People look for a LiveChat alternative when the product they signed up for has become a different product with a different price ladder. LiveChat now sits under Text, whose pricing page lists Essential at $19 and Growth at $79 per user per month, with AI resolutions counted on top and only a 14-day trial. They move to tools that publish a free plan, price per team instead of per seat, or can be hosted on their own servers.
Sebastiaan SmitsFounderShort answer: Looking for a replacement for LiveChat? Tidio, Lime Connect (formerly Userlike) and Smartsupp come first in our live chat ranking. Our rule for order: vendors outside the big brands go first, and the largest names are not placed in the top three. Start with Tidio if you want to start on a free plan and pay by conversation volume. Each of the 13 alternatives sits in Best Live Chat Software in 2026 and is described against LiveChat.
Vendors can pay for more visibility on this website, for example a higher place in a ranking or more room on a page. Commercial relationships can also affect which products we feature and how prominently. Every vendor link is marked the same, whatever the arrangement behind it. How that works.
LiveChat.com's pricing page is headed Text and lists Essential ($19 per user per month, billed annually), Growth ($79) and a quoted Enterprise. Its FAQ says the features on that page are not included in LiveChat plans, including legacy subscriptions, and that a LiveChat customer has to move to Text to get them. Someone who wants to stay on the old plan is not the audience of the page.
Text charges per user per month, and every person who logs in to answer chats or tickets needs a seat. The AI Agent is counted in resolutions: Essential includes 10 and Growth 200 a month, and extra packages of 50 cost $49.50. The vendor's own example, 5 users on Growth, comes to $395 a month before any extra resolutions, so the bill moves with both team size and AI use.
The only way to try Text is a 14-day trial without a card. After it you pay, and the step from Essential to Growth is $19 to $79 per user. Unlimited chat history, chat supervision and takeover, shared canned responses and 400 tracked live visitors are listed on Growth, while Essential lists 50 live visitors and 3 proactive campaigns.
| Alternative | Headquarters | Free option | Pricing model | Switch if | Our rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tidio | Poland | Yes | Published | you want to start on a free plan and pay by conversation volume | #6 |
| Lime Connect (formerly Userlike) | Germany | Yes | Published | you want a German vendor with European hosting and a free single-seat start | #1 |
| Smartsupp | Czechia | Yes | Published | you run a small team and want a flat monthly price per plan | #2 |
| Freshchat | United States | Yes | Published | you need a free plan for a bigger team and a path into a wider help desk suite | #12 |
| tawk.to | United States | Yes | Published | you want chat at no licence cost and accept the branding or pay for add-ons | #8 |
| LiveAgent | Slovakia | No free tier | Published | your chat volume comes with email tickets and calls that need one shared queue | #9 |
| Olark | United States | No free tier | Published | you want AI conversations without a per-resolution meter | #10 |
| HelpCrunch | United States | No free tier | Published | you also want email campaigns and popups in the same tool as chat | #3 |
| Chatwoot | United States | Yes | Published | you want to host the chat inbox yourself and keep the conversation data on your servers | #5 |
| Zoho SalesIQ | India | Yes | Published | your company already runs on Zoho CRM and wants visitor tracking tied to it | #11 |
| Trengo | Netherlands | No free tier | Published | your customers mostly write on WhatsApp and you want one inbox for every message channel | #7 |
| Tiledesk | Italy | Yes | Published | you want a chatbot-heavy setup, possibly installed on your own servers | #13 |
| Qualified | United States | No free tier | On request | your chat exists to qualify B2B leads and you already use Salesforce | #14 |
Poland · Published
Another Polish chat vendor, with a $0 Free plan and a paid ladder sold by billable conversations rather than seats: Starter is listed at $24.17 a month for 100 billable conversations, Growth starts at $49.17 for 250. Plus is $300 a month plus usage. It is a conversation quota, so a busy site can outgrow a plan faster than a seat count suggests.
Switch from LiveChat if you want to start on a free plan and pay by conversation volume.
Germany · Published
Now sold as Lime Connect (formerly Userlike) by a GmbH in Cologne. The Free plan covers 1 seat, 1 channel and 200 conversations; Pro starts at 105 euro a month (87 on annual billing) with a minimum of 3 seats and unlimited conversations. The vendor says it is hosted exclusively on European ISO 27001 servers. The AI Agent costs extra from 99 euro a month.
Switch from LiveChat if you want a German vendor with European hosting and a free single-seat start.
Full verdict on Lime Connect (formerly Userlike), which sits at number 1 of 18 for live chat →
Czechia · Published
A Czech company in Brno that prices by plan, not by seat: Free for 1 operator and 25 conversations a month, Solo at $17, Plus at $25 for 3 operators, Expert at $83 for 5 or more. Paid plans have unlimited conversations. The free tier is small and history is limited to 14 days.
Switch from LiveChat if you run a small team and want a flat monthly price per plan.
Smartsupp comes 2 of 18 when live chat products are ranked here →
United States · Published
Sold by Freshworks Inc., a Delaware corporation. The Free plan covers up to 10 agents with a web and mobile chat widget and shared inbox; Growth is $19 per agent per month on annual billing, Pro $49, Enterprise $79. The Freddy AI Agent is billed at $49 per 100 sessions on top. A 14-day trial opens the Enterprise plan.
Switch from LiveChat if you need a free plan for a bigger team and a path into a wider help desk suite.
United States · Published
The software is free: live chat, ticketing, knowledge base and contacts, with money made from add-ons. Removing the Powered by tawk.to label costs $29 a month, AI Assist starts at $29 a month and hired chat agents are $1 per hour. Headquarters are in Las Vegas. The pages we read show no per-seat paid ladder like LiveChat's, only the add-ons.
Switch from LiveChat if you want chat at no licence cost and accept the branding or pay for add-ons.
Full verdict on tawk.to, which sits at number 8 of 18 for live chat →
Slovakia · Published
A help desk with chat inside it, from Quality Unit in Bratislava (with a US LLC in Wilmington). Starter is $19 per agent monthly ($15 annual) for up to 5 agents, Team $35, Business $59, and Enterprise a flat $3,999 for 80 agents. The 30-day trial needs no card. Pricing is per agent, so it is not cheaper per seat than Text's Essential.
Switch from LiveChat if your chat volume comes with email tickets and calls that need one shared queue.
See the full LiveAgent entry, ranked 9 of 18 among live chat products →
United States · Published
Human-only chat is $29 per agent a month with a 14-day trial; the AI Website Agent is $400 a month with unlimited conversations and one human seat included, extra seats $29 each. The vendor says it does not bill by token or usage. The pages we read do not state a country of establishment, and enterprise terms such as SSO are quoted.
Switch from LiveChat if you want AI conversations without a per-resolution meter.
United States · Published
Run by HelpCrunch Corporation, registered in Wilmington, Delaware. Plans are called Basic, Pro and Unlimited and are set by sliders for team members and monthly emails, so the base prices are not readable in the page text we fetched. AI conversations are sold as extensions, from 29 a month per 100 billed monthly. Free migration is included.
Switch from LiveChat if you also want email campaigns and popups in the same tool as chat.
See the full HelpCrunch entry, ranked 3 of 18 among live chat products →
United States · Published
Open source at its core (MIT for the code outside the enterprise directory) and installable on your own servers via a free Community Edition. Cloud is $0 for up to 2 agents with 500 conversations a month, then $19, $39 and $99 per agent. Captain AI is credit based and absent from Community Edition. Running it yourself means you carry hosting and upgrades.
Switch from LiveChat if you want to host the chat inbox yourself and keep the conversation data on your servers.
India · Published
From Zoho Corporation, which describes its Chennai, India campus as its base. The free plan gives 3 operator licences, 10,000 tracked visitors and 100 chat sessions a month; paid Basic, Professional and Enterprise are per operator, with amounts shown only after JavaScript loads. A 15-day trial needs no card. Tied to the wider Zoho suite.
Switch from LiveChat if your company already runs on Zoho CRM and wants visitor tracking tied to it.
Zoho SalesIQ review, listed at 11 of 18 live chat products →
Netherlands · Published
A Dutch B.V. that sells a shared inbox for WhatsApp, email, Instagram and Facebook, not a website chat widget alone. Boost is 299 euro a month on annual billing (349 monthly) with 10 users and 500 conversations a month, Pro 499 (599) with 20 users. A conversation is any reply within a 7-day window. Far higher entry price than Essential.
Switch from LiveChat if your customers mostly write on WhatsApp and you want one inbox for every message channel.
Italy · Published
An Italian S.r.l. whose pricing is set by AI capacity, not seats: Pro is 149 euro a month (124 billed yearly) with 3 users, 20 AI agents and 3,000 conversations; Business 499 (416) with 5 users. No free plan, only a 14-day trial. The vendor describes itself as open source and offers an on-premise version.
Switch from LiveChat if you want a chatbot-heavy setup, possibly installed on your own servers.
Check Tiledesk in the ranked list (13 out of 18, live chat) →
United States · On request
Not a general chat widget. It sells Piper, an AI SDR agent that talks to website visitors, answers inbound email and books meetings, in Premier, Enterprise and Ultimate packages, all quoted. Owned by Salesforce since 1 April 2026. Wrong choice for a support team that only needs human agents on a chat widget.
Switch from LiveChat if your chat exists to qualify B2B leads and you already use Salesforce.
Open the Qualified profile, 14th of 18 in the live chat guide →
Stay if your team already pays for LiveChat and the plan you are on still does what you need, since the vendor says existing LiveChat plans stay as they are and only the Text features require a move. It also fits teams that want chat, tickets and Shopify selling in one inbox, with SOC 2 Type 2 and GDPR listed for the vendor, and a 14-day trial without a card to test it on a real site. It is the wrong place to stay if you were counting on a free tier, a flat team price or self-hosting, none of which the pricing page offers.
Text bills per user, plus AI resolutions in packages of 50. Alternatives bill by something else: Tidio by billable conversations, Smartsupp by plan with a fixed operator count, Olark by agent seat plus a flat AI fee, Trengo by included users and conversations per year or month. Put your own agent count, monthly chats and expected AI use into each vendor's table before you read a headline price, because the cheapest entry in one model is the dearest in another.
Check what each vendor says about taking data out. Chatwoot states that conversations, contacts and other data can be exported through its API, HelpCrunch says free migration is included, and LiveAgent migrates for free when it has a plugin for your current help desk. We found no equivalent statement on the LiveChat pricing page, so ask LiveChat what chat history export your plan includes before the subscription lapses, and run both tools side by side during the 14 to 30 day trials.
LiveChat.com's pricing page is titled Text and describes Text as intuitive live chat software from the team behind LiveChat.com, HelpDesk.com and ChatBot.com.
The footer reads Text, Inc. The page also says existing LiveChat plans are unchanged and that the Text features are sold under Text plans.
The contact page lists a European office, Text S.A., in Wroclaw, Poland, and a US office, Text, Inc., in Boston. The about page gives the legal name as Text S.A.
with Text, Inc. as US subsidiary, and the privacy policy names Text, Inc. as data controller unless stated otherwise.
The pricing page offers a 14-day free trial on Essential and Growth with no credit card, and shows no free plan. Several alternatives do: Tidio, Smartsupp, Userlike (Lime Connect), Freshchat, Chatwoot cloud, Zoho SalesIQ and tawk.to.
Chatwoot publishes a Community Edition you install on your own infrastructure, with most of the code under the MIT licence. Tiledesk states that it offers an on-premise version. The others in this list are cloud services run by the vendor.
Text charges $49.50 per extra 50 AI resolutions. Freshchat charges $49 per 100 AI sessions.
Chatwoot sells Captain AI credits at $20 per 1,000, Userlike's AI Agent is an add-on from 99 euro a month, and Olark instead sells the AI agent at a flat $400 a month with no usage charge.
Only for lead qualification. Qualified sells an AI SDR agent with quoted pricing and has been owned by Salesforce since 1 April 2026. A team that just wants human agents on a website widget is better served by the other twelve.
Founder of The Knowledge Engineers and of 2 Steps Ahead, an AI search visibility agency. Editorially responsible for every page on this site; research and drafting are AI-assisted.
Sebastiaan Smits wrote and checked this page, most recently on 9 November 2026. See how we review.
