LiveChat is a live chat console for websites and online stores, sold under that name for two decades. It is well built, so you are not here to escape a bad product.
You are here because of structure. No free plan, only a trial. The invoice follows heads at the desk rather than work done, and the AI that answers your shoppers is a second product you buy, so the plan you already pay for covers only the hours somebody is at the desk.
This guide is for merchants and CX teams, not enterprise helpdesk buyers. It sorts thirteen alternatives by the gap that leaves, so the groups below are named for the AI each tool ships with and what that AI can do: none unless you add it, AI that answers, AI that sells. Read those labels as clock coverage, because what a tool's AI can do decides what happens in the hours nobody is there.
Why merchants look for LiveChat alternatives
LiveChat is the best built console on this list. Routing, tagging and reporting have had two decades of sharpening, and human agents move faster inside it than inside anything else here. That is worth paying for while your people are at the desk.
The reasons are structural. Four come up repeatedly:
- No free plan, only a 14 day trial. livechat.com/pricing lists Starter at $19, Team at $49 and Business at $79 a month billed annually, or $25, $59 and $89 billed monthly (read 21 August 2026).
- The invoice follows headcount, not workload. The unit printed on livechat.com is "per person billed annually", so a fourth hire raises the bill even if chat volume does not move.
- The Shopify listing and livechat.com disagree about the unit. The words "per", "seat", "user" and "agent" appear zero times in the pricing block of LiveChat's App Store listing, while livechat.com prices every tier per person and caps Starter at one user. Two people on Team is either $59 or $118 a month depending on which page you read. A merchant review from May 2023: "They don't honor shopify prices either."
- Every plan has AI, and it serves your agents, not your shoppers. Copilot ships on all four tiers, described on livechat.com/pricing as "Equipped with knowledge about LiveChat and Text products, our AI assistant will answer your questions and help you with your daily tasks". Your questions, not your customer's. For AI that answers the customer, the same page reads "Solve up to 80% of cases with AI chatbots" and sends you to ChatBot.com at "$52 /mo billed annually". chatbot.com/pricing quotes Essential at $19 per user billed annually, under a footer reading "Text, Inc.", the company behind livechat.com (all read 21 August 2026).
LiveChat holds 4.5 stars across 43 Shopify App Store reviews on a listing open since 30 November 2017 (read 21 August 2026), about 0.4 a month over 104 months. That is a thin trail for a listing that old, so an odd problem on your store is one you work out alone. It is a comment on the community, not the software.
What one store pays under each pricing model
Prices only compare when you push one store through all of them. That store, unchanged for the rest of this article: 300 chat conversations a month, 100 outside staffed hours, 900 products, three people already salaried for other work. For the AI models, assume it fully handles 40 of those 100. That 40 percent comes back later.
An average month runs 730 hours. One month under each model, fewest hours covered first:
| Coverage model | Tool priced | What this store needs | You pay |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seats, staffed hours only | LiveChat Team, 3 people | 174 of 730 hours | $147 |
| Seats, the whole clock | LiveChat Team, 5 people | 730 hours | $245 + salary |
| Resolutions, from LiveChat's parent | ChatBot Essential x3 + a 50-pack | 40 resolutions | $106.50 |
| Resolutions, bolted onto a helpdesk | Gorgias Basic + AI Agent | 300 tickets, 40 AI | $92 |
| Outcomes, bolted onto seats | Intercom Essential x3 + Fin | 3 seats, 40 outcomes | $126.60 |
| AI conversations, metered per store | Chatty Pro | 40 AI chats, 900 products | $68.99 |
| Nothing metered | tawk.to core, Shopify Inbox | The message waits | $0 |
Every figure came off the vendor's own pricing page on 21 August 2026. LiveChat Team is $49 a person, so 3 x $49 = $147 and 5 x $49 = $245. ChatBot Essential is $19 per user with 10 resolutions included and extras in packs of 50 at $49.50, so $57 plus a pack is $106.50.
Gorgias Basic is $50 for 300 tickets, plus 30 committed interactions at $27 and 10 more at $1.50, so $92. Intercom is $29 a seat plus $0.99 per outcome, so $87 plus $39.60 is $126.60. Chatty Pro is $68.99 for 500 AI conversations and 8,000 products. Only AI-handled conversations are metered, so the 40 sit inside Basic's 100. Pro is needed for the catalog: Basic caps it at 500 products and this store carries 900.
Five things fall out of that table. Not all point one way.
Inside staffed hours, seats are hard to beat. If your three people are already salaried for other work, chat during the day costs the licence and nothing else: $147. Nothing here gives you a console of that quality for that money.
And $147 does not move. Three seats cost $147 in February and $147 in November. Every metered model here drifts with your season, so a flat line is worth money when volume swings hard.
The gap is the other 556 hours. A staffed 40 hour week covers about 174 of 730 hours, roughly 24 percent, and the rest carries no seat price because nobody is in the seat. Chatty Pro at $68.99 meters per store rather than per person, so one plan covers all 730.
Covering those hours with people costs an order of magnitude more. 730 divided by 173.3 hours of monthly full time work is about 4.2 FTE, and you roster five once leave and sickness are counted. That is 5 x $49 = $245 in licences plus five salaries, and salary is the larger number at every rate.
And the floor is $0. tawk.to's core chat costs nothing, and Shopify Inbox costs nothing in the admin. At the bottom of this market, $0 beats LiveChat's $19 and Chatty's $19.99 alike.
LiveChat alternatives compared at a glance
All thirteen in one view, LiveChat on top for reference. Read the second column before the price column: a cheap tool at the wrong coverage level costs more than an expensive one at the right level.
| Tool | After hours it... | Bills per | Entry price /mo | Free plan | Rating / reviews | Stores detected (StoreLeads, 24/06/2026) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LiveChat | Takes a message | Person | $19 per person † | No, 14 day trial | 4.5 / 43 | 3,713 |
| tawk.to | Takes a message | Nothing on core chat | $0 | Yes, unlimited agents | 3.6 / 55 | 8,680 |
| Chatra | Takes a message | Agent | $25 † | Yes, 5 chats/mo | 4.5 / 272 | 3,867 |
| Chatway | Takes a message unless AI is on | User, plus resolution | $24 † | Yes, 1 seat | 4.9 / 262 | 1,726 |
| Shopify Inbox | Takes a message | Nothing | $0 | Free | 4.6 / 5,489 | 360,199 |
| ChatBot by Text | Answers questions | User, plus resolution | $19 per user † | No, 14 day trial | 5.0 / 2 | 37,494 |
| Tidio | Answers questions | Conversation, plus Lyro | $24.17 † | Yes, 50 lifetime | 4.8 / 1,253 | 29,022 |
| Gorgias | Answers questions | Ticket, plus interaction | $10 | No, trial only | 4.3 / 625 | 24,757 |
| Intercom | Answers questions | Seat, plus outcome | $29 per seat † | No, 14 day trial | 3.9 / 17 | 5,663 |
| Chatty | Sells | AI conversation, per store | $19.99 | Yes, 50/mo renewing | 4.9 / 1,799 | 8,962 |
| Zipchat | Sells | AI reply | $49 | No, 7 day trial | 5.0 / 159 | 1,711 |
| SmartBot | Sells | AI chat, plus catalog size | $10 | Yes, 80 AI chats/mo | 4.7 / 430 | 1,307 |
| Re:amaze | Answers, beta AI | Team member, plus resolution | $29 per user | No, 14 day trial | 4.3 / 143 | 3,990 |
| Richpanel | Answers | Seat, plus AI conversation | $29 per user | Yes on site, no on listing | 4.7 / 122 | 2,672 |
† Monthly rate when you pay a year upfront, the default view on those pages. Intercom's $29 seat is $39 billed monthly.
StoreLeads reports stores where it detects a vendor's script, not the same unit as an App Store install: ChatBot.com shows 37,494 stores next to 2 reviews on its Shopify listing. Read it as reach, not a ranking.
LiveChat alternatives with no AI unless you add it: tawk.to, Chatra, Chatway
These three change what you pay without changing what your chat does at night. Leave the AI add-on switched off, and out of the box you get a widget that takes the message and waits.
tawk.to
tawk.to gives away the part everyone else charges for. Core chat is $0 with unlimited agents and unlimited chats, a real plan rather than a trial. It runs as a web widget anywhere and as a Shopify app.
Paid parts sit at the edges: removing branding $29 a month, AI Assist a separate add-on from $29 a month, hired agents $1 an hour (tawk.to/pricing, read 21 August 2026). It rates 3.6 stars across 55 Shopify reviews, the lowest here (apps.shopify.com/tawk-to, read 21 August 2026).
The catch is what $0 buys: unlimited seats, not hours. After hours the queue sits until somebody logs in, and moving it starts at a separate $29 line.
Chatra
Chatra prices in the plainest unit here, printed on its plans page: "per agent per month". Free is $0, Essential $31 monthly or $25 billed annually, Pro $41 or $33 (chatra.com/plans/, read 21 August 2026).
It runs on web, iOS, Android and Shopify and rates 4.5 stars across 272 reviews (apps.shopify.com/chatra, read 21 August 2026). After hours it collects offline messages that arrive as email and wait.
The catch is the free tier: one agent, free forever, capped at 5 chats a month. That is a demo, not a tier you can live on, a different kind of free from tawk.to's.
Chatway
Chatway meters per user for chat plans and per resolved conversation for the AI. Free is $0, Solo $24 billed annually or $29 monthly, Team $65 or $79, Plus $119 or $149, extra seats $16, and the AI Support Agent costs $0.50 per resolved conversation with the first 10 free (chatway.app/pricing, read 21 August 2026).
The free tier gives one seat and unlimited conversations. Chatway rates 4.9 stars across 262 reviews (apps.shopify.com/chatway, read 21 August 2026), highest in this group, and runs on web, iOS, Android and Shopify.
The exit into the next group is a switch you have to find and pay for, and at $0.50 a resolved conversation it is a cheap one. Leave it off and your night is still a form.
All three fix the cost of a seat. None fixes the cost of an hour. If under 20 percent of your chat lands after hours, that is answer enough.
Shopify Inbox: the free LiveChat alternative to beat
For most readers the competitor to paying per seat is the app already in the Shopify admin, at $0. Shopify Inbox holds 4.6 stars across 5,489 reviews on a listing open since 14 August 2019 (apps.shopify.com/inbox, read 21 August 2026), and StoreLeads detects it on 360,199 stores, the widest reach and largest review base here by a distance.
Its ceiling is scope. Inbox covers storefront chat, and Shop Inbox was retired in February 2025, so it covers fewer channels than the helpdesks here. After hours it takes the message and offers saved replies, templates a human picks rather than an agent reading your catalog.
Start there anyway. Every paid tool below has to beat free before it earns a line on your invoice.
LiveChat alternatives with AI that answers
The second group ships an AI that answers, so a question landing at 2am gets an answer instead of a queue position. You pay per case the AI finishes, so the invoice tracks work done at night, not heads at the desk by day.
ChatBot by Text
The clearest answer to "what does LiveChat do at 2am" comes from LiveChat's own parent company, under another brand and another invoice. The footer of chatbot.com reads "Text, Inc.", and livechat.com/pricing sends you there rather than shipping that capability inside a LiveChat plan (both read 21 August 2026).
The plans meter per user with AI resolutions on top: Essential $19 per user billed annually or $25 monthly with 10 resolutions included, Growth $79 or $99 with 200, extras in packs of 50 at $49.50, which is $0.99 each with auto-refill on by default. No free plan, only a 14 day trial.
On Shopify it rates 5.0 stars across 2 reviews (apps.shopify.com/chatbot-3, read 21 August 2026), a sample that tells you almost nothing. After hours it answers through a bot you build yourself, billed per case it closes.
The catch is a price disagreement inside one company: livechat.com/pricing says ChatBot.com "starts at $52 /mo billed annually", chatbot.com/pricing says $19 per user.
Tidio and Lyro
Tidio runs two meters: a billable conversation is one where a human on your team sends a message, a Lyro AI conversation is one the AI answers, sold separately: "Starts at $32.50/mo. From 50 Lyro AI conversations". Free is $0, Starter $24.17, Growth from $49.17, Plus from $300 plus usage (tidio.com/pricing, read 21 August 2026).
It rates 4.8 stars across 1,253 reviews (apps.shopify.com/tidio-chat, read 21 August 2026) and has the widest platform reach here: WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento, PrestaShop, Wix, Squarespace, WordPress and Shopify.
The catch hides in one word. The free tier's Lyro allowance reads "Your first 50 conversations are free (lifetime)", so it is lifetime, not monthly, and the difference shows up in month two. After hours Lyro answers on its own meter.
Gorgias
Gorgias meters tickets for the helpdesk and automated interactions for the AI, never per agent. Starter is $10 for 50 tickets, monthly only, 3 seats, $0.40 per extra ticket. Basic is $50 annually or $60 monthly for 300 tickets, Pro $300 or $360 for 2,000, Advanced $750 or $900 for 5,000. AI Agent is $0.90 per automated interaction annually, $1.00 monthly, $1.50 past your commitment (gorgias.com/pricing, read 21 August 2026).
It rates 4.3 stars across 625 reviews (apps.shopify.com/helpdesk, read 21 August 2026), has no free plan, and runs on Shopify and Shopify Plus alongside other channels.
The catch is printed on the pricing page: every automated interaction also counts as a helpdesk ticket. After hours the AI Agent closes tickets while the desk is empty, spending both quotas at once, and the overage steps from $0.90 to $1.50 exactly when it works hardest.
Intercom and Fin
Intercom meters seats for people and outcomes for Fin, separately. Essential is $29 a seat, Advanced $85, Expert $132, and Fin costs $0.99 per outcome, charged once per conversation however many questions it answers (intercom.com/pricing, read 21 August 2026). No free plan, only a 14 day trial.
It runs on web, mobile, email and other channels, plus a Shopify app. Outcome pricing is the most defensible unit in this group: you are billed when the conversation goes somewhere, not every time the AI speaks.
The catch is track record on this platform. Listed as "Fin AI Agent & Intercom", it rates 3.9 stars across 17 reviews on Shopify (apps.shopify.com/intercom, read 21 August 2026), too small a sample to read much into. After hours Fin answers, and you pay only when the conversation reaches an outcome.
Two closing notes, the first a trap.
$0.40 and $0.99 are not the same unit. Chatty meters $0.40 per AI conversation. Fin and ChatBot meter $0.99 per resolution or outcome, and a resolution is a subset of conversations, so the $0.40 is charged on more events. The two cost the same when the AI fully resolves about 40 percent of conversations, because $0.40 divided by $0.99 is 0.404. Above that rate metering by conversation costs less, below it metering by resolution, so run it against your own resolution rate.
At low volume, this group wins on marginal cost. If you already pay for a helpdesk seat by day, the night only costs the cases the AI finishes. Fifteen resolutions a month is 15 x $0.99 = $14.85 on top of that seat, against $19.99 for a second subscription bought purely to cover nights, once your catalog outgrows the free tier's 200 products. Under roughly 20 after-hours conversations a month, bolting a resolution meter onto the seat you have is cheaper, and that holds only while the seat is already paid for, exactly as the $147 figure holds only while the salaries already are.
LiveChat alternatives with AI that sells
The third group ships an AI that answers and then opens an order. It recommends products and acts on carts, so the hours nobody is at the desk can end in a sale rather than a tidy queue.
Chatty
Chatty meters one thing: AI conversations, per store per month, rather than seats or people at the desk.
- Free is $0 for 50 AI conversations a month, 200 products and 1 member, with human conversations uncapped.
- Basic is $19.99 for 100 AI conversations, 500 products and 5 members. Pro is $68.99 for 500, 8,000 and 10. Plus is $199 for 1,000, 20,000 and unlimited members.
- Past the allowance it is $0.40 per AI conversation, with a spend ceiling you set in the app, and annual billing takes about 15 percent off (chatty.net/pricing, read 21 August 2026).
The free tier renews monthly rather than capping for life. Its 4.9 stars across 1,799 reviews (apps.shopify.com/chatty, read 21 August 2026) score the whole service, human support included, and no review count is evidence that one AI reasons better than another.
Because the meter is per store, the plan that covers your daytime chat is the one that answers at 3am, recommends products and acts on carts with nobody logged in.
The hard limit is platform. Chatty runs on Shopify only, with no WooCommerce, Wix or BigCommerce path at any tier.
Zipchat
Zipchat meters the AI reply, each message the AI sends. Starter is $49 for 500 replies, Growth $129 for 1,500, Pro $249 for 3,000, Scale $499 for 6,000, Unlimited from $999, with extra replies at $49 per 250, roughly $0.20 each (zipchat.ai/pricing, read 21 August 2026).
No free plan, but a 7 day trial and a 30 day money-back window. It rates 5.0 stars across 159 reviews (apps.shopify.com/zipchat, read 21 August 2026), the highest rating here on a sample worth reading, and runs on Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce and Wix, a wider reach than Chatty's.
The catch is baked into the unit: metering replies means a long, useful conversation costs more than a short useless one, so the harder the AI works, the larger the invoice. After hours it sells, and counts every answer.
SmartBot by BestChat
SmartBot meters AI chats per month, with the products the AI may learn attached to each tier. Free is $0 for 80 AI chats and 80 products, Starter $10 for 300 and 300, Basic $30 for 1,000 and 1,000, Growth $60 for 3,000 and 3,000, Enterprise $450 for unlimited AI chats (bestchat.com/pricing.html, read 21 August 2026).
The free tier states "80 AI chats per month", so it renews rather than expiring. It rates 4.7 stars across 430 reviews (apps.shopify.com/smartbot, read 21 August 2026) and runs on Shopify plus a web widget through BestChat.
The catch is which number decides your tier: catalog size, not chat volume. A 1,200 product catalog pushes you to Growth at $60 even on a few hundred chats a month, and no overage rate is published. After hours it sells from the catalog it has learned.
SmartBot is last by the ordering rule, not by quality. StoreLeads detects Chatty on 8,962 stores, Zipchat on 1,711 and SmartBot on 1,307, so all three together sit on fewer stores than Tidio alone. Covering more of the clock is not the same as being chosen more often.
Two more LiveChat alternatives worth knowing about
Both come up often on this keyword, both ship an AI that answers, and each has a condition attached.
Re:amaze
Re:amaze meters per team member plus AI resolutions. Starter is $59 flat with unlimited team members and a ceiling of 500 responded conversations, Basic $29 per user or $26.10 billed annually, Pro $49 or $44.10, Plus $69 or $62.10, and the AI Agent includes 5, 10 or 20 resolutions per user per month by tier, then $0.85 beyond that (reamaze.com/pricing, read 21 August 2026).
No free plan, though the 14 day trial takes no card. It rates 4.3 stars across 143 reviews, and runs on Shopify with email, chat, social, SMS and calls in one inbox, SMS and voice from Pro upward (apps.shopify.com/reamaze, read 21 August 2026).
The condition is the vendor's own label: Re:amaze marks its AI agent beta on its own site, their word not ours. After hours it answers, on an AI its own maker calls beta, at 5 to 20 resolutions per user.
Richpanel
Richpanel meters per seat for people and per AI conversation for the AI, never per ticket. richpanel.com/pricing lists a $0 tier with 3 seats and 50 AI Assists a company, Starter at $29 a user, pro at $99, the figures the page shows behind its monthly and yearly toggle (read 21 August 2026). That page publishes no per-unit AI rate; the Shopify listing quotes "AI conversations from $0.20 each" (read 12 August 2026). The vendor advertises 50% of tickets resolved in 30 days.
It rates 4.7 stars across 122 reviews, and runs on Shopify with email, chat and social on every plan (apps.shopify.com/customer-support, read 21 August 2026). Its Shopify listing carries no free tier and prices PRO at $89 not $99 (read 12 August 2026), so the two pages of one vendor disagree on both the free plan and the seat price, exactly as LiveChat's do.
The condition is the shape of the bill. After hours it answers at the listing's $0.20 a conversation, the cheapest AI meter here, while a pro seat beside it costs $99, the dearest. Richpanel pays off once your team is large enough to justify $99 a head.
Which LiveChat alternative fits your store
One number decides most of this: the share of chats that arrive when nobody is at the desk. Count a normal week in the inbox you already have, then read down the table. The first row that describes your store is your answer.
| If this is your store | Start here | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Someone is at the desk when your shoppers chat | LiveChat, Chatra, Chatway | The console is the product, and an AI would sit idle |
| Under 20 percent of chats arrive after hours | Stay where you are | Too little night work to carry a second bill |
| Under 20 after-hours chats a month | Chatty free tier, or $0.99 a resolution from ChatBot or Intercom | Fifteen cases is $14.85 on a seat you own, against $19.99 for a new plan |
| After hours they ask "where is my order" | ChatBot, Tidio, Gorgias, Intercom | Support that arrived late, billed per case closed |
| After hours they ask "which one should I buy" | Chatty, Zipchat, SmartBot | A sale nobody was there to make, and these can open the order |
| The budget is actually zero | Shopify Inbox, tawk.to | First-party and free forever, or unlimited agents for nothing |
Two things to check before you commit:
- Take prices from the vendor's own page, not the App Store listing. Three disagree here: LiveChat's pricing unit, ChatBot's add-on price, and Richpanel's seat price.
- Ask what happens at the cap. Billed, throttled, or switched off. Every tool here that publishes a rate says billed, from $0.20 to $1.50, and one publishes nothing at all.
Most install in minutes on monthly billing, so testing two properly beats reading a fourteenth comparison table. If row five is your store, Chatty's free tier runs that test at no cost: 50 AI conversations a month, no trial clock and no card.
Most compare the price of a seat, and a seat price only prices the hours you already cover. Two articles can both be accurate and recommend opposite tools, because each assumes a different amount of staffed time.
Several, and not the same kind of free. tawk.to's core chat is $0 with unlimited agents, Shopify Inbox is $0 in the Shopify admin. Chatty's free tier renews at 50 AI conversations a month, Chatway's gives one seat, Chatra's one agent capped at 5 chats. LiveChat has none, only a 14 day trial.
Yes, in every plan, but aimed at your team, not your shoppers. Copilot ships on all four tiers as an assistant that will "answer your questions and help you with your daily tasks", which are your questions, not your customer's. For AI that answers the customer, livechat.com/pricing sends you to ChatBot.com, a separate product from the same parent, Text, Inc., on a separate invoice. The two pages disagree: $52 a month billed annually on livechat.com/pricing, $19 per user billed annually on chatbot.com/pricing (both read 21 August 2026).
It depends how many hours you are buying. For the store used earlier: $0 on tawk.to or Shopify Inbox, $68.99 Chatty Pro, $92 Gorgias Basic with AI, $106.50 ChatBot, $126.60 Intercom with Fin, $147 for three LiveChat seats, and $245 plus five salaries for round-the-clock cover.
Only above a certain resolution rate, because those are two different units. A resolution is a subset of conversations, so the $0.40 is charged on more events, and the two break even at about 40 percent fully resolved.
