LiveChat Review, Pricing & Features
What is LiveChat?
LiveChat is a live chat software with features geared toward lead generation and customer engagement. It is used by over 30,000 companies worldwide to support customer service goals.
Table of Contents
- What is Live Chat?
- LiveChat Review Summary
- LiveChat Pricing & Cost
- LiveChat Features
- LiveChat Customer Support
- LiveChat vs. Competitors
- Is LiveChat Right For You?
LiveChat Review Summary
LiveChat is a product offered by LiveChat Software S.A., a company founded in 2002 by Maciej Jarzebowski, Mariusz Cieply, and Szymon Klimczak. The company also offers products such as HelpDesk and ChatBot. Today, the company is headquartered in Wrocław, Poland and has over 30,000 customers across 150 countries. LiveChat is used by companies across many different industries such as ecommerce, travel, and finance.
The LiveChat product is broadly categorized as a customer service tool with features like live chat, ticketing, and integrations with ChatBot. There are four pricing options offered with LiveChat and there is no free plan. LiveChat is similar in price to live chat competitors like Freshchat and Live Agent.
LiveChat is a powerful live chat software with advanced features, reports, and integrations. It is a top product in the field due to its reliability and broad set of features. While LiveChat is feature-rich, the cost will likely be prohibitive to startups and small businesses. It also lacks built-in email campaign capabilities, which many other live chat softwares offer. For similar live chat tools at a lower cost, consider Tidio or Crisp.
LiveChat Pricing & Cost
LiveChat pricing ranges from $19 to $59 per agent per month. Customers who opt for a yearly subscription will receive a 15% discount on the monthly prices. There are also additional features available for purchase such as certified customer service agents for hire and SEO consulting services.
- Starter: $19 per agent per month; includes 60-day chat history
- Team: $39 per agent per month; includes basic reporting
- Business: $59 per agent per month; includes work scheduler
- Enterprise: Costs vary; billed annually
LiveChat Key Features
Below, we’ll discuss the key features of LiveChat and how you can use the software to support your customer engagement goals. We’ll include images of the software to give you a sense of its overall layout.
To learn more about how we research and rate software tools, read about SoftwarePundit’s review methodology.
Live Chat
Live chat is a communication tool that allows company employees— customer service representatives or agents— to speak live with visitors through the company website. Through this interaction, agents provide support, address concerns, and answer questions. Having live chat is beneficial for companies that wish to be instantly available to visitors, which often improves customer experience and satisfaction.
Chat Interface
The LiveChat Chats section is where agents receive notifications and chat with visitors. Current and recently closed chats are shown in the left column; the chat an agent is actively responding to is in the center; visitor details are listed on the right.
Within the Visitor Details tab, agents can view:
- General information
- Tickets
- Pre and post-chat surveys
- Visited pages
- Visitor technology
- Additional information
Chat Widget
When visitors are on your website, they will use a chat window, called a widget, to converse with customer service representatives. The window will look something like this:
The LiveChat widget has a wide variety of customizations, like white labeling, changing the widget’s location on the page, and choosing either a smooth or modern appearance. Additional widget customizations include:
- Bubble or bar minimized windows
- Chat buttons
- Color customizations
- Custom widgets for mobile devices
- Eye-catchers
- KnowledgeBase booster
Searchable Chat Archives
With every plan except the Starter plan, LiveChat customers have access to unlimited chat history. Chat archives are also searchable, making it easy for agents to locate a specific chat without having to manually scroll through a long list. Tags can be applied to the chats for easy categorization and chats can be filtered by date, agent, group, rating, tag, and assignment. This feature is nice to have and not found in most live chat software.
Additional Live Chat Features
LiveChat has numerous additional live chat features that both enhance visitor experiences and optimize agent speed & productivity. These features are listed below.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Canned Responses | Send pre-written messages to customers to save time. LiveChat offers the unique ability to create canned responses from messages previously sent to visitors. |
| File Uploading | Send visitors files and receive files from visitors. |
| Email Transcripts | Forward chat transcripts to email addresses after chats are completed, either manually or automatically using LiveChat webhooks. |
| Chat Transferring | Assign and transfer chats between agents. |
| Message Sneak Peek | View what visitors are typing before their message is sent. |
| Ticket Creation | Create tickets directly from chats. |
Ticketing
A ticketing system is a customer service tool that allows your team to document, manage, and resolve customer complaints. With LiveChat, agents can create support tickets directly from a chat, manually create tickets, change the ticket status, and send canned responses or files.
The ticketing interface looks very similar to the chat interface:
Dashboard
LiveChat’s dashboard displays a broad overview of your company’s key performance indicators (KPIs) as well as a visualization of site metrics. The dashboard is included in the Team, Business, and Enterprise plans. The dashboard, displayed below, is helpful for understanding real time metrics yet slightly inconvenient as it is not housed within the LiveChat application itself.
Reports
The reports in LiveChat provide an indication of your live chat and customer support performance. LiveChat’s reporting section is particularly robust, especially within the two more advanced plans, which include advanced analytics like staffing predictions. We found LiveChat’s reports to be superior to those in other tools because LiveChat reports update in real time, whereas other softwares can take hours to update reports.
The reports section contains graphs and visual representations of site data. Below is an example of a graph within this section:
Another unique aspect of LiveChat’s Reports section is the ability to drill down into specific metrics. For example, within the graph of chat ratings, if you select the “Rated Bad” column, LiveChat will take you directly to the chat that was rated poorly. This is helpful for not only seeing the metrics, but understanding them.
LiveChat provides detailed reports on the following categories:
- Summary (Last 7 days & Dashboard)
- Chats
- Agents
- Customers
- Tickets
- E-commerce
Integrations
LiveChat has over 170 integrations, which is more than most other live chat softwares offer. Though there are many offerings, some crucial integrations—like Slack, Stripe, and Google Analytics—have a monthly fee, which can quickly become costly.
Below is a chart of the integrations categories with some examples of specific tools:
| Category | Integrations |
|---|---|
| Analytics |
|
| CMS |
|
| CRM Connectors |
|
| Chatbots |
|
| Contact Management |
|
| Desktop Sharing |
|
| Ecommerce |
|
| Email Marketing |
|
| File sharing |
|
| Help Desk |
|
| Invoicing |
|
| Lead Generation |
|
| Social Media |
|
LiveChat Customer Support
LiveChat’s customer support is one of the most widely available across all live chat softwares with phone, email, and chat support available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. When we chatted with LiveChat’s customer support team, they replied in well under a minute and were able to answer all questions we had.
| Customer Support Channels | Live Chat, Email, Phone |
| Customer Support Availability | 24/7/365 (all channels) |
| Other Support Resources | Help center, Webinars, Community blog |
| Application Status Page | Yes |
LiveChat Alternatives & Competitors
LiveChat vies with a few other live chat solutions that offer similar features. Freshchat is a direct competitor, with similar pricing and features. Other similar alternatives include Intercom.
Is LiveChat Right For You?
LiveChat is an all-in-one live chat software that includes advanced live chat and ticketing capabilities. The tool can help your business with lead generation and customer support.
LiveChat’s advanced features and numerous integrations make it ideal for larger companies that are looking for a powerful, reliable live chat solution. However, the high monthly price per agent paired with the added cost of many key integrations can be cost prohibitive for most startups and small companies. For similar softwares that will be less of a financial investment, consider Crisp or Tidio.
If you are interested in trying LiveChat, sign up for a 14-day free trial.