Best Live Chat Software
This page was last updated on June 9th, 2025
Live chat software enables businesses to connect instantly with website visitors through real-time chat interfaces, dramatically improving customer engagement and conversion rates. This powerful communication tool allows customer service teams to provide immediate support for product questions, technical issues, or help with website navigation.
Agents can proactively engage visitors with strategically timed pop-up chat windows. Customers can also start conversations when they need assistance. Unlike traditional ticket-based systems where customers may wait hours or days for responses, live chat software creates a seamless, conversational experience that increases purchase likelihood and customer satisfaction.
By implementing live chat software, businesses can significantly reduce response times, increase first-contact resolution rates, and create more personalized customer experiences that drive loyalty and sales.
Live chat functionality is often packaged with other software types like e-commerce platforms, help desk software, and digital customer service software. Many times, it is a core feature that acts as the foundation for AI-powered platforms like chatbots, conversational support software, and customer service automation software where the technology is highly compatible with language model applications.
To qualify for inclusion in the Live Chat category, a product must:
Featured Live Chat Software At A Glance
G2 takes pride in showing unbiased reviews on user satisfaction in our ratings and reports. We do not allow paid placements in any of our ratings, rankings, or reports. Learn about our scoring methodologies.
Salesforce Service Cloud is the world's #1 AI CRM for service, where humans with AI agents drive customer success together. Service Cloud enables seamless collaboration between AI agents and humans, f
580,855 Twitter followers
"Zendesk for Customer Service is an AI-powered service solution that’s easy to set up, use, and scale. It offers out-of-the-box functionality that’s simple to modify, helping businesses move faster. L
Zendesk is a customer support tool that consolidates all customer communications into a single platform, automates repetitive tasks, and provides valuable insights. Reviewers frequently mention the ease of use, the ability to manage customer support across multiple channels in one place, and the time-saving automation features. Users mentioned that Zendesk can be overwhelming for smaller teams due to its complexity, the pricing can become expensive when adding advanced features, and some useful capabilities are locked behind higher-tier plans.
103,009 Twitter followers
Zoho Desk is a web-based help desk software solution designed to assist organizations in providing exceptional customer support experiences. This platform serves as a centralized hub for managing cust
137,095 Twitter followers
Podium is an AI native communications platform that deploys AI Employees to help local businesses turn every conversation—text, call, or web chat—into revenue. Trusted by over 100,000 local businesses
Podium is a customer communication platform that consolidates messages, reviews, and customer interactions into one place for efficient management. Reviewers frequently mention the simplicity and effectiveness of Podium in streamlining customer communication, improving response times, and enhancing overall customer engagement. Users mentioned that Podium can be expensive for small businesses, with some advanced features and customization options only available on higher-tier plans, and integrations with other tools can be restrictive.
4,197 Twitter followers
Fin by Intercom is the best performing AI Agent for customer service. It automates complex queries, improves resolution times, and delivers consistently high-quality support at scale. Key benefits
Fin by Intercom is an AI-powered customer support tool that provides automated responses to customer inquiries, reducing the workload for human agents. Reviewers frequently mention the efficiency of Fin by Intercom in handling routine customer inquiries, its ability to pull content from various resources for accurate responses, and its adaptability to different conversations. Users reported issues with Fin by Intercom's understanding of multiple languages, its struggle with complex issues requiring investigation, and the occasional provision of incorrect information to customers.
44,090 Twitter followers
Service Hub delivers AI-powered customer service at scale by unifying customer insights, providing omnichannel support tools, and enabling efficient self-service options within a single platform. C
786,179 Twitter followers
Birdeye is the #1 agentic marketing platform for multi-location brands, trusted by the biggest multi-location brands globally including H&R Block, Aspen Dental, and Caesars Entertainment. One P
Birdeye is a platform that manages online reputation, customer engagement, and reviews across multiple locations from a centralized dashboard. Users frequently mention the ease of use, the ability to consolidate reviews in one place, and the efficient management of online reputation as key benefits of Birdeye. Users experienced a learning curve when first implementing all features across multiple locations and found some features overwhelming due to the multitude of tools packed into the platform.
5,239 Twitter followers
The WhatsApp Business Platform (API) is a powerful tool that enables businesses to connect with their customers on a personal level, at scale. With over 2 billion monthly active users on WhatsApp, thi
9,923,465 Twitter followers
Freshdesk (a product of Freshworks Inc.) is a modern, AI-powered customer service solution with enterprise capability without the enterprise complexity. Freshdesk unifies channels, conversations, AI c
19,042 Twitter followers
Qualified is the Agentic Marketing platform for B2B companies around the world. Headquartered in San Francisco, Qualified is built to modernize and maximize inbound pipeline generation with Piper the
Qualified is a tool that helps connect with website visitors, understand their activity, and generate better leads. Reviewers appreciate the excellent level of customer success offered by the Qualified team, the AI chatbot functionality, and the ability to streamline processes with automatic appointment setting. Reviewers experienced issues with incorrect account tagging, a need for interface improvement, and difficulties in refining the list of industries offered.
712 Twitter followers
Tidio is an all-in-one customer support software suite comprising (1) help desk, (2) live chat, (3) chatbot automation, and (4) AI agent features. Over 300,000 businesses across ecommerce, services, a
Tidio is a customer chat portal that manages real-time visitor conversations on websites and offers automated AI features for handling common inquiries. Reviewers appreciate Tidio's clean and customizable interface, quick support, easy setup, and the ability to manage conversations from multiple platforms in one place, with features like automation flows, AI suggestions, and detailed dashboards for tracking customer interactions. Users mentioned concerns about the high pricing, the need for more customization options, occasional glitches with the chat widget, limitations in analytics, and the lack of certain features in the free and lower-tier plans.
1,321 Twitter followers
Smartsupp helps businesses grow online sales with advanced AI Shopping Assistants, live chat, multichannel solution and automated workflows. We offer everything you need to grow your online sales:
Smartsupp is a live chat platform that allows businesses to communicate with website visitors in real time and organize conversations within the team. Reviewers appreciate the ease of setup and use, the clear interface, the ability to communicate with visitors instantly, and the real-time tracking of visitor behavior on the website. Reviewers mentioned limitations in features in the lower plans, occasional lack of clarity in the conversation history, and a desire for more advanced customization options and detailed analytics.
440 Twitter followers
The Genesys Cloud CX™ platform is trusted by thousands of small, medium and large enterprises and recognized across the globe as an industry-leading cloud call center solution and customer experience
Genesys Cloud CX is a cloud-based platform designed to manage customer interactions across various channels including voice, chat, and email. Users like the platform's flexibility, scalability, and its ability to integrate with third-party systems, as well as its robust analytics and AI-driven insights that optimize customer experience and agent performance. Reviewers mentioned that the initial setup and configuration can be complex, especially for new users, and advanced features can be costly, which may be a challenge for smaller organizations.
32,290 Twitter followers
The world’s most customer-centric brands use Gladly’s CX platform to drive down costs, nurture relationships, and increase loyalty. Powered by proprietary Customer AI, Gladly is the only CX platform t
4,085 Twitter followers
Shopify Inbox is a free messaging tool designed to enhance customer engagement and boost sales by enabling real-time communication between merchants and shoppers. Integrated seamlessly into the Shopif
444,183 Twitter followers
Learn More About Live Chat Software
What is Live Chat Software?
Live chat software allows website visitors to get a response in real time from a company’s customer service agents, sales representatives, or virtual assistants. These products are typically deployed as a widget in the bottom corner of a business’ website and may be activated when a user clicks on the widget. Alternatively, a pop-up chat window may prompt a user to start a conversation.
Live chat solutions can be used in a wide variety of contexts, including customer service, technical support, sales, and marketing. Most often, businesses implement live chat to provide website visitors with a direct channel to receive real-time customer support. For example, live chat agents can assist visitors with website navigation or answer questions about a business’ products or services. Live chat is also an effective method for lead generation. When a website visitor is interested in purchasing a product or service, live chat can be used to connect them with a sales representative. If a representative is unavailable, live chat widgets include a lead capture form to collect the prospect’s information so a salesperson can follow up with them as soon as possible.
Although live chat windows exist on a website 24/7, this doesn’t mean a business needs their agents to be available to answer inquiries all day. An offline mode allows website visitors to submit questions or concerns that can be handled either by a chatbot or by an agent when the live chat is back online. Live chat often serves as a company’s first line of defense to help chat agents answer quick questions and escalate deeper concerns in an organized way. The goal of these products is to increase efficiency for both the agent and the customer.
What Types of Live Chat Software Exist?
Text only solutions
Text-only live chat software allows agents and customers to communicate via text form. Typically, the customer will be approached by a pop-up chat window that helps initiate a conversation.
Voice or video solutions
Live chat software with video or voice capabilities--in addition to text--allow a more personalized conversation with customers. Video chat conversations are especially helpful for complex questions that require a visual representation. Face-to-face video conversations are not the only features of video and voice live chat; users can enable screen sharing to visually convey an issue that’s difficult to explain via text.
What are the Common Features of Live Chat Software?
Live chat functionality can vary from product to product. When considering a live chat solution for a business, it’s important to consider which features will be most beneficial to the particular use case. The following are some core features within live chat software:
Analytics: Reporting related to live chat analytics gives administrators insight into customer service metrics such as support response time, overall support performance, and customer satisfaction. These insights help managers understand the highs and lows of the customer experience and the team’s performance.
Visitor monitoring: Real-time visitor monitoring tracks where visitors are on the website and how long they stay on a certain web page. These insights give a sense of where visitors are gravitating to on a web page and can even help generate leads.
Response templates: For common questions, canned responses are very efficient. Agents can have responses ready to send as soon as a common question pops up.
Branding: Since live chat exists on a company’s website, it’s important for the widget and conversation window to match the company’s branding and website design. To accomplish this, live chat products offer customizable design options to change the colors and images of the application. Branding customization features ensure a seamless brand experience for customers.
Customer feedback: After a live chat conversation, a customer can rate the conversation and share feedback on whether or not their question was adequately handled. Managers can use this feedback to further understand the quality of an agent’s work.
Proactive messages: While live chat is already an approachable asset, it’s helpful for website visitors to be prompted with a friendly pop-up greeting to let them know they’re invited to chat whenever they’d like. A proactive message is an approachable way to entice visitors to communicate with the company.
Integrations: Live chat products should integrate seamlessly with a company’s technology stack to ensure the information shared in chat conversations is available across departments. Integrations with CRM software are important for storing and accessing customer information during a support conversation, as well as adding new contacts for lead generation. Live chat typically integrates with other customer service solutions, especially help desks, to improve omnichannel customer experiences.
Many live chat software solutions will also offer the following features:
What are the Benefits of Live Chat Software?
Businesses of all types benefit from using live chat software to provide instant and approachable customer support. Using live chat makes customer support more efficient for both the agent and the customer for several reasons:
Customer engagement: Live chat is a simple and accessible way for customers to approach a company. Customers are more likely to engage than if the company only offered phone and email support, because of its convenience.
Real-time support: With live chat, website visitors don’t need to wait very long for an answer to a simple question. Without a long turnaround, visitors are more likely to engage with the company, knowing their time is not being wasted. In comparison, inquiries submitted via email or social media have an unpredictable response time. Since questions are answered quickly, agents are more productive and get through more inquiries.
Improved efficiency and productivity: In comparison to phone calls, live chat is relatively cheap and takes less effort from both the customer and the agent. Additionally, it’s easy to multitask between different live chat conversations, allowing for more support in less time. Since live chatting requires reading and typing, conversations have more downtime between messages. This allows customer service agents to multitask and handle multiple chat windows at once. Depending on how many conversations are going on, agents can also use downtime to talk on the phone with another customer while handling live chat conversations.
Lead generation: Live chat is approachable for customers, so it’s an easy way to begin a sales conversation. The informality of live chat makes a sales conversation more comfortable for the customer, so it’s a great opportunity to bring in a sale.
Who Uses Live Chat Software?
Professionals who communicate with customers directly, such as customer service teams and sales teams, use live chat to instantly chat with customers or gather data on the conversations customers have with customer service agents.
Customer service: Customer service teams use live chat software to communicate with website visitors who use the feature to ask questions or voice concerns. If any complaints need to be escalated, chat agents can use routing features to transfer the conversation to a manager. When purchasing a live chat solution for customer service, businesses should remember to look for products that integrate with the company’s existing support software.
Sales: Sales teams can utilize live chat software to generate leads. Since the buyer is expressing interest in the company by initiating a conversation using the live chat feature, it’s a great opportunity to spark a sales conversation. If a company wants to implement live chat to accelerate sales and improve conversion rates, it’s important to find a product that integrates with the CRM or system of record.
Software Related to Live Chat Software
Related solutions that can be used together with live chat tools include:
Help desk software: Help desk software provides a ticketing system for customer service teams to organize and respond to inquiries regarding a company’s products or services. Traditionally, help desks take in customer inquiries from email and web forms, but these solutions are increasingly supporting omnichannel customer service by incorporating other channels such as social media, live chat, SMS, and call center technology. As a result, many help desk solutions include a live chat tool.
Customer self-service software: Customer self-service software provides a platform for end users, prospects, or customers to access information and perform tasks without the assistance of customer support representatives. Customer self service can take many different forms and may include chatbots, intelligent virtual assistants, knowledge bases, FAQs, and community forums.
Social customer service software: Businesses use social customer service software to assist their customers via social networks and social messenger apps. These solutions collect customer inquiries from social media and assign them to support team members. While live chat software allows customers to receive support when visiting a company’s website, social customer service enables support teams to respond proactively to customer complaints or questions. Some live chat tools offer the ability to transfer chat interactions to social messaging platforms, so the conversation can be continued on the customer’s preferred platform.
Conversational marketing software: Live chat tools may integrate with or include features of conversational marketing software. Conversational marketing helps businesses improve conversion rates by identifying and engaging with potential customers throughout their buying journey. These products accelerate the buying process by transferring qualified leads to sales representatives or facilitating follow-up conversations if a customer is not yet ready to buy.
Chatbots software: Chatbots, which are often called virtual agents or virtual assistants, are used in place of a human to conduct specific tasks or provide information based on written or spoken requests. Customer support tools, such as live chat, help desk, or contact center solutions, may already have chatbots implemented as a first line of defense when dealing with customers.
Challenges with Live Chat Software
Although live chat software can be implemented relatively quickly, the adoption of these tools can pose additional challenges. Before purchasing live chat software, businesses must make sure to have a plan to address potential issues before they arise.
Increase in support requests: Naturally, adding an immediate and accessible means for customers to contact the business will result in an influx of support requests and conversations. To avoid overwhelming the business’ chat support team, companies can roll out the live chat product gradually. Users may also wish to open it up to smaller segments of customers over time rather than all at once.
Staff training: A big part of customer support is empathizing with the customer. For even simple inquiries, it’s important for agents to come across as friendly and approachable via live chat. Tone is sometimes difficult to read through text, so it’s easy for website visitors to misinterpret a message from a support agent. Agents should be trained on how to express empathy in text form to prevent any tone assumptions.
Spam or inappropriate messages: While approachability is generally considered beneficial, it opens the possibility of potential scenarios involving inappropriate or irrelevant messages. Fortunately, many live chat offerings have a spam filter or block functionality, which allows agents to distinguish real messages or block aggressive customers.
Which Companies Should Buy Live Chat Software?
Any business with a website can use live chat software. These products are beneficial to companies of all sizes, from small businesses to large enterprises. However, there are a few types of businesses that are particularly suited for live chat.
E-commerce: E-commerce brands and any business that sells products online should consider buying a live chat solution. While customers browse an e-commerce site, they may run into technical issues or have questions about specific product specifications, shipping, or return policies. Live chat offers the opportunity for a business to answer a customer’s question right away, increasing the chance that the customer will complete their purchase.
Services: Live chat can be very beneficial for businesses in the service industry, especially banking, healthcare, real estate, travel, and hospitality. For these industries, exceptional customer service is paramount to the success of the business. Live chat provides clients and prospects with an instant connection to a business so they can quickly resolve issues or have their questions answered.
How to Buy Live Chat Software
Requirements Gathering (RFI/RFP) for Live Chat Software
Whether a company is purchasing a live chat solution for the first time or looking for a replacement, the first step is defining a list of requirements the product must meet for the business to be most productive. These requirements will help buyers narrow down the list of products to consider.
First, buyers must evaluate the need for live chat software, and ask the following questions:
- Who will be using the product most often?
- How many users (or seats) do we need?
- Will it be used for customer service or technical support?
- Will the sales team use it for lead generation or guiding customers on their buying journey?
At this point, it’s also important to list the features that will prove most useful for the teams using the product. For improving customer self-service and freeing up team members’ time, companies may require a product that can automate workflows to resolve customer issues without human assistance. Buyers must consider if the product should integrate with any other software their business uses, such as CRM or help desk.
Compare Live Chat Software Products
Create a long list
Based on the list of requirements, buyers should create a long list of no more than 10 products that appear to meet the business needs. Consulting online review sites is a great way to start the long list. G2 has thousands of software categories with over 1 million verified user reviews. G2’s Live Chat software category can help buyers find the highest rated or most popular products based on reviews from verified customers.
Create a short list
After consulting customer reviews and creating a long list of live chat software products, companies must begin eliminating the options that won’t work for their business. The easiest way to do this is to first eliminate the products outside budget. Small businesses or startups should look at each product’s pricing plans to determine if the product will still be affordable as the company scales up. At this point, buyers should also eliminate products that don’t offer all the required features.
Conduct demos
Once a short list of about three to five products is ready, companies should begin reaching out to vendors to schedule demos. Demos allow buyers to take a closer look at each live chat solution’s functionality and ease of use. This may also be the first opportunity to glimpse each vendor’s onboarding style and service levels and determine if they are helpful and communicative and whether they are focusing too much on the sales pitch.
Selection of Live Chat Software
Choose a selection team
The company’s software selection team should already consist of a project manager to manage the process from start to finish and an executive sponsor to ensure buy-in from the company’s decision makers. Naturally, the selection team should also include several employees who will be using the live chat daily, such as sales representatives or customer service agents.
Negotiation
Before signing a contract, buyers should make sure to negotiate for the best price and ask about any discounts for which their business may qualify. This is also the time to discuss implementation and onboarding services and payment plans.
Final decision
Finally, it’s time to decide on a live chat software and sign the dotted line. In the days and months after the purchase, buyers must monitor the company’s progress with the new product. Is the live chat working as intended? Have users fully adopted all the features? Will the product scale with the company’s growth? If the answer to any of these questions is “no,” the buyer should consider raising the concerns with the vendor. If they are unable to resolve these issues, it may be time to look for alternatives.
Live Chat Software Trends
Screen sharing
Sometimes questions are easier to ask with visuals. To help prevent miscommunication, screen sharing allows the customer to show a support agent the basis of their question instead of communicating it through text. Since typing out questions can be a lengthy process for complex issues, screen sharing can help save time and prevent frustration for both the customer and the agent.
Automation
Using chatbots and automated responses for simple customer concerns means having an agent online 24/7 is not necessary. As artificial intelligence becomes more desirable to help businesses automate processes, live chat vendors continue to add features like intelligent responses and automated workflows to their products. These options ensure customers receive assistance at any hour, maintaining customer satisfaction and consistently generating leads.
