Giving exceptional support on a website has never been more crucial. As more websites become transactional, your visitors need more help to make the decisions you want them to make. That’s where live chat software can make all difference. In this post, we’ve compiled a list of the best live chat software solutions that cater to various business needs. Whether you’re a startup, small business, or large enterprise, discover the perfect live chat tools to elevate your customer support game and keep your visitors returning for more.
13 Best Live Chat Software
13 website chat platforms that can help you manage growing support demand and improve your brand through support.
1. LiveChat
LiveChat is a Poland-based live chat and help desk solution that allows businesses to communicate with customers in real time. It is the flagship product, but the same company also develops HelpDesk, KnowledgeBase, and Chatbot (one of the top AI chatbots).
Key Features of LiveChat:
- Ticketing system for managing longer support queries
- Advanced reporting and chat transcripts
- Chat routing based on interaction intent and automatically segment new leads
- Omnichannel messaging across many supported services
- eCommerce integration to create a conversational shopping experience (watch that boost your chat ROI)
Best For:
Companies that could see themselves using the whole ecosystem of tools, from live chat and AI chatbots to a helpdesk and knowledgebase. These integrated tools can make larger eCommerce and SaaS operations more efficient while improving customer experience (CX). eCommerce stores stand to benefit from reduced churn and better retention rates.
Pricing: Plans starting for as little as $24/mo
2. HubSpot Live Chat
HubSpot is a leading CRM platform for helping businesses grow. It is known for being one of the best platforms for marketing automation, with a suite of tools for managing sales, support, and more. But did you know it also offers a live chat solution?
HubSpot’s live chat is a tool that allows businesses to connect with website visitors in real-time. It can answer questions, provide support, and generate leads. HubSpot’s live chat is easy to use and integrates with other HubSpot products, such as HubSpot CRM and marketing automation tools.
Key Features of HubSpot Live Chat:
- CRM, CMS, and Marketing integrations
- Qualify, and then route leads to the right team
- Chat conversations are stored in CRM so future agents can get customer context fast
- Slack integration so you can help customers where you work
HubSpot’s seamless integration with its own CRM makes it an ideal solution for businesses already using HubSpot’s suite of tools. The CRM integration allows for better tracking of customer interactions and improved customer support.
Best For:
Businesses already using HubSpot for CRM should look no further for basic live chat—though it does leave much to be desired in conversational AI. Those looking for a live chat solution and a CRM integration can solve two problems with one unified platform.
Pricing: Free live chat solution with paid CRM plans starting at $20/mo
3. Tidio
Tidio is a live chat tool and AI chatbot that helps businesses turn passive visitors into active buyers. It’s a user-friendly live chat widget with impressive AI chatbot abilities.
Key Features of Tidio:
- AI bot that classifies user intent, understands queries even if misspelled words are used, creates FAQ responses based on website content, and a writing assistant that is trained on your customer satisfaction data
- eCommerce integration to automate offers, discounts, and recommendations based on store and visitor data
- AI learns your business communication over time to be able to answer even more customer questions while you take a break
- WordPress/WooCommerce plugin for easy integration and setup
Tidio is a user-friendly live chat solution with an impressive array of chatbot functionalities that cater to businesses of all sizes. The visual chatbot builder allows for easy customization of basic chatbots to suit specific business needs. Tidio+ comes with conversational AI (but at a much higher monthly price tag).
Best For:
Great for any business. They have plans that support any scale of business. Tidio can grow with you and provide you with the tools you need.
Pricing: Free, with paid plans starting at $20 per month
4. LiveAgent
LiveAgent is a live customer chat software that helps businesses provide customer service to users and visitors. It is easy to use and can be customized to fit the needs of any business.
Key Features of LiveAgent:
- Universal inboxes for chat, email, and even phone support support
- Knowledgebase and forum solutions built-in
- Workforce management tools like time tracking, call queueing, and interaction routing/transfer
LiveAgent’s universal inbox feature simplifies customer support by consolidating communications from various channels into one centralized location. This makes it easy for support agents to manage and respond to customer inquiries no matter how they come in.
Best For:
LiveAgent is for businesses that rely on a scaled and effective customer support operation. Large support teams handling complex queries over multiple channels can rely on LiveAgent.
Pricing: Free plan available, and business plans starting at $12/mo per agent
5. Zendesk Chat
Zendesk Chat is a live chat software solution that helps businesses provide 24/7 customer support. It is easy to set up and use and scales seamlessly with businesses of any size. People love it for its robust and scalable live chat solution with AI-powered chatbots and advanced analytics. Plus, Zendesk is a go-to provider for anything “customer support.”
Key Features of Zendesk Chat:
- AI-powered chatbots (called Answer Bot)
- Rule or Condition-based bots for routine conversations and answers
- Conversation analytics, CSAT scoring, and customer journey views
- Out-of-the-box integrations with 3rd party tools and a broader CX platform
- Async web chat that works across channels (start a conversation in Facebook Messager, finish it on any supported channel)
Zendesk Chat is a robust and scalable solution that is especially beneficial for larger enterprises seeking advanced chatbot capabilities. AI-powered chatbots enable businesses to provide efficient and personalized customer support. It offers a variety of tools, including proactive chat, canned responses, offline forms, customizable branding, and integration abilities.
Best For:
Large enterprises seeking a live chat solution with advanced chatbot features and scalable functionality.
Pricing: Plans start at $49/mo per agent
6. Zoho Desk
Zoho Desk Live Chat is a customer service tool that allows your chat support team to work on support tickets and chats efficiently. You probably know Zoho from its very popular CRM and dozens of connected tools, but it offers even more. Note that live chat is only available in their “Enterprise” plan, but smaller businesses stand to benefit from the standard plan’s help center, email ticketing, and social media connections.
Key Features of Zoho Desk:
- Multichannel support (Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and WeChat)
- Workflow and Macros for automatic ticket management
- Improve customer satisfaction by giving faster and more personalized support
- Time-saving snippets for repeated phrases
- Gather customer feedback to improve your processes
Best For:
Zoho Desk’s customer service and support approach is appropriate for different scaling needs. The lowest-priced plans omit reasonable things and focus on async communication channels. The higher plans assume more people-power and allow access to tools like live chat and telephone support. If you are a smaller business looking only for live chat, look at Olark (next up).
Pricing: Live chat plans start at $50/mo, but there are cheaper plans
7. Olark
Olark is a small but loved live chat software that helps businesses service their customers quickly. With Olark, you can chat with visitors on your website in real time, answer their questions, and so much more.
It enables you to organize the data you’ve collected from your users within Olark or your preferred CRM. It also has a WordPress plugin.
Key Features of Olark:
- Customizable chatbox design with pre-chat forms for faster resolve times
- Automatically trigger chat messages based on web events (location, referring URL, and browsing behavior)
- Searchable chat transcripts to uncover trends
- Live dashboards, analytics, and management tools
- All plans have all the features (that’s worth looking at)
- Co-browsing addon lets you control the customer’s screen
Best For:
Small to medium-sized teams seeking a no-nonsense, easy-to-use live chat solution for engaging with their customers.
Pricing: $29/mo per agent
8. Social Intents
Social Intents is a live chat solution for businesses using Microsoft Teams, Slack, Zoom, and Webex. It helps companies interact with customers using a familiar collaborative tool that employees already know how to use.
Key Features of Social Intents:
- Website chatbot with deep integration to other tools your team uses every hour of every day
- Pre-qualify leads based on rules and data
- Quick replies based on routine questions
- No “per agent” pricing, so you just pay for the tech (Basic plan and up)
- Pro and Business plans have access to ChatGPT API and Dialogflow chatbots
Best For:
Social Intents is a versatile live chat solution built for social teams. It’s not quite as feature-rich as customer support-oriented chat solutions, which makes Social Intents stand out. Colleges, government organizations, and clubs can use Social Intents to create a natural channel for communication with their members.
Pricing: Plans start at $49/mo
9. Tawk.to
Tawk.to is a free live chat tool with one of the most attractive pricing models on the market. It offers unlimited messaging, ticketing, and agent seats and includes iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac OSX apps for free. They are also expanding into CRM, chat payments, and phone support.
Key Features of Tawk.to:
- 100% free (they only make money through professional services and logo removal)
- Live chat, knowledge base, and ticketing features are baked in
- Mobile and desktop apps so you can help your customers no matter which device you’re at
- WordPress plugin for easy integration
Tawk.to is an affordable, feature-rich live chat software ideal for small businesses and startups. The 100% free pricing structure makes it accessible to companies of all sizes, while the customizable chat widget ensures a seamless user experience.
Best For:
Small businesses and startups seeking a cost-effective live chat solution with all the features.
Pricing: Free with professional services starting at $1/hr
10. Botsify
Botsify is an AI live chat solution that aims to help you reduce your work so you can focus on growing a business. It works perfectly with WordPress via an official Botsify plugin or a JavaScript snippet you can manually add to your website.
Key Features of Botsify:
- AI-driven chatbots to handle nuanced talks using natural language
- Turn Botsify into a lead generation and booking agent that gets your customers to the next step
- Website chatbot that connects with other live messaging services like WhatsApp
- AI bot chat with agent fallback when a human touch is necessary
Botsify’s AI-driven chatbots are designed to provide efficient and personalized customer support. And because it works so well with other popular platforms, it is easy for businesses to use Botsify in their existing workflow.
Best For:
Businesses that seek an AI-driven live chat solution with powerful chatbot capabilities and seamless integrations. Agencies love using Botsify because of the Whitelabel abilities and the dedicated teams for chatbot development.
Pricing: Plans start at $49/mo for the DIYers
11. Intercom
Intercom is a business messaging platform that helps companies connect with their customers across multiple channels, including website live chat. Intercom’s live chat service is easy to use and customizable, so you can create a chat experience that fits your specific needs. It’s what we use here at ET!
Key Features of Intercom:
- Conversational AI bots
- Real-time insights and outcome reporting
- Gather context and customer intent by integrating with other data and enrichment tools in your tech stack
- Workload management so your team stays busy but not overwhelmed
Intercom’s targeted messaging feature enables businesses to deliver personalized and relevant communication to their customers. Custom chatbots and real-time insights help companies to provide an efficient and seamless customer support experience.
Best For:
Businesses seeking an all-in-one customer messaging service with advanced chatbot abilities and powerful integrations. We started using Intercom quite a while ago, which helped our business. Watch this 2017 clip where Mitch Skolnik discussed how we first implemented Intercom. If you are interested in it, check out our introduction to Intercom.
Pricing: Plans start at $74/mo
12. LivePerson
LivePerson is a conversational AI platform that offers live chat, chatbots, and (soon) voice AI solutions to help businesses automate customer support and eCommerce chat sales. The service provides a unified workspace for agents and supervisors to manage all conversations, and it offers a variety of tools to improve customer engagement and agent performance.
Key Features of LivePerson:
- Cutting-edge conversational AI that sounds as natural as a human
- Omnichannel support to message customers wherever they are
- Detailed analytics that gives you an understanding of every area of the platform’s running
- Create intent-based conversational AI automations to give the bots some human genius
LivePerson’s AI-powered conversational commerce platform is designed to enhance customer experience and drive sales. Omnichannel support allows businesses to connect with customers on their choice channels, while advanced analytics provide valuable insights to optimize the customer experience.
Best For:
Enterprise companies looking to enhance customer experience and drive sales through an AI-powered conversational commerce platform.
Pricing: Contact LivePerson for pricing details
13. Podium
Podium Webchat is a text-based live chat tool allowing you to connect with visitors in real-time. With Podium, you can answer questions, schedule appointments, and close deals with real, friendly interactions that are quick and convenient. It’s a unified messaging platform for businesses designed to simplify communication and improve online reputation.
Key Features of Podium:
- Optimized for conversions so live agents can win more deals
- Online review gathering and management
- Webchat and texting combined for out-of-this-world conversions
- Made to feel human and not like those bots you keep hearing about
Podium is a unified messaging service that simplifies communication and improves local businesses’ online reputation. It has centralized messaging and various communication channels, such as webchat and texting, to help companies to engage with customers more effectively.
Best For:
Businesses seeking a proven messaging platform to streamline communication and improve online reputation.
Pricing: Starting at $289/mo for 1000 contacts and 3 team members
Best of the Best Live Chat Software FAQ
What is live chat software?
What is the best live chat software for small businesses?
How do I choose a live chat software?
- Define realistic live chat needs
- Do product research
- Read reviews from users
- Try out demos and free trials
- Compare prices and feature match
- Make a decision and try to grow
Which is better between Live Chat and Conversational AI?
Here is a more detailed comparison of live chat and conversational AI:
Live Chat
- Pros:
- Real-time interaction with a human agent
- Ability to handle complex issues
- It provides a personal touch that customers appreciate
- Cons:
- It can be expensive to staff live agents
- Agents can be busy, leading to long wait times
- Not always available 24/7
Conversational AI
- Pros:
- Available 24/7
- Can handle a high volume of inquiries
- Inexpensive to operate
- Can learn and improve over time
- Cons:
- Not as good at handling complex issues as live chat agents
- It can sometimes be difficult to understand
- Not as personal as live chat
What is the best free live chat software?
What is the Best Live Chat Software?
| Ranking | Product | Starting Price | Free Option | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LiveChat | $24/mo | No | Visit | |
| HubSpot Live Chat | Free | Yes | Visit | |
| : | Tidio | Free | Yes | Visit |
| 4 | LiveAgent | Free | Yes | Visit |
| 5 | Zendesk Chat | $49/mo | No | Visit |
| 6 | Zoho Desk | $50/mo | No | Visit |
| 7 | Olark | $29/mo | No | Visit |
| 8 | Social Intents | $49/mo | No | Visit |
| 9 | Tawk.to | Free | Yes | Visit |
| 10 | Botsify | $49/mo | No | Visit |
| 11 | Intercom | $74/mo | No | Visit |
| 12 | LivePerson | Custom | No | Visit |
| 13 | Podium | $249/mo | No | Visit |
LiveChat.com is the best all-purpose live chat software at a small business price point. It has great tools and sister products supporting almost any business as they grow. Whether you only want live chat or want to look into bots and a help desk, it has you covered. If you are looking for a live chat solution that integrates with a more robust suite of tools for managing your business and customers online, Hubspot Live Chat is a great choice. For those who want live chat with impressive AI, Tidio will provide a great user experience for customers.
If you want something a little more advanced, look at the best AI chatbots on the market today.
Featured Image by semprong / shutterstock.com
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