Take Our Quiz: What is the Best Live Chat Software For Me?
Finding the right live chat software for your business can be tricky. There are quite a few chat products on the market, with many companies offering live chat either as a standalone product or as an add-on feature in a suite of customer engagement tools. Each platform has strengths and weaknesses, and different tools will work best for companies of various sizes and industries. For example, if you’re a small startup, there’s likely no need to be paying upwards of $900 per month for a live chat solution.
Table of Contents
- What is Live Chat Software?
- How Much Does Live Chat Software Cost?
- What Features Should I Look for in Live Chat Software?
- How to Choose the Best Software For You
- Top Live Chat Software
What is Live Chat Software?
Live chat software is technology that allows companies to engage with their website visitors via online messaging. It is often utilized as an alternative to phone and email support, providing superior convenience and speed. Many companies install live chat software on their websites to answer customer questions, resolve issues, and increase their website conversion rates.
How Much Does Live Chat Software Cost?
In general, live chat tools will range from free to upwards of $600 per month depending on the complexity of the software. The cost of live software depends on the features you need. There are many valuable free tools, so you may not need to pay anything at all to install live chat on your website.
Here are some general price ranges that you can expect to spend per user per month:
- Entry-level plans: $0 to $19 per month per agent
- Standard plans: $20 to $49 per month per agent
- Business and Pro plans: $50 to $99 per month per agent
- Enterprise plans: Contact the vendor for pricing
What Features Should I Look for in Live Chat Software?
The main features in live chat software are chat widgets & inboxes, chatbots, email marketing capabilities, ticketing, help desks, and integrations. Descriptions and differentiations are provided in the table below:
| Feature | Description | What to Look For |
|---|---|---|
| Chat Widget | The chat widget, which is available on all of your website pages, is how visitors will chat with your team. Usually, visitors can send files & images along with text. | Certain platforms offer more customization, meaning you can change colors, add your company logo, choose the widget position, and remove branding. |
| Chatbot | Chatbots are software applications that can carry out conversations with website visitors while your company is not online. | The best chatbots are easy to build in a workflow-style builder. Some bots also come with human-like details, like waiting a few seconds before replying to visitors. |
| Automated & Canned Messages | Automated messages are pre-saved messages that team members can send with just a click, rather than taking the time to type out messages. This is an important time-saving feature that helps your team. | Solutions that allow automated messages to be grouped into different categories (e.g. sales, return information, etc) are a bit more advanced and will help larger teams. |
| Ticketing | Ticketing software allows you to track customer issues. This will be particularly advantageous for companies looking to shine in regards to customer support. | If this is something you’re interested in, a reliable option is to look for companies that also offer ticketing tools, like Freshworks. |
| Email Marketing | Many solutions combine live chat with email marketing, so you can collect customer email addresses. | Look for platforms that offer advanced segmentation capabilities and have unlimited emails sent per month. |
How to Choose the Best Live Chat Software For You
Before choosing a live chat software, you need to determine which features you want to be included. Are you looking for just basic chat functionality? Do you want a tool that combines live chat with email campaigns? Are you looking to provide off-hours support with AI chatbots?
You should also know the price range you’re wanting to stay within. Of course, more advanced platforms with unique features like chatbots and website pop-ups tend to be more expensive. Most live chat software tools operate on a pay-per-user model, so if you have a large team, some of the choices can get expensive quickly.
Most of these software tools offer a handful of plans which offer more features as they increase in price. Because features differ greatly from plan to plan, you need to decide on the best individual plan for you, rather than just choosing a company.
In the table below, we show the plans that are available in each price range, along with the features they typically include and a quick overview. The plans are priced per seat unless otherwise specified.
| Price Range | Plans Available | What to Expect |
|---|---|---|
| $0 to $19 per month |
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| $20 to $49 per month |
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| $50 to $99 per month |
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| Over $100 per month |
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To determine which plan is best for you, we recommend taking the quiz. It’ll ask questions about preferred features and your company size, which will quickly narrow down the options.
Top Live Chat Software
The live chat market is fairly crowded, with many tools that vary widely in terms of pricing, features, and target customers. Below are quick descriptions of the top 10 tools we tested, along with links to our full reviews if you’d like to learn more.
Crisp
Crisp is a tool with all standard live chat features, along with unique features like co-browsing with website visitors. The free plan offered by Crisp isn’t particularly valuable, but at only $95 per month for unlimited users, it’s a great tool for most companies.
Drift
Drift is a complex, premium software with over 50,000 customers. The free plan includes live chat, but the main function of Drift is to gather leads, close sales, and market to customers. This tool is going to be best for sales-focused, technology-forward companies that have a large budget for a live chat solution.
Freshchat
Freshchat is a chat product that’s ideal for those who already use other Freshworks products, which include helpdesk products, a CRM, and more. It’s a great choice for those who want basic chat and email marketing compatibilities; however, the chatbot is so expensive that you should look at other products first if that’s what you want.
Gist
Gist is a great live chat software for companies of all sizes and functions. There are features like live chat, website pop-ups, chatbots, and email marketing. The pricing is very fair for the features that you get and it was easy to navigate, which isn’t the case with enterprise tools like Drift and Intercom.
HelpCrunch
HelpCrunch was one of our highest-rated software products because it combines reliable live chat, email marketing, and chatbot features for a very reasonable price. It’s accessible to smaller companies due to the price, but is advanced enough for larger companies as well. If you’re looking to streamline customer support and marketing efforts, it’s a great choice.
Intercom
Intercom is similar to Drift because it’s also best for technology-forward companies and enterprise-level customers. There are advanced features like A/B testing, product tours, and cross-channel messaging. It was rated highest in our live chat category because, though it’s very expensive, it’s one of the best options out there for those who want live chat functionality to be combined with other advanced features.
LiveChat
LiveChat is a powerful solution that’s likely best for larger teams due to the high price. There’s no free plan like many other tools have, but for those looking to combine live chat and chatbots, it’s a reliable option. Integrations, though extensive, can also get pricey. This tool can help your business with lead generation and customer support efforts.
Smith.ai
Smith.ai is a unique chat product because its main offering is chat agents for hire. If your business is in sectors like legal, dental, or medical, this is a great choice because the company monitors live chat and will also field calls for your office. There are also features like AI chatbots and lead capture forms that will allow you to capture client information easily. If you’re not in one of the sectors mentioned above, this isn’t a great choice, but if you have a boutique business similar to the ones above, it’s a great investment.
Tawk.to
With over three million customers, tawk.to is easily the most popular live chat tool on the market. It’s entirely free for basic live chat and ticketing functions. You can also hire chat agents to converse with customers on your company’s behalf. We recommend tawk.to for anyone looking for a free live chat software because, while it’s relatively basic, it’s the best free choice on the market today.
Tidio
Tidio is a reliable, mid-tier solution with features like chatbots, email marketing, and analytics. It’s used on over 300,000 websites, making it one of the most popular live chat software tools. Though chat notifications are not always entirely reliable, we recommend Tidio for small to medium businesses that want chatbots and email marketing features for a relatively low monthly cost.