embed for screenshots and Screen Studio videos.

Who should stay on Plain?

Teams that want to design a custom B2B support motion, maintain more workflow flexibility, or need stronger Slack Connect workflows may prefer Plain.

We'll migrate you from Plain for free.No demo. No surprise pricing.

Switching tools should not mean losing your history. Past conversations and knowledge base, all carried over for free. We'll manually review your migration and make sure everything is set up right before you go live.

Past conversations

Your full support history imported and searchable from day one, attachments included.

Knowledge base

Your help articles migrated and ready to publish. We set up 301 redirects from your old URLs so you keep every backlink and every rank.

Try for free for 14 days RBook a demo with a founder

Paste into Claude, Cursor, Codex, or any AI agent

I'm setting up Fernand (https://getfernand.com), a customer support platform for founders and small teams. Help me get my workspace running end-to-end.

Read the docs first so you know how Fernand works:
- Product & help docs: https://help.getfernand.com
- API & developer docs: https://developers.getfernand.com
- OpenAPI spec: https://api.getfernand.com/openapi.json

Start by asking me if I already have a Fernand account. If not, guide me to create one at https://app.getfernand.com/create. Once I have an account, ask me to create an API key under Settings → Integrations → API Keys so you can help me configure and automate things directly.

Then ask me about my business, my current support stack, and what I want to migrate or automate. Walk me through:
1. Connecting my support inbox(es) and any existing tools
2. Inviting my team
3. Setting up the automations and AI features that actually matter for my use case

Once the basics are covered, ask if I want to add the Fernand support widget to my app, my marketing site, or both. Use the setup guide at https://help.getfernand.com/features/support-widget/setting-up-the-support-widget. When installing:
- Ask me for my brand's accent color and set it in the widget config
- Ask me what links I want to surface in the widget (docs, changelog, status page, etc.) and pick the right icon for each one using the icon reference at https://help.getfernand.com/features/support-widget/custom-links-icon-reference
- Ask if my app has authenticated users — if yes, follow https://help.getfernand.com/features/support-widget/authenticating-users to pre-identify them so conversations are tied to real accounts from the start

Once the widget is set up, ask if I want to surface more context inside customer conversations using Fernand's custom data feature. Read the full guide at https://help.getfernand.com/features/custom-data/getting-started-with-custom-data, the endpoint structure at https://help.getfernand.com/features/custom-data/structuring-your-endpoint, and the display pattern library (including all subpages) at https://help.getfernand.com/features/custom-data/getting-started-with-custom-data#customizing-your-display. Ask me what data I'd want to see when a customer writes in (account status, plan, recent activity, etc.), then check if I already have an existing endpoint or admin API that exposes this data and could be reused directly — only suggest building a new one if nothing suitable exists. Then write the Liquid template using the right display patterns for each piece of data.

Throughout the setup, as you learn about my business — what it does, who my customers are, what support questions are likely — proactively suggest and help create:
- Smart snippets: pre-written replies for common questions, based on what you know (or can infer from my codebase, product, or docs). Read https://help.getfernand.com/features/smart-snippets/smart-snippets and draft a useful starting set.
- Automation rules: triage, assignment, tagging, or auto-reply rules that make sense for my use case. Read https://help.getfernand.com/features/automation-rules and suggest rules you'd actually configure for a team like mine. If you have access to my code or product, use it — you can infer a lot about the kinds of requests I'll receive.

Be opinionated. If something in the docs is the right default, just do it — don't ask me to choose between five options.

The Plain alternative that works out of the box

Purposely built for small teams

Simple pricing

Built for SaaS support

Consolidate all your support channels into one shared inbox

Email

Live chat widget

Knowledge base

Slack

𝕏 DMs

Contact forms

Headless API

Why teams switch from Plain

Choose Plain if…

Choose Fernand if…

Bring in custom data from your API endpoint

A support widget you do not have to build yourself

Integrates with your entire stack

Plain is support infrastructure you can customize.Fernand is already calm, fast, and ready.

One thing at a time

"Bonjour" welcome screen

Progress to inbox zero

Unlock your new superpowers

Keyboard shortcuts for everything

Loads under 100ms

Plain vs Fernand comparison

Frequently asked questions

We'll migrate you from Plain for free.No demo. No surprise pricing.

Past conversations

Knowledge base

Consolidate all your support channels
into one shared inbox