Best Live Chat Software for Small Businesses
By Katelyn Anderson |
Are you a small business looking to provide a better customer experience? We’ve tested dozens of the most popular live chat solutions and...Read More >
Discover the best live chat software systems on the market. Use the tools below to engage your customers, generate leads, and grow your business.
Live chat software is used by all types of organizations to provide customer support to website visitors. Live chat software can be used for lead generation, customer support, and customer engagement. Different software vendors offer a variety of features including chatbots, ticketing systems, and email campaign capabilities.
Pros: |
|
---|---|
Cons: |
|
Pros: |
|
---|---|
Cons: |
|
Pros: |
|
---|---|
Cons: |
|
Pros: |
|
---|---|
Cons: |
|
Pros: |
|
---|---|
Cons: |
|
Pros: |
|
---|---|
Cons: |
|
Pros: |
|
---|---|
Cons: |
|
Pros: |
|
---|---|
Cons: |
|
Pros: |
|
---|---|
Cons: |
|
Pros: |
|
---|---|
Cons: |
|
Pros: |
|
---|---|
Cons: |
|
Pros: |
|
---|---|
Cons: |
|
Pros: |
|
---|---|
Cons: |
|
Pros: |
|
---|---|
Cons: |
|
Pros: |
|
---|---|
Cons: |
|
Pros: |
|
---|---|
Cons: |
|
Live chat software is technology that allows companies to engage with their website visitors in real-time, via messaging. It is often utilized as an alternative to phone and email support, providing superior convenience and speed.
There are numerous benefits that live chat softwares offer. These include:
The cost of live software depends on the features you need. Plans with advanced features are typically more expensive. In general, here's the price you can expect to spend per user per month for live chat software:
The best live chat software for you depends on your budget and the features you need. The best options for large companies that want an advanced system are LiveChat, Intercom, and Drift. Tawk.to is an ideal tool for companies who want live chat capabilities for free.
The most popular free live chat software is tawk.to. Drift is another popular option, with over 150,000 businesses using the software.
The most common live chat software features are:
By Katelyn Anderson |
Are you a small business looking to provide a better customer experience? We’ve tested dozens of the most popular live chat solutions and...Read More >
By Katelyn Anderson |
Is Zendesk Chat or Freshchat the better solution for you? This in-depth, feature-by-feature breakdown will help you select the best live...Read More >
By Katelyn Anderson |
Searching for the best live chat software for your Weebly website? We've listed the top live chat solutions - all tested on Weebly - that...Read More >
By Katelyn Anderson |
Is Zendesk Chat or LiveChat the better solution for you? This in-depth, feature-by-feature breakdown will help you select the best live...Read More >
By Katelyn Anderson |
Are you considering Intercom for your customer engagement purposes? Before committing to Intercom, check out these alternatives to...Read More >
By Katelyn Anderson |
Are you considering LiveChat for your customer service team? Before committing to LiveChat, make sure you know the other tools on the...Read More >
By Katelyn Anderson |
Searching for the best free live chat software? A list of our top suggestions is below. Read More >
By Katelyn Anderson |
Is HelpCrunch or Intercom the better solution for you? This in-depth, feature-by-feature breakdown will help you select the best live chat...Read More >
By Katelyn Anderson |
Is Olark or tawk.to the better live chat solution for you? This in-depth, feature-by-feature breakdown will help you select the best live...Read More >
The team at SoftwarePundit has been testing software since 2017. We’ve hand-tested over 250 software products in that time, including 16 in the live chat category. We applied the same rigorous process to each piece of live chat software that we analyzed. The specifics of our live chat category research process are outlined below.
Katelyn led our analysis of live chat software. She has spent more than 300 hours evaluating leading live chat software systems. To test the live chat tools, she set up a Weebly page and installed each live chat tool on that page. She sent messages back and forth to website visitors, tested key features, and analyzed differences between the software products.
In addition, all research and content was overseen by Bruce Hogan, SoftwarePundit’s Co-founder & CEO. Bruce has more than a decade of experience researching, building, and reviewing the world’s best software products. His technology advice has been featured on a wide range of media sites such as AngelList, CMSWire, Dental Economics, iPhone Life, Reader’s Digest, Thrive Global, U.S. News, and the Zapier Blog.
We selected the best live chat software based upon a number of criteria. The most important criteria were each software tool’s features, usability, price, and customer support. The details of our analyses are captured in the in-depth reviews we publish about each software tool.
There are a handful of critical features that you should look for in live chat software. We prioritized the following features in our analysis:
We used the same rigorous process to evaluate live chat software as all other software categories. For the live chat category, Katelyn invested several weeks researching, testing, and writing about the tools.
We interviewed the teams at the software companies listed above. Our conversations with the companies included questions about each company’s product, customer base, pricing, customer support, and business strength. After a general interview, Katelyn spent additional time participating in a product demo led by each company. This provided Katelyn with the opportunity to ask detailed questions about the features and functionality of the live chat software.
Katelyn also obtained a free trial of each software tool listed above. She spent several hours testing the key user journeys in each software product. This allowed us to validate the features offered by each product, and to gain an understanding of the software’s usability. To better understand the implementation process and customer experience, Katelyn installed live chat software on a test website that we host.
In addition to conducting conversations with the software companies and hand-testing every piece of software, Katelyn also spent dozens of hours interviewing real customers of the software tools listed above. Customers that provided insights that were included in our analysis and reviews were: