10 Best LiveChat Alternatives in 2023

Businesses are always looking for ways to hook potential customers to their website instantly. Live chat is a great customer support tool that allows your brand to solve customer queries, engage with them, and instantly delight them. LiveChat is one of the most popular chat solutions you can choose for your business. However, it is expensive which makes LiveChat’s alternatives a better fit for smaller businesses.

So, how do you pick the right live chat solution for your business?

Since we are looking at alternatives to LiveChat, we should highlight its drawbacks and choose the best solution that helps fill those gaps. Let’s look at each solution and its features to help you identify the best LiveChat alternatives.

In this blog, we will discuss the 10 Best LiveChat alternatives that you can try for your business.

LiveChat Alternatives Features & Price Table

What is LiveChat?

LiveChat is a customer support tool that allows you to connect with customers in real-time. The tool has multiple features to simplify the support experience such as eye-catchers, targeted messaging, chat routing, etc.

With useful customization features such as agent profiles, you can upgrade the look and feel of your chat widget. LiveChat also supports integrations with knowledge bases, so that you can offer relevant help articles to customers. 

Since this solution offers active engagement and personalization, why look for an alternative? 

Why Look for a LiveChat Alternative?

While LiveChat offers Rich Messages, team management features, and many advanced features, it is one of the costlier live chat solutions out there. To use specific features like setting up different agent groups and various automatic triggers, you have to spend more.

We’ll discuss some reasons why looking at each LiveChat competitor can help you reach a decision quickly. 

LiveChat has four pricing tiers: $16/month (Starter), $33/month (Team), $50/month (Business), and an Enterprise plan. To build a chatbot, you need to purchase the Business Plan. Also, when it comes to basic reporting features, you are unable to access them unless you purchase the Team Plan. 

You will not get full chat customization in the Starter Plan which already runs costlier than our premium plan.

Another reason to look for a Live Chat alternative is that it is a heavy application that requires a lot of processing of JavaScript. This slows down your website loading time significantly, and it can affect your page rankings. After all, page loading time is a huge factor when it comes to SEO. 

LiveChat takes almost 5.4 seconds to appear after the website has loaded. This loading time is affected by the JavaScript required to load LiveChat, and if you wish to add images, GIFs, and external scripts, this will increase. 

What’s more, there are other software issues like a static user interface that cannot be changed by users. LiveChat customers often mention that while the UI is user-friendly, it can quickly get boring due to the lack of customization options.

The Features to Look for in LiveChat Alternatives

Now let us look at the criteria to follow for selecting the best Live Chat Alternatives for your business. Here we will list 7 features that your live chat solution should include, and why are they important. Read on to find out these salient features:

1. Reliable Metrics to Assess Performance

With live chat metrics, you can feel confident that your team is on the right track. You can track live chat performance and assess if your operators are doing their best. It becomes easier to highlight gaps in their approach, and you can direct them towards the right support practices.

When you look at the best alternatives to LiveChat, you should consider great reporting and analytics features. Live chat solutions like Olark, LiveAgent, and ProProfs Chat have great reporting capabilities. 

2. Simple and Quick Installation

If you don’t have enough knowledge of coding, then this list might be for you. Most of the tools listed here are easy to install. Also, this can save you time on having to go through online guides and video tutorials to install it.

So, consider the ease of installation when making a decision.

The advantage of having an easy-to-install live chat solution is that you don’t need a developer to set it up. So, you save you on costs too. Most tools on the market can be set up in just a few quick and easy steps. 

3. Easy to Build a Chatbot

While you can build a chatbot on LiveChat fairly quickly, the pricing part gets tricky. When you search for the best free alternative to LiveChat, you will find a chatbot-building tool absent. It is because most live chat providers charge a premium for this service. As we mentioned, LiveChat does this as well. 

However, you can get a free chatbot builder on Hubspot’s Sales Hub. But then again, the number of interactions will be limited. So, to build a chatbot quickly, you need to invest in a holistic live chat solution. ProProfs Chat allows you to create chatbots at a low cost too!

When choosing a live chat solution, check if the chatbots you can build are decision trees or AI-powered ones.

4. Proactive Instant Support

One of LiveChat’s strengths is automated greetings to help initiate conversations. When you try other chat tools, you should be able to display the same engagement when chatting with visitors. 

Proactive chat has three benefits: higher engagement rates, better customer service, and more leads. With this feature, you don’t have to wait for customers to engage with you; instead, you can initiate conversations with them.

5. Suits Your Budget

LiveChat is quite an expensive customer support tool, and it might not be the first choice for smaller businesses. After all, most basic features start from $33/month. So, while you are looking at a feature-rich solution, you don’t want to exceed your budget. 

We suggest that you look at the best live chat software that helps you offer a great customer experience, but also automates a lot of the support processes for your live operators. In our list of ten tools, we will include those in varying price points, so you will find it easy to make a choice.

6. Software Integrations

When you integrate your live chat solution with useful applications, you can improve its scope of functionality. For instance, when you integrate live chat with CRM, you can capture leads and store them in the CRM. You can create a complete support strategy this way!

What’s more, by integrating live chat with CRM, you can get up-to-date information on the customer and view their past transcripts. You can get a complete view of the customer before they even start chatting with you. 

So, when you look at ways to improve customer support, you need to look at alternatives that offer integration options.

7. Advanced Features

Basic features in live chat might not be enough for your customer support strategy. You need advanced features like tracking APIs, Push URLs, invitation pop-ups, etc. A live chat solution that offers all these options allows you to optimize and personalize your customer experience.

The issue is that advanced features come at a hefty price. But having them for your business is crucial for offering a user-friendly experience. For example, with chat invitation pop-ups, you can entice prospects to converse with you. This further interests them in making a purchase.

Our Selection Criteria for Choosing LiveChat Alternatives

Now let us look at the considerations for choosing the best tool. We will discuss indicators like pricing, availability, and customer feedback to help understand which is a good fit for your business.

1. Customer Ratings

When looking at the ideal customer service tool, we need to know what other customer service professionals think about it. Customer ratings are a great indicator of how well a solution works. Brand perception and customer experience become two key factors in making the right choice.

2. Pricing

Many people complained about LiveChat’s cost, but also its restrictive plans added to their woes. We previously mentioned that their lower-tier plans miss many basic features. So, when you look for a new solution, view the plans carefully.

3. 24×7 Customer Support

Finding the right product is good news, but having unsatisfactory customer support complicates things. With round-the-clock support, it becomes easier to solve any hiccups while using the product. Brands focusing on improved accessibility are the ones you should choose.

4. Customer Feedback

As much as customer rating helps, nothing can beat customer feedback. We have checked various sources and reviews on each tool before curating this list. Also, we have received recommendations from some of our customers. 

With all of these crucial factors kept in mind, let us look at our list of best livechat alternatives that can help your business reshape its customer support strategy. 

What are the best LiveChat Alternatives?

We know that LiveChat is one of the best solutions out there. But it has some minor issues which make other live chat options more appealing.

1. ProProfs Chat

ProProfs Chat is a comprehensive solution and is probably the best alternative to LiveChat. It allows you to engage with prospects in real-time and initiate conversations with them. With numerous features to automate support, it simplifies customer service for your agents.

With advanced canned responses, you can engage with multiple customers and reduce wait times. You can also send chat greetings to website visitors and add smart triggers to key pages. So, when someone is on the purchase page, they will receive a greeting.

With ProProfs Chat, you get 50+ integrations with various CRM, social media, and help desks. When you compare LiveChat Vs ProProfs Chat, our solution offers useful features like intelligent chat routing, announcements, and detailed reports at an affordable price.

Features of ProProfs Chat

• Serve help articles with integrations to knowledge bases.
• Handle multiple chats with canned responses and save time.
• Announce product updates with chat announcements.
• Intelligently route chats to the right department and agent.

Pricing

ProProfs Chat has the following pricing tiers:

• Trial Plan: $0/15 days
• Essentials: $20/month
• Premium: $60/month
• Business: Contact our team

Choose it for: lead generation, resolving queries, and product walkthroughs

3rd Party Integrations allowed: Yes

Suited for:  Small, medium, and large businesses

Pros: It has a robust reporting and analytics feature. Also, their customer service is prompt.

Cons: It doesn’t offer adequate social media integrations to capture tickets from Twitter, Instagram, etc. 

Case Study:

Elias Music is a full-service music and audio agency that wanted to connect its listeners with their music. But they were unable to capture the attention of users searching the website. So, they decided to get in touch with us. 

We helped them set up the solution and also with implementing best practices that made real-time communication possible.

Want to grow sales or improve support 24×7 with ProProfs Chat?

Get Started Free >

2. Intercom

Intercom is a great customer service tool that allows you to target messages based on user behavior and offer conversational support. With chatbots, you can automate your work, and offer 24×7 support. You can offer self-service options to customers through knowledge bases.

You can connect your tools and build workflows to create opportunities for communicating with customers. You get the option to integrate your live chat with 300+ apps which is more options in comparison to LiveChat.

Features of Intercom

• Serve self-help articles with integrations to knowledge bases.
• Offer proactive support and initiate conversations with customers.
• Deliver product walkthroughs to keep customers engaged in the journey.
• Capture offline messages and respond to them when agents are available.

Pricing

Get in touch with the company for a quote.

Choose it for: targeted messaging, lead generation, building chatbots

3rd Party Integrations allowed: Yes

Suited for: Medium, and Large businesses

Pros: You can run A/B tests on how your chatbots will perform.

Cons: Their customer service isn’t responsive.

Case Study:

At Unity, a 3D gaming development platform, the team in charge of Pro subscriptions had been tasked with improving the revenue from the Pro plans. The team always felt that they should be present where customers are. 

When they went through live chat solutions, one of the team members remembered that he had used Intercom earlier for in-app messaging. So, they decided to try Messenger, after which they were able to have more conversations with customers.

3. Zendesk suite

Zendesk Suite is helpdesk software that offers live chat services. With their live chat solution, you can connect with your customers in real-time and personalize their experience. You get to customize the live chat widget and match it with your branding. 

With Zendesk Suite, you can build chatbots to streamline your customer support. Their chatbot is called AnswerBot, and it is a great tool for capturing leads. You can integrate it with social media to capture chats from Facebook or WhatsApp. 

Features of Zendesk Suite

• Set canned responses for routine queries to streamline support for multiple users.
• Supports knowledge base and help desk to deliver a complete support strategy.
• Automate support with chatbots and reduce agent workload. 
• Customize and brand your live chat with numerous personalization options.

Pricing:

Starts from $49/month.

Choose it for: building chatbots, offering self-service, better personalization, capturing leads

3rd Party Integrations allowed: Yes

Suited for: Medium and Large Businesses.

Pros: You get the option of integrating with other chatbot applications and not just the native chatbot.

Cons: Users can find it challenging to export data when using Zendesk Suite. It is because some data gets lost in the export process.

Case Study:

OnePlus, the smartphone company, wanted to streamline its customer support processes. They wanted to offer a unified customer service experience, and the company wanted to stay with Zendesk’s services. So, they expanded their solution to include Zendesk Chat.

About 60% of OnePlus’ support queries come from live chat, and it was easier for them to stay with a single customer support software vendor.

4. LiveAgent

With LiveAgent, you get a fast live chat widget to instantly connect with customers. Using it you can improve your conversational marketing and customer retention rate. You can track visitors and proactively chat with them to drive conversions as well as engagements. 

Smart chat routing allows you to direct chats to the right department. With chat analytics features, you can improve operator performance. Also, you can customize the chat button’s look completely, allowing you to match your live chat solution with your branding.

Features of LiveAgent

• Set canned messages for live chat agents.
• Track sessions with visitors on Google Analytics.
• Anticipate the queries of visitors while they are typing.
• Chat with customers in real-time and initiate conversations.

Pricing

Starts from $29/month.

Choose it for: visitor tracking, personalization features, analytics

3rd Party Integrations allowed: Yes

Suited for: Small, medium, and large businesses

Pros: LiveAgent gives a good bundle of a ticketing system and live chat. 

Cons: The tool has a spam filter, but it isn’t completely accurate.

Case Study

Not Available

5. Jivo chat

JivoChat is a user-friendly live chat solution that is both cost-effective and efficient. You can use it to engage customers in real-time and offer canned responses to speed up response times. The chat widget is moveable and can be resized as per your customer’s requirements. 

You converse with customers even via your mobile app as JivoChat is supported on every OS. Every word on the chat can get accurately translated into the language your agent is comfortable with. With proactive invitations, you can keep customers hooked to your website.

What’s more, it has a free plan, making a great free LiveChat alternative.

Features of JivoChat

• Supports 20+ languages and offers accurate translation. 
• Supported on every mobile device and every modern OS.
• Set canned responses for repeat queries to reduce response time.
• View previous customer data by integrating it with CRM.

Pricing

Starts from $19/month.

Choose it for: user-friendly chat widget, proactive invitations, canned responses, chat announcements

3rd Party Integrations allowed: Yes

Suited for: Small, medium, and large businesses

Pros: It is really easy to train a new agent to use it.

Cons: The UI could be updated.

Case Study

Armyoriginal, an e-Commerce store based out of Slovakia, needed a way to make purchasing their products easier. They sell clothing, apparel, and accessories for adventure, tactical, and other sports including hiking. Often, it can be hard to choose the right gear.

Using JivoChat, they were able to capitalize on the opportunity of guiding customers through the purchasing process. The company is able to actively resolve customer queries.

6. Userlike

Userlike is a refreshing change from other live chat solutions. You can engage your customers with a personalized experience that is both user-friendly and seamless. Prospects can click on the department they wish to talk to. You can create operator groups for this.

You can forward chats to any agent with the previous context so that they can offer a better customer experience. Customers no longer have to repeat themselves. Users can select the skills they expect operators to have, leading to quicker resolution and better experience.

Features of Userlike

• Forward chats to any operator with the context of the previous conversation.
• Builds customer profiles based on previous information, allowing you better insight.
• Capture chat ratings and feedback to improve operator performance.
• Ask questions with pre-chat and post-chat surveys to shape your support strategy.

Pricing

Starts from $90/month.

Choose it for: contextual support, reports and analytics, and chat routing

3rd Party Integrations allowed: Yes

Suited for: Medium and large businesses

Pros: Transferring chats is easy with a round-robin management system.

Cons: It doesn’t have a mobile app yet.

Case Study

Villeroy & Boch have been making bathroom accessories for nearly three centuries. They needed a live chat solution that allowed them to better understand their customer and help them find the right product. When they came upon Userlike, they realized it could help them.

Although they already had many existing channels, it seemed like a live chat would be a wise investment. So, they went ahead, and they found that it is accepted the most widely by the customer service team because of its amazing UI.

7. Drift

Drift is a great support tool that allows you to automate your support processes. Although it has amazing features for automation, it combines live chat to bring a human touch to sales and support. With their live chat solution, you can shorten the sales cycle and improve conversions.

You can use chat to call or call to Zoom to engage prospects with a video call on the spot. Also, Drift Meetings allows you to drive prospects towards booking a meeting once the customer conversation finishes. The tool has features like personalized messaging and ABM initiatives that direct target accounts to the sales team.

Features of Drift

• Simplify support automation with chatbots, and capture leads.
• Sync with calendar apps to schedule callbacks with customers.
• Target accounts with personalized messaging.
• Book meetings with prospects using Drift Meetings.

Pricing

Get in touch with the company for a quote.

Choose it for: account-based marketing, booking meetings, and building chatbots

3rd Party Integrations allowed: Yes

Suited for: Medium and large businesses

Pros: You can create personalized messages and communication for target accounts.

Cons: The support team is confused about the features, which leads to slower response times.

Case Study

Not available

8. HappyFox

HappyFox is a comprehensive live chat solution that allows you to connect with customers to drive sales, resolve queries, and increase conversions. With HappyFox, you can improve lead generation and assist visitors in their purchases. 

You can customize your chat widget, and match it with your brand’s look and feel. Also, with visitor monitoring, you can track the sessions of prospects and pages they have spent the most time on. HappyFox has well-designed pricing plans that allow you to access basic features even in the lower-end plans.

Features of HappyFox

• Capture offline messages thanks to the after-hours support feature.
• Reduce wait times and boost productivity with canned responses.
• Customize your live chat solution from top-to-bottom.
• Get a quick chat history of the customer to offer contextual support.

Pricing

Starts from $29/month.

Choose it for: visitor tracking, canned responses, lead generation, and customization features

3rd Party Integration allowed: Yes

Suited for: Small, medium, and large businesses

Pros: It gives you visibility into what customers are typing.

Cons: The reporting isn’t very robust.

Case Study

Not available

9. Crisp

Crisp is a feature-rich live chat solution, and probably one of the easiest to use on this list. You can engage with customers through video calling, co-browsing, and targeted messaging. With tools for proactive support, you can improve engagement rates.

Also, you can connect Crisp with social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram. With chatbots, you can automate certain scenarios and streamline your support processes. Using GIFS and videos, you can offer a richer customer experience. 

Features of Crisp

• Create proactive support with well-crafted targeted messages.
• Guide customers through their product queries with co-browsing.
• Set up video calls with prospects to quickly resolve their queries.
• Connect live chat with social media platforms to capture queries from there.

Pricing

Starts from $25/month.

Choose it for: shared inbox, video calling, social media integrations, and co-browsing

3rd Party Integrations allowed: Yes

Suited for: Small, medium, and large businesses

Pros: They offer great customer service which is prompt and helpful.

Cons: It doesn’t have a feature to mark chats as unopened. Sometimes, chats can be opened by accident, and this poses a problem.

Case Study

Not available

10. Tidio

With Tidio, you can turn your prospects into customers with real-time engagement and prompt communication. You can significantly reduce the response time and improve productivity, while every customer leaves happily with a solution for their problem. 

With visitor tracking, you can check who has been on your website and which pages have they gone through. You get customization features to match your live chat solution with your brand. What’s more, AI allows you to automate your chats and reduce the stress on agents.

You get the option of starting with Tidio for free, making it a great LiveChat free alternative to try.

Features of Tidio

• Capture support requests during after-hours when agents are offline.
• Monitor incoming complaints with pre-chat forms and capture the details.
• Streamline support with chatbots and enhance accuracy.
• Create canned responses to reduce response time significantly.

Pricing

Starts from $49/month.

Choose it for: canned responses, building chatbots, pre-chat forms, and customization features

3rd Party Integrations allowed: Yes

Suited for: Small, medium, and large businesses

Pros: They have a free plan and a great support team.

Cons: The reporting features need work.

Case Study

Mometrix was once a bookstore, but now it has evolved into an online platform. This is due to the help of Tidio which offered them a live chat solution. Mometrix ended up replacing phone and email support with live chat, resulting in the cart abandonment rate decreasing by 25%.

The company decided to add live chat and train the customer staff to operate it. They also tried out the chatbots that Tidio had to offer, one of them being a “cart abandonment bot” which would fire with a 25% discount if the customer didn’t make the purchase in the first 10 seconds.

Comparison of LiveChat Alternatives

Final Verdict: Which LiveChat Alternative should you go for?

We have discussed various tools that fit different price points and offer a plethora of features. You can refer to the researched list of criteria to figure out which fits the bill. After all, the most expensive tool isn’t the best, right?

We found that one of the biggest drawbacks of LiveChat was its pricing. To target that issue, we added tools that you can get started with for free, and some priced similarly to LiveChat. Similar software like LiveAgent and Tidio are much more responsive.

If engaging with customers in real-time is a deal-breaker for you, then tools like Drift, Userlike, and ProProfs Chat are great options. These have important features like greetings and announcements. 

While these are solid LiveChat alternatives, you want features that fulfill your criteria. Some important features are canned responses, targeted messaging, social media integrations, file sharing, and chatbots are essential for any business.

Luckily, ProProfs Chat includes all of these features and a host of other options. You can customize your live chat widget to match your branding and create operator groups. If this sounds like a tool you could make the most of, then, contact us.