LiveChat Alternatives and Competitors: 2026 Prices Compared

2026-01-15 · Wallu Team · 11 min read · Comparison

LiveChat is now sold as Text plans: $25 per user a month, or $19 billed yearly. Nine alternatives compared on billing unit, AI price and real team cost.

Table of Contents

• What LiveChat costs in October 2026
• What LiveChat does well, and why teams leave
• Decide what you need first
• LiveChat alternatives at a glance
• The alternatives, grouped by need
• What a team of 3, 5 or 10 pays each month
• What the AI adds on top
• Where Wallu is the wrong choice
• Sources and read dates
• Frequently asked questions

Short answer: LiveChat now prices new trials as Text plans: Essential is $25 per user a month month-to-month or $19 billed yearly, Growth $99 or $79, with a seat for everyone who answers chats. For per-seat chat for less, Freshchat ($23, or $19 annually, with a free plan for up to 10 agents) and Chatwoot ($19 per agent, or free to self-host) are the closest matches. Tawk.to is free, with no limit on agents or conversations. To stop paying per seat, Crisp is flat per workspace from $45 a month; for AI that answers most chats, compare Intercom's Fin ($0.99 per outcome), Olark's flat AI agent ($400 a month billed annually) and per-reply pricing such as Wallu's ($4.99 a month for 350 AI replies).

Every competitor price here comes from the vendor's own pages, read 10 October 2026.

What LiveChat costs in October 2026

livechat.com/pricing now shows the same plans as text.com/pricing; its FAQ says "LiveChat pricing for new trials now lives here, as Text plans." It opens on "Billed yearly" ("Save up to 24%").

Every user who answers chats needs a seat. An AI resolution is counted when "the AI directly solved a customer question", once per chat, per account; extra ones cost $49.50 per pack of 50 ($0.99 each). There is no free plan, only a 14-day trial without a card, and the "Powered by Text" badge comes off only on Enterprise. The yearly saving is 24% on Essential but 20% on Growth (our arithmetic).

Existing customers may be on legacy plans: Starter $25 month-to-month or $19 annually (one user), Team $59 or $49, Business $89 or $79, none with the AI Agent.

What LiveChat does well, and why teams leave

LiveChat is built for a team of people answering chats, and its model suits that job: the bill is headcount times a published rate, simple to forecast. The AI agent is now part of the plan, on a fair unit: a resolution is counted only when the AI solved the question, and never twice for one chat.

Teams leave for the same model seen from the other side:

• Seats multiply. Ten people on Growth cost $990 a month month-to-month, or $790 billed yearly (our arithmetic).
• Essential's AI allowance is small (10 resolutions a month); Growth's 200 cost almost four times as much per seat.
• Essential keeps only 60 days of history, and the badge stays below custom-priced Enterprise.

Decide what you need first

Who answers the chats? Per-seat tools charge for people; if an AI should take most chats, its unit (per resolution, session or message, or flat) matters more than the seat. Which channels? For WhatsApp and social messengers, check the plan: Freshchat adds them on Growth, Crisp's omnichannel starts on Essentials, and Chatwoot covers all channels except voice from Startups.

LiveChat alternatives at a glance

Sorted by the month-to-month price of the cheapest paid plan with live chat (Tawk.to has none; ties alphabetical). Prices are month-to-month / billed annually; n.p. means not published.

The alternatives, grouped by need

LiveChat's most direct competitors, sold per seat for human agents, are Freshchat, Chatwoot, Olark, Intercom and Zendesk. Each appears once, where it fits best; see also best live chat software.

If you want it free

Tawk.to: $0, no limit on agents. Tawk.to is free, not a trial: "no caps on conversations, contacts, or chat history", and no card. Extras are per property: branding removal is $39 month-to-month or $348 a year; AI Assist is free for 100 AI messages a month, then $29 a month ($290 a year) for 1,000, up to $399 ($3,990) for 20,000. If seat cost is your only reason to leave LiveChat, try this first. See Tawk.to alternatives.

If you want per-seat chat for a human team

Freshchat: $23 per agent, $19 billed annually (Growth). The nearest like-for-like swap: $2 a seat below LiveChat Essential month-to-month, level with it annually. Growth adds social messengers, WhatsApp and the Freddy AI Agent: 500 sessions once per account, then $49 per 100 ($0.49 each, our arithmetic). The Free plan covers up to 10 agents without AI. Pro is $59 ($49 annually), Enterprise $95 ($79). 14-day trial.

Chatwoot: $19 per agent month-to-month, or free to self-host. Chatwoot is open source, and the only tool here with a published self-hosted edition: Community Edition is free without Captain AI, and Premium Support ($19 per agent a month) adds it. The cloud Hacker plan is free for 2 agents and 500 conversations a month. Startups adds unlimited conversations (fair use), all channels except voice and 300 Captain AI credits. No annual prices are published; extra AI credits cost $20 per 1,000, one per AI message. 15-day trial.

Olark: $29 per agent for Live Chat; $400 a month billed annually for AI. Olark Live Chat is human-only. Its pricing page does not state the cycle; its older FAQ gives $29 with no contract, $23 on a one-year contract paid in full, $19 on two years. The Standard AI Website Agent is $400 a month billed annually (month-to-month not published), with one human seat, extra seats at $29 and unlimited AI conversations: "No token limits, no overages". Live Chat has a 14-day trial, no card. See Olark vs Intercom.

If you would rather not pay per seat

Crisp: $45 a month flat for 4 seats (Mini). Crisp charges per workspace and meters no conversations on any plan, even Free (2 seats, no AI). Mini includes $5 of AI credits (Crisp's estimate: about 90 automated conversations); Essentials is $95 for 10 seats with $25 of credits and omnichannel; Plus is $295 for 20+ seats with $75 of credits and white label. No yearly price is published. When credits run out, chats go to people unless you opt into pay-as-you-go (no published rate). 14-day trial, no card.

Tidio: $29 a month, $24.17 billed annually (Starter). Tidio includes up to 10 seats and bills per "billable conversation", one in which a human agent sends a message; AI and automation replies do not count. Free covers 50 a month, Starter 100, and Growth runs from $59 ($49.17 annually) for 250 to $349 month-to-month for 2,000. Lyro AI is a separate add-on from $39 a month ($32.50 annually) for 50 AI conversations. At the limit you cannot reply until the 1st or you upgrade, and month-to-month plans below Plus auto-upgrade at 95% usage by default. 7-day trial. See Tidio vs Crisp.

If chat is one channel of a full help desk

Zendesk: $69 per agent, $55 billed annually (Suite Team). The cheapest Zendesk plan with live chat; Support Team ($25, or $19) is email ticketing only. Suite Team includes AI agents, telephony and 5 automated resolutions per agent a month; extras cost $1.50 each committed or $2.00 pay-as-you-go. No free plan; 14-day trial of Suite Professional. See Zendesk vs Intercom.

If an AI agent should answer most chats

Intercom: $39 per seat, $29 billed annually (Essential, list), plus Fin. That is Intercom's list price; when we read the page, most visitors were being shown a test price of $29 ($19 annually). Fin costs $0.99 per outcome on every plan, with no included allowance: a confirmed resolution, a customer not asking for more help, or a completed workflow, charged at most once per conversation and never when the customer asks for a human. Spending limits and a 90-day money-back guarantee lower the risk. No free plan; the 14-day trial includes Fin, no card.

Wallu: $4.99 a month, $3.99 billed yearly (Mini), per account. Wallu charges for AI replies sent (1 credit per reply; real conversations average about 3.2), not for seats. Mini includes 350 replies a month (about 110 conversations); Lite is $9.99 ($7.99) for 1,000, Starter $19 ($15) for 2,500, Pro $49 ($39) for 7,000 and Enterprise $149 ($119) for 25,000. One AI agent answers the website chat widget, Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Discord, Slack and email from one shared inbox, from your own knowledge base, with a knowledge-base-only mode and handover to a human. The free account has 10 AI replies a month; the 7-day Mini trial needs a card.

What a team of 3, 5 or 10 pays each month

Seats times the published per-seat price, before AI usage: our arithmetic from their published rates. Cells are month-to-month / billed annually, sorted by the 5-person month-to-month bill, then the 10-person bill. Tawk.to and Freshchat Free cost $0 at every size.

LiveChat Growth is the dearest row at every size; at 10 people, paying yearly saves $200 a month. Tidio and Wallu are left out because headcount does not set their price: Tidio charges by human-handled conversations ($29 for 100 up to $349 for 2,000), Wallu by AI replies ($4.99 for 350 up to $149 for 25,000), both month-to-month.

What the AI adds on top

AI units are not interchangeable. Per-resolution prices (LiveChat, Intercom, Zendesk) charge nothing for chats the AI could not solve; per-session (Freshchat), per-conversation (Tidio) and per-message or per-reply prices (Chatwoot, Tawk.to, Wallu) charge for the work, solved or not; Olark's AI agent is flat.

Worked example: five people, month-to-month, AI resolving 300 chats a month; our arithmetic, sorted by total. LiveChat counts resolutions per account.

At this size, LiveChat Essential plus packs costs less than Growth: buy Growth for unlimited history and more AI Agents, not for its resolutions.

Where Wallu is the wrong choice

We publish this page; here is where we would send you elsewhere.

• Your people answer most chats. Wallu is built and priced around AI replies; it hands over to a human but has no workforce management or skills-based routing for large teams. LiveChat, Freshchat, Chatwoot and Olark suit human chat teams.
• You need a free plan to run support on. Wallu's free account gets 10 AI replies a month; Tawk.to is free with no agent limit, Freshchat for up to 10 agents.
• You need a full help desk. No multi-brand help centre, SLA policy engine or phone contact centre; Zendesk Suite Team includes telephony.
• You depend on integrations. No app marketplace, and far fewer third-party integrations than Zendesk, Intercom, Freshdesk or HubSpot. Wallu is a young company.
• Your AI volume is high and steady. Credits are per reply, and the largest plan covers 25,000 a month (about 7,800 conversations, our arithmetic); a flat plan such as Olark's AI Website Agent ($400 a month billed annually) can work out cheaper.
• You need an uptime SLA on a small plan. None is published below Enterprise ($149 a month, or $119 billed yearly).

Sources and read dates

Frequently asked questions

Is LiveChat now called Text?

For new customers, its pricing is: livechat.com/pricing and text.com/pricing show the same Text plans, and the page says LiveChat pricing for new trials now lives there. Existing customers may be on legacy plans, which have no AI Agent.

How much does LiveChat cost per month?

Essential is $25 per user month-to-month or $19 billed yearly; Growth is $99 or $79; Enterprise is custom and annual only. Everyone who answers chats needs a seat, and there is no free plan, only a 14-day trial.

Does LiveChat include an AI agent?

On the Text plans, yes: Essential includes 10 AI resolutions a month and Growth 200, counted once per chat when the AI directly solved the question. Extra resolutions cost $49.50 per pack of 50, or $0.99 each. Legacy plans have no AI Agent.

What is the cheapest LiveChat alternative?

Tawk.to: $0 with no limit on agents or conversations, plus optional add-ons such as AI Assist (from $29 a month). Freshchat's Free plan covers up to 10 agents without AI. Among paid per-seat plans, Chatwoot ($19 per agent) and Freshchat Growth ($23, or $19 annually) cost less than LiveChat Essential.

Which LiveChat alternatives do not charge per seat?

Tawk.to charges nothing for agents. Crisp charges per workspace ($45 a month for 4 seats, $95 for 10). Tidio includes up to 10 seats and bills by human-handled conversations, from $29 a month. Wallu bills per account by AI replies, from $4.99 a month.