The 25 best WordPress live chat plugins

You may be asking yourself “What’s the best live chat for WordPress?” or “How can I add a live chat to a WordPress website?” Worry not. There are plenty of software vendors that have created live chat plugins specifically for WordPress. In this review, we hope to shed some light on the topic and provide you with a thorough review of the 25 best WordPress live chat plugins (both paid and free!) of 2021.

Why use WordPress live chat plugins?

As your customers (both existing and potential) browse your site they’re bound to come across things they’re curious about and have questions. The best way to showcase that you value your customers’ time is to provide them with real-time support options directly on your website.

This is where WordPress live chat plugins come into play. They can create memorable, hassle-free customer experiences, which are essential for retaining customers, keeping them loyal to your brand, and generating more sales opportunities. 

How to choose the best WordPress live chat plugin for your website

Before you choose a WordPress live chat plugin, ask yourself questions like:

• What are the features that you need from your WordPress chat plugin?
• What is your end goal? What are you trying to achieve by implementing a WordPress chat plugin into your website?
• What is your budget?
• Are you looking for a simple WordPress live chat plugin or a more advanced solution with features like analytics, ticketing, and multi-channel integrations?

Each chat plugin is different and offers unique features. Make sure the WordPress chat plugin that you choose meets the needs of your business and your customers.

The plugin should make it easier to store, manage, and answer live chat conversations while speeding up your support speed. It should also bring organization and clarity to your support processes, providing each support representative with a clear understanding of their responsibilities.

Top 10 WordPress live chat plugins

Chat plugin	Capterra rating	Free version	Starting price	Loading time
LiveAgent	4.7/5 (approx. 1k reviews)	YES	$29 per agent/mo	2.5s
LiveChat	4.6/5 (approx. 1.1k reviews)	NO	$19 per agent/mo	5.7s
Tidio	4.8/5 (approx. 200 reviews)	YES	€18 /mo	5.3s
Tawk.to	4.6/5 (approx. 220 reviews)	YES	FREE	3.5s
Smartsupp	4.7 (approx. 240 reviews)	YES	€15 /mo	4.4s
WP Live Chat	n/a	YES	€0.95 per agent/mo	n/a
Chaport	4.8/5 (approx. 30 reviews)	YES	$14 per agent/mo	n/a
Jivochat	4.5/5 (approx. 50 reviews)	YES	$19 per agent/mo	5.5s
Zendesk	n/a	YES	€19 /mo	9.3s
Formilla	n/a	YES	€29.99 /mo	5.9s

The 25 best WordPress live chat plugins of 2021 (free and paid!)

1. LiveAgent 

LiveAgent is the ideal WordPress chat plugin for those that need an omnichannel live chat solution. The WordPress live chat software is fully customizable, language adaptable, and packed with robust live chat and helpdesk features. 

This year alone, LiveAgent was awarded 26+ awards for value, ease of use, and performance while being recognized as one of the leading live chat solutions on the independent review site GetApp. It is also the highest-rated and most reviewed live chat software on Capterra.

Who is it good for?

LiveAgent’s WordPress live chat plugin is suitable for those that want to deliver context-rich and personalized customer support at lightning speeds. The chat plugin can be implemented by everyone with ease– whether you’re a WordPress newbie or a seasoned professional. Check out the integration video here.

Whether you need a free live chat option for WordPress, or an omnichannel help desk solution, LiveAgent can adapt to your business needs — regardless of the industry you’re in or the type of business you operate.

Key features

Included in the Free plan:

• Unlimited agent seats
• 7 day chat history
• 1 chat button per site
• Contact forms
• Notifications (Slack, email, desktop)
• Business hours
• Fully customizable chat buttons (including colors, position, animation, hover effect, Z index, mobile view, and CSS)
• Offline chat buttons – allow your customers to send you messages even when your support staff is offline
• File sharing
• Pre-chat forms
• Offline forms that collect customer information before each chat session begins
• Chat window docking and notifications 
• Chat button and animation galleries (pre-made chat button templates)
• Chats overview – a 360 view of your current website visitors including the number of online visitors, chatting visitors, visitors in the queue, geographical locations, site referrers, the amount of time spent on your site, the current URL that they’re browsing on your site, and more
• Chat tags
• Automatic chat distribution
• Real-time typing-view – a preview of what your customers are typing into the chat box before they hit send
• Max queue length – the chat button can automatically turn into an offline button or completely disappear from your WordPress site if there are too many people in the chat queue
• Omnichannel agent desktop – view all current chats, past chats, and customer info from a single dashboard

Included in the Ticket+Chat plan:

• Everything in the Free plan
• Trigger-based proactive chat invitations
• Unlimited chat history
• Chat embedded tracking
• Multi-site availability
• 40+ integrations including customer satisfaction tools like Nicereply and PipeDrive

Included in the All-Inclusive plan:

• Everything in the Ticket+Chat plan
• Social media integrations with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Viber
• Call center features

Benefits

Apart from enjoying the fastest WordPress live chat widget, you can take advantage of 180+ advanced help desk features, including:

• Built in-CRM 
• Customer portal & knowledge base 
• A complete ticket management suite 
• Inbound and outbound VoIP call center (in the Free and All-inclusive plan)
• White glove set up
• 24/7 x 365 support on multiple channels

Pros and cons 

Pros:

• Language adaptable
• Fastest and leanest widget on the market 
• Offers a free version

Cons:

• The free version stores chat transcripts for only up to 7 days
• Free version limited to only 1 chat button
• No chatbot

Price

LiveAgent offers one of the best free live chat plugins for WordPress. The paid live chat plugin plans are offered at $29 and $39 per agent per month. A free 14-day trial is available. No credit card required. Download the free WordPress live chat plugin here or check out this page for more live chat software details information about LiveAgent’s WordPress chat plugin.

PS. Don’t be discouraged by the negative plugin ratings on WordPress — they’re from 4-8 years ago, and some are spam. LiveAgent has come a long way since then and is constantly evolving to provide the best customer service tools for B2B, B2C, and SaaS businesses, which is reflected through thousands of positive reviews on Capterra, G2, Trust Pilot, GetApp, and Software Advice.

Best for: teams that need an omnichannel support solution in addition to live chat

Customizable chat box: YES

Chat history: 7 days in the Free plan, unlimited in paid pans

Free conversations per month: unlimited

Price: free version available, paid plans starting from $29 per agent per month

Loading speed/display speed: 2.5 seconds

Rating on Capterra: 4.7/5 (960 reviews) as of February 19th, 2021

2. LiveChat

LiveChat is a powerful chat and helpdesk software ideal for eCommerce sales, customer support, and lead generation. The LiveChat WordPress plugin is fully customizable and supports rich messaging with integrated menus and carousels for product recommendations.

Who is it good for?

The LiveChat WordPress plugin is ideal for eCommerce businesses that have high volumes of traffic and need a solution that can automate processes without involving the customer support team. We recommended LiveChat to businesses that are already established and have a budget to work with because there’s no free version available, and the most advanced paid plan is a bit costly at $59 per agent per month.

Key features

Included in the Starter plan:

• Chat embedded in mobile apps
• Direct chat links
• Canned responses
• Default pre-chat and post-chat surveys
• Default offline messages (ticket form)
• Agent rating
• Customer details (name, email, location, currently viewed page, and more)
• Multi-site availability
• Traffic tracking (monitor up to 100 website visitors at a time)
• Chat transfers
• Smart chat routing
• Manual chat routing
• Automated greetings (1)
• Proactive chats
• Mobile chat window
• Default eye-catchers (choose from 120 GIFs and images or upload your own to create an eye-catching chat invitation)
• Default chat window translations (45 languages)
• Right to left support (native support of the right to left languages like Hebrew and Arabic)
• Customization themes
• 170+ integrations
• 60 day chat history
• Email chat transcripts

Included in the Team plan:

• Everything in the Starter plan
• Pre-chat and post-chat surveys
• Offline messages (ticket form)
• Traffic tracking (monitor up to 400 website visitors at a time)
• Custom customer segments
• Chat tagging
• File sharing
• Automated greetings
• Announcements 
• Eye-catchers
• Efficiency data
• Chat window translations
• Language selection (customers can select their preferred language at the beginning of the chat)
• Custom logo in the chat window
• Chat buttons (choose from pre-made chats or upload custom graphics to make your own)
• Multi-brand customization
• Unlimited chat history
• Message sneak-peek – a preview of what the customer is typing into the chatbox
• Rich messages – create clickable responses, build menus, showcase cards and carousels for product recommendations, create ‘moments’ for booking appointments or payments, and more
• Targeted messages – engage with specific customers based on their behavior and send them personalized messages with useful information
• Chat history – customers can scroll back and read the chat history every time they open the chat button on your website
• Chat boosters – encourage your customer to utilize self-help options directly in the chat widget without having to contact your support team

Included in the Business plan:

• Everything in the Team plan
• Traffic tracking (monitor up to 1000 website visitors at a time)
• Chat takeover 
• Work scheduler

Benefits

• Reporting and analytics
• Ticketing system (email, Facebook, SMS, Apple Business Chat)
• 24/7 x 365 email, chat, and phone support

Pros and cons:

Pros:

• AI chatbot (available in Team and Business plans)
• Rich messages (available in Team and Business plans)

Cons:

• No free plans available
• Only 60 days of chat history available in the Starter plan

Price

LiveChat’s WordPress plugin plans are offered at $19 per agent per month for ‘small offices’, $39 for the Team Plan, and $59 for the business plan (which is the most popular). 

	Starter	Team	Business
Price/month (bille annually)	$16 per agent	$33 per agent	$50 per agent
Price/month (billed monthly)	$19 per agent	$39 per agent	$59 per agent

A free 14-day trial is available. No credit card required. Download the LiveChat WordPress plugin here.

Best for: rich messaging

Customizable chat box: YES

Chat history: 60 days in the Starter plan, unlimited in Team & Business pans

Free conversations per month: unlimited

Price: starting from $19 per agent per month

Loading speed/display speed: 5.7 seconds

Rating on Capterra: 4.6/5 (1081 reviews) as of February 19th, 2021

3. Olark 

Olark is a great WordPress live chat plugin for e-commerce businesses because it provides users with insightful data about their customers. Olark users can see exactly which webpages their customers are browsing, as well as their shopping cart contents. 

Who is it good for? 

Olark is a great choice for established e-commerce businesses that want to boost sales and experiment with engagement strategies through their powerup features. The powerups can add up quickly and become quite costly, so make sure you have a big budget at hand. Although Olark does offer a free WordPress chat plugin, the functionality is pretty limited.

Key features

Included in the Free plan

• Up to 20 chats per month
• 1 agent seat
• Visitor file upload
• Mobile chat clients
• No domain limit
• Attention grabbers
• Offline messaging

Included in the Self-Service plan

• Everything in the Free plan
• File sharing
• Chat transfers
• Visitor details (name, location, and more)
• Chat notifications
• Visitor page tracking 
• Chat volume monitoring
• Chat tagging
• Visitor history
• Transcript archives
• Pre-chat & post-chat surveys
• Chat routing
• Proactive chats (trigger-based automated messages)
• Canned responses
• Visitor targeting
• Automatic greeter
• Customizable chat box theme, logo, language selection
• Right ot left support (for right for left languages like Hebrew and Arabic)
• Unlimited domains
• Integrations with Slack, HubSpot, Magento, Zendesk, HelpScout, Mailchimp, Salesforce, BigCommerce

Powerups:

• Co-browsing – $99/mo
• Non branded chatbox – $59/mo
• Live chat translation (100+ languages) – $29/mo
• Visitor insights (social) – $59/mo
• Visitor insights (social & professional) – $99/mo

Benefits

• Reporting
• Purchasing power-ups can help identify relevant leads, boost sales and customer satisfaction

Pros and cons:

Pros:

• Offers free version
• Price is the same for all organizations and businesses, regardless of size
• Reporting dashboards updated in real-time

Cons:

• Powerups are priced individually and can cost anywhere from $29 to $99 per month
• The free plan offers only one agent seat and 20 chats per month
• Limited features on the free plan
• No chatbot

Price

Monthly subscription	1-year subscription	2-year subscription
$19 per agent/month	$15 per agent/month	$12 per agent/month

If you’re sure Olark is the right WordPress chat plugin for you, it might be worth locking yourself into a two-year deal to save some extra bucks in the long term. 

A free 14-day trial is available. Credit card required. Download the Olark WordPress chat plugin here.

Best for: visitor behavior tracking

Customizable chat box: YES

Chat history: unlimited

Free conversations per month: 20 in the free plan, unlimited in the paid plan

Price: free, paid plan starting from $19 per agent per month

Loading speed/display speed: 7.3 seconds

Rating on Capterra: n/a

4. Support Board 

Support Board is an AI bot-driven WordPress chat plugin that helps users automate customer support requests with chatbots and an integrated live chat. The WordPress chat plugin offers 2 plans for a one-time fee, as well as additional add-ons such as integrations with Slack and Dialogflow.

Who is it good for?

Support Board is the ideal WordPress chat plugin for “productivity-oriented people and businesses”. If your support agents spend a lot of time on Slack, Support Board might be the right choice for you.

Its direct integration with Slack allows agents to answer live chats directly from their Slack accounts thanks to a two-way real-time sync. 

Key features

Included in the WordPress plan

• File sharing
• Rich messages including surveys and shortcodes
• Automatic language detection and translation
• Pop up and welcome messages
• Chatbox customization (header background image, colors, or fully white label)
• Chat routing
• Online and typing status
• Office hours and time table that displays office hours in the user’s local time

Included with the Slack addon (one time $29 fee)

• Real-time two-way sync with Support Board and Slack
• Supports Slack’s message formatting including code snippets, ordered bullet lists, emojis, and more
• Support Board can detect if agents are online and available to chat depending on their Slack status
• Single click auto channel cleaning (archiving)

Benefits

• Integrated knowledge base
• Manages customer account registration
• Progressive web app available on desktop and mobile

Pros and cons:

Pros:

• Lifetime license for a one-time fee
• Rich messages

Cons:

• No data analytics
• Support via email only
• Only 6-month support included with lifetime license
• Slack, Dialogflow, Tickets, and WooCommerce integrations cost extra
• No free plan available

Price

Support Board is available for a one-time license fee of $59 for the WordPress plugin, or $59 for a PHP plugin. Dialogflow and Slack integrations have to be bought separately for $29 each. The WooCommerce integration is available for $39 and the Tickets functionality costs $19.

No free trial available. Learn more about implementing the WordPress Support Board plugin here.

Best for: Slack integrated live chat messaging

Customizable chat box: YES

Chat history: unlimited

Free conversations per month: unlimited

Price: a one-time fee of $59

Loading speed/display speed: n/a

Rating on Capterra: n/a

5. Tidio 

Tidio is an eCommerce live chat plugin that’s powered by chatbots and marketing automation. It’s simple to use and perfect for lead generation on WordPress sites.

Who is it good for?

Tidio is a great live chat software for businesses of all sizes. It offers a free live chat plan that has more advanced features than most free WordPress chat plugins. The paid versions of the software are also very cheap, but advanced. If you want quality features and stellar technical support without breaking the bank, Tidio is the right WordPress plugin for you.

Key features

Included in the Free plan

• Up to 3 chat operators
• Unlimited chatbots
• Unlimited number of chats with 100 unique visitors each month
• Visitors info (location, contact details, tags, custom properties)
• Integrations with Facebook Messenger, Zapier, Shopify, Google Analytics
• Customizable chat boxes and chatbots
• Offline forms complete with email notifications about new messages when you’re not online

Included in the Chatbots plan

• Everything in the Free plan
• Unlimited active chatbots
• Chatbot templates
• Visual chatbot editor
• Unlimited number of chats with 1000 unique visitors each month

Included in the Communicator plan

• Everything in the Free plan
• New incoming visitor notifications
• Live typing (of your customer’s messages)
• Viewed pages
• Live visitors list
• Additional chat operator seats (€10 per seat)
• Website visitor monitoring (including referrer, geographic location, and current URL)

Benefits

• 4 integrated channels for customer communication (live chat, chatbots, email marketing, and Messenger)
• Supports 183 languages, with 21 pre-translated language packs available
• Easy to use mobile and desktop apps (iOS, Android, Windows, OS X, Chrome)
• 24/7 Technical support including knowledge base

Pros and cons:

Pros:

• Offers a selection of chatbots (lead generation bot, welcome new visitors bot, returning visitor bot, etc.) but allows users to create their own custom bot scenario as well

• A free plan is available
• Live chat widgets can be used across multiple sites

Cons:

• The Free plan is limited to 100 chats with unique visitors
• Paid and free plans are limited to 3 agent seats, extra seats are available for €10 each
• Live chat widgets share appearance and settings even when deployed on different sites

Price

The Tidio WordPress plugin offers 1 free and 3 paid plans (one is for email marketing so it is not included in this pricing table.)

	Free	Chatbots	Communicator
Monthly billing	€0	€18/month	€18/month
Annual billing	€0	€180/year	€180/year

All plans can be bought together. A free 7-day trial is available. No credit card required. Download the Tidio WordPress chat plugin here.

Best for: chatbot lead generation and scenario building

Customizable chat box: YES

Chat history: unlimited

Free conversations per month: unlimited

Price: free, paid plans starting at €18/month

Loading speed/display speed: 5.3 seconds

Rating on Capterra: 4.8 (175 reviews) as of February 19th, 2021

 6. Zendesk chat

Zendesk’s WordPress chat plugin (formerly known as Zopim) offers its users plenty of advanced routing options and over 85 third-party integrations. It also offers a free WordPress chat plugin with impressive features, however, it’s limited to 1 concurrent chat and 1 agent seat.

Who is it good for?

The Zendesk WordPress chat plugin is recommended for those that already use Zendesk products (such as their help desk and knowledge base), as the plugin has a native integration with Zendesk Support. However, if you don’t already use other Zendesk products, don’t be discouraged. It’s a great WordPress chat plugin regardless.

Key features

Included in the Lite plan

• 1 concurrent chat
• 1 agent seat
• Chat ratings
• Shortcuts – canned responses/predefined answers
• Automatic translation
• Android & iOS apps
• Pre-chat and offline forms
• 30 day chat history

• Visitor list – monitor who is browsing your website, and which pages they’re looking at
• Chat tags
• Chat widget customization
• Chat badge
• Mobile chat SDK
• 1 third-party integration
• Visitor banning

Included in the Team plan

• Everything in the Lite plan
• Unlimited agent seats
• Unlimited concurrent chats
• File sharing
• Unlimited chat history
• Chat transfers between agents and departments
• 2 chat triggers
• 2 departments
• Advanced chat widget customization
• Hide widget when offline
• Blocked countries
• Allowed domains

Included in the Professional plan

• Everything in the Team plan
• Unlimited triggers
• Unlimited departments
• Operating hours – display your chat widget only during your business hours
• Chat routing

Included in the Enterprise plan

• Everything in the Professional plan
• 24/7 live chat support
• Skill-based chat routing
• Unbranded widget 
• Real-time analytics 
• AI-powered chatbots

Benefits

• Zendesk Support integration
• Reporting and analytics (Professional and Enterprise plan only)

Pros and cons:

Pros:

• Free version available
• Integrates with 85+ third-party applications
• Rich messages that include clickable responses
• Automatic languages translation (40+ languages)

Cons:

• Lite users can chat with only 1 website visitor at a time
• Chatbots only in Enterprise plan

Price

	Lite	Team	Professional	Enterprise
Annual subscription (per agent per month)	€0	€14	€29	€59
Monthly billing (per agent per month)	€0	€19	€35	€70

A free 14-day trial is available. No credit card required. Download the Zendesk chat WordPress plugin here.

Best for: teams that need an omnichannel solution in addition to live chat

Customizable chat box: YES

Chat history: 30 days in the Lite plan, unlimited in other plans

Free conversations per month: unlimited

Price: free, paid plans starting from €19/month

Loading speed/display speed: 9.3 seconds

Rating on Capterra: n/a

7. HubSpot

HubSpot is a one-stop-shop for all things marketing automation, CRM, and customer support. It offers a variety of plans and bundles to help businesses across all industries achieve their goals.

Who is it good for?

HubSpot is a great WordPress chat plugin for existing HubSpot users and those that want a free but advanced live chat widget. If you check out the key features of the free plan, you’ll see that HubSpot offers chatbots, rich messaging, and unlimited agent seats which is more advanced than most free WordPress live chat plugins.

Key features

Included in the Free plan

• Unlimited agent seats
• Conversational bots (limited features)
• Canned snippets (5)
• HubSpot mobile app
• Targeted welcome messages
• Widget customization
• Chat history and chat transcripts
• Chatbot builder
• Rich messaging
• Business hours

Included in the Service Hub Starter plan

• Everything in the Free plan
• Includes 2 agent seats
• Canned snippets (1,000)
• Chat routing
• Simple automation

Included in the Service Hub Professional plan

• Everything in the Starter plan
• Includes 5 agent seats
• Customer experience, NPS, & support surveys
• Insights dashboard
• Custom reporting
• Integration with Slack and Salesforce

Included in the Service Hub Enterprise plan

• Everything in the Professional plan
• Includes 10 agent seats
• Additional helpdesk functionalities

Benefits

• Universal inbox
• Ticketing capabilities with email scheduling
• Free CRM features
• Built-in call center (limited to 15 minutes, 8 hours, 16 hours, and 33 hours)

Pros and cons:

Pros:

• Free version available
• Is free with HubSpot CRM

Cons:

• HubSpot offers limited agent seats in each plan. Extra agent seats will cost you an additional €23 per month per user.
• The solution can be quite costly (when you run out of marketing contacts, email snippets, or calling hours you have to purchase more)
• Chat routing, surveys, and Slack integrations are not available in the “Starter” plans

Price

HubSpot offers a number of bundle deals and standalone plans that include live chat functionality. To see the full list check out their pricing page However, the most live chat features are included in the following “Service Hub” plans:

	Free	Starter	Professional	Enterprise
Monthly billing	€0	€46/mo	€368/mo	€1,104/mo
Annual billing	€0	€41/mo	€331/mo	n/a

No free trial available. Download the HubSpot WordPress chat plugin here.

Best for: CRM users, or HubSpot users

Customizable chat box: YES

Chat history: unlimited

Free conversations per month: unlimited

Price: free version available, paid plans starting from €46/month

Loading speed/display speed: n/a

Rating on Capterra: n/a

8. WP Live Chat Support 

WP Live Chat Support by 3CX is the cheapest WordPress chat plugin on the market. Apart from live chat, it offers ticketing, call center, and softphone capabilities.

Who is it good for?

This WordPress chat plugin is the ideal solution for those who want a full-stack customer service platform but don’t have a big budget, as 3CX offers its customers a free one-year trial. Once the trial ends, the solution will cost you less than one euro per agent per month!

Key features

Included in the Free plan

• Typing indicator and real-time message preview
• Triggers
• Agent/department chat routing
• Customizable chat widget text, colors, design, custom fields, and animations
• Predefined responses
• Chat ratings
• Encrypted conversations
• Chat transcripts, history, and archives
• Visitor blocking
• Offline chat
• Chat translations
• Chat queues

Included in the PRO plan

• All features in the Free plan
• Integrates with Salesforce, Zendesk, HubSpot, and more
• Chat routing
• Additional calling and ticketing features

Benefits

• Detailed reporting features
• Call center, ticketing, and Facebook integration
• Hosted in your private cloud or on-premise

Pros and cons:

Pros:

• Free version available
• Multi-channel agent desktop
• Unlimited number of agents

Cons:

• No chatbot
• Chat routing only in PRO version

Price

The 3CX WordPress plugin is free. If you’re interested in their call center and ticketing features, check out their comprehensive feature/pricing list here.

Free	PRO	Enterprise
€0	€0.95 per user/month (billed annually €285)	€1.15 per user/month (billed annually €345)

One year free trial available. Download the 3CX WordPress chat plugin here.

Best for: teams that need a call center solution in addition to live chat

Customizable chat box: YES

Chat history: unlimited

Free conversations per month: unlimited

Price: free, or PRO version starting from €0.95 per user per month

Loading speed/display speed: n/a

Rating on Capterra: n/a

9. Crisp 

The Crisp WordPress chat plugin is great for marketing automation,  lead generation, and sales. Crisp allows you to help your customers through a variety of features like the chat integrated knowledgebase and co-browsing.

Who is it good for?

Crisp is a great solution for established eCommerce businesses with international customers and big budgets. The free WordPress plugin is very limited, so it’s better to stick to Crisp’s “Unlimited” plan. Although it is quite pricey, it does offer real-time chat translation to over 100 languages which is a huge plus.

Key features

Included in the Basic plan

• 2 agent seats
• Notifications
• Crisp mobile app
• File sharing (jpg, jpeg, png)

Included in the Pro plan

• Everything in the Basic plan
• 4 agent seats
• Unlimited chat history
• Canned responses 
• Audio messages 
• Private notes 
• Fully customizable chat widget (colors, languages, positions)
• Integration with Slack that lets you answer customer chats from Slack
• Triggers, targeted messages, and proactive invitations
• File sharing (supports over 30+ formats)

Included in the Unlimited plan

• Everything in the Pro plan
• Unlimited agent seats
• Co-browsing in real-time
• Chatbot 
• Chatbot scenario builder
• Real-time chat translation (100+ languages)
• Integrated knowledge base – your customers can access knowledge base articles from the chat-box 
• User ratings 
• Chat routing 
• Automated replies
• No crisp logo

Benefits 

• Shared inbox
• Integrates with email, Facebook Messenger, Twitter, Telegram, Twilio, LINE, and WhatsApp (Unlimited plan)
• Video chat (Unlimited plan)
• Chat reminders (Unlimited plan)

Pros and cons:

Pros:

• Offers a free version
• Rich messaging
• Web & mobile Crisp apps for chatting on the go

Cons:

• Free “Basic” plan limited to 2 agent seats
• Paid “Pro” plan limited to 4 agent seats

Price

Crisp offers 3 plans:

• The “Basic” plan for free
• The “Pro” plan for €25 per month per website
• The “Unlimited” plan for €95 per month per website 

You can try Crisp for free with a 14-day trial, no credit card required. Download the Crisp WordPress chat plugin here.

Best for: rich messaging

Customizable chat box: YES (paid plan only)

Chat history: unlimited

Free conversations per month: unlimited

Price: free, paid plans starting from €25/month per website

Loading speed/display speed: 5.4 seconds

Rating on Capterra: 4.5/5 (58 reviews) as of February 19th, 2021

10. Userlike 

Userlike is the perfect WordPress chat plugin for those that want to provide live chat support to their customers in a more convenient way — through other social channels such as Facebook Messenger or Telegram.

Who is it good for?

Userlike offers a great free WordPress chat plugin. However, the paid plans are quite pricey, so if you’re set on using Userlike, we recommend that you have a big budget for your live chat solution.

Key features

Included in the Free plan:

• Website messenger for web and mobile
• Real-time and asynchronous chat
• Access to past conversation history
• Unlimited website implementations
• File sharing and file previews
• Chat widget customization
• Multi-language support (English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch)
• Chat feedback (star ratings, surveys, comments)
• Canned messages
• Service times (business hours)
• Contact profiles
• Registration forms (pre-chat forms)
• Chat tags

Included in Team plan:

• All the features from the Free plan
• Integrations with Zendesk, Salesforce, Google Analytics, MailChimp, Slack, and more

Included in Corporate plan:

• All features from the Free and Team plans
• Advanced analytics
• Live chat translation
• Audio calls

Included in Business plan:

• All features from the Free, Team, and Corporate plans
• WhatsApp integration
• White label
• Full API access
• Advanced chat routing
• Chatbot

Benefits

• Shared team inbox
• Can integrate with Facebook Messenger, Telegram, SMS, and any other custom channel
• Audio calls
• Reporting and analytics
• Rich messages allow users to select which department they want to chat with before beginning a chat
• Chat routing and forwarding with chat transcripts

Pros and cons:

Pros:

• Unlimited website implementations
• The Free version is equipped with great functionality

Cons:

• Agent seats, chat widgets, and integrated channels are very limited in each plan
• Quite pricey

Price

Userlike offers 5 different plans:

• Free – €0/month (1 chat widget, 1 agent seat)
• Team – €90/month (4 chat widgets, 4 agent seats, 1 integrated channel)
• Corporate – €290/month (10 chat widgets, 10 agent seats, 3 integrated channels)
• Business – €750/month (20 chat widgets, 20 agent seats, 5 integrated channels)
• Flex – Flexible enterprise solution with unlimited chat widgets and agent seats. Can be tailored to your needs. To request a quote, contact Userlike directly.

A free 14-day trial is available (Team plan features). No credit card required. Download the Userlike WordPress chat plugin here.

Best for: for teams that need a social chat solution

Customizable chat box: YES

Chat history: unlimited

Free conversations per month: unlimited

Price: free, paid plans starting from €90/month

Loading speed/display speed: 5.3 seconds

Rating on Capterra: 4.6/5 (633 reviews) as of February 19th, 2021

11. Tawk.to 

Tawk.to is one of the best free WordPress live chat plugins available. It is 100% free and offers live chat, ticketing, and knowledge base capabilities.

Who is it good for?

Since Tawk.to is absolutely free, it’s the best for those that don’t have any wiggle room in their budget for a live chat solution. It’s recommended for solopreneurs, small businesses, and even startups. 

Key features

• Real-time website visitor monitoring
• Native mobile apps
• Automated triggers
• Customizable widgets
• Canned responses (shortcuts)
• 100+ integrations
• Group messaging
• Desktop notifications
• 1880+ emojis
• Unlimited history
• Sentiment tracking
• Ban/unban visitors
• File sharing
• Chat tags
• Attention bubble
• Scheduler
• Message sneak peek
• In chat payments (beta)
• Automated translation, 27 languages (beta)

Benefits

• Built-in ticketing system
• Internal messaging (agent to agent)
• Detailed reporting
• Departments
• Aliases
• Mail notifications
• Visitor information
• Customizable landing pages built for chat
• Customizable knowledge base
• Removed branding (paid add-on, $15/mo)
• Video, voice, and screen sharing (paid add-on, $29/mo)

Pros and cons:

Pros:

• Unlimited agent seats
• iOS and Android apps available for chatting on the go
• Absolutely free
• Option to hire chat agents/virtual assistants directly from Tawk.to
• 24/7 x 365 customer support

Cons:

• No chatbot
• No email or Facebook messenger integration

Price

Tawk.to is an absolutely free WordPress chat plugin unless you want to purchase one of its paid add-on features:

• Branding free – $15/mo
• Video, voice, and screen sharing – $29/mo

Download the Tawk.to WordPress plugin here.

Best for: free users

Customizable chat box: YES

Chat history: unlimited

Free conversations per month: unlimited

Price: free

Loading speed/display speed: 3.5 seconds

Rating on Capterra: 4.6/5 (217 reviews) as of February 19th, 2021

12. Drift 

Drift is a sales-oriented WordPress plugin that is packed with prospecting and lead qualification features. Apart from that, it offers an advanced selection of chat routing settings such as round-robin, CRM, team, or firmographic routing.

Who is it good for?

Drift is the ideal WordPress chat plugin for those that don’t need many advanced live chat features but want to focus more on lead generation, qualification, and conversion through advanced website visitor monitoring.

Key features

Included in the Free plan:

• Real-time live chat
• Block IPs
• Email fallback
• Welcome messages
• Slack, Calendar, and Google Analytics integrations

Included in the Premium plan:

• All features included in the Free plan
• Saved replies (canned responses)
• Live view
• Data enrichment
• Custom branding
• Drift intel
• Drift prospector
• Sliders and proactive messages
• Custom bots
• Landing pages
• Personalized playbooks
• Chat routing (round-robin, team, CRM, firmographic)
• Calendar in chat
• Integrations with HubSpot, Salesforce, Zendesk, Marketo, and more

Included in the Enterprise plan:

• All features included in the Free and Premium plan
• Automation (paid add-on)
• Enterprise lead routing

Benefits

• Reporting features including revenue reporting and conversion analysis
• Chat to call (10 hours/seat)
• Chat to Zoom

Pros and cons:

Pros:

• Offers free plan
• Multiple chat routing options
• Rich messaging

Cons:

• 24/7 support included only with the Enterprise plan
• The free plan has no support options (apart from self-help docs)
• Every plan is limited to 1 agent seat (more agent seats will cost you extra)
• Automation available as a paid add-on only
• Non-transparent pricing

Price

Drift does not disclose its pricing. To find out how much each plan costs, please consult a Drift sales representative.

No free trial available. Download the Drift WordPress chat plugin here.

Best for: customization and sales

Customizable chat box: YES

Chat history: unlimited

Free conversations per month: unlimited

Price: custom

Loading speed/display speed: 4.8 seconds

Rating on Capterra: n/a

13. Pure Chat 

Pure Chat offers one of the most customizable WordPress chat widgets. Users can build their own chat box according to their needs with custom animations, colors, and images.

Who is it good for?

Pure Chat is the right solution for those that care about aesthetics more than functionality. Although Pure Chat offers real-time analytics, core features like message previews and chatbots are missing from its feature list.

Key features

Included in the Growth plan:

• Unlimited chats
• Advanced widget customization
• Unlimited chat history transcripts
• Canned responses
• Chat notifications
• File transfer
• Trigger-based actions and alerts
• Visitor tracking

Included in the Pro plan:

• All features included in the Growth plan
• Removed Pure Chat branding

Benefits

• Engagement hub
• iOS and Android mobile apps for chatting on the go
• Real-time analytics
• Comprehensive account statistics and reports
• CSV export for reports and contacts
• SMS notifications (limited to 100 or 1,000 depending on the plan)

Pros and cons:

Pros:

• Support included in both plans
• Live chat can be used on an unlimited number of websites if you choose the Pro plan

Cons:

• Limited agent seats (4 and 10)
• Live chat can be used on only one website if you choose the Growth plan
• No chatbots
• No message sneak peek
• No free version available

Price

	Paid annually	Paid monthly	Additional users paid annually	Additional users paid monthly
Growth	$39/mo	$49/mo	$13/mo	$15/mo
Pro	$79/mo	$99/mo	$8/mo	$10/mo

A free 30-day trial is available with all the Pro features. Pure Chat also offers a money-back guarantee. Download the Pure Chat WordPress chat plugin here.

Best for: customization

Customizable chat box: YES

Chat history: unlimited

Free conversations per month: unlimited

Price: starting from $49/month

Loading speed/display speed: 7.4 seconds

Rating on Capterra: 4.6/5 (311 reviews) as of February 19th, 2021

14. Formilla 

Formilla offers sleek, professional-looking chat boxes, over 1000 integrations with third-party applications, and an internal messenger for your support agents. 

Who is it good for?

Formilla’s paid plans are packed with must-have live chat features. However, its free plan is very basic. As such, we recommend it for only established businesses that have big budgets (especially if you want to use chatbots as well).

Key features

Included in the Premium plan:

• Unlimited live chats
• Proactive chat
• Chat smart messages (messages sent to customers based on tracked behavior)
• Canned messages (saved replies)
• 1000+ third-party integrations such as MailChimp, Google Analytics, Pipedrive, and Zendesk
• Banned visitors
• Chat departments
• Custom branding, colors, and themes
• International language support (Chat widget can be translated to other languages)
• Unlimited live chat widgets
• Advanced customization control (chat widget CSS)
• Move chat button location
• Auto-responder
• User/agent is typing a message
• Chat notifications
• Offline lead collection
• Chat history and chat transcripts
• Custom fields
• Hours of operation (business hours)
• Chat and email support

Included in the Professional plan:

• All features included in the Premium plan
• Real-time visitor monitoring
• Install on multiple websites
• Remove Formilla branding
• File sharing
• Phone support

Included in the Growth plan:

• All features included in the Premium and Professional plan
• Unlimited in-app messages
• Team training (2 hours)

Benefits

• Reporting
• Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Android apps available

Pros and cons:

Pros:

• Offers a Free plan for small businesses with up to 30 chats/month and 1 agent seat

Cons:

• A.I. Chatbots available for all plans for a fee of $49.99/mo
• Each plan is limited to 2 agent seats 
• Non-transparent pricing (Each extra agent seat will incur an additional fee depending on the package chosen.)

Price

	Monthly subscription	1- Year price paid in full	2- Year price paid in full
Free	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00
Premium	$29.99/mo	$23.99/mo	$15.00/mo
Professional	$49.99/mo	$39.99/mo	$25.00/mo
Growth	$69.99/mo	$55.99/mo	$35.00/mo

Offers a free 15-day trial. No credit card required. Download the Formilla WordPress chat plugin here.

Best for:  established professional businesses

Customizable chat box: YES

Chat history: unlimited

Free conversations per month: unlimited

Price: free, paid plans starting from $29.99/month

Loading speed/display speed: 5.9 seconds

Rating on Capterra: n/a

15. Chaport

Chaport is the only WordPress chat plugin (as far as we know!) that automatically detects and switches to the visitor’s browser language. This is especially useful for eCommerce businesses with a worldwide customer base.

Who is it good for?

Chaport is a great WordPress chat plugin for international eCommerce businesses. The free plan is packed with advanced features, while the paid plan is very cheap compared to the other live chat plugins in this review.

Key features

Included in the Free plan:

• Unlimited chats and websites
• 30 day chat history
• Mobile-friendly chat widget
• Multilingual chat widget (The chat widget automatically switches to the visitor’s browser language)
• An automatic email address requester
• Basic widget customization (color)
• Offline messages
• Notifications
• Brief visitor info (email address, name, phone number)
• Chat transfer
• Chat deletion and export
• Basic reports

Included in the Pro plan:

• All features included in the Free plan
• Unlimited chat history
• 2000+ integrations through Zapier
• Advanced widget customization (background, positioning, message sound)
• Pre-chat form
• Auto-invitations
• Branding removal (must have at least 5 agent seats)
• Group chats
• File sending
• Emojis
• Read receipts
• Message editing/deletion
• Detailed visitor information
• Visitor info editing
• Visitor behavior
• Visitor notes (private, internal notes)
• Custom fields
• Search
• Typing insights (message sneak peek)
• Saved replies (canned responses)
• Visitor ban
• Working hours
• Status auto-toggle
• Chat transcript to email
• Automatic transfer of unanswered chats

Benefits

• Web, desktop, and mobile apps
• Reporting
• Facebook, Viber, and Telegram integration (Pro plan)

Pros and cons:

Pros:

• Offers a free version with great features

Cons:

• Chaport offers unlimited agent seats, however, only one agent can be online at a time (Free plan). To have more than one online agent at a time, you have to buy the Pro plan and as well as additional “Operator  Seats” which will cost you $9.80 or $14.00 per operator/month

Price

Chaport offers both free and paid plans. The PRO paid plan will cost you $9.80 per agent per month if billed annually, or $14.00 per agent per month if billed monthly.

A free 14-day trial is available with the PRO functionality. Download the Chaport WordPress chat plugin here.

Best for: value

Customizable chat box: YES

Chat history: 30 days in the Free plan, unlimited in the Pro plan

Free conversations per month: unlimited

Price: free, paid plan starting from $14.00 per agent per month

Loading speed/display speed: n/a

Rating on Capterra: 4.8/5 (29 reviews) as of February 19th, 2021

16. Jivochat 

Jivochat is an all in one business messenger that you can use to talk to your customers on live chat, phone, email, and social media. It’s packed with website visitor monitoring features and integrates with popular apps like Slack, PipeDrive, Zoho CRM, and of course, WordPress.

Who is it good for?

Jivochat is an excellent choice for businesses that need a multi-channel help desk solution in addition to live chat. It’s also recommended for those that have customers all around the world as the WordPress chat widget can be used in 20 different languages, and the chat plugin translates any inputted text into 90+ languages.

Key features

Included in the Free plan:

• Unlimited chats and websites
• 2 Month chat history storage
• Customizable chat widget (20 languages)
• Mobile chat widget
• Offline contact form
• Pointer tool to direct customers throughout your site

Included in the Professional plan:

• All features included in the Free plan
• Unlimited chat history storage
• Proactive chats and smart triggers
• Pre-chat or in-chat contact info collection
• Chat ratings
• Multiple departments
• Chat distribution according to customer location
• Pre-chat buttons
• Canned responses with an automatic helper
• Translator for 90+ languages
• Complete visitor info with IP addresses, region, and visit source  
• Chat transfer
• File sharing
• Message sneak-peek
• Spell checker
• Multi-agent chats
• Tasks
• Agent business hours schedule
• Real-time visitors monitoring

Benefits

• Desktop, mobile, and browser apps
• Daily performance emails
• Analytics & reporting

Pros and cons:

Pros:

• Offers free plan with 5 agent seats

Cons:

• No chatbot

Price

Jivochat offers a free WordPress chat plugin as well as a professional paid plan that will cost you:

Monthly billing price for 1 agent	3-month billing price for 1 agent	1-year billing price for 1 agent	2-year billing price for 1 agent
$19/mo	$17/mo	$13/mo	$12/mo

A free 14-day trial is available. Download the Jivochat WordPress chat plugin here.

Best for: value, businesses that need a help desk solution

Customizable chat box: YES

Chat history: 2 months in the free plan, unlimited in paid plan

Free conversations per month: unlimited

Price: free, paid plans starting from $19 per agent / month

Loading speed/display speed: 5.5 seconds

Rating on Capterra: 4.5/5 (53 reviews) as of February 19th, 2021

17. Intercom 

Intercom is an industry giant that offers advanced live chat features including chatbots, a team inbox, and rich messaging. It integrates with most popular applications like Slack, HubSpot, GitHub, Twitter, Facebook, Salesforce, Clearbit, Marketo, and Zendesk.

Who is it good for?

Intercom is a great option for those that don’t need an omnichannel solution. If you’re looking for a supercharged live chat WordPress plugin, it’s the right choice for you. It’s packed with advanced features, however, it does come with a higher price tag. As such, it’s not recommended for small businesses, startups, or solopreneurs. 

Key features

For very small businesses

Included in the Start plan:

• Live chat
• Customizable messenger
• Team inbox
• Conversational tags
• Snooze conversations
• Office hours
• Slack integration

Included in the Growth plan:

• Chatbots (lead qualification bot, article suggestions bot)
• Banners
• Mobile carousels
• Messenger visibility
• Conversation views
• Conversation ratings
• Saved responses
• Articles in conversations
• Article smart suggestions
• HubSpot and Github integration

For most businesses

Included in the Conversational Marketing plan:

• Chatbots
• Banners
• Mobile carousels
• Lead qualification, article suggestion, data collection & custom bots
• Apps in bots
• Customizable chat widget
• Chat widget visibility
• Unbranded chat widget
• Multi-brand support
• Chat tags
• Snooze conversations
• Office hours
• Conversation ratings
• Saved replies
• Articles in conversations
• Article smart suggestions
• Automated chat assignment, round-robin assignment, priority assignment
• Team level office hours
• Integrations with Slack, HubSpot, GitHub, Twitter, Facebook, Salesforce, Clearbit, Marketo, Zendesk

Included in the Conversational Engagement plan:

• Everything in the Conversational Marketing plan
• Push messages & notifications
• Product tours & video tours

Included in the Conversational Support plan:

• Everything in the Conversational Marketing plan
• Resolution bot
• Product tours & video tours

Benefits

• Reporting (conversation volume, leads)
• Team inbox
• Training webinars & tailored training sessions
• 24/7 prioritized technical support on email & chat
• Dedicated relationship manager

Pros and cons:

Pros:

• Eligible startups can get advanced Intercom features from just $49/mo for up to one year.

Cons:

• Limited agent seats (1, 5, and 10)
• No free plans available
• Conversational plans are expensive

Price

• Start $39/mo (1 agent seat)
• Growth $99/mo (5 agent seats)
• Conversational Marketing/Engagement/Support plans: $499/mo (10 agent seats)

A free 14-day trial is available. Credit card required. Download the Intercom WordPress chat plugin here.

Best for: large enterprises

Customizable chat box: YES

Chat history: unlimited

Free conversations per month: unlimited

Price: starting from $39/mo

Loading speed/display speed: 5.5 seconds

Rating on Capterra: 4.5/5 (735 reviews) as of February 19th, 2021

18. iFlyChat 

iFlyChat is a real-time chat platform that enables you to engage and monetize your community through real-time chat, voice, and video. The product allows you to create chat rooms on your website to grow your community engagement.

Who is it good for?

The iFlyChat WordPress chat plugin is best suited for community and social networking websites. It’s less of a support solution than the other tools mentioned in this review, and thus we would not recommend it to those looking for a traditional customer support/live chat solution.

Key features

The iFlychat website makes it hard to decipher which features are considered standard and available in all plans. 

Assumed standard features:

• Typing indicator
• Chat templates
• Read receipts
• Rich media
• Action cards and auto-thumbnails
• Chatbots
• Dashboard member monitoring and conversation moderating
• Mute or ban members
• View message history

Included in the Lite plan:

• Standard features
• 10 concurrent users
• 1 chat room
• 1-week chat archive

Included in the Basic plan:

• Standard features
• 60 concurrent users
• 1 chat room
• 1-month chat archive
• 1 chat moderator

Included in the Professional plan:

• Standard features
• 150 concurrent users
• 5 chat room
• 3-month chat archive
• 5 chat moderators

Included in the Business plan:

• Standard features
• 300 concurrent users
• 20 chat rooms
• 6-month chat archive
• 10 chat moderators
• Group chat

Benefits

• Built-in monetization options
• Audio and video chat

Pros and cons:

Pros:

• Offers free version
• Great for community engagement

Cons:

• Not a traditional support solution
• Users can misuse your chat rooms and scare other potential users away (As an example, when I was browsing the iFlyChat website, a user with the name “Secret Swingers” was online and visible on the chat)

Price

	Lite	Basic	Professional	Business
Monthly billing	Free	$19/mo	$49/mo	$99/mo
Annual billing	Free	$17/mo	$44/mo	$89/mo

A free 14-day trial is available. No credit card required. Download the iFlyChat WordPress chat plugin here.

Best for: building a community

Customizable chat box: YES (select themes only)

Chat history: 1 week, 1 month, 3 months, & 6 months depending on the plan

Free conversations per month: unlimited

Price: free, paid plans starting from $19 / month

Loading speed/display speed: n/a

Rating on Capterra: n/a

19. Flyzoo 

The Flyzoo WordPress chat plugin is a community chat software that can also be used for customer support as it provides insights about your website visitors through real-time monitoring features.

Who is it good for?

Flyzoo is a great choice for those who want to build communities and allow their users to interact on their website in real-time using live chat. It can also be used as a customer support solution, however, its features are limited when compared to those of the other WordPress chat plugins mentioned in this review.

Key features

Included in the Wow plan:

• 75 Concurrent Users
• 5 Operators/Moderators
• 5 Group Chats
• Chat History (6 months)
• Responsive/Mobile
• Customize colors
• Up to 100k monthly visits

Included in the Pro plan:

• 150 Concurrent Users
• 20 Operators/Moderators
• 10 Group Chats
• Chat History (6 months)
• Responsive/Mobile
• Customize colors
• Up to 250k monthly visits
• White Label
• Real-time Visitor Monitoring
• Embeddable Group Chats
• File Sharing
• Subdomains

Included in the Jumbo plan:

• 300 Concurrent Users
• 50 Operators/Moderators
• 20 Group Chats
• Chat History (6 months)
• Responsive/Mobile
• Customize colors
• Up to 500k monthly visits
• White Label
• Real-time Visitor Monitoring
• Embeddable Group Chats
• File Sharing
• Subdomains
• Role-based Access
• Connect Domains (up to 3)

Included in the Ultra plan:

• 600 Concurrent Users
• 50 Operators/Moderators
• 50 Group Chats
• Chat History (6 months)
• Single Sign-On
• Responsive/Mobile
• Customize colors
• Up to 1M monthly visits
• White Label
• Real-time Visitor Monitoring
• Embeddable Group Chats
• File Sharing
• Subdomains
• Role-based Access
• Connect Domains (up to 5)

Benefits

• Chat translations into 20 languages

Pros and cons:

Pros:

• Can be used on multiple domains

Cons:

• Not a traditional support solution 

Price

	Wow	Pro	Jumbo	Ultra
Monthly billing	$9.90/mo	$19.90/mo	$39.90/mo	$89.90/mo
6-month billing	$7.90/mo	$15.90/mo	$29.90/mo	$69.90/mo
Annual billing	$6.60/mo	$12.90/mo	$24.90/mo	$59.90/mo

A free 14-day trial is available. No credit card required. Download the Flyzoo WordPress chat plugin here.

Best for: building a community

Customizable chat box: YES

Chat history: 6 months

Free conversations per month: unlimited

Price: starting from $9.90 / month

Loading speed/display speed: n/a

Rating on Capterra: n/a

20. Freshchat 

The Freshchat WordPress plugin is great for acquiring, engaging, and supporting customers across multiple communication channels. It’s packed with AI bots, and interesting features such as IntelliAssign, that auto-assigns chats based on team member skills.

Who is it good for?

Freschat is a great choice for large enterprises, as the free and lower tier plans have limited chat functionality. You’ll be getting the most out of Freshchat if you opt for the most expensive plan, however you’ll be paying nearly $100 per agent per month.

Key features

Included in the Sprout (free) plan:

• Conversation labels
• Desktop notifications
• Mobile SDK

Included in the Blossom plan:

• Everything in Sprout
• Automatic chat assignments based on predefined rules
• Canned responses
• Private notes
• Business hours (global)
• Offline messaging
• A basic dashboard with a real-time visual summary of conversation trends, CSAT, and response speeds
• File sharing

Included in the Garden plan:

• Everything in Blossom
• Auto-resolve (detect inactivity & resolve chats automatically)
• CSAT  surveys and reports

Included in the Estate plan:

• Everything in Garden
• IntelliAssign (load-balanced auto-assignment of chats based on team member skills)
• Business hours (by groups)
• Co-browsing
• Live translate
• An advanced dashboard with a real-time visual summary of conversation trends, CSAT, team performance, and response speeds
• Advanced chat automation 
• Multilingual support

Included in the Forest plan:

• Everything in Estate
• Chatbots
• Chatbot analytics
• Allowed IPs/domains

Benefits

• 24 x 5 chat support included with all paid plans
• 24 x 5 email support included with all plans
• Freshdesk integration
• Bulk actions

Pros and cons:

Pros:

• Offers free version

Cons:

• Chatbot available in most expensive version only
• Important features like targeted messages or proactive chat invitations have to be purchased as an add-on 

Price

	Sprout	Blossom	Garden	Estate	Forest
Billed monthly	FREE	€19  per agent /month	€39 per agent/month	€59 per agent/month	€99 per agent/month
Billed annually	FREE	€15 per agent/month	€29 per agent/month	€45 per agent/month	€69 per agent/month

A free 21-day trial is available. No credit card required. Download the Freshchat WordPress chat plugin here.

Best for: enterprises

Customizable chat box: YES

Chat history: unlimited

Free conversations per month: unlimited

Price: starting from €19 per agent/month

Loading speed/display speed: 2.8 seconds

Rating on Capterra: 4.5/5 (66 reviews) as of February 19th, 2021

21. Live Person 

LivePerson is an innovative WordPress chat plugin that is powered by conversational AI chatbots. Users have the option to build custom bots for different scenarios.

Who is it good for?

LivePerson is ideal for those that want a truly custom WordPress plugin. LivePerson allows users to pick and choose which functionality they want, and the product is priced accordingly.

Key features

• Conversational AI
• Intent manager
• Conversation builder (build chatbots for automating conversations)
• Conversation manager (a workspace to manage agents, bots, and conversations)
• Conversation orchestrator (an AI engine that determines the right resource — bot, human, or content — to deliver the best support option)
• Conversation analytics
• Proactive two-way messaging
• Web messaging
• App messaging

Benefits

• Easily integrates into any back-end system including CRM, scheduling, order, and inventory management systems, and more
• Allows users to communicate with customers in their preferred communication channel (Email, SMS, Apple Business Chat, Google RBM, Google’s Business Messages, WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, LINE, WeChat)
• Voice to messaging (instead of missing calls or making your consumers wait on hold, give them the option to “press 1 to start a messaging conversation.”)

Pros and cons:

Pros:

• Advanced AI chatbot features

Cons:

• Does not offer a free version
• Non-transparent pricing

Price

LivePerson pricing depends entirely on the features that you choose to be a part of your WordPress plugin solution. To chat with the LivePerson sales department, book a demo here.

Download the LivePerson WordPress chat plugin here.

Best for: building custom bots and scenarios

Customizable chat box: YES

Chat history: unlimited

Free conversations per month: unlimited

Price: custom

Loading speed/display speed: n/a

Rating on Capterra: n/a

22. Wise Chat 

Wise Chat by Kainex is a free WordPress chat plugin that allows users to create social networks on their site by creating community chat rooms.

Who is it good for?

Wise Chat is a great chat plugin for WordPress users that want to provide their website visitors with a community chat option.

Key features

Included in the Wise Chat 2.9 plan:

• Mobile friendly 
• Multiple channels (chat rooms) running at once
• Private channels (password-protected chat rooms)
• Custom usernames
• Channels limit (limit the number of channels a user can participate in simultaneously)
• Chat customizations (username change, the color of messages, sounds generated by the chat)
• Spammer detection/banning
• File sharing (send clickable links, images, and attachments)
• Auto-remove messages 
• Appearance customization (chat window colors, font size, show/hide chat elements, positioning)
• Custom filters (rules that detect and replace specific words)
• Profanity filter
• Business hours
• Emojis
• Channel stats and user lists

Included in the Wise Chat Pro plan:

• Everything in Wise Chat 2.9
• Avatars
• Facebook-like mode
• Themes gallery
• Hooks
• Email notifications
• Custom emoticons
• Private messages (users can talk in private conversations)
• Edit posted messages
• Replying to messages
• User list search
• Pending messages

Benefits

• Lifetime license with the paid version

Pros and cons:

Pros:

• Offers free version

Cons:

• No chatbot

Price

Wise Chat 2.9 is free, and Wise Chat Pro can be bought for a one-time fee of $45. Download the Wise Chat WordPress chat plugin here.

Best for: building a community

Customizable chat box: YES

Chat history: unlimited

Free conversations per month: unlimited

Price: free, paid plan costs $45 for a lifetime license

Loading speed/display speed: n/a

Rating on Capterra: n/a

23. Sendinblue 

Sendinblue is an email marketing automation tool that also provides basic live chat capabilities.

Who is it good for?

Sendinblue is the perfect WordPress plugin for marketers that mainly focus on email marketing while live chat takes the backseat. If you want a robust WordPress chat plugin, Sendinblue is not recommended as its live chat features are quite limited when compared to other plugins in this review.

Key features

Included in the Free plan:

• Chat customization
• Page tracking 
• Email marketing features listed in the benefits section

Included in the Lite plan:

• Everything in the Free plan + additional features email marketing features (no daily email sending limit, A/B testing)

Included in the Premium plan:

• Everything in the Lite plan + additional features email marketing features (Facebook & retargeting ads, landing pages, multi-user access)

Benefits

• Email campaigns
• Mobile-friendly email designer
• Email template library
• SMS marketing
• Email & SMS personalization
• Advanced customer segmentation
• Customizable signup forms
• Shared inbox
• Workflow editor/marketing automation workflows
• Real-time reporting, geography & device reporting, heat map reporting, advanced open & click stats

Pros and cons:

Pros:

• Offers a free version

Cons:

• No multi-user access in the free plan
• More of an email/marketing automation solution than a live chat solution
• No way to tell if there are chat transfers, chatbots, and other must-have live chat features

Price

• Free – FREE
• Lite – €19/mo
• Premium – €49/mo

No free trial available. Download the Sendinblue WordPress plugin here.

Best for: email marketing automation (and basic live chat support)

Customizable chat box: YES

Chat history: unlimited

Free conversations per month: unlimited

Price: free, paid plans starting from €19/month

Loading speed/display speed: n/a

Rating on Capterra: n/a

24. Smartsupp

Smartsupp is a multi-channel support solution that offers live chat, ticketing, and a Facebook Messenger integration. It’s great for rich messaging and offers chatbots even in the free plan which is quite impressive.

Who is it good for?

The Smartsupp WordPress chat plugin is a great option for solopreneurs, small, medium-sized, and even large businesses. Smartsupp’s free plan offers tons of useful features including chatbots and allows you to place live chat on an unlimited number of websites. If you own multiple businesses, this might be the right choice for you.

Key features

Included in the Free plan:

• 14-day conversation history
• Live chat on an unlimited number of websites
• Drag and drop file sharing
• Basic visitor info (name, email, location, browsing history, referer, and more)
• Sounds and visual notifications
• 3 personal shortcuts (canned messages)
• 3 chatbots
• Custom chat box colors
• Mobile-ready chatbox design
• Agent photo and description
• Chat page (open chat box via direct link)
• Chatbox embedded in the mobile app
• Authorization form (pre-chat form) always visible when offline

Included in the Standard plan:

• Everything in the Free plan
• Priority chat support
• 1-year conversation history
• Unlimited personal shortcuts (canned messages)
• Unlimited chatbots
• Customer satisfaction rating
• Detailed visitor info
• Visitor filters
• Block visitor
• Chat assign to agent
• Office hours
• Google Analytics connection
• Export of communication to 3rd party systems
• API
• Statistics
• Customizable authorization forms (pre-chat forms)
• Customizable chat box position on the page
• Multi-language and multi-design chatbox
• Advanced chatbox customization with API
• 10 team shortcuts (canned messages)

Included in the Pro plan:

• Everything in the Standard plan
• Detailed statistics (customer satisfaction rating, response time, the number of answered and missed chats, and more)
• Agent groups
• Unlimited team shortcuts

Benefits

• Email sending
• Facebook Messenger and e-commerce platforms integrations
• Web dashboard, iPhone/iPad app, Android app, Windows app
• Smartlook video recordings (paid plans)

Pros and cons:

Pros:

• Offers free version
• The free version has chatbots

Cons:

• Conversation history saved for 1 year only in paid plans
• Free users eligible for email support only
• Conversation history limited to 14-days in the free plan

Price

	Free	Standard	Pro
Price per month (yearly payment)	Free forever for 1 agent	€10 per agent	€19 per agent
Price per month (monthly payment)	Free forever for 1 agent	€15 per agent	€29 per agent

Offers a money-back guarantee. Download the Smartsupp WordPress live chat plugin here.

Best for: businesses that don’t need an omnichannel support solution

Customizable chat box: YES

Chat history: 14-day or 1 year depending on the plan

Free conversations per month: unlimited

Price: free, paid plans starting from €15/month

Loading speed/display speed: 4.4 seconds

Rating on Capterra: 4.7/5 (232 reviews) as of February 19th, 2021

25. SnapEngage 

SnapEngage is a multi-channel customer engagement platform powered by bots and live chat. It integrates with popular third-party applications like Zendesk, Help Scout, JIRA, Salesforce Desk, and HubSpot.

Who is it good for?

SnapEngage is the right WordPress chat plugin for businesses that want to manage conversations across multiple channels like Facebook Messenger, WeChat, or SMS, or Twitter with the “Tweet-to-Chat” feature.

Key features

Included in the Essentials plan:

• Integrations with Zendesk, Help Scout, JIRA, Salesforce Desk, HubSpot
• Mobile SDK
• Facebook Messenger, Tweet to Chat, WeChat
• Match your brand
• Canned responses
• Pre-chat and offline forms
• Guided browsing
• File exchange
• Chat transfers
• Team chat
• Proactive chat
• Post chat surveys
• Unlimited conversations
• Request email transcript

Included in the Pro plan:

• All features included in the Essentials plan
• Integrations with Salesforce, MS Dynamics Cloud, Custom Data Mapping
• Hours of operation
• Priority tiers
• Team capacity reporting
• Labels
• Click to call
• Real-time auto-translation
• Removed SnapEngage branding
• Implementation specialist

Benefits 

• Unlimited chat support during global business hours
• 24/7 support portal access
• Group virtual training

Pros and cons:

Pros:

• Allows website visitors to live chat from channels like Twitter, Facebook Messenger, or SMS

Cons:

• Does not offer a free plan
• Non-transparent pricing. Many features (such as chatbots) offered for an additional (unknown) charge
• Have to have a minimum of 3 users for each plan

Price

Essentials – from €15 per user/month (billed annually)

Professional – from €25 per user/month (billed annually)

No free trial. Download the SnapEngage WordPress live chat plugin here.

Best for: businesses that don’t need an omnichannel support solution

Customizable chat box: YES

Chat history: unlimited

Free conversations per month: unlimited

Price: starting from €15/month

Loading speed/display speed: n/a

Rating on Capterra: n/a

Conclusion

Alright, that was a lot of information about WordPress chat plugins! Now that we’ve presented the best free (and paid) solutions, hopefully, you’ll have an easier time choosing the best WordPress live chat plugin for your website. Remember to consider your business’s needs as well as the needs of your customers.

Chat plugin	Capterra rating	Free version	Starting price	Loading time
LiveAgent	4.7/5 (approx. 1k reviews)	YES	$29 per agent/mo	2.5s
LiveChat	4.6/5 (approx. 1.1k reviews)	NO	$19 per agent/mo	5.7s
Tidio	4.8/5 (approx. 200 reviews)	YES	€18 /mo	5.3s
Tawk.to	4.6/5 (approx. 220 reviews)	YES	FREE	3.5s
Smartsupp	4.7 (approx. 240 reviews)	YES	€15 /mo	4.4s
WP Live Chat	n/a	YES	€0.95 per agent/mo	n/a
Chaport	4.8/5(approx. 30 reviews)	YES	$14 per agent/mo	n/a
Jivochat	4.5/5 (approx. 50 reviews)	YES	$19 per agent/mo	5.5s
Zendesk	n/a	YES	€19 /mo	9.3s
Formilla	n/a	YES	€29.99 /mo	5.9s

Editor’s note: If any of the information in the review article is inaccurate, please feel free to contact us and we’ll revise it accordingly.