Is free live chat software good enough for a small business?

It can be, if your chat volume is low. Free plans usually cap conversations, seats or channels, and some show the vendor's branding in your chat window. Start free to learn how many chats you really get, then move up when you hit a limit or need email, reporting or automation. Check the cap before you build your workflow on it.

How many agents does a small business need for live chat?

Most small teams start with one to three people who answer chats part of the day. Count the hours your site is busy, not your headcount. If chats arrive only on weekday afternoons, one trained person with a phone app may be enough. Add agents when visitors wait more than a minute for a first reply.

What is the difference between per-agent and per-conversation pricing?

Per-agent pricing charges for each person who answers chats, so cost grows with your team. Per-conversation pricing charges for chat volume, so cost grows with your traffic. A busy site with two agents often pays less per agent. A quiet site with many agents may pay less per conversation. Estimate both before you decide.

Should a small business use a chatbot or live chat?

Use both if you can, but begin with people. A chatbot handles repeated questions at any hour, while live chat covers anything that needs judgment. Most tools in this list now offer some AI. Switch it on for simple questions first, and keep an obvious way to reach a person.

Can I switch live chat tools later without losing my history?

Usually you can export your contacts and some chat history, but formats differ between vendors, so plan the move before you cancel. Ask your current vendor what an export includes, and keep the old account until the new one is tested. Switching is easier early, when you have fewer saved replies and integrations.

Do I need live chat if I already have a contact form?

A contact form makes visitors wait for an email. Live chat answers the question while they are still on the page, which suits pricing, shipping and sign-up questions. You can keep both. Many help desks, including LiveAgent, route form messages and chats into the same inbox, so nothing is answered twice.

Best Live Chat Software for Small Business: 8 Tools Compared

Eight live chat tools compared by what a small team actually pays, which ones have a free plan, and which kind of business each one fits. Prices were checked on the vendors’ own pages.

Published on Oct 16, 2026 by Adam Khaled.

Live Chat Small Business Comparison Help Desk

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The best live chat for small business teams depends on your budget and channels. tawk.to, Crisp and Tidio offer free plans for very small teams, LiveChat is a chat-first tool from $19 per agent a month, and LiveAgent adds email and tickets from $15 per agent a month, and calls from $29. Compare all eight below.

In this article:

How do the 8 live chat tools compare?
How do you choose the best live chat for small business needs?
What does each tool offer a small team?
What does live chat cost a three-person team?
Is free live chat enough?
Which live chat tool fits which business?
How LiveAgent helps small teams with live chat

How do the 8 live chat tools compare?

Four of the eight tools below have a free plan, and the per-agent paid plans start between $15 and $55 a month. The table shows what each vendor lists on its own pricing page. We checked every page on October 14, 2026, and prices change, so confirm before you buy.

Tool	Free option	Paid plan from	How it charges
LiveAgent	30-day free trial, no credit card	$15 per agent a month, billed annually ($19 monthly)	Per agent
LiveChat	14-day free trial, no free plan	$19 per user a month, billed annually ($25 monthly)	Per user
Tidio	Free plan: 50 billable conversations a month	$24.17 a month, billed annually	Per conversation volume
Crisp	Free plan: 2 seats	$45 a month per workspace (4 seats)	Per workspace
tawk.to	Free live chat	$29 a month to remove branding	Free core, paid add-ons
Intercom	14-day free trial	$29 per seat a month, billed annually	Per seat
Zendesk	14-day trial	$55 per agent a month, billed annually ($69 monthly) for Suite Team	Per agent
HubSpot	Free live chat and chatbot builder	Paid tools sit in HubSpot’s paid hubs, see its page	Per hub and seat

Two notes on reading it. Zendesk’s cheaper Support Team plan is $19 per agent a month, but its page says it does not include messaging and live chat, so we list the Suite plan. HubSpot does not publish a live chat price, because chat is part of its CRM products.

How do you choose the best live chat for small business needs?

When you compare live chat software, choose on four things: how the tool charges, whether a free plan covers your volume, which other channels you need in the same inbox, and how much setup you can handle. Features matter less than you expect, because most tools here cover the basics of a chat widget, saved replies and a mobile app.

How it charges. Per-agent pricing grows with your team, and per-conversation pricing grows with your traffic. Work out both for your own numbers.
Free plan limits. Look for caps on conversations, seats or branding before you rely on a free plan.
Other channels. If email, calls or social messages also reach you, a tool that puts them in one inbox saves switching between apps.
Setup time. A small team without a developer needs a widget it can paste into the site and a short guide.
AI. Most tools now sell AI replies. Treat them as an add-on for simple questions, not the reason to pick a tool.

For help with the day-to-day, see our live chat best practices .

What does each tool offer a small team?

Each tool suits a different kind of team, so this section describes the offer and the typical fit. The facts come from each vendor’s own pricing page, and the fit is our opinion. LiveAgent is our product, so judge our entry with that in mind.

LiveAgent

LiveAgent is a help desk with live chat built in. Its Small business plan costs $15 per agent a month billed annually, or $19 billed monthly, and the pricing page lists live chat, ticketing, a knowledge base, a customer portal, contact forms and automation rules in it. Proactive chat invitations arrive with the Medium plan. Social channels such as WhatsApp and Instagram are paid add-ons on the Small and Medium plans and are included from the Large plan. There is a 30-day free trial with no credit card.

Fit: small teams that also answer email and want everything in one inbox.

LiveChat

LiveChat is a chat-first tool. Its Essential plan is $19 per user a month billed annually ($25 monthly) and includes chat, ticketing, 10 AI resolutions a month and 60 days of conversation history. The pricing page shows a 14-day trial, and no free plan.

Fit: teams that mainly want a polished chat widget and nothing else.

Tidio

Tidio has a free plan with 50 billable conversations a month, 10 operators and live chat, ticketing and email management. The Starter plan is $24.17 a month billed annually and includes 100 billable conversations. Pricing follows conversation volume, not seats.

Fit: very small shops with low traffic and many part-time operators.

Crisp

Crisp’s free plan includes 2 seats, a website chat widget and a shared inbox. Mini costs $45 a month per workspace with 4 seats, and Essentials is $95 with 10 seats. The workspace price does not grow with each new agent.

Fit: teams of three or four that want a flat price.

tawk.to

tawk.to offers live chat for free, with a hosted knowledge base, ticketing and contacts included. Removing the “Powered by tawk.to” branding costs $29 a month, and its AI Assist starts at $29 a month. You can also hire chat agents for $1 an hour.

Fit: the tightest budgets, and teams happy to keep the branding.

Intercom

Intercom’s Essential plan is $29 per seat a month billed annually, with Advanced at $85. Its Fin AI Agent costs $0.99 per outcome. There is a 14-day trial with no credit card required.

Fit: teams that plan to lean heavily on AI answers and accept usage-based costs.

Zendesk

Zendesk’s Suite Team plan, which includes messaging and live chat, is $55 per agent a month billed annually, or $69 monthly. The page lists a 14-day trial. Its Suite Team plan is the most expensive entry plan in this list.

Fit: growing teams that expect to need a full service suite.

HubSpot

HubSpot gives you live chat and a chatbot builder free, with no credit card required, and logs chats in its CRM. The vendor’s page does not list paid prices for chat itself.

Fit: businesses already using HubSpot as their CRM.

What does live chat cost a three-person team?

For three agents on annual billing, the paid tools range from $24.17 to $165 a month, based on each vendor’s listed prices. The table is plain arithmetic from the figures above, shown for the tools that charge per seat or workspace. It leaves out add-ons, AI usage and taxes.

Tool	3 agents, per month	Based on
tawk.to, HubSpot	$0	Free chat, branding removal costs extra on tawk.to
Tidio Starter	$24.17	Charged by conversations, not seats
LiveAgent Small	$45	3 × $15
Crisp Mini	$45	Flat, up to 4 seats
LiveChat Essential	$57	3 × $19
Intercom Essential	$87	3 × $29, plus $0.99 per AI outcome
Zendesk Suite Team	$165	3 × $55

The cheapest option is not always the lowest-cost one. A tool that charges by conversations can cost more than a per-agent plan once your traffic grows, and a free plan with a cap can cost you customers when you hit it.

Is free live chat enough?

Free live chat is enough while your chat volume is low and you need only a widget and an inbox. It stops being enough when you hit a conversation cap, need more seats, or want email and reporting next to chat. Treat a free plan as a way to learn your real volume.

Check three limits before you rely on one. Tidio’s free plan caps billable conversations at 50 a month. Crisp’s free plan includes 2 seats. tawk.to keeps its branding in the chat window unless you pay $29 a month to remove it. Our page on free live chat software goes deeper on what to expect.

Which live chat tool fits which business?

The best live chat is the one that fits your traffic, team and channels, not the one with the longest feature list. This is our judgment, based on the prices and plans above.

If your business is…	Look first at
A one-person shop with a tight budget	tawk.to or Crisp free
A small shop with few chats and part-time helpers	Tidio free
A team that only needs chat, nothing else	LiveChat
A team that answers email, chat and calls	LiveAgent
Already running its CRM in HubSpot	HubSpot free chat
Planning a heavy AI-first setup	Intercom
Growing fast and expecting a full service suite	Zendesk

If you want to compare more options, our guides to chat widgets and live chat plugins for WordPress cover other tools, and our page on LiveChat alternatives looks at one vendor in depth. For the choice between bots and people, read chatbot vs live chat .

How LiveAgent helps small teams with live chat

LiveAgent is our product; this guide covers it alongside alternatives. LiveAgent’s live chat software sits inside a help desk, so chats, emails and tickets end up in the same place. Small teams use that to avoid a second tool for email.

What a small team gets on the Small business plan, according to our pricing page : live chat, ticketing, a knowledge base, a customer portal, contact forms, automation rules, integrations, AI agents and multiple language support. For $15 per agent a month billed annually, that is the whole package. The Medium plan adds call center and IVR, reports, proactive chat invitations and service levels.

If email is where most of your support still happens, our guide to a unified inbox for small business shows how chat and email fit together. When you outgrow chat alone, see our overview of help desk software for small business . Young companies can also read our page on live chat for startups and small businesses .

Your next step

Pick two tools from the table and run each on your own site for a week, because the best tool is the one your agents actually use. Count how many chats you get and how many need an agent’s judgment. Those two numbers will tell you more than any comparison, including this one.

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Frequently asked questions

: It can be, if your chat volume is low. Free plans usually cap conversations, seats or channels, and some show the vendor's branding in your chat window. Start free to learn how many chats you really get, then move up when you hit a limit or need email, reporting or automation. Check the cap before you build your workflow on it.
: Most small teams start with one to three people who answer chats part of the day. Count the hours your site is busy, not your headcount. If chats arrive only on weekday afternoons, one trained person with a phone app may be enough. Add agents when visitors wait more than a minute for a first reply.
: Per-agent pricing charges for each person who answers chats, so cost grows with your team. Per-conversation pricing charges for chat volume, so cost grows with your traffic. A busy site with two agents often pays less per agent. A quiet site with many agents may pay less per conversation. Estimate both before you decide.
: Use both if you can, but begin with people. A chatbot handles repeated questions at any hour, while live chat covers anything that needs judgment. Most tools in this list now offer some AI. Switch it on for simple questions first, and keep an obvious way to reach a person.
: Usually you can export your contacts and some chat history, but formats differ between vendors, so plan the move before you cancel. Ask your current vendor what an export includes, and keep the old account until the new one is tested. Switching is easier early, when you have fewer saved replies and integrations.
: A contact form makes visitors wait for an email. Live chat answers the question while they are still on the page, which suits pricing, shipping and sign-up questions. You can keep both. Many help desks, including LiveAgent, route form messages and chats into the same inbox, so nothing is answered twice.

Best Live Chat Software for Small Business: 8 Tools Compared

How do the 8 live chat tools compare?

How do you choose the best live chat for small business needs?