ManyChat
Chatbot and automation platform for Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, and SMS
From $15/mo
Category
The best Live Chat software
Live Chat & Chatbots software and applications
- Tools listed
- 42
All 42 live chat tools
Every listing shows its published starting price on the same footing, so a shortlist does not take ten tabs.
What live chat software costs
Counted from the published pricing of the 42 listings on this page. A tool counts as free only where it publishes a $0 plan, an open-source licence or a starting price of zero.
- Cheapest paid plan
- $0Amazon Lex
- Median entry price
- $30across 39 priced
- Dearest entry price
- $200Conversica
- Publish a $0 plan
- 17of 42
Paid live chat plans in this set start anywhere from $0 a month for Amazon Lex to $200 for Conversica. The median entry price across the 39 tools that publish one is $30, half of them start below that figure and half above it.
Entry price is not the ceiling. The dearest published tier anywhere in this category is Gorgias's at $900 a month, 4.5× the highest entry price on the page. Read the top of each ladder as well as the bottom, because that is where you land after two years of growth.
17 of 42 publish a $0 plan, and 2 of those charge nothing at all. 24 tools have no free tier of any kind.
23 of 42 keep at least one tier unpriced and sold by quote, which in practice means the number you end up paying at the top end is not on this page or on theirs.
How these vendors bill
The billing model each of the 42 live chat listings publishes, counted. Two tools at the same headline price are not the same purchase if one of them charges per seat.
- subscription
- 24
- freemium
- 10
- usage-based
- 3
- open-source
- 1
Separately, 23 of 42 publish at least one tier with no price attached. Those are sold by quote, so the top of the ladder is negotiable, and unknowable, until you talk to sales.
What comes as standard, and what you pay extra for
Every capability named in a published pricing tier by any of the 38 live chat tools here that break their plans down, counted once per vendor. This measures what vendors choose to advertise as a selling point, not everything the software does, an absence below is silence, not a missing feature.
Named most often
- Dedicated support , 14 of 38
- Live chat , 7 of 38
- Advanced AI , 5 of 38
- Custom solutions , 5 of 38
- AI chatbot , 4 of 38
Named by fewer
- Custom integrations , 4 of 38
- Full customization , 4 of 38
- Premium support , 4 of 38
- Advanced analytics , 3 of 38
- Advanced automation , 3 of 38
Named by exactly one vendor: Admin Copilot, Automatic FAQ and knowledge updates, Custom flows, Lead nurturing, Phone support, Staffing prediction. Those are differentiators rather than table stakes.
What “Live Chat” covers in practice
The subject tags that recur across these 42 listings, with the number of tools carrying each. A category label is a filing decision; this is the closer read of what is actually filed under it.
- ai-chatbots15
- Live Chat14
- Enterprise11
- nlp6
- automation5
- conversational-ai5
- messaging5
- omnichannel5
- affordable4
- chatbot4
- crm4
- customer-support4
Carried by a single tool: accessible, Chat Marketing, dtc, gdpr, knowledge management, on-premise, revenue-focused, unified inbox. If one of those is the reason you are here, the category page is the wrong lens, go straight to that product.
How to choose between them
Four things the numbers above should change about your shortlist.
Start with the free tiers if there are enough of them
17 of 42 live chat tools here publish a $0 plan, which is enough to run a real trial without a purchase order. A free tier is worth more than a free trial when you are evaluating: a trial expires on the vendor's schedule, a free plan expires when you outgrow it. The thing to check before you commit is which of the capabilities below sit above the free line, starting with dedicated support, the single most frequently named capability in this category's published tiers.
Read the spread before you read the features
$0 to $200 is a $200 spread on entry price alone, and a spread that wide is never about polish, it is about who the vendor built for. Tools at the bottom of this ladder are priced for one person or a small team; tools near $200 are priced for a department with a procurement process. Decide which of those you are before you compare capability, or you will shortlist four tools that were never competing for the same buyer.
Check which tier you actually land on
37 of 42 tools here publish three or more tiers, and the median vendor in this category ships 3 of them. The advertised price is the first rung, and the things teams tend to need, dedicated support, live chat, advanced ai, are named in higher plans far more often than in entry ones. Price your shortlist at the tier that contains what you need, not at the tier on the pricing page's left edge.
The billing model matters more than the headline number
This category splits across 4 billing models: subscription on 24 listings, freemium on 10, and 2 other arrangements across the rest. A per-user price and a flat subscription at the same headline figure are not the same purchase, the first one grows with headcount and the second does not. Multiply by your real team size before you compare two numbers side by side.
Compare live chat tools directly
Every pairing below is a full comparison: the same checklist applied to both, so a gap in one is a gap in the other.
- ManyChat vs Landbot
- Landbot vs Conferbot
- Conferbot vs Acquire
- Acquire vs Ada
- Ada vs Amazon Lex
- Amazon Lex vs Bold360
- Bold360 vs Botpress
- Botpress vs Capacity
Go straight to the numbers
- ManyChatpricingalternatives
- Landbotpricingalternatives
- Conferbotpricingalternatives
- Acquirepricingalternatives
- Adapricingalternatives
- Amazon Lexpricingalternatives
Questions people ask about live chat software
Answered from the listings on this page, and nowhere else.
- How much does live chat software cost?
- Across the 42 live chat tools listed here, paid plans start between $0 and $200 a month, with a median entry price of $30. The most expensive single tier published in the category is $900 a month (Gorgias). 17 of 42 also publish a $0 plan.
- What is the cheapest live chat software?
- 2 of the 42 tools listed here cost nothing at all. Among the ones that charge, Amazon Lex has the lowest published entry price at $0 a month. Cheapest and best value are different questions: check which tier the capability you need actually appears in before you compare starting prices.
- Is there free live chat software?
- Yes, 17 of 42 tools in this category publish a plan priced at $0. 2 of them are free outright, with no paid tier above. A tool is only counted as free here when it publishes a $0 plan, an open-source licence, or a starting price of zero, a free trial does not count.
- What features should live chat software have?
- Judging by what vendors put in their own published pricing tiers, the most frequently named capabilities in this category are dedicated support (14 of 38 tools that publish plan detail), live chat (7) and advanced ai (5). Treat those as the category baseline. Anything named by only one vendor, such as admin copilot or automatic faq and knowledge updates, is a differentiator rather than a standard, so it is worth deciding whether you need it before it narrows your shortlist to one.
- How is live chat software usually billed?
- subscription (24), freemium (10), usage-based (3), open-source (1), counted across the 42 listings on this page. The distinction that costs money is per-seat versus flat: a per-user plan at the same headline price scales with your headcount and a flat subscription does not. 23 of 42 tools also keep at least one tier unpriced and sold by quote.
- What does live chat software actually cover?
- The 42 tools on this page do not describe themselves the same way. The subject tags they carry most often are ai-chatbots (15), live chat (14), enterprise (11), nlp (6), automation (5). That spread is the honest answer to what the category means in practice: it is not one product shape, and two tools filed under live chat may overlap on very little.
- How many pricing tiers do live chat tools offer?
- 39 of 42 tools here publish a plan breakdown, and the median one has 3 tiers. 37 of 42 publish three or more. More tiers is not generosity, it usually means the capability you are buying for sits two rungs above the advertised price, so price your shortlist at the tier that contains it.
- How many live chat tools are listed on Softwr?
- 42 approved live chat listings appear on this page, including ManyChat, Landbot, Conferbot, Acquire. Each links to a full breakdown with its pricing tiers and plan detail, and the category can be filtered by price and sorted by rating above. You can also read the shortlist view at /best/live-chat, which ranks the same set by published rating.
Keep this
Email me these 42 picks
The shortlist for “Live Chat”, plus a note if any of their prices change.
Keep reading
Neighbouring categories
Adjacent in the same taxonomy, not a ranking.