10 Tools to Offer Real-Time Support

Customer support is one of the key areas of any business. The demands of customers on your support will be extreme in some cases. For example, many customers expect instant support from a real person. Some of the best live chat software solutions can help you implement this, and there are a lot to choose from.

In this post, we’re going to round up some of the best live chat software solutions for 2023. The list won’t be in any particular order, so we encourage you to check out each one to see if it fits your needs.

Ten of the best live chat software solutions for 2023

You’ll have a lot of options when it comes to the best live chat software solutions on the market. However, we have ten choices for you. Here’s a quick list of what we’ll cover:

Without further ado, let’s begin to look at the best live chat software solutions for 2023!

1. LiveChat

• 🎯 Best for: simple, yet effective chat experiences, plus tons of integrations and an app marketplace.
• 🎁 Free conversations per month: none (as it’s a premium-only solution).
• 💸 Price: plans begin from $20 per agent, per month.

A straightforward name for a straightforward solution. LiveChat is ideal for an intuitive experience on both sides of the fence: you and your users.

LiveChat’s window looks great and doesn’t obstruct the rest of the site in its default state. Also, you get good scope when it comes to customization. Below is a sampling of what LiveChat can offer:

• There’s a connective experience with your other social platforms, management tools, and messaging apps (such as Apple Business Chat, Salesforce, and much more).
• You can add the chat widget to your site in a flash. If you’re a WordPress user, there’s also a plugin to connect everything up.
• You’re able to personalize the chat experience through customized greetings. These react based on time on site, geolocation, and more.
• You can take a look at incoming messages too, then prepare a response before they finish.

There’s much more that LiveChat brings to the table, and with plans that start from $20 per agent, per month, the solution offers a reasonable price, too.

2. JivoChat

• 🎯 Best for: slick and straightforward live chat that offers a wealth of features.
• 🎁 Free conversations per month: the free tier lets you converse with customers, with a two-month chat history storage.
• 💸 Price: a premium plan is $19 per agent, per month.

Live chat isn’t the only offering from JivoChat, but it’s a standout one. It works across multiple devices and is simple to use.

JivoChat has a lot of grunt under the hood and a slick front-end appearance. Here’s what it offers:

• There’s a centralized widget to help manage multiple chats at once, complete with color coding.
• You can get a sneak-peek at an incoming message, which gives you time to prepare a response (including a canned one).
• You’re able to view customer relationship manager (CRM) info, click sources, customer locations, and much more at a glance.

Even better, JivoChat provides simple pricing. The free tier is basic, but will give you an overview of what the live chat software offers. The premium tier is $19 per agent, per month.

3. Tidio

• 🎯 Best for: conversion-focused customer service.
• 🎁 Free conversations per month: yes, for 50 unique users per month.
• 💸 Price: free, paid plans from $19 per agent, per month.

Tidio is a live chat solution that puts converting users to the fore. This can be an important metric for some businesses, such as ecommerce stores.

Given the focus of Tidio, it offers a solid set of features and functionality to help you keep customers happy and eager to buy from your business:

• There’s comprehensive analytics to help you learn who accesses your live chat.
• Tidio’s artificial intelligence (AI) lets you monitor and analyze your chat results.
• There’s a live list of visitors, complete with the pages they are looking at. This gives you some preparation time for potential incoming questions or queries.

Tidio offers two main paid plans – a human-focused Communicator plan that costs $19 per agent, per month, and a chatbot-focused plan that costs $39 per month.

4. Olark

• 🎯 Best for: advanced live chat that integrates with most of your other tools.
• 🎁 Free conversations per month: 20 per month on a limited free tier.
• 💸 Price: Olark costs $29 per agent seat, per month.

Scalable live chat is a popular and worthwhile goal. Olark is an advanced live chat software solution with features by the bucket load.

We can’t cover everything Olark offers, but here’s a quick summary:

• There are plenty of customization options that look just fantastic.
• You’re able to set up automation rules to help you engage with more users. For example, you can create automatic greetings, redirect chats, and more.
• You can access live chat transcripts to improve your customer support further. Combined with the built-in analytics, you’ll have all of the most relevant information to boost your customer service.

What’s more, Olark offers the simplest of pricing schemes. You’ll pay one price: $29 per agent, per month. Discounted rates are also available if you pay up front for at least one year.

5. Smartsupp

• 🎯 Best for: connected customer messaging and small business live chat.
• 🎁 Free conversations per month: a generous 100 conversations per month.
• 💸 Price: plans start from $19.50 per month with space for three agents.

Smartsupp is an alternative to other big live chat names. Even so, it can hold its own due to some of its unique features.

Its core features and functionality appear similar to other solutions at first glance:

• There’s support for multichannel integration, including email, Facebook Messenger, and more.
• You have a lot of customization options to help embed Smartsupp’s chat window into your site.
• You can see a live overview of your visitors onsite, including how long they have been with you and their journey.

One standout feature is how you can record the movement of your visitors across your site. This will not only help improve your live chat workflow, but the whole customer experience can benefit, too.

Other than a free tier, Smartsupp has two pricing options: the Standard tier at $19.50 per month, which includes three agent seats. For $48 per month, you get more features and can expand the number of agents to ten.

6. HubSpot

• 🎯 Best for: HubSpot users who want to integrate live chat.
• 🎁 Free conversations per month:the service is free, so you have the full available feature set.
• 💸 Price: the live chat functionality is free, but a paid plan will remove the branding.

We’d bet that HubSpot features somewhere in your business’ workflow, but did you know that this popular CRM also offers live chat functionality?

It’s actually one of the best live chat software solutions thanks to its integration with the wider HubSpot ecosystem. Here’s what the live chat gives you:

• You’re able to log chats and connect them to specific customers within HubSpot CRM.
• There’s a comprehensive automation and routing system within HubSpot that lets you work more efficiently.
• With integrations from third-party apps such as Slack, you can manage and respond to chats within those apps.
• For WordPress users, the free HubSpot WordPress plugin lets you set up live chat from your WordPress dashboard.

Best of all, HubSpot’s live chat is free to use. A premium upgrade will remove the branding of the chat box, although this isn’t necessary.

7. Intercom

• 🎯 Best for: high-class live chat software to help deliver a holistic approach to customer support.
• 🎁 Free conversations per month: none (it’s premium-only).
• 💸 Price: starting from $74 per month, billed annually.

Intercom’s Business Messenger can deliver simple live chat functionality. However, it could also be scaled to manage your whole customer support operation.

The platform provides lots of ways to manage the live chat experience:

• You can combine live agents and bots to offer the right response to users.
• There’s a centralized inbox that holds all customer data, chat history, and more for easy access.
• Intercom also lets you message customers before they finish typing using proactive messaging.

Intercom offers three plans – Starter, Pro, and Premium – but it only lists the entry price for the Starter plan, which is $74 per month, billed annually. For the other two plans, Intercom requests that you reach out to them.

8. LiveAgent

• 🎯 Best for: simple, yet effective chat experiences.
• 🎁 Free conversations per month: there’s no limit on conversations, but you can only have one seat for free.
• 💸 Price: premium plans begin from $15 per agent, per month.

LiveAgent has one of the highest ratings on Capterra, and it’s easy to see why. In fact, it’s a full-featured customer service platform.

The platform’s live chat functionality is stellar, too. It covers all of the typical bases, and more:

• There’s no limit on how many tickets and chats you can keep in the history, which will help with long-term customers.
• You have good-looking chat invitations, complete with full customization options.
• The LiveAgent dashboard gives you some valuable tools to help prioritize agents and issue some “breathing” time. It provides advanced chat re-routing options, and more.
• You’re also able to use the built-in analytics and reports to see where your users come from in real time.

When it comes to pricing, LiveAgent is competitive. There’s a free plan with limited functionality, but premium tiers range from $15 to $49 per agent, per month.

9. Zendesk

• 🎯 Best for: aesthetic chat experiences with thoughtful functionality.
• 🎁 Free conversations per month: this is a premium-only solution, so none.
• 💸 Price: plans begin from $19 per agent, per month with annual billing.

Most people who look for the best live chat software will come across Zendesk. While it offers well-rounded customer service tools, its live chat is no slouch.

Zendesk offers some features and functionality that could help you go above and beyond your competition:

• You’ll be able to stay connected to the chat regardless of the platform. For example, you can transfer the conversation from the website to WhatsApp.
• There’s lots of functionality to implement bots and AI to help keep your customer service efficient and optimal.
• While you have a straightforward way to add chat widgets to your site, WordPress users can also use the dedicated Zendesk plugin.

There’s plenty more to uncover, so it’s good news that Zendesk offers a free plan. However, this does have limitations. You can access more features with a premium plan, which starts at $19 per seat, per month.

10. ClickDesk

• 🎯 Best for: a straightforward live chat experience with a strong free tier.
• 🎁 Free conversations per month: premium tiers offer no restriction, but you get 30 on the free tier.
• 💸 Price: plans begin from $14.99 per user, per month.

Last on our list of best live chat software solutions is ClickDesk. It’s a no-frills app that can still deliver almost everything you need to manage quality customer support.

On paper, there’s little to shout about. You get all of the typical features you’d expect to find:

• A clutter-free live chat window that you’re able to customize to your needs.
• The option to conduct live chat through text or video.
• The ability to integrate all of of your social media channels into the dashboard.
• Speaking of which, the agent dashboard is minimalist, which means you’ll be able to navigate it with ease.

The real plus point for ClickDesk is how intuitive the solution is. You’ll have a quick setup time, but with the power you need under the hood.

As for cost, ClickDesk offers a generous free tier that supports up to ten agents. From there, premium plans range from $14.99 to $39.99 per agent, per month.

Try the best live chat software today 🚀

This wouldn’t be a list of best live chat software solutions if they couldn’t provide the functionality you need. We think they’re all great choices that are suitable across different needs. Our advice is to demo each solution and see how it fits into your workflow. You might find one that ends up being better than the others.

If you’ve built your website with WordPress, you also might want to check out our roundup 🧐 of the best WordPress live chat plugins or our guide on 👉 how to add live chat to WordPress.

Do you have a question about any of the best live chat software solutions on our list, or have another one to recommend? Let us know in the comments section below!