Crisp Alternatives and Competitors in 2026: What They Cost

2026-02-01 · Wallu Team · 11 min read · Comparison

Crisp's paid plans are $45, $95 or $295 a month per workspace, chats unmetered. Eight alternatives and competitors, both billing cycles, from their own pages.

Table of Contents

• What Crisp costs in 2026
• What Crisp does well
• Why teams look for a Crisp alternative
• Crisp alternatives and competitors at a glance
• The alternatives grouped by what you need
• What a team of 3, 5 or 10 actually pays
• Where Wallu is the wrong choice
• Sources and read dates
• Frequently asked questions

Short answer: To stay at $0, use Tawk.to, which is free with no limit on agents or conversations, or self-host Chatwoot's free Community Edition. For AI you pay for only when it resolves a question, trial Intercom ($0.99 per Fin outcome) or, if your support is mostly email, Help Scout ($0.75 per AI resolution). For a team doing live chat all day, LiveChat (now sold as Text plans) and Freshchat are the usual per-seat picks, at $25 and $23 a user month-to-month ($19 each billed annually). If you like Crisp's flat pricing, Tidio and Wallu also charge by volume rather than by seat: Tidio by conversations your team answers, Wallu by AI replies. And run the numbers before you leave: at ten people, Crisp's $95 Essentials plan costs half as much as the cheapest per-seat tool here.

About the prices. Competitor figures were read from each vendor's own pages on 10 October 2026, in both billing cycles where both are published.

What Crisp costs in 2026

Crisp charges a flat price per workspace, not per agent, and no plan meters conversations. Each plan caps seats and includes monthly AI credits for Hugo, Crisp's AI agent.

The conversation counts are Crisp's own estimates, and Enterprise is custom. Three details matter:

• No yearly price is shown. Yearly payment can be switched on in the app after you subscribe.
• Credits are dollars, token-based, and reset monthly. At zero, Hugo stops and conversations go to your human agents, unless you opt in to pay-as-you-go with a spending limit. No per-unit rate is published; Crisp's help article estimates "$0.05 to $0.10 USD" per Hugo conversation.
• The "We run on Crisp" watermark comes off only on Plus.

The trial is 14 days with all features and no card, and nonprofits and students get 50% off.

What Crisp does well

• Unmetered conversations on every plan, Free included. Tidio's plans are priced by how many conversations a human replies to, and Chatwoot's free cloud plan stops at 500 a month.
• Cheap headcount. Ten people on Essentials cost $95 a month, or $9.50 each (our arithmetic): half the cheapest per-seat rate in this article, Chatwoot's $19 per agent month-to-month.
• AI inside the plan price from Mini up, and running out of credits means a handover to humans, not a surprise bill.
• A permanent free plan: two seats and unlimited conversations, though no AI.

For a small human team that wants a predictable bill, Crisp is often the right answer already.

Why teams look for a Crisp alternative

The pressure points are in the plan structure:

• AI starts at $45 a month. Crisp's free plan has none, while Tawk.to's AI Assist is free for 100 AI messages a month and Wallu's Mini is $4.99 ($3.99 billed yearly) for 350 AI replies.
• A fifth seat more than doubles the bill, from Mini at $45 to Essentials at $95.
• AI volume stops at the credits: about 90 AI conversations a month on Mini and 450 on Essentials, then an overage rate Crisp does not publish.
• Removing the branding means Plus, at $295 a month.
• There is no yearly price to budget against.

Crisp alternatives and competitors at a glance

Sorted by the month-to-month price of each tool's cheapest paid plan; Tawk.to sits at $0 because its core product has no paid tier. The billing unit decides your bill more than the headline price does.

Intercom's list price for Essential is $39 per seat month-to-month ($29 billed annually); when we read the page, most visitors were being shown a test price of $29 ($19 annually).

The alternatives grouped by what you need

If you want to pay nothing

Tawk.to — $0. Free forever, with no limit on agents and "no caps on conversations, contacts, or chat history". Extras are priced per property: AI Assist is free for 100 AI messages a month, then $29 a month ($290 a year) for 1,000, $99 ($990 a year) for 5,000 or $399 ($3,990 a year) for 20,000. Removing the "Powered by tawk.to" badge is $39 month-to-month or $348 a year. If two free seats on Crisp were the problem, this fixes it.

The other free plans are narrower. Freshchat (up to 10 agents) and Help Scout (up to 5 users) include no AI, Tidio's free plan allows 50 human-handled conversations a month, and Chatwoot's free cloud plan allows 2 agents and 500 conversations a month.

If you want open source or your own servers

Chatwoot — free self-hosted, or $19 per agent in the cloud. The self-hosted Community Edition is free forever but has no Captain AI, Chatwoot's AI agent; Premium Support adds it for $19 per agent a month. In the cloud, Startups ($19 per agent month-to-month) has unlimited conversations under fair use, every channel except voice and 300 AI credits, and Business ($39) adds voice and automation. No annual prices are published. Pick it if owning the deployment matters more to you than flat pricing.

If you want pricing that does not grow with headcount

Crisp already belongs here. These two also skip per-seat pricing and charge by volume.

Tidio — $29 month-to-month, $24.17 billed annually. Every self-serve plan includes 10 seats. You pay per conversation a human replies to; replies from Lyro (the AI) and Flows (automations) do not count. Starter covers 100 a month, and Growth runs from $59 for 250 ($49.17 annually) to $349 for 2,000 month-to-month.

The catches: the Lyro add-on costs $39 a month ($32.50 annually) for 50 AI conversations and $700 month-to-month for 1,000; at your limit you cannot reply until the 1st unless you upgrade; and monthly plans auto-upgrade at 95% usage by default. Removing Tidio's branding is a $20 add-on on Growth ($16.67 annually). Our Tidio vs Crisp comparison goes plan by plan.

Wallu — $4.99 month-to-month, $3.99 billed yearly. Priced per account by AI replies, with no per-seat charge. Conversations average about 3.2 AI replies, so Mini's 350 replies is roughly 110 conversations. Lite is $9.99 ($7.99 yearly) for 1,000 replies, Starter $19 ($15) for 2,500, Pro $49 ($39) for 7,000 and Enterprise $149 ($119) for 25,000; white-label is on Enterprise.

One AI agent answers eight channels from one shared inbox (website widget, Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Discord, Slack and email) using your own knowledge base, with handover to a human. The 7-day Mini trial needs a card. It fits when the need is AI answers across chat and social channels on a small budget; for people working chats all day, Crisp or a live-chat tool is the closer match.

If you want to pay for AI only when it resolves something

Crisp, Tidio, Tawk.to, Chatwoot, Freshchat and Wallu charge for AI activity, solved or not. These two charge per resolution, as LiveChat does beyond its allowance.

Intercom — $39 per seat month-to-month, $29 billed annually (list). Advanced is $99 ($85) and Expert $139 ($132). There is no free plan; the 14-day trial needs no card and includes Fin.

Fin costs $0.99 per outcome on every plan, with no included allowance; an outcome means the customer confirms the resolution, does not ask for more help, or Fin completes a workflow. There is at most one charge per conversation and none if the customer asks for a human, plus spending limits and a 90-day money-back guarantee.

Help Scout — $30 per user month-to-month, $25 billed annually. An email-first shared inbox, and it does that job well. Plus is $54 ($45 annually) for up to 50 users and 5 inboxes. AI Answers costs $0.75 per resolution, with a spend cap and three free months of unlimited use for new accounts. The free plan covers 5 users without AI. If your Crisp inbox was mostly email, this is the closest fit; see our Help Scout alternatives guide.

If your team does live chat all day

LiveChat — $25 per user month-to-month, $19 billed annually. New customers now buy it as "Text" plans. Essential includes 1 AI agent and 10 AI resolutions a month; Growth ($99, or $79 annually) includes 200. Extra resolutions are $49.50 per 50, which is $0.99 each. Every user who answers chats needs a seat, there is no free plan, and the "Powered by Text" badge comes off only on Enterprise. It is built for people working chats; see our LiveChat alternatives guide.

Freshchat — $23 per agent month-to-month, $19 billed annually. Freshworks' chat product. Growth adds the Freddy AI Agent, social messengers and WhatsApp; Pro is $59 ($49 annually) and Enterprise $95 ($79). Freddy is billed per session (24 hours for chat): 500 sessions are included once per account, then $49 per 100. The free plan covers up to 10 agents, without AI.

What a team of 3, 5 or 10 actually pays

Each tool's cheapest self-serve plan with an AI agent and enough seats, month-to-month, before AI usage beyond what is included. Our arithmetic from their published rates (seats times the rate, or the flat price), sorted by the 5-person column, ties by the 10-person column.

Billed annually, ten seats cost $190 on Freshchat or LiveChat, $250 on Help Scout and $290 on Intercom; Tidio falls to $56.67 and Wallu to $3.99. Crisp and Chatwoot publish no annual price.

Crisp wins on headcount: at ten people it costs half the cheapest per-seat option. The flat rows move with volume instead: Tidio's $68 assumes no more than 100 conversations a month need a human (1,000 means the $179 Growth tier), and 1,000 AI conversations on Wallu is about 3,200 replies, which needs Pro at $49 ($39 yearly).

Adding AI: 300 conversations a month answered by the AI

The same five people, month-to-month, after one-time allowances are used up, with the AI fully answering 300 conversations a month. Sorted by total.

The 3.2 replies per conversation is Wallu's own average; applying it to Tawk.to's AI messages is our assumption. Tidio's row again assumes no more than 100 conversations need a human. If the AI resolves only half, Help Scout's AI cost falls to $112.50 and Intercom's to $148.50, while the other rows barely move. LiveChat and Chatwoot are left out because their included allowances would need assumptions we cannot check.

Where Wallu is the wrong choice

Wallu is one of the options above, so here is where we would send you elsewhere.

• You need a free plan to run on. Wallu's free account gets 10 AI replies a month, enough to test it, not to run support. Crisp, Tawk.to, Freshchat, Help Scout, Tidio and Chatwoot all have free plans meant for ongoing use.
• You want to pay only when the AI succeeds. Wallu counts every AI reply sent, resolved or not; Intercom, Help Scout and LiveChat bill per resolution.
• You need a full help desk. Wallu has no workforce management, multi-brand help centre, SLA policy engine, phone contact centre or skills-based routing for large teams.
• You rely on integrations. There is no app marketplace and there are far fewer third-party integrations than Intercom has. Wallu is a young company.
• You run a Shopify store. Wallu's Shopify app is not listed in the public Shopify App Store, and Wallu is not purpose-built for Shopify the way Gorgias is. WooCommerce needs Pro ($49, or $39 billed yearly).
• You need an uptime SLA on a small plan. None is published below Enterprise ($149, or $119 billed yearly).

Sources and read dates

Crisp's AI estimate, Tawk.to's month-to-month branding price and Tidio's limit rules come from the vendors' help centres, read the same day.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best free alternative to Crisp?

Tawk.to. Its core platform is free forever, with no limit on agents and no caps on conversations, and its AI Assist is free for 100 AI messages a month. If you would rather self-host, Chatwoot's Community Edition is free but has no AI.

How much does Crisp cost in 2026?

Crisp's Free plan is $0 for 2 seats. Mini is $45 a month (4 seats), Essentials $95 (10 seats) and Plus $295 (20+ seats), all flat per workspace and month-to-month; no yearly price is published. The trial is 14 days with no card.

Does Crisp charge per seat or per conversation?

Neither, for the most part. Crisp charges a flat price per workspace, and every plan has unlimited conversations. Each plan caps seats, so growing past the cap moves you up a plan; only Plus sells extra agents, at $10 a month each.

What happens when Crisp's AI credits run out?

Hugo, Crisp's AI agent, stops and conversations go to your human agents, unless you opt in to pay-as-you-go with a spending limit. Crisp publishes no per-unit rate; its help article estimates $0.05 to $0.10 per AI conversation. Credits reset monthly.

Is Tidio cheaper than Crisp?

At entry, yes: Tidio Starter is $29 month-to-month ($24.17 annually), against $45 for Crisp Mini. But Starter covers only 100 conversations that a human replies to, and AI is extra (Lyro from $39, or $32.50 annually, for 50 conversations), so Starter with AI is $68 month-to-month ($56.67 annually), while Crisp Mini includes about 90 AI conversations. See our Tidio vs Crisp comparison.