11 Best Live Chat Software (Free and Paid)

Last Updated on April 8, 2023

Are you looking for the best live chat software for your business? 

Live chat is a powerful tool that can help you connect with your customers in real time, increase engagement, and drive sales. With so many options available on the market, it can be overwhelming to choose the right one. 

In this article, we’ve compiled a list of the top live chat software solutions to help you make an informed decision. From robust features to user-friendly interfaces, these tools have it all. 

So without further ado, let’s dive in and explore the best live chat software options available today.

🏆 Best Live Chat Software in 2023

LiveChat

LiveChat is a powerful solution that has been around since 2002 and has grown to become one of the largest live chat providers, trusted by over 33,000 businesses in more than 150 countries.

One thing that sets LiveChat apart is its commitment to innovation. They offer features that you won’t find in every live chat solution, like omnichannel integration with Facebook Messenger, media-rich and interactive messages, and a chatbot, help desk, and knowledge base (at an additional cost).

The interface is slick and easy to use, with PC, Mac, iOS, and Android apps available. Plus, LiveChat integrates deeply with major CRMs like Salesforce, allowing you to export contacts and leads and search through your Salesforce data from within LiveChat. You can even pull data from your CRM to create custom variables that your agents can use to provide personalized support.

But LiveChat isn’t just for customer support. It’s a versatile solution that can help with lead generation, online surveys, in-app support, net promoter score, and more. LiveChat can be changed to fit your needs thanks to features like automatic agent routing and syncing with your knowledge base software.

Some other highlights of LiveChat include the ability to add product cards to live chat conversations, use custom forms and AI chatbots to qualify leads and track sales and KPIs to monitor effectiveness. And with over 170 integrations available, including Dropbox, BigCommerce, MailChimp, and Shopify, LiveChat can work seamlessly with the tools you already use.

Tidio

As someone who’s worked in customer service, I can tell you that Tidio is one of the best options out there for combining live chat with chatbot functionality. With an easy-to-use and customizable chat widget, you can provide your customers with 24/7 support while also generating more sales.

Tidio offers a variety of features that make it stand out from the crowd, including the ability to augment your support team with a chatbot. With more than 35 ready-made templates to choose from and a drag-and-drop editor, you can customize everything to suit your needs.

One of the best things about Tidio is how easy it is to set up and use. You can dive into the analytics provided by the company to learn more about your website visitors and even proactively reach out to them. Plus, Tidio has mobile and desktop apps and integrates with a wide range of third-party tools, including Zapier for more custom connections.

While Tidio may not have all the advanced support and analytics features that some larger businesses may need, it’s a great option for mid-size companies looking to solve customer problems and generate sales. With its sleek design, quick messaging, and straightforward features, Tidio gives customers plenty of support options, from live chat and chatbots to ticketing, Instagram messages, and Facebook Messenger chat.

And if you’re on a tight budget, Tidio’s free plan offers a basic option that’s perfect for getting started.

Zendesk

 Zendesk Chat is a customer service solution that is perfect for companies that are ready to scale up.

Zendesk Chat is designed for larger teams and offers a suite of tools to help you deliver top-notch customer service. With this software, you can manage conversations across messaging platforms, social media, websites, email, and voice all in one place. This means your support team can work more efficiently, and your customers can receive faster and more accurate responses.

One of the great things about Zendesk Chat is the automation features. You can set up triggers that send targeted and behavior-based messages to prospects, which can help guide them through the buying process. And when your support team is offline, you can still receive messages from customers through pre-chat and offline forms.

Zendesk Chat also has powerful analytics tools that help sales teams find problems and judge how well agents are doing their jobs. You can keep track of the number of chats, watch how productive reps are, and look at metrics to predict what customers will need. Plus, you can measure how often your customers convert using metrics like “making a purchase” or “leaving feedback.”

Another fantastic feature of Zendesk Chat is the Answer Bot. This chatbot is available on all channels and can help customers with common issues or questions. And if your customers need more help, they can be routed to a live support agent for further assistance.

Zendesk Chat is very flexible, so you can connect it to other popular software and set up different workflows for the bot to follow depending on how the customer is acting. And with its tools to reduce customer service load, you can create a help center, a knowledge base, or a community forum to allow customers to help themselves.

HubSpot

HubSpot’s live chat feature comes as a bonus with their CRM. While it may not be as advanced as some other chat apps out there, it still has a lot of useful features that make it a great tool for businesses.

One of the best things about HubSpot’s chat is that it seamlessly integrates with their other paid hubs,” such as marketing, sales, and operations. This means you can easily keep all your customer information in one place and avoid switching between multiple platforms. Plus, it’s super easy to set up—it only took me about 10 minutes to get started!

The chat widget itself is also very easy to change, so you can make it look just like your company’s logo. You can add your company colors, agents’ pictures, greetings, and away messages, making it feel like an extension of your website. And if you’re looking to automate the process even further, HubSpot’s Zapier integrations can help you out by sending contacts to other apps in your tech stack.

Another great feature is Chat Flows, which lets you engage different types of visitors with targeted messages. You can decide who sees the message and where on your site they see it, making it easy to send proactive chats to visitors who are most likely to convert.

But what about when you’re not available to chat? That’s where HubSpot’s bots come in! They have pre-made and editable questions that are perfect for qualifying leads, creating tickets, and booking meetings. You can set filters for who receives the bot, on what page, and when it appears. Additionally, if you’re concerned that your bot messages will come off as robotic, don’t be; the Chatflow builder makes it simple to create personalized bot messages that don’t sound artificial.

FreshChat

Major businesses like Klarna use FreshWorks’ well-known messaging app, “FreshChat,” which is among their array of tools. The best part? You can easily distribute customer conversations between human agents and chatbots to save time and minimize the strain on your team.

Even if you’re not a coding expert, FreshWorks has you covered with their beginner-friendly bot builder. These bots can collect information automatically and send customers to the right department, which saves time and ensures customers get the help they need.

One of the things I love about FreshWorks is its unified backend environment, which combines different messenger and text-based conversations into one place for your employees. This helps support teams to stay productive and informed. Plus, they integrate with leading tools like iMessage, Facebook, and WhatsApp.

The real-time tracking and insights into customer movements throughout your website are game-changers. This allows you to proactively reach out to clients when you think they might need support, which is crucial for sales performance. Freshchat also offers triggered messages, email campaigns, and chatbots that qualify leads—all designed to help you reach the right prospects at the right time.

If you want to create more natural conversations with your target audience, FreshWorks is the way to go. Their reps gain insight into prospects, including their navigation path, behavior on your site, and the language they speak. This means they can offer a more personalized experience that resonates with your customers.

Two of my favorite features are the omnichannel chat and priority inbox capabilities. With omnichannel chat, you can talk to your prospects from any channel in one place, which is a huge time saver. And priority inboxing helps your reps manage their workflow and prioritize their responses.

Olark

Olark is a popular multichannel live chat software that’s easy to add to your WordPress website with its live chat plugin.

One of the best features of Olark is its automation rules. You can set up automatic greetings for your customers, send canned responses to answer frequently asked questions, and even forward chats to the right department or sales representative. This will improve the customer experience and reduce your support staff’s workload.

Another handy feature is the ability to save and use chat transcripts later, making follow-ups a breeze. Plus, the co-browsing add-on lets chat agents view visitors’ screens to solve problems faster.

Olark also integrates with popular services like Salesforce, Google Analytics, Slack, Mailchimp, and Zoom to host video chats. And if you’re on the go, third-party mobile apps allow you to connect to Olark Chat from almost any iOS or Android device.

Olark is a dedicated chat tool that offers advanced features for teams that plan to use live chat heavily. Olark has standard live chat features as well as automation tools and chatbots, which are tools that use artificial intelligence to talk to customers. You can use them to deflect tickets and save your team time.

Moreover, you can take advantage of pre-chat surveys to get context and in-depth analytics to better understand your business’s strengths and areas for improvement. Olark also has some very advanced features that can be added as add-ons, such as live chat translation and co-browsing.

While Olark’s customization settings are a bit limited, you can use attention grabbers to attract visitors’ attention and get reports on your team’s performance and customer satisfaction rates.

Intercom

Intercom is a live chat platform that is changing the game for businesses that need a complete way to talk to their customers. With Intercom, handling all customer requests from different channels is easy, and the platform automatically sends sales or support requests to the right team member, saving you time and effort.

One of the best features of Intercom is the collaborative inbox, which allows your team to solve customer queries and communicate with each other from one convenient location. Plus, Intercom provides team performance reports, so you can see which team is crushing the sales goals.

Intercom offers a variety of key features that are perfect for businesses looking to streamline their communication efforts. With chatbots, it’s easier to find out if someone is a good lead, and automated answers can help you answer questions that people often ask. You can also use targeted messages and tours to get your customers acquainted with your company, and the live chat function allows you to connect with customers and visitors in real time.

One of the best things about Intercom is that it’s customizable to your company’s specific needs. Whether you need help capturing and converting leads, onboarding new customers, engaging and supporting existing ones, or offering self-service options, Intercom has got you covered.

JivoChat

I recently came across JivoChat, and I must say, I’m impressed. This international live chat software is used by nearly 300,000 websites right now, which shows how popular and useful it is.

One of the first things that caught my attention was its modern and user-friendly interface. It’s clean and easy to navigate, and they have mobile apps for both iOS and Android as well as desktop apps for Windows and Mac. This makes it easy to stay connected with customers, no matter where you are.

But JivoChat’s features go far beyond just a simple chat console. They have a built-in CRM, which allows you to manage customer relationships effectively. And if you want to take things up a notch, you can add real-time visitor monitoring, a callback feature, and even a business phone line.

What’s more, JivoChat is great for businesses that cater to a global audience, thanks to its support for up to 25 different languages. You can even enable automatic translations via Google Translate!

But what really sets JivoChat apart is its ability to integrate seamlessly with other popular tools and services that you might already be using, such as Slack, Weebly, WordPress, Wix, Pipedrive, Zapier, Shopify, and more.

And here’s the best part: JivoChat offers a ‘Permanently Free’ plan for up to 5 agents, which includes unlimited chats and a decent amount of inclusions. It’s a fantastic way to try out the software and see if it fits your business needs.

Acquire

Acquire’s platform offers co-browsing and AI chatbots, making it easy to onboard new customers and provide fast, personalized support.

One of the standout features of Acquire is its co-browsing capabilities, which allow sales teams to improve prospect conversations and reduce friction in the sales process. You can even launch video or voice calls, screen share, and co-browse directly from the messenger.

Acquire’s AI-powered chatbots can answer common questions and send auto replies, freeing up your team’s time for more complex customer inquiries. And with the chat notes feature, your team can leave private notes about customer conversations for a quick resolution.

Acquire is also unique because it can automatically detect and translate your customer’s language, so you can talk to them in the language they prefer.

Acquire works with well-known tools like Zendesk and has different pricing plans for small, medium, and large teams. Though the pricing is not listed on their website, you can request a quote for the plan you’re interested in.

Zoho Desk

When it comes to managing customer support, Zoho Desk is definitely worth considering. Its live chat software is especially interesting because it lets you add a chat widget to your website. This feature allows you to respond to customer queries as soon as they reach out, which is key to keeping your customers happy and engaged.

One cool feature of Zoho Desk’s live chat is the ability to add feedback forms to the chat widget. This lets prospects know if they found the responses helpful, giving you valuable insights into how you can improve the sales process and make it as seamless as possible.

But Zoho Desk isn’t just about customer service. You can also integrate your Zoho CRM and Zendesk accounts, making it easier for your sales and support teams to share information and stay up-to-date. With the ability to set assignment rules for each channel, your reps can work more efficiently, and interactions with customers will be smooth and seamless.

Zoho Desk’s live chat software also automates many of the easier parts of customer conversations. For example, it can collect contact information and provide canned answers to frequently asked questions, saving your reps time and effort.

One standout feature of Zoho Desk is its multi-channel ticketing system. This system consolidates messages from various platforms into a single tab so you can access the questions quickly and easily. And with reports and analytics, you can track your performance and analyze the customer experience on your website.

Chaport

If you’re worried about missing out on important leads, don’t be! Chaport allows users to write questions via live chat and enter their email addresses to be notified when their query has been answered. You can also assign chats to other colleagues or join group chats for more efficient teamwork.

Another great feature of Chaport is its multilingual chat widget. This allows your visitors to view the widget in their native language, making it easier for them to communicate with you. And with access to over 4000 apps through Zapier or an API connectivity option, Chaport can be integrated with your preferred apps to boost productivity.

✍🏽 Conclusion

Live chat software is a valuable tool that can help businesses of all sizes connect with customers and provide exceptional customer service. With the rise of remote work and online shopping, having a live chat solution has become more important than ever. 

We hope this list of the best live chat software options has helped you find the perfect solution for your business needs. Whether you’re looking for advanced features, easy-to-use interfaces, or affordable pricing, live chat software can help you engage with your customers and drive sales. 

So go ahead and give one of these solutions a try and see how it can benefit your business today.

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