Free live chat plans compared
Free to install.
Not always free
to use.
Most free live chat plans limit at least one of four things: how many people can answer, how many chats you get a month, how long your history is kept, and whether their logo stays on your site. None of the free plans we checked lets you remove the branding. Below are 9 free plans side by side, checked on each vendor’s own pages, and a calculator that runs your numbers against all of them, Builderify Live Chat included.
By the Builderify team
What a free live chat plan
usually leaves out.
Every free plan is paid for somewhere. These are the five places vendors draw the line, and the ones worth checking before you put a chat box on your site.
People who can answer
Free plans count seats. One to three is common, and the second person who wants to reply is often where the bill starts.
Chats a month
Caps run from 5 a month to none at all. At the cap, some tools stop showing you new conversations until next month.
The logo
Not one free plan we checked removes its “Powered by” line. Removal ranges from a monthly add-on to a top plan, and one tool never allows it.
Your history
Some free plans keep chats for 14 days, 30 days or two months. After that, whatever a customer told you is gone.
Everything else
Triggers, file sharing, office hours, offline replies and AI are where free plans trim the most.
Free live chat plans,
side by side.
Read from each vendor’s own pricing and help pages on 3 October 2026. Where a vendor does not publish a limit, the table says so rather than guessing. Prices change often; each name links to the page it came from.
| Tool | People, free | Chats a month | Chat history | Branding on free | Cheapest paid | Not on free |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| tawk.to | Unlimited | Unlimited | No cap | Shown; $29 a month to remove | Add-ons only | AI Assist beyond a small free allowance |
| Tidio | 10 | 50 | Not stated | Shown; removed on Growth (add-on) or Plus | $24.17/mo, billed yearly | Operating hours, live visitor list, offline auto-reply |
| Crisp | 2 | Not stated | Limited; full history from Mini | Shown; removed on Plus ($295/mo) | $45/mo (Mini, 4 seats) | File attachments, triggers, AI chatbot |
| HubSpot | 2 | Not stated | Not stated | Shown; removed on Starter | Starter, up to $20/seat a month | Full chatbot features |
| Zoho SalesIQ | 3 | 100 | 30 days | Not stated | $7/operator a month, billed yearly | Triggers, bots, Zia AI |
| Smartsupp | 1 | 25 | 14 days | Cannot be removed on any plan | $17/mo, billed yearly | Office hours; one automatic message |
| Chatra | 1 | 5 | Full history | Not stated | €25/agent a month, billed yearly | Chatbots, triggers, file transfer, operating hours |
| JivoChat | 2 to 5* | Unlimited | 2 months | Shown; hidden on PRO or VIP | $28/agent a month, billed yearly | File sharing, triggers, visitor monitoring, integrations |
| Freshchat | Up to 10 | Not stated | Not stated | Not stated | $19/agent a month, billed yearly | Not stated |
| Builderify | 1, then 250 credits once per extra person | From 250 free credits, 1 per chat** | Full history, searchable | Shown; 1,500 credits once per site | No plans: one-time packs from $9 | Nothing held back: every module is included |
* JivoChat’s pricing page says both “5 agents” and “up to 2” for its free plan; the calculator below uses 2.
** The same 250 free credits also cover page loads, at 10 per 1,000, so a site with 5,000 page loads a month has room for about 200 chats.
Live chat tools with no free plan
-
LiveChat 14-day trial
From $19 per person a month, billed yearly
-
Intercom 14-day trial
$29 per seat a month billed yearly, plus $0.99 per Fin AI outcome
-
Olark 14-day trial
$29 per agent a month
-
Freshdesk Omni No free plan
$29 per agent a month, billed yearly
Which free live chat plan
still fits your site?
Move the sliders to your own numbers. Every free plan is checked against its published limits, and Builderify’s cost is worked out from its rate card.
- ✓ tawk.to Free covers it
- ✓ Tidio Free covers it
- ✓ Crisp Fits, with no published chat cap
- ✓ HubSpot Fits, with no published chat cap
- ✓ Zoho SalesIQ Free covers it
- ! Smartsupp Outgrows free: 40 chats a month (free allows 25)
- ! Chatra Outgrows free: 40 chats a month (free allows 5)
- ✓ JivoChat Free covers it
- ✓ Freshchat Fits, with no published chat cap
No card and no subscription. You only top up if you outgrow it.
What Builderify’s free
live chat includes.
Builderify has no plans and no seats to upgrade. Every account gets 250 credits a month, and live chat uses them as you go: 1 credit for each new conversation, 10 for every 1,000 page loads. Held to the same standard as the table: our widget shows “Powered by Builderify” too, and removing it costs 1,500 credits, once per website.
If you outgrow the free credits, one-time packs start at $9 for 1,000 credits and never expire. The full rate card is on the pricing page.
- 250 credits, about 200 chats on a 5,000-visit site
- One person answering
- Every conversation, kept and searchable
- An offline message when nobody is online
- Every other module on the same script tag
- 1 per new chatover the free credits
- 10 per 1,000 page loadsover the free credits
- 250 per extra persononce
- 1,500 to remove the logoonce per website
Messages land instantly
Replies push both ways over a live connection, so you are not refreshing a page to see whether somebody answered.
You know who is asking
Every conversation carries the visitor's name and email if they gave one, where they came from and what they are browsing.
Threads pick back up
A returning visitor lands in the same conversation instead of starting a new one, and a closed chat can be reopened.
Search the whole history
Find a conversation by the visitor, their email or something they said.
Chats become leads
A chat where someone leaves an email becomes a contact in your lead lists, ready for a follow-up.
A bot for the night shift
Pair it with the AI chatbot, which answers from your own pages and hands over to you.
Live chat is a block in the floating website widget, added with one script tag on WordPress, Shopify, Wix, Squarespace, Webflow, Framer or plain HTML. See Live Chat in full.
Which free live chat
should you pick?
Several people answer, chats are busy, and the logo does not bother you.
tawk.to. Its free plan has no caps on agents, conversations or chat history. You pay only if you want its add-ons, such as $29 a month to remove the branding.
Your contacts already live in HubSpot.
HubSpot’s free live chat. It feeds the CRM you already use, for up to two users, with HubSpot’s branding on the widget until you move to Starter.
You want old conversations kept.
Avoid the plans that expire them: Smartsupp keeps 14 days, Zoho SalesIQ 30 days and JivoChat two months on free. tawk.to and Chatra keep the full history, and so does Builderify.
The logo has to go, without a monthly fee.
Builderify. Removing “Powered by Builderify” is 1,500 credits once per website; 2 $9 Starter packs cover it. On the other tools it is a monthly add-on, a higher plan, or, on Smartsupp, not possible.
You want chat plus popups, bookings and analytics, paying only for what you use.
Builderify. Live chat sits in the same widget as popups, bookings, the AI chatbot and the rest, on one script tag and one balance of credits.
Free live chat, before you ask.
tawk.to is the closest: its free plan has no caps on agents, conversations or chat history, and it is paid for by optional add-ons such as removing its branding for $29 a month. Most other free plans limit at least one of seats, monthly chats or how long your chat history is kept.
Not on any free plan we checked. tawk.to sells removal as a $29 a month add-on, Tidio, Crisp, HubSpot and JivoChat only remove it on paid plans, and Smartsupp does not allow it on any plan. Builderify shows "Powered by Builderify" too, and removing it is a one-time 1,500 credits per website.
It depends on the tool. On Tidio's free plan, for example, you are notified and can no longer see or answer new conversations until the next month or an upgrade. Check what a tool does at the limit before you rely on it, because a chat nobody can answer is worse than no chat at all.
It runs on the 250 free credits every account gets each month. Each new conversation costs 1 credit and every 1,000 page loads with the widget on them cost 10, so a site with 5,000 page loads a month can take about 200 chats before paying anything. One person is included, each extra team member costs 250 credits once, and there is no monthly fee.
LiveChat, Intercom and Olark offer 14-day free trials rather than free plans, and Freshdesk Omni has no free plan either. Freshchat, its live chat product, does still have a free plan for up to 10 agents.
Sources
Vendor pages, read on 3 October 2026.
- tawk.to Free and paid plans
- Tidio Free and paid plans
- Crisp Free and paid plans
- HubSpot Free and paid plans
- Zoho SalesIQ Free and paid plans
- Smartsupp Free and paid plans
- Chatra Free and paid plans
- JivoChat Free and paid plans
- Freshchat Free and paid plans
- Tidio Help Center The free version and downgrading your account
- Crisp Help Getting started with the free plan
- Smartsupp Help Can I remove the chat box logo?
- JivoChat Help Hiding the JivoChat logo
- LiveChat Pricing
- Intercom Pricing
- Olark Pricing
- Freshdesk Omni Pricing
Stop losing the visitors
you already paid for.
More leads from the traffic you already have, and follow-up that sends itself. Free to start. No card, no monthly fee.