Platform
Features
Reviews

Live Chat Support & Integrations

  • Web, desktop, and mobile applications
  • Ticketing system
  • Reporting and analytics
  • Integration with other business systems
  • Integrates with chatbot.com
Review: 4.6

Automation + Advanced Live Team Features

  • 100% free plan, non-expiring
  • Web, SMS and Facebook Messenger bots
  • Live handover triggers for web and mobile inboxes
  • Mobile chat app with advanced support features
Review: 4.6

Customer Service Software

  • Organize customer requests into tickets
  • Prioritizing tickets
  • Team cooperation
  • Set up predefined responses to queries
  • Mobile application
Review: 4.5

Live Chat & Automation Platform

  • Automated messaging to live chat hybrid
  • Store data about visitors
  • Integration with other business systems
  • Conversation performance and analytics
4.4

The 23 Best Live Chat Software Platforms For Seamless Customer Communication

Combining the best live chat software with chatbots has proven to be one of the most effective ways to increase revenue, generate leads, and offer real-time support.

Consider these three statistics, for example:
  • Live chat increases conversions on your website by 45%.
  • Website engagement gets a 3x boost when a chatbot is present.
  • Consumers are 63% more likely to return to a website that has web chat.

 

Chatbots are fantastic pieces of software programmed by humans to automate certain business practices and offer help to customers. But they can’t do everything. Most importantly, they can’t be human.

And some scenarios simply call for real live human support. That’s where live chat integration comes in -- when a situation is too complex, too specific, or simply calls for a human hand adding a bit of personalization to the chat.

Live chat integration involves integrating your chatbot solution with the option to offer live chat support from a human operator. This can be when the chatbot reaches the extent of its functionality, when the customer simply wants to speak with a human, or when the user is flagged as a hot lead and needs a personal touch in order to more successfully convert.

Table of Contents

What are the benefits of using live chat software?
#1. Best Live Chat Software: MobileMonkey
#2. Best Live Chat Software: Gobot
#3. Best Live Chat Software: PureChat
#4. Best Live Chat Software: Bold360
#5. Best Live Chat Software: WP-Chatbot
#6. Best Live Chat Software Tidio
#7. Best Live Chat Software: Smartsupp
#8. Best Live Chat Software: ChattyPeople
#9. Best Live Chat Software: Userlike
#10. Best Live Chat Software: Chatra.io
#11. Best Live Chat Software: Chaport
#12. Best Live Chat Software: SnapEngage
#13. Best Live Chat Software: Acquire
#14. Best Live Chat Software: Kayako
#15. Best Live Chat Software: Freshchat
#16. Best Live Chat Software: Drift
#17. Best Live Chat Software: Helpcrunch
#18. Best Live Chat Software: LiveChat
#19. Best Live Chat Software: Zendesk Chat
#20. Best Live Chat Software: ClickDesk
#21. Best Live Chat Software: Intercom
#22. Best Live Chat Software: Formilla
#23. Best Live Chat Software: Olark
How to choose the best live chat software for your business

What are the benefits of using live chat software?

Offering the option of live chat integration in addition to a chatbot solution increases productivity and improves customer service.

Overall, live chat integration with an existing chatbot solution tends to increase customer satisfaction rates and bring in more repeat customers.

Some of the key benefits to using live chat software with a chatbot are:
  • Cost effectiveness
  • Adding a more personal touch
  • Removing complexities
  • Sending hot lead notifications to your reps

 

The following platforms have been highly vetted and qualified to make up the 23 best live chat software platforms on the market.

#1. Best Live Chat Software: MobileMonkey

MobileMonkey is an all-in-one chatbot platform that supports web chat, live chat, SMS and Facebook Messenger bots, and omnichannel marketing. The platform is rare in that it has very suitable solutions for both small business and enterprise-level clients, as well as both marketing and customer support teams.

best live chat software - MobileMonkey
Mobile Monkey Features:
  • Multi-channel chatbot platform on web and mobile app
  • Advanced live team features
  • Native web chat, Facebook Messenger, and SMS marketing tools
  • Visual-flow chatbot builder and editor
  • Chatbot templates
  • Multilingual
  • Zapier and other integrations
  • Always mobile-friendly
  • AI bots route requests and automate repetitive FAQs
  • Custom live chat handoff triggers
  • Analytics and reporting

 

Pros - MobileMonkey:
  • Extensive suite of chatbot tools and automation.
  • Mobile chat app with advanced support features.
  • Surprisingly easy to use for such a robust platform.
  • Chatbot builder and workflows.
  • Works across many channels (SMS, web chat, Messenger) and unifies all conversations in one inbox.
  • Unlimited contacts and leads on all plans.
  • Huge user community.
  • Live bot to human handoff triggers for web and mobile inboxes.
  • Mobile chat app with advanced support features.

 

Cons - MobileMonkey:
  • Frequently updating user interface due to new features.

 

MobileMonkey Pricing: You can get started building bots with a non-expiring version of MobileMonkey for free. If you need advanced automation and integrations, pricing then starts at $14.25/mo, and goes up to $299/mo.

#2. Best Live Chat Software: Gobot (GetGobot.com)

Gobot is a conversational marketing platform that helps companies messaging with prospects in real-time via intelligent chatbots. With Gobot you can automatically qualify leads, book meetings and connect hot leads to live agents.

best live chat software - Gobot
Gobot Features:
  • Live chat and chatbots
  • Lead qualification
  • Bot to human handoff
  • Book meetings
  • Answer FAQs
  • Automated triggers
  • Send text, video, images, GIFs, multiple choice, polls, surveys, share buttons, etc.

 

Pros - Gobot:
  • Chatbots automate your marketing by qualifying leads, booking meetings, syncing data to your CRm & connecting live reps with hot leads in real-time.
  • Automate customer service with a connected support bot and knowledge base that answer customer questions, replacing repetition with more productivity.

 

Cons - Gobot:
  • There’s a lot features that are “Coming Soon” on their website. Some of which are pretty important features that other platforms on this list have, such as developer APIs and conversational landing pages.
  • Without testing out the platform, it’s hard to see what’s really available, so you’ll need to do your own homework and research.

 

Gobot Pricing: You’ll need to interact with Gobot’s chatbot to obtain pricing information.

#3. Best Live Chat Software: PureChat

PureChat is a quick and easy way to get live chat and a chatbot up and running on your website. Although PureChat isn’t a robust platform, they do live chat well, and allow for you to bolt on many of the other tools in your tech stack.

best live chat software - PureChat
PureChat Features:
  • Live chat and chatbot
  • Store live chat transcripts
  • JavaScript API
  • SMS notifications
  • Realtime analytics

 

Pros - PureChat:
  • Platform is intuitive and simple to use. The chat window isn’t obtrusive and it can be customized on the free plan.
  • PureChat is big on calling themselves a “free live chat software,” but that’s mostly just to get clicks. However, the Free plan is rather generous with up to 3 operators that can use the platform for free.
  • Good integrations with social media, ecommerce services, Shopify, Etsy, Zapier and others.

 

Cons - PureChat:
  • Their chatbot is not top quality and you’re not getting an AI/machine learning powered bot with PureChat. If you have the money to spend, find something more powerful.
  • If you’re looking for an “all-in-one” chatbot platform, PureChat isn’t for you. However, if you want a cheap and easy to use live chat tool that you can bolt all your other tools onto, this is a solid choice.
  • Many of the best features are only available on PureChat’s paid for plans.

 

PureChat Pricing: PureChat has one of the better free plans out there with up to 3 users for no charge. Once you have 4 users, pricing starts at $39 per month with an additional $13 per month for additional users up to 9 total users. When you hit 10 users, pricing goes to $79 per month with an additional $8 per month for each additional user.

#4. Best Live Chat Software: Bold360

Bold360 is a conversational AI and live chat platform with customer engagement and customer service features.

best live chat software - Bold360
Bold360 Features:
  • Customer engagement tools
  • Internal network systems for HR & IT
  • Powerful chatbot and automation
  • APIs and SDKs

 

Pros - Bold360:
  • Tightly integrated live agent and chatbot makes bot to human handoff simple and quick.
  • Powerful platform with a long list of features.

 

Cons - Bold360:
  • Owned by LogMeIn, this software has security features and a UI/UX that feels outdated and hinders the productivity of the end users. Parts of the platform feel like a legacy system, and although you have everything you need and more with Bold360, it’s just not as smooth or visually appealing as many of the new customer service chatbots on the market.
  • Integrations and custom development on the platform are overly complex for 2023 or beyond.

 

Bold360 Pricing: There are five pricing tiers for Bold360, however, all of them require you contact the company to request a quote. Although each tier clearly states what’s included in the package, without any pricing available, the tiers do feel a bit silly to post publicly.

#5. Best Live Chat Software: WP-Chatbot

WP Chatbot is probably the best WordPress chatbot on the market, which is why it comes in at #3 on the list. It’s a quick and easy way to get a sophisticated web chat app onto any WordPress site.

WP-Chatbot Features:
  • One-click-install for WordPress
  • Custom greeting messages
  • Add Messenger customer chat in web applications
  • Multiple languages supported
  • Traditional live chat and robust chatbot builder

 

Pros - WP-Chatbot:
  • Super easy to install.
  • Team-friendly inbox for your marketing, sales and support teams
  • Full integration with MobileMonkey
  • Complete chat history and contacts storage
  • Detailed positioning, customization and branding

 

Cons - WP-Chatbot:
  • Requires Facebook Messenger

 

WP-Chatbot Pricing: WP-Chatbot is free to get started. If you want the enhanced website chat widget for WordPress, pricing starts at $48/year total.

#6. Best Live Chat Software: Tidio

Tidio provides live chat boosted with bots to increase sales and customer engagement. For ecommerce, they have integrations with many of the large online storefront providers.

best live chat software - Tidio
Tidio Features:
  • Integrate with Shopify, WordPress, Wix, Magento
  • Live chat support / web chat
  • iOS and Android apps
  • Email notifications
  • CRM, email and help desk integrations
  • Live chat analytics
  • Messenger integration
  • Chat transfer
  • Visitor banning tools to prevent spam
  • Real-time website visitor tracking
  • Automate answers to FAQs

 

Pros - Tidio:
  • Many popular ecommerce, CRM, email, and help desk integrations.

 

Cons - Tidio:
  • If the tools in your tech stack don’t match up with Tidio’s integration partners, you’ll need to rely on hacked together integrations, or will need to switch platforms.

 

Tidio Pricing: Tidio has a free plan, and $18/mo plan, and custom pricing plans. Cost is based on the number of chat operators you have using the platform, as well as the features you need access to.

#7. Best Live Chat Software: Smartsupp

Smartsupp chat is an easy to use tool, built for smaller companies, that enables you to engage in personal conversations with your customers on your website or online store.

best live chat software - Smartsupp
Smartsupp Features:
  • Live chat for your website and ecommerce
  • Web dashboard with visitor information
  • Smartsupp mobile app for iOS and Android
  • Rule based automatic messaging
  • Google Analytics integration
  • Ecommerce integrations
  • Chat history

 

Pros - Smartsupp:
  • One of only a few chat apps that offers video recordings where you see the movement of each visitor on your website. This gives your live agents a better understanding of customer behavior, and lets your identify bottlenecks in your website.
  • Easy to integrate with all major ecommerce platforms including Shopify and Magento.

 

Cons - Smartsupp:
  • Limited number of features outside of their one differentiating feature - video recordings.
  • Lacks ability for prospects to have the agent call them directly or browse alongside them.
  • Customization is limited.

 

Smartsupp Pricing: Smartsupp has three plans, including a free plan for up to 3 agents. The Standard plan is $10/mo per agent, and the Pro plan is $19/mo per agent.

#8. Best Live Chat Software: ChattyPeople

Chattypeople is a chatbot platform for creating an AI chatbot on Facebook with integrated Facebook commerce. Ideal for entrepreneurs and marketers in small companies that want enterprise level technology.

best live chat software - ChattyPeople
ChattyPeople Features:
  • Facebook Messenger bots
  • Facebook commerce bots
  • Shopify integration to Facebook
  • AI/machine learning technology

 

Pros - ChattyPeople:
  • No coding required. Create a Facebook messaging bot quickly and easily.
  • Perfect for small businesses that want enterprise level technology.

 

Cons - ChattyPeople:
  • Focused primarily on Facebook Messenger

 

ChattyPeople Pricing: Chattypeople is free to get started. If you need advanced automations and integrations, pricing then starts at $14.25/mo, and goes up to $299/mo.

*NOTE: Chattypeople was acquired by MobileMonkey (#1 on this list) in 2018.

#9: Best Live Chat Software: Userlike

Userlike is an interesting platform with some unique features that make a lot of sense for live chat and customer support teams.

best live chat software - Userlike
Userlike Features:
  • Live chat
  • Website chat
  • Facebook Messenger, Telegram and WhatsApp integrations
  • Chatbots
  • Customer messaging
  • Bot to human handoff
  • Ticket creating by bots
  • Integrations and API

 

Pros - Userlike:
  • Operator groups allow the visitor to select which department they want to talk to with a click.
  • Operator skills allow your visitors to be connected to the support rep best qualified to answer their question. All you have to do is add relevant skill categories and assign them to the reps that have those skills.
  • Userlike’s internal chat logic favors the build-up of relationships between customers and agents. If a visitor has chatted with one of your agents in the past, they will be more likely to be assigned to that visitor.

 

Cons - Userlike:
  • Pricing is a bit high for what the platform offers, but if you like their unique features, this is a great choice for you and your team.

 

Userlike Pricing: Userlike has a free plan for 1 user. After that, there are four pricing tiers that start at $29/mo, and go up to $299/mo for up to 10 users. If you need more than 10 users, you’ll need to contact Userlike for pricing.

#10. Best Live Chat Software: Chatra.io

Chatra is live chat software that allows you to provide an easy way for visitors to talk to your business in real-time.

best live chat software - Chatra
Chatra Features:
  • Live chat and offline messaging
  • Multilingual chat widget
  • Conversation history
  • Notifications and triggers
  • Google Analytics integration
  • Developer API
  • Zapier integration

 

Pros - Chatra:
  • Easy to install and use with useful features, such as proactive chat invitations, typing insights, real-time visitor list, and saved replies.

 

Cons - Chatra:
  • Very bare bones when it comes to automation tools and chatbot capabilities.
  • Admin tools are limited and platform is not built well for teams at this time.

 

Chatra Pricing: Chatra has a Free Forever plan for 1 agent. Their one paid for plan is $15 per agent, per month.

#11. Best Live Chat Software: Chaport

Chaport is a live chat widget that you can place on your website to answer visitor and customer questions.

best live chat software - Chaport
Chaport Features:
  • Live chat
  • File sending
  • Saved replies and chat history
  • Detailed visitor information
  • Multilingual chat widget
  • Auto-invitations
  • Group chats
  • Zapier integration
  • Reports
  • JavaScript and REST APIs

 

Pros - Chaport:
  • Typing insights allow you to read visitor messages even before they are sent or deleted. If you have live agents monitoring this, they’ll have a much better idea of what the person is really thinking, as most people who use a chat window assume operators can only see what is sent.
  • Lots of live chat features at a low cost.

 

Cons - Chaport:
  • Very limited or non-existent chatbot automation, AI/machine learning, NLP.
  • Although a Zapier integration is nice, there are no native integrations available.

 

Chaport Pricing: Chaport has a free version for 1 user, which isn’t very useful, but at least you’ll get to see what you think of the tool. After that, pricing is very simple: $9.80 per user / per month.

#12. Best Live Chat Software: SnapEngage

SnapEngage is a dedicated chat solution built for customer support and engagement. It’s designed to create a seamless experience across multiple platforms.

best live chat software - SnapEngage
SnapEngage Features:
  • Sales tools: capture, qualify, convert leads
  • Customer service and engagement tools
  • Healthcare / HIPAA compliant chat
  • Omnichannel solutions: SMS, web chat, Twitter, Facebook Messenger, WeChat
  • Google Analytics integration

 

Pros - SnapEngage:
  • Quick and easy setup.
  • Help desk integrations with Zendesk, Salesforce, Dynamics 365, and others.

 

Cons - SnapEngage:
  • Somewhat dated looking user interface.
  • Limited amount of integrations.

 

SnapEngage Pricing: SnapEngage has 3 pricing tiers starting at $16 per user, per month. The mid-level plan starts at $26 per user, per month. And then the Enterprise plan starts at $40 per user, per month.

#13. Best Live Chat Software: Acquire.io

Acquire helps support teams solve customer issues quickly and easily chatbots and automation. They refer to themselves as an all-in-one customer service platform. Acquire is designed to streamline customer conversations for sales, support and onboarding.

best live chat software - Acquire
Acquire Features:
  • Unified agent view
  • Live chat and chatbot automation
  • Route chats to sales team
  • Integrations with 40+ applications
  • Sales, support, and onboarding tools
  • Analytics
  • Video and voice calls
  • Web and in-app controls

 

Pros - Acquire:
  • In addition to live chat, Acquire also has profile management, user records, as well as video and voice call functionality for conversations that require escalation.
  • Recently, Acquire has added many more integrations, making the platform much more scalable and useful to a wider range of users.

 

Cons - Acquire:
  • Many reviews find Acquire to be expensive and have less features when compared to the competition.

 

Acquire Pricing: Book a demo meeting with Acquire in order to obtain pricing details.

#14. Best Live Chat Software: Kayako

Kayako Engage is another help desk software platform that has a live chat feature for support.

best live chat software - Kayako
Kayako Features:
  • Live chat
  • Help center
  • Analytics
  • Customer journey
  • Messenger chatbot
  • Shared team inbox
  • Ecommerce support

 

Pros - Kayako:
  • Native integration with help desk
  • Live chat agent routing
  • Many integrations
  • Customer activity tracking and analytics

 

Cons - Kayako:
  • Uses unique reporting language, like SQL, which you need to learn
  • Integration options very limited
  • Lots of complexity that other platforms do not have

 

Kayako Pricing: Five different plans for chat and customer service tools, ranging from free to $59/mo per agent.

#15. Best Live Chat Software: Freshchat

Freshchat is an omnichannel, AI-driven, self-service chatbot solution for customer service that has solutions for both small business and enterprise clients.

best live chat software - Freshchat
Freshchat Features:
  • Email and chat support solutions
  • Omnichannel, AI & self-service
  • SLA management and custom ticket status
  • Canned responses
  • Dashboard comes with event timeline, user info and social profiles
  • Reporting and analytics
  • (New) Automate acquisitions with sales and support bots

 

Pros - Freshchat:
  • Streamline customer conversations in one place.
  • Automate your repetitive work and save time.
  • Good team collaboration with Team Huddle, Shared Ownership, Linked Tickets, and Parent-child Ticketing features.

 

Cons - Freshchat:
  • Hard to transfer chats and poor timely notifications have been reported as issues. One user reported a 10 second lag time from trying to start a chat with a visitor, to the chat box actually appearing in front of the visitor.
  • Analytics dashboard can become unreliable without proper maintenance.
  • Freshchat is apparently not of the same quality as Freshworks other tools, such as Freshdesk.

 

Freshchat Pricing: Freshdesk has five pricing tiers, starting with a free plan. The free plan is enough to get an idea of what the platform looks like, but it won’t provide you with enough power for a sales or support team. After the free plan, pricing starts at $15 per agent / per month (e.g. 2 agents = $30/mo), and then goes up to $109 per agent / per month, which is their Enterprise level pricing. Features needed is what will move you and your team into higher pricing tiers.

#16. Best Live Chat Software: Drift

Drift is a platform that utilizes live chat and automated chatbot software.

best live chat software - Drift
Drift Features:
  • Mobile application
  • Manage complex customer cases through tickets
  • Option for automated messaging
  • Automate activities with a chatbot
  • Store data about visitors
  • Marketing and sales automation
  • Integrates with other business systems

 

Pros - Drift:
  • Strong lead generation features
  • Ease of use
  • Lots of automation tools to choose from

 

Cons - Drift:
  • Pricing is extremely high compared to the competition which offer similar or better feature sets, especially if you have multiple teams and want to route chats between them
  • Mobile application and web chat has many bugs, for example it has an issue where the web chat thinks you are a returning visitor (eg: Hi, welcome back Sarah) even though you are not that person.
  • Many competitors outscore Drift in key feature areas (like bot builder) and sell for a lower price
  • The bot builder is less powerful than other products (MobileMonkey, ManyChat, Chatfuel, etc.) yet is only available in the enterprise edition
  • No support for messaging (SMS, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, etc.)

 

Drift Pricing: Drift has a free plan that doesn’t include any notable features. After that, pricing begins at $50/mo and then jumps to $400/mo, $1500/mo and custom pricing with an additional charge for each user.

#17. Best Live Chat Software: Helpcrunch

Helpcrunch is a multi-language live chat tool that has intriguing marketing automation features, but does not yet have bots and bot automation. However, bots are soon to come, so we’ve added this to the list, as they have a promising future that’s worth taking note of.

best live chat software - Helpcrunch
Helpcrunch Features:
  • Build chatbot with visual flow builder and editor
  • Live chat
  • Email marketing
  • Knowledge base
  • Mobile aps & SDK
  • Auto messages
  • Help desk
  • Pop-ups
  • Integrations

 

Pros - Helpcrunch:
  • Automation for customer segmentation and email.
  • Ability to offer live chat in different languages.
  • Easy to use and get started, yet has a backend with many options and features.

 

Cons - Helpcrunch:
  • Still no chatbot or chatbot automation available (coming soon)
  • No real-time view of current site visitors
  • No integration with Facebook or other major social platforms

 

Helpcrunch Pricing: Unlimited contacts on all plans. Plans start at $15/mo per team member for 1 chat widget, and $25/mo per team member for 5. Must speak with them for Enterprise accounts.

#18. Best Live Chat Software: LiveChat

LiveChat is a simple chat window that can be installed on any website to provide live chat support or integrate with chatbot.com to create a chatbot for the window.

best live chat software - LiveChat
LiveChat Features:
  • Web, desktop, and mobile applications
  • Ticketing system
  • Chat window customization
  • Reporting and analytics
  • Sales and goals tracking
  • Integration with other business systems
  • Create a chatbot by integrating with chatbot.com

 

Pros - LiveChat:
  • Feature-rich platform
  • Many integrations
  • Good design
  • Predefined responses for FAQs
  • Chat widget customization

 

Cons - LiveChat:
  • Automation toolset is far worse than competitors
  • High pricing in comparison to competitors with similar feature sets
  • Poor multilingual compatibility
  • Standalone app that has a separate WordPress plugin
  • Premium plans are relatively expensive and features in the Starter Plan are very limited

 

LiveChat Pricing: LiveChat has no free plan available. Starter Plan is $19/mo per user and before you get to Enterprise level pricing, there is a $149/mo per user plan.

#19. Best Live Chat Software: Zendesk Chat

Zendesk is a help desk software that uses live chat as a communication feature.

best live chat software - Zendesk Chat
Zendesk Chat Features:
  • Organize customer requests into tickets
  • Prioritizing tickets
  • Team cooperation
  • Set up predefined responses to queries
  • Mobile application
  • Track chat volume

 

Pros - Zendesk Chat:
  • Good live visitor tracking
  • Lots of useful triggers
  • Affordable pricing
  • Monitor data in real-time
  • Track operator productivity

 

Cons - Zendesk Chat:
  • Too advanced if you’re looking for a simple live chat app
  • Not a native WordPress plugin
  • Limited features in the free version
  • Extremely expensive

 

Zendesk Chat Pricing: Zendesk Chat has a free trial, after that the platform can become quite expensive, but starts at $14/mo per user (just for the chat feature), and then quickly goes up to $199/mo per user and beyond.

#20. Best Live Chat Software: ClickDesk

ClickDesk is more live chat and support software with a chat widget that allows you to interact with visitors in real time and answer their questions.

best live chat software - ClickDesk
ClickDesk Features:
  • Live chat
  • Voice and Video chat
  • Help desk
  • Social media integrations
  • Mobile app for online support
  • Reporting and analytics

 

Pros - ClickDesk:
  • Text, voice and video chat options.
  • Chat interface is integrated with their helpdesk software, which allows agents to address customer concerns outside of the chat window.

 

Cons - ClickDesk:
  • Outdated looking, not visually appealing.
  • No live analytics.
  • Limited design and customization features.
  • Not mobile responsive.
  • No intelligent chatbots.

 

ClickDesk Pricing: ClickDesk is free for up to 10 users, however the feature set on the free plan is very limited. There are three pricing tiers. The Lite plan is $14.99/mo per user. The Pro plan is $24.99/mo per user. And the Enterprise plan is $39.99/mo per user.

#21. Best Live Chat Software: Intercom

Intercom is a live chat and automation platform that you can use to identify and qualify leads, provide real-time prospect and customer support, and build custom chatbots.

best live chat software - Intercom
Intercom Features:
  • Native mobile applications
  • Conversation performance and analytics
  • Automated messaging
  • Store data about visitors
  • Integration with other business systems

 

Pros - Intercom:
  • Robust platform
  • Supports bots and live chat
  • Options to create custom chatbots

 

Cons - Intercom:
  • Limited to your website only
  • Custom chatbots are very expensive (additional $500/mo)
  • Non-flexible pricing model
  • Customer support is only through chat - frustrating for such an expensive platform

 

Intercom Pricing: Pricing is complicated with Intercom. There are a-la-carte products available, however, you almost always need multiple products to achieve your business goals. To have all the features listed here, and to qualify Intercom in the web chat apps category, you’re looking at at least $1,000/mo or more just to get started.

#22. Best Live Chat Software: Formilla

Formilla is a customer messaging software for sales, marketing and support. They combine live chat, email, and in-app messaging.

best live chat software - Formilla
Formilla Features:
  • Live chat
  • Marketing automation
  • In-app messaging
  • AI/machine learning
  • Targeted email messaging
  • Contacts management
  • Realtime visitor and customer data

 

Pros - Formilla:
  • Contacts management allows you to segment customers automatically, tag high-value prospects, search and filter contacts.
  • AI chatbots
  • Formilla Edge feature is a lead generation tool, which not all live chat focused platforms offer.

 

Cons - Formilla:
  • Pricing forces you into the most expensive plan quickly and is based on not only the amount of users, but also the amount of contacts you have. No pricing available on site for if you go over 5 agents and 10K contacts, which is where many other platforms begin their pricing.

 

Formilla Pricing: Formilla has 3 pricing tiers. The Premium plan is $10/mo for 1 agent and 1K contacts. The Professional plan is $30/mo for 3 agents and 5K contacts. The Growth plan is $60/mo for 5 agents and 10K contacts.

#23. Best Live Chat Software: Olark

Olark is slightly different than other platforms and tools on this live chat software list. Olark is a live chat plugins and integrations platform for Salesforce, WordPress, CRMs, help desks, Slack, ecommerce sites, and more.

best live chat software - Olark
Olark Features:
  • Live chat
  • Real time reporting
  • Automated messaging
  • Team management tools
  • Live chat reports and analytics
  • Chat transfers and routing
  • Auto greeter
  • Visitor details

 

Pros - Olark:
  • Ease of use, real-time reporting, automated messages, and simple team management tools.
  • Highly customizable to fit your live chat needs.
  • All live chat transcript on the platform are searchable.
  • “PowerUps” allow you to pay only for the features you need each month.

 

Cons - Olark:
  • Integrations aren’t very well developed. However, there are a lot of them.
  • Limited automation features, but not completely bare bones.
  • Chatbot is not “smart”, meaning it’s not using any AI/machine learning, and automation of the bot is very limited.

 

Olark Pricing: Pricing for Olark is very straightforward. It’s $19 per agent / per month.

How to choose the best live chat software platform for your business

Integrating live chat into your business’s customer service chat solution is an important step to improving customer satisfaction rates. That’s why selecting the best live chat integration platform is important.

Step 1 - Understand the purpose of adding live chat integration to your current customer service solution. Decide if it is an addition to a chatbot, if it is live chat on its own, etc. Determining the purpose and features of the live chat integration is important to selecting the proper platform.

Step 2 - Begin searching for live chat integration platforms keeping in mind your requirements for live chat solutions. This is also a good time to note that predetermining a budget for the live chat integration platform is a good idea because it will allow you to allocate the proper funds to your business’s various customer service and chat solution plans.

Step 3 - Once you have researched the available platforms, select a platform that most accurately reflects your business’s live chat integration requirements and budget preferences.

We hope you’ve found the best live chat software for your business. Please let us know what you think and if you feel other more qualified platforms should have made the list. Thank you!

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