The Best Web Chat Tools in 2022: A Side by Side Comparison

Lisa Hirst Carnes | September 2022

Illustration of computer screen with chat popups.

When people visit a website, they have high expectations. If they have a question, they expect a prompt answer. No one wants to wait days for a reply to an email. Web chat tools make it possible for small organizations to provide real-time support. But, it’s important to do your research and choose the optimal applications for your needs. Let’s look at some of the leading web chat tools.

HubSpot Live Chat

HubSpot is a huge platform that offers a variety of marketing tools and resources. They also offer a free live chat tool. It provides quite a few useful features.

Integrates with HubSpot’s other CRM features, such as lead capture.
Lead ads for Facebook and Instagram.
Meeting and scheduling.
Create mobile-optimized forms for any purpose.
Chatbot builder lets you build chatbots with no coding.
HubSpot Live Chat is especially useful if you already use HubSpot’s CRM tools.

Olark

Olark is another widely-used live chat platform, serving more than 12,000 clients. They offer quite a few advanced chat features, including:

Customized chat box color, style, and layout to match your brand.
Send automated, targeted responses based on customer actions.
Detailed chat transcripts. Search for information about customers and chats from complete transcripts.
Track and manage teams with message routing, canned responses to common queries, chat monitoring, and per-agent chat limits
Pre-chat surveys help you find out what each visitor needs before each chat.

Olark’s plans start at $29/month, which includes live chat, reporting, and security. They also offer a free trial.

LiveChat

LiveChat offers a complete customer service platform with a variety of features, including:

Both cloud-based and desktop options (Windows and Mac).
Chat message targeting based on visitors’ past interactions with your site.
Integration with more than 200 apps, including Zoom, HelpDesk, HubSpot, MailChimp, and Salesforce.
Detailed reports, including chat reports, agent reports, customer reports, and data summaries.

High-level security, including encryption of data, access restriction, credit card masking, and more.

LiveChat is especially strong in its ability to help with multichannel marketing. You can connect it with other chat and social media apps. They offer several plans, starting at $16/month. Their business plan is $50/month per agent.

Freshdesk

Freshdesk is another popular web chat tool, one that’s suitable for smaller businesses.

Cloud-based, no desktop option.
Provides intuitive support across many channels. Integrate chat, phone, Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, email, and more.
All-in-one contact center helps agent productivity. Cut wait times with efficient routing engines, direct calls to the right department.
E-commerce sellers can integrate Freshdesk with Amazon, eBay, and other marketplaces.

Freshdesk offers a 21-day free trial for up to 10 agents. Paid plans start at $15/month, per agent. Their most popular plan is Pro at $49/month.

Zendesk

Zendesk offers businesses of all sizes an array of customer engagement tools.

Efficient messaging across your website, social media, and mobile.

Lets you set up an all-in-one Help Center so customers can find answers to common queries on their own.
Provides AI-powered automated answers to customer questions. Depending on your plan, this can range from 50 to 500 answers.
Over 1,000 apps and integrations. Depending on your plan, you can also get customized integrations.

Zendesk offers several services: Zendesk for Service, Zendesk for Sales, Sunshine Platform, and Marketplace.

Their Service plans, which include live chat features, start at $49/month for Suite Team. The Suite Professional plan is $99/month per agent and provides conversation routing based on the agent’s experience and integration with Amazon Web Services.

MobileMonkey

MobileMonkey is one of the more sophisticated web chat apps for lead generation. It’s more expensive than the others on this list, justified by its sales outreach and influencer features. While it offers several products, Funnel Pro is most relevant to organizations in need of a powerful chat and lead generation tool

Create customized chatbots to segmented audiences and build contact lists. Can be used with Facebook Messenger, Instagram, SMS, and web chat.
Create chatbots for different platforms or types of customers. The built-in chatbot builder makes it simple to create chatbots without coding.
Chat Blaster sends messages to everyone on your contact list or within segments.
Create drip campaigns within Messenger. Like email drip campaigns, you can send a series of messages to contacts on Messenger.

Integrate with paid media campaigns. Engage with people who click on your Facebook and Instagram ads.

Pricing for MobileMonkey’s Startup Edition Funnel Pro is $119/month per user, which includes the features listed above. Customized plans are also available for teams with many users or high volume traffic.

Pure Chat

Pure Chat offers a simple platform that’s focused on web chat features rather than lead generation. But, they do have a good variety of integrations, including SMS.

Supports unlimited chats for your website.
Offers iOS and Android apps for mobile.
Manage everything from a single, user-friendly dashboard.
Integrations include Zoho, Salesforce, Google Analytics, HubSpot, and MailChimp.

Pure Chat offers transparent pricing, with two plans. Growth, at $39/month, covers one website and 4 users, 100 SMS notifications, and unlimited chats. The Pro plan, at $79/month, removes Pure Chat branding and allows unlimited websites and 1,000 SMS notifications. They also offer a 30-day free trial.

How to Choose the Right Web Chat Tool

Live chat helps you better engage with prospects through your website, social media, and SMS. The above are some of your lead choices, but there are many others as well. It can be overwhelming to compare all these services. Here are some key points to consider:

What channels do you use? Look at the integrations and features offered by each services. Are you going to be engaging with website visitors or do you also want to chat on social media and SMS? Some services, such as MobileMonkey even let you integrate with paid ads.
What is your budget? Compare plans, which vary based on the number of users, websites, and other factors. You can always start with a lower-priced plan and upgrade as your business grows. If you’re looking for a long-term free chat solution, try HubSpot Live Chat.
Take advantage of free trials. You might want to test a few services and compare results.

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