Best Live Chat Software (September 2026)

1

Smartsupp

Top pickFree plan

smartsupp.com

Best for Small to mid-sized e-commerce businesses

Smartsupp is a live chat platform that lets businesses communicate with website visitors in real time, alongside chatbot automation and visitor tracking features. It combines live chat with a chatbot builder to handle common queries and route conversations to human agents when needed. The tool provides visitor insights, allowing teams to see browsing behavior before engaging. Smartsupp also offers mobile apps for managing conversations away from a desktop. It is suited to small and mid-sized e-commerce businesses and customer support teams looking to add chat-based engagement and lead capture to their websites.

• Live chat
• Chatbot automation
• Visitor tracking

2

Tawk.to

Free plan

tawk.to

Best for Small businesses needing free live chat support

Tawk.to is a live chat platform that lets businesses add a messaging widget to their website to communicate with visitors in real time. It includes a shared inbox, canned responses, visitor monitoring, and basic ticketing functionality. The platform also offers a knowledge base builder and optional paid add-ons such as hiring virtual agents or removing branding. Mobile apps allow support staff to respond while away from a desk. It suits small businesses and startups seeking a low-cost way to add live chat and simple customer support tools to their site without extensive setup.

• Live chat widget
• Shared team inbox
• Knowledge base builder

3

Chatra

chatra.com

Best for Small to mid-sized e-commerce businesses·Free trial

Chatra is a live chat platform that lets businesses communicate with website visitors in real time. It combines live chat with basic CRM features, allowing teams to view visitor information, chat history, and cart contents during conversations. Chatra supports proactive chat triggers, offline messaging, and integrations with e-commerce platforms and email tools. It offers both a widget for real-time chat and options for automated messaging when agents are unavailable. Chatra suits small to mid-sized businesses, particularly online stores, looking for a straightforward tool to handle customer support and sales inquiries directly on their website.

• Real-time visitor chat
• Cart and visitor tracking
• Offline messaging support

4

Drift

drift.com

Best for B2B marketing and sales teams·Free trial

Drift is a conversational marketing and sales platform built around live chat and chatbots for business websites. It allows visitors to message sales or support teams in real time, while automated bots qualify leads, answer common questions, and route conversations to the right person outside business hours. Drift integrates with CRM and marketing automation systems, enabling teams to track conversations and follow up on leads. It is generally aimed at B2B marketing and sales teams looking to engage website visitors and accelerate pipeline generation through direct conversation.

• Live chat
• Chatbot automation
• CRM integrations

5

Front

front.com

Best for Customer support and success teams managing multiple channels·Free trial

Front is a customer communication platform that unifies email, live chat, SMS, and social messaging into a shared inbox. Teams can collaborate on incoming messages using internal comments, assignment rules, and automated workflows, with visibility into who is handling each conversation. It includes analytics for tracking response times and team performance, plus integrations with CRM, helpdesk, and productivity tools. While it supports live chat as one of several channels, its broader focus is on collaborative inbox management for customer-facing teams.

• Shared team inbox
• Multichannel messaging
• Workflow automation

6

Intercom

intercom.com

Best for SaaS and online businesses needing chat and support·Free trial

Intercom is a customer communication platform that combines live chat, a help desk, and an AI-powered chatbot for handling support and sales conversations on websites and in apps. It includes a shared inbox for managing customer messages, a knowledge base for self-service content, and automation tools for routing and answering common queries. Product tours, targeted messaging, and reporting features are also available. The platform is typically used by SaaS companies and growing businesses that need to manage customer support and engagement across multiple channels.

• Live chat widget
• AI chatbot (Fin)
• Shared team inbox

7

Olark

olark.com

Best for Small to mid-sized sales and support teams·Free trial

Olark is a live chat tool that lets businesses add a chat widget to their website for real-time conversations with visitors. It offers customizable chatboxes, automated messaging triggers, visitor insights, and transcript search. Olark integrates with CRM and helpdesk platforms such as Salesforce, HubSpot, and Zendesk, allowing chat data to sync with existing workflows. It is suited to small and mid-sized sales and support teams looking for a straightforward chat solution rather than a full multichannel messaging suite, with reporting features for tracking chat volume and team performance.

• Customizable chat widget
• Automated triggers
• CRM/helpdesk integrations

8

Freshchat

Free plan

freshchat.com

Best for Support and sales teams using Freshworks tools

Freshchat is a messaging and live chat platform from Freshworks that enables businesses to engage website visitors and customers across web, mobile, and messaging channels such as WhatsApp. It includes chatbots powered by Freddy AI, proactive campaign triggers, and a shared inbox for support and sales teams. Freshchat integrates with other Freshworks products like Freshdesk and Freshsales, making it suited for companies already using the Freshworks ecosystem. It fits small to mid-sized customer support and sales teams looking to combine live chat with automation and self-service options.

• AI chatbots
• Multi-channel messaging
• Proactive campaign triggers

9

Zoho SalesIQ

Free plan

zoho.com

Best for Small to midsize sales and support teams

Zoho SalesIQ is a live chat and visitor tracking tool designed to help businesses engage website visitors and convert them into leads or customers. It provides real-time visitor monitoring, showing behavior such as pages viewed and time spent on site, which sales and support teams can use to initiate targeted conversations. The platform includes chatbot capabilities for automating responses, integrates with other Zoho products and CRM systems, and offers mobile apps for on-the-go support. It suits small to midsize businesses looking to combine live chat with visitor analytics for sales and customer service purposes.

• Visitor tracking
• Chatbot automation
• CRM integration