Best Live Chat Software 2026: 12 Tools by Need and Price
· Wallu Team · 11 min read · Buying Guide
Twelve live chat tools grouped by need: free, human teams, AI agent, e-commerce, open source. Prices from each vendor's page, 10 Oct 2026, both billing cycles.
Table of Contents
- How we chose and compared these tools
- All 12 tools at a glance
- Best free live chat software
- Best for human chat teams
- Best AI agent
- Cheapest with AI included
- Best for e-commerce
- Best open-source live chat
- What a team of 3, 5 or 10 pays per month
- Where Wallu is the wrong choice
- Sources and read dates
- Frequently asked questions
Short answer: For free live chat, start with Tawk.to: unlimited agents and chats for $0, with paid add-ons for extras such as branding removal and more AI. For people answering chats all day, LiveChat (now sold as Text, $25 per user month-to-month) is the specialist. If the AI agent matters most, Intercom's Fin is the strongest here, at $0.99 per resolved outcome on top of seats. The cheapest AI is Tawk.to's free tier (100 AI messages a month), then Wallu at $4.99 for 350 AI replies; Shopify stores should look at Gorgias and Crisp, and Chatwoot is the open-source pick.
How we chose and compared these tools
We compared twelve tools people consider for website chat. Wallu is our product; it follows the same rules, appears only where it fits, and has its own section on where it is the wrong choice. Drift is left out: its gradual sunset was announced on 5 March 2026 and it publishes no price (see our Drift guide).
The criteria:
- Published price, month-to-month and annual, read from the vendor's own page on 10 October 2026. Many open on the annual toggle, so we quote both.
- Billing unit: per seat, per workspace or per conversation, which predicts the bill better than the headline.
- AI metering: per message, resolution, outcome or session, and whether the allowance resets monthly.
- Free plan limits: people, volume and AI.
- Fit: tools are grouped by need, not ranked, with no star ratings.
All 12 tools at a glance
Sorted by the month-to-month price of each tool's cheapest plan with live chat; ties alphabetical. Tawk.to is $0 because it has no paid plan; other free plans have their own column.
| Tool | Month-to-month entry | Billed annually | Billing unit | Free plan | AI pricing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tawk.to | $0 (no paid plan) | $0 | None; add-ons per property | Yes, unlimited agents | 100 AI messages/mo free; 1,000 for $29/mo ($290/yr) |
| Wallu | $4.99 (Mini) | $3.99 | Flat per account | 10 AI replies/mo (test) | 350 AI replies included |
| HubSpot | $10/seat (Starter; limited-time, list $20) | $7/seat | Per seat | Yes, 2 users | $0.50 per resolution, Professional and up |
| Chatwoot | $19/agent (Startups) | Not published | Per agent | Yes, 2 agents, 500 conversations/mo | 300 AI credits included; $20 per 1,000 more |
| Freshchat | $23/agent (Growth) | $19/agent | Per agent | Yes, 10 agents, no AI | 500 sessions once, then $49 per 100 |
| LiveChat (Text) | $25/user (Essential) | $19/user | Per user | No | 10 resolutions/mo included, then $0.99 each |
| Olark | $29/agent (Live Chat) | $23/agent (1-year contract) | Per agent | Not listed | AI tier $400/mo billed annually, unlimited |
| Tidio | $29 (Starter) | $24.17 | Per human-handled conversation (100) | Yes, 50 conversations/mo | Lyro add-on from $39/mo ($32.50 annually) |
| Help Scout | $30/user (Standard) | $25/user | Per user | Yes, 5 users, 100 contacts/mo | $0.75 per resolution |
| Intercom | $39/seat (Essential, list) | $29/seat | Per seat | No | Fin $0.99 per outcome |
| Crisp | $45 (Mini) | Not published | Flat per workspace (4 seats) | Yes, 2 seats, no AI | $5 AI credits (~90 conversations) |
| Zendesk | $69/agent (Suite Team) | $55/agent | Per agent | No | 5 resolutions/agent/mo, then $1.50-$2.00 |
Footnotes: most Intercom visitors were being shown a test price of $29 ($19 annually) instead of the $39 list. Zendesk's $25 Support Team plan is email-only. Olark's page states no cycle for $29; its older FAQ gives $29 with no contract and $23 on a one-year contract paid in full.
Best free live chat software
Seven of the twelve have a free plan.
Tawk.to is free with no limit on agents and, in its words, "no caps on conversations, contacts, or chat history". No trial, no card. You pay only for add-ons: $39 a month ($348 a year) to remove its badge, or AI beyond the free 100 messages a month. See Tawk.to alternatives.
Freshchat is free for up to 10 agents with a chat widget and shared inbox, but no AI agent.
Crisp is free for 2 seats with unlimited conversations, but no AI and a "We run on Crisp" watermark that only the $295-a-month Plus plan removes.
HubSpot (2 users, HubSpot branding), Chatwoot Cloud (2 agents, 500 conversations a month), Tidio (50 human-handled conversations a month) and Help Scout (5 users, 100 contacts a month, email-first) are free too, with tighter limits.
LiveChat, Intercom, Zendesk and Olark list no free plan; all four offer 14-day trials. Wallu's free account (10 AI replies a month) is for testing, not for running support.
Best for human chat teams
If people answer most chats, seat price matters more than the AI meter.
LiveChat is the specialist for teams of human agents; new plans are sold as Text. Every user who answers chats needs a seat. Essential is $25 per user month-to-month ($19 annually) with 60 days of history and 10 AI resolutions a month; Growth is $99 ($79) with unlimited history and 200. The "Powered by Text" badge comes off only on custom-priced Enterprise (see LiveChat alternatives).
Olark sells a human-only Live Chat plan at $29 per agent a month: plain chat, no AI meter.
Crisp Essentials is $95 a month flat for 10 seats, with omnichannel messaging and a knowledge base. For ten people that is $9.50 a head, our arithmetic.
Zendesk fits when chat is one channel of a large operation: Suite Team ($69 per agent, $55 annually) is its cheapest plan with live chat, and Zendesk sells workforce management and a voice contact centre that smaller tools lack.
Help Scout suits teams where email comes first: Standard is $30 per user ($25 annually). See Help Scout alternatives.
Best AI agent
Intercom. Fin is the strongest AI agent here. It costs $0.99 per outcome with no included allowance, charged at most once per conversation and not at all if the customer asks for a human. Seats are extra, from $39 listed ($29 annually). Fin also runs on other help desks, with a monthly minimum and no seats. The 14-day trial includes Fin.
Olark is the flat alternative. Its AI Website Agent is $400 a month billed annually, with unlimited AI conversations and one human seat; no monthly price is published. Our arithmetic: Fin's charges alone pass $400 at 405 outcomes a month. See Intercom vs Olark.
HubSpot's Customer Agent is the cheapest per resolution at $0.50, but only on Professional ($100 per seat, $90 annually, plus an onboarding fee whose amount is not shown) and Enterprise.
Zendesk includes 5 automated resolutions per agent a month on Suite Team (10 on Suite Professional), then $1.50 each committed or $2.00 pay-as-you-go. Help Scout charges $0.75 per AI resolution, free for the first three months. LiveChat charges $0.99 beyond its allowance.
Cheapest with AI included
The cheapest options, sorted by the month-to-month price of a plan with a monthly AI allowance:
- Tawk.to, $0: 100 AI messages a month; 1,000 for $29 a month ($290/yr), 5,000 for $99 ($990/yr) and 20,000 for $399 ($3,990/yr).
- Wallu, $4.99 ($3.99 billed yearly): 350 AI replies, about 110 conversations; 1,000 for $9.99 ($7.99), 2,500 plus 45 voice minutes for $19 ($15), 7,000 for $49 ($39) and 25,000 for $149 ($119). Priced per account, not per seat. One AI agent answers website chat, Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Discord, Slack and email from a shared inbox and hands over to a human. 7-day trial on Mini, card required (pricing).
- Then Chatwoot ($19 per agent, 300 AI credits), LiveChat ($25 per user, $19 annually, 10 AI resolutions) and Crisp ($45, about 90 AI conversations; at zero, chats go to your team).
Freshchat's 500 AI sessions and Tidio's 50 Lyro conversations are one-time grants, not monthly.
Worked example: 100, 1,000 and 5,000 AI replies a month
Tawk.to, Wallu and Chatwoot all bill per AI-written message, so they compare directly. One person, month-to-month, our arithmetic from their published rates (Chatwoot credits bought in blocks of 1,000), sorted by the 100-reply cost:
| Tool | 100 replies | 1,000 replies | 5,000 replies |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tawk.to | $0 | $29 | $99 |
| Wallu | $4.99 | $9.99 | $49 |
| Chatwoot | $19 | $39 ($19 + $20) | $119 ($19 + 5 x $20) |
Billed annually, Tawk.to's become $290 and $990 a year and Wallu's $3.99, $7.99 and $39 a month; Chatwoot publishes no annual price. A reply is not a resolution: real Wallu conversations average about 3.2 AI replies, so 1,000 replies is roughly 310 conversations, paid for whether or not each reply solved anything.
Best for e-commerce
For a store, two questions matter: can the chat see orders, and what happens to the bill in peak season?
Gorgias, a full help desk rather than a chat tool, is built for e-commerce and belongs on any Shopify shortlist. It bills per ticket, not per agent: $10 a month for 50 tickets (monthly only) or $60 ($50 annually) for 300, plus $1.00 per AI interaction monthly ($0.90 annually), each also counted as a ticket. See Gorgias alternatives.
Crisp has unlimited conversations on every plan, so a sales spike does not change the subscription, and its Shopify, WooCommerce and Prestashop integrations work on the free plan.
Tidio does not count replies from its Lyro AI or Flows automations toward the conversation limit. But monthly plans auto-upgrade to the next tier at 95% of the limit, and on annual plans you cannot reply past the limit until the 1st unless you upgrade. Lyro runs from $39 a month ($32.50 annually) for 50 conversations to $700 for 1,000. See Tidio vs Crisp.
Wallu has a Shopify app that reads real orders (status, tracking) and the live catalogue, but it is not in the public Shopify App Store. WooCommerce is on Pro, $49 ($39 billed yearly).
Best open-source live chat
Chatwoot is the only open-source tool here. Its self-hosted Community Edition is free forever, without Captain AI, on your own server; Premium Support ($19 per agent a month) adds the AI, and the Enterprise Edition is $99 per agent. Chatwoot Cloud runs from free through $19, $39 and $99 per agent (Startups, Business, Enterprise). No annual prices are published.
What a team of 3, 5 or 10 pays per month
Here is the whole team: the cheapest plan that seats everyone and includes live chat, month-to-month, before AI usage. Free plans count only if they seat the team with no published cap on conversations or contacts. Our arithmetic from their published rates (seat price times people), sorted by the 3-person cost, ties alphabetical; the last column is billed annually.
| Tool and plan | 3 people | 5 people | 10 people | 10, billed annually |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Freshchat Free (up to 10) | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Tawk.to (free) | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Wallu Mini (flat) | $4.99 | $4.99 | $4.99 | $3.99 |
| Tidio Starter (flat, 10 seats) | $29 | $29 | $29 | $24.17 |
| HubSpot Starter ($10/seat) | $30 | $50 | $100 | $70 |
| Crisp Mini, then Essentials | $45 | $95 | $95 | Not published |
| Chatwoot Startups ($19/agent) | $57 | $95 | $190 | Not published |
| LiveChat Essential ($25/user) | $75 | $125 | $250 | $190 |
| Olark Live Chat ($29/agent) | $87 | $145 | $290 | $230 |
| Help Scout Standard ($30/user) | $90 | $150 | $300 | $250 |
| Intercom Essential ($39/seat, list) | $117 | $195 | $390 | $290 |
| Zendesk Suite Team ($69/agent) | $207 | $345 | $690 | $550 |
- Per-seat prices multiply; flat prices do not. At ten people, paid per-seat plans run from $100 (HubSpot) to $690 (Zendesk); every flat-priced tool stays at $95 or less, and AI is extra on most per-seat tools.
- Flat plans meter something else. Tidio's $29 covers 100 human-handled conversations (2,000 cost $349); Wallu's $4.99 covers 350 AI replies.
- Two prices may move. HubSpot's $10 seat is a limited-time price ($20 list); at Intercom's $29 test price its row becomes $87, $145 and $290.
Where Wallu is the wrong choice
We make Wallu; here is where we would send you elsewhere.
- Free chat for a team of people. Wallu's free account is 10 AI replies a month. Tawk.to and Freshchat Free cost nothing.
- Human-heavy chat at scale. Wallu has no skills-based routing for large teams, workforce management, SLA policy engine or phone contact centre. LiveChat and Zendesk Suite fit that work better.
- A Shopify-first help desk. Wallu's Shopify app is not in the Shopify App Store, and WooCommerce needs the $49 Pro plan. Gorgias is purpose-built for Shopify.
- Paying only for results. Wallu charges per AI reply sent, resolved or not. Intercom and HubSpot charge only for outcomes or resolutions, and at high, steady volume a flat plan such as Olark's unlimited AI tier can work out cheaper.
- A big ecosystem, or an uptime SLA on a small plan. Wallu has no app marketplace and far fewer integrations than Zendesk, Intercom or HubSpot, is a young company, and publishes no uptime SLA below Enterprise.
Sources and read dates
Every figure comes from the vendor's own pricing page (Wallu's from ours), read on 10 October 2026.
| Vendor | Pricing page | Read |
|---|---|---|
| Chatwoot | chatwoot.com/pricing, self-hosted | 10 Oct 2026 |
| Crisp | crisp.chat/en/pricing | 10 Oct 2026 |
| Freshchat | freshworks.com/live-chat-software/pricing | 10 Oct 2026 |
| Gorgias | gorgias.com/pricing | 10 Oct 2026 |
| Help Scout | helpscout.com/pricing | 10 Oct 2026 |
| HubSpot | hubspot.com/pricing | 10 Oct 2026 |
| Intercom | intercom.com/pricing | 10 Oct 2026 |
| LiveChat (Text) | livechat.com/pricing, legacy plans | 10 Oct 2026 |
| Olark | olark.com/pricing and its older pricing FAQ | 10 Oct 2026 |
| Tawk.to | tawk.to/why-free, tawk.to/add-ons, help centre | 10 Oct 2026 |
| Tidio | tidio.com/pricing | 10 Oct 2026 |
| Wallu | wallu.ai/pricing | 10 Oct 2026 |
| Zendesk | zendesk.com/pricing | 10 Oct 2026 |
Frequently asked questions
What is the best free live chat software?
Tawk.to, for most teams: it is free with no limit on agents or conversations, plus 100 free AI messages a month. Removing its branding costs $39 a month ($348 a year). Freshchat is free for up to 10 agents, without an AI agent.
Which live chat software has the best AI agent?
Intercom's Fin is the strongest among the tools compared here: $0.99 per outcome, plus seats listed from $39 a month ($29 annually). For a flat price, Olark's AI tier is $400 a month billed annually, with unlimited AI conversations.
What is the cheapest live chat software with AI included?
Tawk.to's free AI tier covers 100 AI messages a month. The cheapest paid plans with a monthly AI allowance are Wallu Mini, $4.99 ($3.99 billed yearly) for 350 AI replies, and Chatwoot Startups, $19 per agent with 300 AI credits.
Is there open-source live chat software?
Yes. Chatwoot's self-hosted Community Edition is free forever, without its Captain AI, which Premium Support adds at $19 per agent a month. Its hosted version runs from free to $99 per agent.
Why do live chat prices differ between comparison sites?
Many pricing pages open on annual billing: LiveChat Essential shows $19 but costs $25 month-to-month, and Zendesk Suite Team shows $55 against $69. Intercom was also showing most visitors a $29 test price instead of its $39 list.
