Agent skill · marketing growth · jeremylongshore
intercom-cost-tuning
Optimize Intercom API costs through caching, request reduction, and
Why this skill is useful
Provides specific caching strategies and webhook implementations to optimize Intercom API usage, which the AI wouldn't reliably generate on its own.
What it needs
Requires lru-cache installed locally. Requires intercom account access. About 3k tokens when loaded. Last updated 2026-08-07. 2,604 stars on the source repository.
What this skill does
Intercom Cost Tuning Overview Reduce Intercom API costs through smart caching, search optimization, webhook-driven architecture, and usage monitoring. Intercom pricing is primarily seat-based and feature-based, but API efficiency reduces infrastructure costs and avoids rate limits. Intercom Pricing Model Component Pricing Basis Cost Driver ----------- -------------- ------------- Seats Per agent/month Number of teammates Fin AI Agent Per resolution AI-handled conversations Proactive Support Per message sent Outbound messages volume Help Center Included N/A API Included (rate-limited) Request volume determines infra cost Key insight: The API itself is free to use, but hitting rate limits (10K req/min) forces you to build queuing infrastructure. Reducing requests saves engineering time and infrastructure costs. Prerequisites An Intercom workspace with an access token and the Node/TypeScript Intercom client installed. lru-cache available for the contact-caching step (npm install lru-cache). A public HTTPS endpoint to receive webhooks (Step 2) if you want to eliminate polling. Read access to the integration source so you can audit call sites: use Grep to find polling loops (setInterval, .list() and Read to inspect the surrounding call site before refactoring. Instructions Work top-down — Steps 2-4 remove the most requests for the least code; Steps 1 and 6 confirm and protect the gains. Full copy-paste code for every step is in references/implementation.md. 1. Audit current API usage. Instrument every call with an IntercomUsageTracker that counts calls and average latency per endpoint, then prints a rate estimate against the 10K req/min limit. You cannot cut what you have not measured. 2. Replace polling with webhooks. A 30-second poll loop costs ~2,880 requests/day per check; a webhook subscription costs zero and fires instantly: 3. Cache contact lookups. …
How to use it
Reference it in AdaL, Claude Code, Cursor or any coding agent — nothing to install:
@skills jeremylongshore/intercom-cost-tuning