# Papercups

**Canonical:** https://apis.io/providers/papercups/  
**Website:** https://papercups.io  
**APIs profiled:** 7

Papercups is an open-source customer-messaging and live-chat platform built on Elixir/Phoenix, positioned as a self-hosted alternative to Intercom. It exposes a REST API for conversations, messages, and customers, a realtime chat surface over Phoenix WebSocket channels, and outbound webhooks. The project is in maintenance mode (community-maintained, no major new features).

## Kin Score — 38.8 / 100 (thin)

Scored 2026-08-20 under rubric 0.12.0. Trend: flat (+0.0 from 38.8).

| Facet | Score |
|---|---|
| Discoverability | 74.1 |
| Contract Quality | 62.2 |
| Governance | 11.4 |
| Contract Governance | 11.4 |
| Operational Transparency | 34.2 |
| Developer Ergonomics | 21.4 |
| Commercial Clarity | 28.9 |
| Access Clarity | 28.9 |

## Agent readiness — 30.3 (agent-aware)

| Dimension | Value |
|---|---|
| Spec Presence | yes |
| Agentic Access | derived |
| Reversibility Documented | no |
| MCP Server | no |
| Auth Clarity | yes |
| Idempotency | no |
| Error Semantics | no |
| OpenAPI Examples | no |
| Rate Limit Signal | documented |
| Event Surface Described | derived |
| Agent Skills | no |
| Well Known Catalog | no |
| Consent Identity | no |
| Agent Card | no |
| Dry Run Mode | no |

## Access

Freemium · Self-serve signup — onboarding: self-serve, pricing: freemium, trial: no (confidence: high).

## APIs (7)

- **Papercups Notifications & Webhooks API** — Outbound event subscriptions delivered as webhooks (message:created, conversation:created, conversation:updated, and a webhook:verify challenge handshake) notifying external sys...
- **Papercups Realtime Chat API (WebSocket / Phoenix Channels)** — Bidirectional realtime live chat over Phoenix WebSocket channels. Clients join conversation, conversation-lobby, and account-room channels and exchange shout (message), messages...
- **Papercups Webhooks** — Register external HTTPS endpoints to receive Papercups events as POSTed JSON payloads of shape { event, payload }, with a verify-challenge handshake on registration.
- **Papercups Conversations API** — Threads of messages between customers and agents.
- **Papercups Customers API** — Customer records (users, leads, or contacts).
- **Papercups Messages API** — Individual messages within conversations.
- **Papercups Users API** — Authenticated user and team members.

## Agentic access (1)

- **Papercups Agentic Access** — 15 operations · 8 acting

## Security (2)

- **Papercups Authentication** — http · 1 scheme
- **Papercups Domain Security** — TLSv1.3 · HSTS · DNSSEC · DMARC

## Plans (1)

- **Papercups Plans Pricing**

## Tags

Customer Messaging, Live Chat, Open-Source, Support, Intercom Alternative

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Profiled by [API Evangelist](https://apievangelist.com) and published on [APIs.io](https://apis.io/providers/papercups/). Scores are computed from the provider's own public artifacts under a published rubric.