Seven free live chat tools. One question: which of them is still free once real traffic reaches your site?
We checked every free tier on this list against the vendor's own pricing page in July 2026, rather than against a roundup written by a company that sells chat software. Two numbers did not survive that check. Smartsupp's free plan allows 25 conversations per month, not the 100 that circulates through most comparisons. And Google's AI Overview currently reports Tidio's free cap as 100 conversations a month, when Tidio's pricing page puts it at 50.
That gap matters, because the free tier is where the decision actually gets made. Every tool here installs in roughly the same way and takes about the same afternoon. What separates them is what happens in month three, when the volume arrives.
What counts as genuinely free live chat software
Free live chat software falls into three categories. Free-forever plans (tawk.to, Crisp, HubSpot) carry no time limit and no conversation cap. Capped freemium plans (Tidio, Smartsupp, Zoho SalesIQ) stay free indefinitely but meter conversations, agents, or history. Free trials hand you everything for 14 days, then downgrade you to something thinner.
All three arrive on your site as the same object: a live chat widget in the bottom corner. The difference is the business model sitting behind it, and that model is what determines which limit you eventually hit.
Free software still has to pay for itself. Four ways it does that, and each one shapes the product you get:
- Branding. The widget carries the vendor's name until you pay. tawk.to charges $29 per month to remove it; HubSpot bundles removal into Starter at roughly $20 per seat per month.
- Services. tawk.to rents you trained human agents from $1 per hour, which is the actual business behind the free software.
- Seats. Crisp gives away two, then charges $45 per month for four. JivoChat gives away features, then charges per agent.
- The adjacent product. HubSpot's chat is free because the CRM is the product. Every conversation writes a contact record.
Data residency deserves one line, because it splits the field. Crisp hosts in the EU and publishes a Data Processing Agreement on every tier, including free. Zoho documents ISO 27001, SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, HIPAA, and CCPA compliance. US-hosted tools are fine for most US merchants and become a procurement question the moment you sell into the EU. Check it before you install, not after.
Free live chat software compared: limits at a glance
The best genuinely free live chat software overall is tawk.to, because unlimited agents and unlimited conversations have no equivalent anywhere else. Crisp is the best free plan for a solo founder who wants a real shared inbox. For stores that need chat to sell rather than answer, no free tier is sufficient, and the table shows why.
| Tool | Free tier type | Agents | Conversations / month | History | AI on free plan | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| tawk.to | Free forever | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Basic AI assist, paid add-on | More agents than budget |
| Crisp | Free forever | 2 seats | Unlimited | 30 days (reported) | None. $0 AI credits | Solo founders wanting a shared inbox |
| HubSpot | Free forever | Unlimited users | Unlimited | Full, inside the CRM | Rule-based chatflows only | Teams already on HubSpot CRM |
| Zoho SalesIQ | Freemium, capped | 3 operators | 100 sessions | 30 days (reported) | None. Zia sits in Enterprise | Chat plus visitor tracking |
| Tidio | Freemium, capped | Up to 10 | 50 billable | Full | 50 Lyro conversations, one time only | Very low-volume stores |
| Smartsupp | Freemium, capped | 1 operator | 25 | 14 days | None on free | Testing the idea for a fortnight |
| JivoChat | Freemium, capped | 5 (unpublished) | Unlimited | 2 months (reported) | None on free | Teams that prefer desktop apps |
| Qualimero AI employee | Paid, outcome-based | Handles volume without seats | Unlimited | Full | Generative product consultation | Consultation-heavy catalogues |
Two columns carry caveats worth stating plainly. Chat history on the Crisp and Zoho free plans comes from third-party reviews, because neither vendor states retention on the free tier of its public pricing page. JivoChat's 5-agent free cap is reported consistently by reviewers but does not appear on JivoChat's pricing page either. Everything else in the table came directly from the vendor.
The 7 best free live chat tools reviewed
Each tool below gets the same treatment: what the free plan actually includes, and the catch you meet when you outgrow it.
1. tawk.to
Best for: teams with more people than budget. Unlimited agents, unlimited conversations, unlimited chat history, unlimited websites. No conversation meter of any kind. tawk.to reports 6 million businesses on the platform, and the free plan is the whole product rather than a sample of it.
The catch is age, not economics. The interface looks its years and the reporting is thin next to HubSpot or Zoho. The r/CustomerSuccess tested thread that Google's AI Overview cites first sums it up without varnish: "Tawk to - Fully free, unlimited agents, no conversation limits. Only charge is $29/month to remove their branding". Nothing is hidden here. It is simply old software given away honestly.
2. Crisp
Best for: solo founders who want a shared inbox, not just a widget. Two seats, unlimited conversations, the chat widget, mobile and desktop apps, chat SDKs, contact forms, and Shopify and WooCommerce integrations, all on $0. Paid starts at $45 per month for Mini.
The real limit is not conversations, it is contacts. Crisp's pricing page caps the free workspace at 100 customer profiles, where Mini allows 5,000. AI credits on free are $0, so Crisp's AI agent is not part of the free plan at all. Chris Sees of Hoxton Mix, quoted on Crisp's own site: "Evaluated over 20 products, and Crisp came out on top." That is a vendor-published testimonial, so weigh it accordingly, but the free tier genuinely is the most generous two-seat plan on this list.
3. HubSpot Live Chat
Best for: teams already running HubSpot CRM. Unlimited users, unlimited chat volume, and rule-based chatflows. Every conversation writes itself to a CRM contact automatically, which is the entire reason the chat is free.
HubSpot branding is mandatory on the free plan, and removing it means Starter at roughly $20 per seat per month. Anything genuinely AI-driven sits in Professional. As a standalone chat tool it is heavy; as a front door to a CRM you already use, it is the obvious pick.
4. Zoho SalesIQ
Best for: small teams that want visitor tracking alongside chat. Three operator licences, 100 chat sessions per month, 10,000 tracked visitors per month, and one brand, per Zoho's pricing page. Three free operators is the most seats of any capped plan here.
Proactive chat triggers are not included. Zoho lists them under Basic, alongside departments, chat routing, and business hours. Free SalesIQ can answer a question. It cannot start the conversation, which removes most of the sales case for having chat at all.
5. Tidio
Best for: very low-volume stores testing whether chat converts. Fifty billable conversations per month, plus 100 unique visitors reachable through Flows. Tidio defines its unit more precisely than any other vendor on this list, which is worth quoting: "'Billable conversation' refers to any live chat, ticket, email or social media channel conversation that includes a message from a human agent (you)." Unanswered spam does not count against you.
Here is the catch almost no comparison mentions. The free plan ships 50 Lyro AI conversations exactly once. Tidio's own FAQ: "Every Tidio account starts with 50 Lyro conversations, but you need to upgrade to the Lyro AI Agent plan to refresh it monthly." So the AI is a sample, not a feature. Paid starts at $29 per month, and Lyro and Flows are billed separately on top.
6. Smartsupp
Best for: a two-week trial of the idea, not a permanent setup. One operator, 25 conversations per month, 14-day history, and live chat plus WhatsApp and Messenger. Smartsupp's pricing page labels the tier "Just exploring?", which is an unusually honest piece of product naming.
Twenty-five conversations is roughly one per working day. That is the tightest cap in this comparison by a factor of two, and it is half of what most 2026 roundups still report. Conversation limits apply to the free plan only; every paid tier is unlimited.
7. JivoChat
Best for: teams that prefer installed desktop apps over another browser tab. Website chat, Telegram, Facebook, Instagram and Viber, callback, offline forms, and stable desktop, mobile and browser clients. Conversations are not metered.
Where Tidio meters conversations, JivoChat meters features. Proactive invitations, real-time visitor monitoring, canned responses with the automatic assistant, and anti-spam protection all sit behind the paid tier. The free plan answers; it does not prospect. And the widely-cited 5-agent free cap is not published on the pricing page, so confirm it in-app before you build a rota around it.
The dumb bot vs smart AI trap
Rule-based chatbots bundled into free plans match keywords against a script. Ask something the script did not anticipate and the conversation dead-ends. Generative models read intent instead of keywords, so "I need a heater for a 20 square metre room" returns a specific product recommendation rather than a link to the heaters category page.
The distinction is not academic, and it is where free plans draw their line most consistently. HubSpot's free tier gives you rule-based chatflows and puts AI in Professional. Zoho reserves its Zia answer bot for Enterprise. Tidio hands you 50 generative conversations and then stops. Our chatbot vs live chat comparison works through where each model earns its keep.
Treat the resolution rates vendors publish as marketing until you test them on your own catalogue. Tidio claims Lyro solves up to 67% of customer problems. Smartsupp says its Mira agent resolves up to 80%. JivoChat advertises up to 80% for its AI Agent. These are self-reported figures measured on unnamed data, and the number that matters is the one you measure on your own product questions.
When free stops being free: the real cost
A free licence staffed by one part-time person costs roughly $2,340 per month. That is 20 hours a week at the US median customer service wage of $20.59 per hour, loaded with about 31% in employer costs. The software is genuinely free. The staffing is not, and staffing is larger by an order of magnitude.
The assumption is stated so you can argue with it. Median hourly pay for customer service representatives was $20.59 in May 2024 according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, and employer benefit costs add roughly a third on top. Twenty hours a week is a conservative figure for a store answering product questions during business hours. An AI chatbot for customer service changes this arithmetic because it absorbs the repetitive volume that makes staffed chat expensive in the first place.
| Cost factor | Free tool, staffed manually | AI employee, automated |
|---|---|---|
| Software licence | $0 | $50 to $200 |
| Staffing, 20 h/week at $27 loaded | approx. $2,340 | approx. $235 (2 h/week oversight) |
| Coverage | Business hours only | 24/7 |
| First response time | Minutes, when someone is free | Seconds |
| Monthly total | approx. $2,340 | approx. $285 to $435 |
The Rasendoktor case study shows the far end of that curve. A lawn care retailer handling 2,000 to 3,000 consultation-heavy enquiries per season automated 100% of its webchat enquiries, cut support costs by 40%, and returned 16x on the investment. That is one company in one vertical, not a market average, but it is a measured result rather than a projection. The mechanics behind it are set out under AI customer service.
From reactive support to proactive sales
Reactive chat waits for a question. Proactive chat opens the conversation when behaviour suggests hesitation, for example 30 seconds spent on a pricing page. Free tiers gate exactly this trigger: JivoChat and Zoho SalesIQ both place proactive invitations behind the paid plan, and Tidio limits free Flows to 100 visitors per month.
One number we removed from this article is worth explaining. The "305% ROI from proactive chat" figure that appears in nearly every live chat statistics roundup traces back to a LivePerson press release from 2008 describing a Forrester study of a single financial institution. It is eighteen years old and it describes one company. We dropped it rather than repeat it, and I would treat any 2026 article still quoting that number as a signal about how the rest of its statistics were sourced.
What we can point to is measured on live catalogues. Gartenfreunde's AI employee Kira took on up to 50 consultation-heavy enquiries a day that previously reached one salesperson, and lifted the conversion rate 7x with a 45% click-through rate on its product recommendations. That is the difference between an ecommerce chatbot built for AI product consultation and a chat window waiting for someone to type first.
How to install free live chat in 3 steps
Installation is the same everywhere: create the account and set your data-processing options, add the widget through the platform app or a script tag, then configure branding and offline behaviour before you go live. Budget about an afternoon. No development work is required on any tool in this comparison.
Create the account and sign the Data Processing Agreement if you serve EU customers. Crisp and Zoho publish one on the free tier; check before you install.
Use the official app for Shopify, WooCommerce, Wix or Squarespace, or paste the JavaScript snippet into your site head. Google Tag Manager works for every tool here.
Match the widget colours, add a real photo, and set the widget to hide or switch to a contact form outside staffed hours.
Frequently asked questions
tawk.to is the best genuinely free live chat app, because it places no limit on agents, conversations, chat history, or websites. Its only charges are $29 per month to remove branding and $1 per hour for optional hired human agents. Crisp is the better choice if you want a shared inbox and can work within two seats.
Yes. tawk.to, Crisp, and HubSpot all run free-forever plans with no time limit and no conversation cap, verified on their pricing pages in July 2026. Tidio, Smartsupp, and Zoho SalesIQ are also permanently free but meter you at 50, 25, and 100 conversations per month respectively.
For unlimited free use, tawk.to. For teams already on HubSpot CRM, HubSpot Live Chat, because every conversation logs to a contact automatically. For consultation-heavy catalogues, no live chat tool is the right answer, since the constraint is the person answering rather than the software licence.
None of them, in any lasting sense. Tidio gives you 50 Lyro AI conversations that never refresh on the free plan, HubSpot restricts AI to Professional, and Zoho reserves its Zia answer bot for Enterprise. Free plans include rule-based chatflows, which match keywords rather than reading intent.
It depends on how the vendor meters you. Smartsupp counts conversations and resets monthly, notifying you by email as you approach 25. Tidio stops counting billable conversations at 50 until the next cycle. tawk.to and Crisp have no conversation limit at all, so you hit a seat or contact ceiling instead.
Between 25 and unlimited, depending entirely on the vendor. Smartsupp allows 25, Tidio 50, and Zoho SalesIQ 100 chat sessions per month, while tawk.to, Crisp, HubSpot, and JivoChat do not cap conversations. Check the vendor pricing page directly, because these caps changed during 2026 and most comparisons have not kept up.
Which free live chat software should you choose
Pick by constraint, not by feature list. If your limit is headcount, take tawk.to. If your limit is structure, take Crisp. If you already run HubSpot, the CRM logging outweighs the branding. And if your limit is the volume of product questions, no free tier solves it, because the licence was never the expensive part.
- Zero budget, several people answering chats: tawk.to. Unlimited agents is the only free plan that scales with headcount instead of against it.
- One founder, one inbox, wants structure: Crisp. Two seats with unlimited conversations beats every metered plan at this size.
- Already running HubSpot CRM: HubSpot Live Chat. Automatic contact logging is worth more than the branding costs you.
- Consultation-heavy catalogue, more questions than staff: none of the free tiers fit. The bottleneck is the person who has to answer, not the software.
The upgrade trigger is easier to spot than most people expect. It is not the day you exceed a conversation cap. It is the first week someone reorganises their actual job around watching a chat inbox, because that is when the free licence starts costing you a salary. I would argue most stores pass that point months before they notice, which is the real reason free chat has such a reputation for disappointing people.
Free chat answers questions when someone is available. A Qualimero AI employee advises customers on complex products around the clock and hands over to your team when it matters. Rasendoktor automated 100% of its webchat enquiries and cut support costs by 40%.
Try it on your catalogue
Kevin is CTO and co-founder of Qualimero. As an AI architect with over 15 years of experience as CTO and CPO in the tech industry, he designs the AI systems that automate tens of thousands of customer interactions daily for Qualimero's clients — reliably, securely, and at scale.
