These days, customers expect instant answers to their questions, and any uncertainty with their purchase can result in a lost sale. At WPBeginner, we offer several professional services, including emergency assistance for hacked sites. So, we know how important it is to offer fast customer service.
However, responding quickly to customer questions can be nearly impossible if your small business doesn’t have a full support team.
Luckily, live chat software can help pick up the slack. When customers have access to a live chat feature, they can get help instantly. This can reduce cart abandonment, boost the user experience, and increase sales on your site.
If you’re looking for the best live chat software, you’re in the right place. We’ve researched all the most popular options, so you don’t have to. We compared them in terms of user-friendliness, features, and more.
After careful consideration, we’ve picked LiveChat, Hubspot, and Tidio as our favorites. That said, we know each small business has unique needs, so you might be looking for something different.
In this article, we’ll share (and evaluate) the 9 best live chat software options to help you instantly answer user questions and convert them into paying customers. All of these live chat services work perfectly with any WordPress website.
Overview of the Best Live Chat Software for Small Businesses
Are you in a rush? You can take a look at our overview of the best live chat software. Feel free to jump to the option you’re most interested in, or keep reading for full details.
| # | Live Chat Software | Best For | Pricing | Free Version |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🥇 | LiveChat | Best all around + for WordPress sites | Starting at $20/agent/month | ❌ |
| 🥈 | Hubspot | Automated chatbots + all-in-one CRM | Starting at $15/seat/month (full CRM) | ✅ |
| 🥉 | Tidio | AI chatbots + free plan | Starting at $29/month for 100 conversations | ✅ |
| 4 | Chatbot | Chatbot templates + AI + social integrations | Starting at $52/month | ❌ |
| 5 | Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) | Email marketing + CRM + free plan | Starting at $15/month | ✅ |
| 6 | Olark | Advanced features like screen-sharing + Zoom integration | Starting at $29/per/seat/month | ❌ |
| 7 | Chaport | Free plan with unlimited chats for 1 user + WordPress plugin | Starting at $29/month/4 operators | ✅ |
| 8 | Freshchat | AI chatbots + streamlined workspace | Starting at $19/agent/month | ❌ |
| 9 | Smartsupp | User behavior monitoring + analytics | Starting at $14/agent/month | ✅ |
How We Test and Review Live Chat Support Software
At WPBeginner, we have personal experience with several of the live chat software options on this list.
We use LiveChat on our own website and have tested and researched Hubspot, ChatBot, and Brevo (extensively) when writing many other articles for our readers.
When testing software that was new to us and when re-evaluating the other tools we were already familiar with, we assessed the following criteria:
- Ease of Use and Compatibility: All live chat software should make your business operations run smoother. To do that, they should be highly user-friendly. With this in mind, we evaluated how easy the live chat software was to set up and install. We also checked for things like plugins to help integrate it with your preferred website builder.
- Customer Support Features: When researching, we looked for all the essential features you might need in live chat software. For instance, we made note of chatbox customization options, support-ticketing tools, and survey forms. We also made sure that the tools we recommend offer integrations with essential eCommerce tools, such as email marketing software.
- Speed and Performance: A live chat feature should help reduce friction in your sales funnel. However, a slow-loading chat window can further frustrate your users. So, we checked how fast each live chat tool was.
- User Reviews: We thoroughly researched every tool we recommended, but we know it’s impossible to try out every single feature and scenario. That’s why we also read user reviews. This helped us fill in any knowledge gaps to provide you with the most accurate assessments.
Why Trust WPBeginner?
At WPBeginner, our team of experts has 16+ years of experience. But, our skills go beyond the world of WordPress. It is part of our mission to help small online businesses in particular.
With that goal in mind, we have accumulated a lot of collective knowledge about eCommerce, online marketing, customer service, and more. We have also used several customer support tools on our own WordPress sites over the years.
For more details, check out our editorial process.
Why Add Live Chat Support to Your Website?
According to eConsultancy, 73% of customers who use live chat are happy with their experience. This is much higher than email, social media, or phone support, where only 44% of people are happy with their experience.
With that in mind, live chat can have a big impact on your online sales and marketing. It allows customers to get instant answers without leaving your website. A positive live chat experience can effectively help customers make a buying decision.
Adding live chat support is proven to reduce cart abandonment rates, increase sales, and boost conversion rates. But a lot of it depends on the live chat software that you use.
However, a poor live chat customer experience can have a negative effect. Slow response times may cause you to miss out on sales, or customers might leave with a bad impression of your brand.
Similarly, you could end up paying too much for your live chat software or struggle to get the most out of software that’s a bad fit for your website, your needs, or your skill level.
Basically, you need to find an affordable live chat service that’s easy to use, works with WordPress or your website builder platform, and comes with everything you need to help your sales team increase profits.
That being said, let’s take a look at our expert pick of the best live chat software providers that you can use to grow your business.
1. LiveChat
LiveChat is the industry leader in live chat software, and for good reason. In our opinion, it is the best all-around live chat software option because it has everything you need. It gives you a customizable chatbox, support ticketing options, and seamless integrations with all the most important business software.
At WPBeginner, we use Livechat on our different web services pages to help connect potential clients to our WordPress experts. For more information about our experience with the software, see our full LiveChat review.
When testing and using LiveChat, we have seen how easy it is to set up and install. If you’re a WordPress user, the free LiveChat plugin makes it highly straightforward.
That said, you can use it on other popular website builder platforms, including Shopify and Wix.
LiveChat’s beautifully designed live chat support apps really make it stand out from the competition. What’s more, your staff can use these apps on their laptops, tablets, and mobile devices so they can easily chat with customers while on the go.
We also really like that you can add pre-chat and post-chat survey forms before and after a live chat session. This way, you can see exactly how well your support team members and sales staff are performing.
When no one is available to answer questions, you can even set up a workflow so customers can send a support ticket directly from the live chat window, and your team will get notifications.
LiveChat integrates with dozens of other services, including popular CRM software such as HubSpot, Google Analytics, and Zendesk. We were super impressed that it supports omnichannel conversations by integrating with WhatsApp and other messaging platforms, and you can connect to tools like join.me for screen-sharing capabilities.
Another nice thing about LiveChat is that it integrates with all the top email marketing services, including Mailchimp and Constant Contact. This will save you time since you don’t have to manually type customer details into your other systems.
We also believe the best thing about LiveChat is its speed. The chat functionality loads extremely quickly and offers a much better user experience than most other live chat software.
Thanks to the built-in tools, it’s also easy to customize LiveChat’s chat box to perfectly match your website branding, which is a huge plus.
LiveChat comes with other support tools that help you improve customer communication, such as visitor tracking and proactive chat invitations.
One of our favorite features is LiveChat’s smart API. We use it to integrate our knowledge base and ticketing system, which helps us streamline customer support processes.
Why we recommend LiveChat: This is hands down our best overall choice for live chat software because it comes with a large set of beginner-friendly features to help you improve your customer support. These include a speedy and customizable chat box, useful survey forms, omnichannel conversations, support ticket workflows, and integrations with all the leading business software. The free LiveChat plugin also makes it ideal for WordPress sites.
Pricing: LiveChat has different plans for businesses of all sizes, including startups. Plans start at $20 per agent per month when billed annually or $24 when paid monthly. Each plan comes with a 14-day free trial.
Special: WPBeginner users can get 30% off their first LiveChat payment with our LiveChat Coupon.
2. HubSpot
HubSpot offers live chat software that integrates seamlessly with its complete CRM. That means all the data from your live chat conversations will be fed directly into your all-in-one marketing platform. This can really help boost your support team’s productivity and efficiency.
We have a lot of experience with Hubspot because we’ve researched it extensively when writing about its CRM, forms, and more. We also tested it in-depth for our complete HubSpot review.
When researching, we discovered that you can customize the live chat design to match your own branding. You can even create automated chatbots for when your team is offline without having to write a single line of code.
Of course, the best thing about HubSpot’s live chat software is that it seamlessly integrates all customer data with the entire HubSpot CRM platform, so you don’t need to input this information manually.
You can use HubSpot’s built-in tools to personalize the chat experience for returning visitors, which is proven to help you get more sales.
Aside from live chat, HubSpot also comes with email marketing automation, optin forms to increase subscribers, a sales CRM, landing page software, help desk software, a self-service customer portal, and other powerful marketing functionality.
This is great because it allows you to communicate with your customers across multiple channels, including live chat, support tickets, and email automation. With that in mind, HubSpot has a lot to offer both small business owners and large enterprise companies.
HubSpot also offers a free version, so you can try this software and then decide whether it’s right for you.
Why we recommend Hubspot: If you’re looking for CRM and email marketing software in addition to live chat and AI chatbots, then we recommend HubSpot. HubSpot’s prices increase quickly, but it offers far more than chatbots and the customer reviews are consistently high.
Pricing: You can add HubSpot chatbots to your website for free. However, if you want to use additional tools, such as HubSpot’s drag and drop landing page builder, then you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan. These start at $15 per seat per month when billed annually or $20 per seat per month when billed monthly.
3. Tidio
If you manage a smaller team and need AI chatbots for around-the-clock support, Tidio may be perfect for your business. Our favorite thing about Tidio is its drag-and-drop builder, which is super user-friendly.
When researching, we found that you can set up Tidio on your site within minutes and customize the live chat pop-up to match your branding.
With Tidio, you get an overview of all the visitors on your website and can even see what your customers are typing in real time. This helps you respond to your customers faster and deliver a better overall visitor experience.
No matter where you are, you can keep in touch with customers using Tidio’s desktop or mobile app, or its browser widget.
In addition to live chat, you can use Tidio to easily add chatbots to your website. This allows you to automate your sales, support, and customer service by using artificial intelligence to answer up to 70% of customer questions.
We were impressed when we saw that Tidio comes with over 35+ ready-made chatbot templates. These include workflow templates for offering new visitor discounts, collecting visitor information, recommending products, abandoned cart recovery, frequently asked questions, and more.
As we mentioned, we also love Tidio’s drag-and-drop builder, which makes it super beginner-friendly. You can use it to customize all of the automated templates and create your own custom chatbot, no coding required.
Tidio seamlessly integrates with popular platforms like WordPress, WooCommerce, Shopify, Squarespace, and many others.
Why we recommend Tidio: This live chat software is great if you need AI chatbots and beginner-friendly features. It is also a solid free option (though conversations are limited).
Pricing: Tidio has a limited free plan that supports 3 operators, but it only offers 50 live chat conversations per month. Paid plans start at $29 per month and include more advanced live chat features.
4. ChatBot
We believe that automated chatbots are the future of live chat software because they allow you to engage with your customers 24/7. That’s why we recommend ChatBot.
We have researched this tool extensively for our full ChatBot review, and we found it to be powerful yet very user-friendly.
This tool helps small businesses use the power of artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots to boost customer engagement and overall customer satisfaction.
When testing, we found that ChatBot’s intuitive drag-and-drop interface makes building your own automated bot highly straightforward.
Plus, it has dozens of ready-made templates for various industries that are completely customizable. So, you can design conversation scenarios and chat routing that perfectly fits your business needs.
For example, you can use the eCommerce bot template to walk your customers through the entire buying process.
You can also use ChatBot’s lead generation template to automatically collect a lead’s contact information. Meanwhile, the sales template encourages customers to explore your latest deals and helps them find what they’re looking for.
In our opinion, Chatbot’s templates are easily one of the best things about it. It even has templates for specific industries, including a coffee shop bot, recruitment bot, and restaurant bot.
We also appreciate that ChatBot doesn’t limit you to just websites. It also allows you to add a virtual assistant to Facebook Messenger or Slack.
If visitors want to communicate with a real person, then you can seamlessly forward them to your customer support agent, phone support, or any of ChatBot’s live chat tool integrations.
ChatBot also integrates seamlessly with WordPress and WooCommerce.
We use ChatBot to power the various chatbots on our eCommerce websites, and it even seamlessly integrates with LiveChat (the #1 provider on our list).
Why we recommend ChatBot: This tool stands out for its AI chatbots and its large collection of bot templates. It also offers impressive integrations for social media platforms like Facebook and Slack. Overall, ChatBot can help with lead generation, customer support, and much more.
Pricing: ChatBot has various plans for businesses of all sizes. Plans start at $52 per month when billed annually, which gives you 1000 chats per month. Each plan comes with a 14-day free trial.
5. Brevo (Formerly Sendinblue)
Brevo, formerly known as Sendinblue, is a powerful yet beginner-friendly live chat platform. We think it’s a great option for anyone looking for an affordable solution with lots of email marketing features.
It is actually a full CRM solution, which we have researched in depth when writing our complete Brevo review.
Like most live chat software, Brevo allows you to easily convert your website visitors into customers by answering their questions in real time. That said, the main benefit of Brevo’s chat feature is that it integrates with the entire Brevo CRM.
Since Sendinblue was originally email marketing software, Brevo really shines in the department. It offers built-in email marketing integration, automation, retargeting for Facebook ads, segmentation, and much more.
Overall, Brevo offers a powerful toolkit that helps you convert even more visitors into paying customers.
Why we recommend Brevo: This is one of our favorite live chat software options because it comes with the potential of the entire Brevo CRM. Thanks to its powerful email marketing features, this is a great option for small businesses and growing teams alike.
Pricing: Brevo has a few different pricing plans, but live chat for one user is included in the free plan. If multiple people need access to Brevo, then you’ll need to buy a Business plan, which starts at $15 per user per month.
6. Olark
Olark is a popular multichannel live chat solution for online businesses. We think it’s great for growing businesses that also need advanced customer support features like screen-sharing and Zoom integration.
When researching Olark, we were impressed by its automation rules. You can use it to greet customers automatically, send canned responses to answer FAQs quickly, and forward chats to the right department or sales rep.
All of this can help improve the customer experience while reducing your support staff’s workload.
We also appreciate that Olark lets you save and use chat transcripts later. This makes follow-ups easier. Plus, the co-browsing add-on allows chat agents to view visitors’ screens to solve problems faster.
Another great thing about Olark is that it integrates with some of the most popular business services. These include Salesforce, Google Analytics, Slack, Mailchimp, and Zoom to host video chats.
There are third-party mobile apps that allow you to connect to Olark chat from almost any iOS or Android device, so you can chat with customers on the go.
With that said, one downside we noticed is that the WordPress Olark plugin is quite outdated and doesn’t have many reviews. So, it may not be the best option for WordPress users.
Why we recommend Olark: This live chat tool gives you everything you’d expect from a live chat tool, and more. We believe its powerful features can help any business. In particular, it may be especially useful for fast-growing companies that need more advanced customer support features like screensharing and video chats.
Pricing: Olark offers several pricing plans starting from $29 per agent per month. It also offers a 2-week free live chat support trial.
7. Chaport
If you are looking for free live chat software for WordPress, then we recommend Chaport. This is the only option on our list that offers unlimited chats with the free version and an updated WordPress plugin to easily connect it to your WordPress site.
Chaport also has live chat support apps for mobile devices, a 30-day chat history, and some basic options to customize the Chaport live chat widget. We appreciate that Chaport gives you all the basics.
In addition, you can answer questions directly from the Chaport dashboard from all of your communication channels, including live chat, Facebook, Telegram, and Viber.
Another nice thing about Chaport is that it can integrate with over 2,000 applications using Zapier.
As we mentioned, the free plan offers unlimited chats forever, but keep in mind that this is only for one operator.
Paid plans give you access to more features and more users. For instance, you can get on-demand reports, autoresponders, and more advanced customization options. That way, you can style the website chat widget to perfectly reflect your branding.
Why we recommend Chaport: This is an excellent live chat software for individuals running a business by themselves. It’s also a good choice for WordPress users since it has a handy plugin to connect the software to your site.
Pricing: Chaport offers a free plan. If you want more advanced features, the Premium plans start at $29 per month when paid annually for 4 operators.
8. Freshchat
Freshchat is another solid live chat support software with awesome features that rival some of the more well-known companies on this list. We recommend it if you want AI chatbots at a reasonable price and an organized customer support workspace.
Designed to be a conversation and messenger app, Freshchat allows you to start real-time chats with customers using agents or AI-powered bots.
We like that it comes with a beginner-friendly bot builder that lets you create custom bots to answer common questions without having to write any code. These bots can also collect information from visitors automatically and forward more difficult questions to the right department.
We especially appreciate that Freshchat shows all customer messages in one central workspace, no matter where those messages came from. This helps your support staff respond to questions quickly, and be more productive.
Plus, it can help keep your customer support team organized as your business scales.
Why we recommend Freshchat: This is another strong option for live chat software because it gives you AI chatbots and an organized workspace for a decent price. Plus, its code-free builder makes it super easy to build custom chatbots.
Pricing: Freshchat offers a limited free plan for up to 10 agents, but this doesn’t include any free bot sessions. Paid plans start at $19 per agent per month when billed annually and include up to 5,000 free bot sessions per month.
Freshchat also offers a 21-day free trial.
9. Smartsupp
Smartsupp is a low-cost live chat messaging app and chatbot software that stands out for its analytics and monitoring features. It can help you better understand customer behavior.
When researching Smartsupp, we discovered that it allows you to track and record user sessions on your website. You can then analyze each recording alongside the visitor’s live chat messages.
This helps you understand what triggers visitors to reach out to your customer support staff. You can then fix these problems and improve the customer experience.
Smartsupp also collects information about the people who visit your website and records their conversation history. You can even contact visitors directly to offer them help based on the information you’ve already collected about that person.
Plus, Smartsupp helps you track chat conversations in Google Analytics so you can monitor the performance of your customer service staff and view important metrics. Smartsupp works with WordPress, Magento, Shopify, and other popular eCommerce platforms.
Why we recommend Smartsupp: This software stands out for its affordability and user-monitoring features. It allows you to record user behavior to better understand what triggers customer inquiries. Plus, it has a handy integration with Google Analytics.
Pricing: Smartsupp offers a basic free-forever plan that includes live chat for 1 agent and up to 50 conversations. Paid plans start at $14 per month for 1 agent. There is also a 14-day free trial.
Which Is the Best Live Chat Software? (Expert Pick)
For small businesses, we recommend LiveChat as the best live chat software. We believe that LiveChat has all the features you need to answer customer questions and boost conversions at the right price.
Plus, we use LiveChat on our own websites, so we’re speaking from experience.
If you’re looking for an all-in-one marketing and CRM platform that also offers live chat software and a chatbot builder, then look no further than HubSpot. You can also use its live chat for free, which makes it perfect for every budget.
If you’re looking for a dedicated chatbot software, then we recommend that you look at ChatBot. It’s one of the best chatbot platforms on the market, and the chatbot is actually relatively easy to set up compared to other solutions.
Expert Tip: Make sure that you have a professional business email address along with live chat to boost your credibility.
Frequently Asked Questions About Live Chat Software
Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about live chat software:
What is a business live chat software?
Business live chat software allows you to communicate with your customers in real-time when they’re on your website. This helps you answer their top questions, so they can make a purchase.
Often, businesses use live chat for pre-sales inquiries as well as customer support because it is more efficient than offering phone support using a business phone service.
Which live chat software is the best for you?
While the best live chat software can vary based on your needs, we believe that LiveChat, HubSpot, and Chatbot are the best live chat software for most business needs.
What are the benefits of live chat software?
The biggest benefit of live chat software is improved efficiency and productivity for your business because your support team members can handle multiple customer conversations at the same time. Live chat software allows you to offer real-time support, which also leads to improved customer engagement and an increase in sales conversions.
Which is the best free live chat software?
The best free live chat software is WhatsApp. Often, small businesses use WhatsApp to chat with their customers. Although this is not a true live chat software, it works when your business is really small.
However, as your business grows, you will need proper live chat software like LiveChat.
Which chat app is better than WhatsApp?
Most live chat software is better than WhatsApp because it gives you access to better workflows, integrations, and more.
Disclaimer: To help avoid choice paralysis, we only compared the top 9 best live chat apps. This list doesn’t include other live chat software like PureChat, Intercom, Drift, FreeChat, and LiveAgent because we believe the solutions mentioned in this article are simply better.
We hope this article helped you choose the best live chat support software for your WordPress site. You may also want to see our tutorial on how to add a free live chat in WordPress or our list of the best phone services for small business.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
Dennis Muthomi
One thing I would like to add is to always set up “business hours” rules first. Even if you’re planning 24/7 support, it helps teams ease into things. Your customers will know exactly what to expect during the rollout.
Mrteesurez
I have never tried any of these live chat app except WhatsApp, it’s free and can be a great deal for a very small business or a beginner.
Livechat apps give users quick way to reach to support. Nice post.
But I think Livechat that uses AI will be good for user support.
Dayo Olobayo
That’s a great point about WhatsApp being a convenient option. However, for businesses growing beyond a small scale, dedicated live chat software might offer features like canned responses, ticketing systems, and analytics, which can streamline your workflow.
Corrado
Interesting tools
WPBeginner Support
Glad you think so!
Admin
tamas adt lenhardt
thanks for recomendations!
WPBeginner Support
You’re welcome
Admin
Marian
Thanks for this list!
WPBeginner Support
You’re welcome Marian
Admin
Niresh Shrestha
I like the way you describe the details for every single point. That’s awesome list out here.
WPBeginner Support
Glad you found our list helpful
Admin
Bala
Good to learn new things from WPBeginner
WPBeginner Support
Happy to hear we can share new tools with you
Admin
Esther
I have learnt a lot through this. thank you
WPBeginner Support
You’re welcome Esther
Admin
bob
Excellent work for you and, of course, for us, too; keep on.
WPBeginner Support
Thank you, glad you liked our list
Admin
Tulaiha Saifullah
very helpful thanks
WPBeginner Support
You’re welcome
Admin
Merit
Thanks for another great analysis. Whenever I have a question about the best tools to use for WordPress, I know I will find reliable advice from WPBeginner. I have consulted your website since its beginning. Thanks for all you do to help our community.
WPBeginner Support
Thank you for your continued support Merit
Admin
Giovanni
In my experience, the best chat is AskmeChat
WPBeginner Support
Thanks for sharing your recommendation
Admin
O. Destiny
Your number 1 plugin added over 5 seconds to the load speed of my website.
WPBeginner Support
If you reach out to the plugin’s support they should be able to help you find the reason your site is being slowed that drastically.
Admin
Paulo
Great list.
But.. sorry to say that I have tested them all and the best one is not on the list: crisp chat
WPBeginner Support
Thank you for your recommendation for future updates to this article
Admin
David Cornish
Great list of benefits! I would definitely recommend live chat on any website. My personal experience with live chat is that it helps me to communicate better with website visitors and increase business leads.
aaditya
if need free live chat widget which one is best?
WPBeginner Support
It would depend on your other needs, You would want to reach out to the ones with a free plan to see if they have the other tools you are wanting to use for your live chat.
Admin
Elena
I’ve been using customerly live chat. Very good product and free for most of the good features.
Dhruba
Hi, is there any chat plugin that can also be installed on client sites ?
Harold
Could you recommend Chat plugin that has triggers like when users spend a certain amount of time on a page?
Pawel Halas
Wow, that’s a nice list! I have got to say that there are hundreds of live chats available for wordpress, but only few are capable, quality products.
I can recommend LiveChat (no.1 on the list here) for its comprehensive approach to online customer support. It has ticketing system built-in and a set of powerful sales boosting features.
A truly great all-rounder – especially for ecommerce websites.
Francisco
Hello,
Do you know a good plugin to use with chat and video in order to have a video chat room?
Also, I think it is needed a good hosting to support a web page with this kind of plugin.
Let me know your comments
Danny Geurts
Hi, good info.
I have a quastion what is a good plugin to have for live chat, video, audio support with paid customers only and track the use of the customer and the support member (time they talk)
regards. Danny
Yasser
Thanks for this post, been looking for a good solution for live chat as I feel too many customers are leaving the site with unanswered questions and I am at my desk almost all the time, I might as well have a live chat and try to help convert visitors by answering their questions.
By the way, I really love how clean and simple your theme is, what theme are you guys using on wpbeginner.com if you don’t mind me asking, feel free to refer me to an affiliate link if you have one hehe.
WPBeginner Support
We are using a custom theme.
Admin
WPBeginner Staff
We have corrected the mistake. Thanks for pointing out
ankush
The word ‘create’ in last second para has been used twice. Just pointing out.
WPBeginner Staff
Depends on which live chat support software you are using. Most of them are highly optimized for speed.
Ammar
Hi i have a question, does this make your website slow? :
Aurelie Chazal
I saw few comments about Quick Chat slowing down your website but haven’t seen any complains for others. I know with some providers, the chat window sometimes appears with a bit of a delay but it shouldn’t slow down your entire website.