LiveChat vs Freshchat

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Our analysts compared LiveChat vs Freshchat based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Live Chat Software, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

Product Basics

LiveChat is a live chat software designed to improve customer engagement and support. It allows businesses to engage with website visitors in real-time, providing immediate assistance and resolving queries efficiently.

LiveChat is ideal for businesses looking to enhance their customer experience, increase conversion rates, and streamline support processes. Its key benefits include improved communication, reduced response times, increased customer satisfaction, and valuable insights into customer behavior.

Popular features of LiveChat include customizable chat widgets, proactive chat invitations, offline messaging, chat routing, and analytics. It integrates seamlessly with popular CRM and help desk systems, ensuring a comprehensive customer support solution.

LiveChat offers flexible pricing plans based on the number of agents and features required. Its pricing ranges from a basic plan for small businesses to enterprise-level plans for large organizations, with payment options including monthly and annual subscriptions.

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Freshchat is a customer messaging software that helps businesses engage with customers across various channels like live chat, website, mobile app, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, etc. It's ideal for businesses of all sizes that want to improve customer engagement and satisfaction. Key benefits include increased customer satisfaction, improved agent productivity, and reduced resolution times. Popular features include a unified inbox for all customer conversations, bots to automate tasks, and powerful analytics to track performance.

Compared to similar products, Freshchat is known for its user-friendly interface, affordability, and comprehensive feature set. Pricing is based on the number of agents and the features required, with plans starting at $15 per agent per month billed annually.

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$20/User, Monthly
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Tailored to your specific needs
$19/Agent, Monthly, Freemium
Get a free price quote
Tailored to your specific needs
Small 
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Medium 
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Large 
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Small 
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Medium 
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Large 
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Windows
Mac
Linux
Android
Chromebook
Windows
Mac
Linux
Android
Chromebook
Cloud
On-Premise
Mobile
Cloud
On-Premise
Mobile

Product Assistance

Documentation
In Person
Live Online
Videos
Webinars
Documentation
In Person
Live Online
Videos
Webinars
Email
Phone
Chat
FAQ
Forum
Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support
Email
Phone
Chat
FAQ
Forum
Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support

Product Insights

  • Reduces Costs: LiveChat helps companies cut costs by employing a smaller staff. It allows customer service agents to talk with multiple visitors at once to maintain efficiency. 
  • Boosts Customer Satisfaction: The software provides customer information like name and current page viewed so agents are able to operate with full context. This visibility, along with customer feedback surveys and chat ratings, helps companies increase CSAT (customer satisfaction) scores. 
  • Enables Faster Responses: The software facilitates timely responses through real-time interactions, canned responses and chat previews that show what a customer is typing before they hit send. 
  • Offers Free Trial: Users can test the software for 14 days to see if it works for them before committing to a purchase. The free trial offers the features included with the Team package. 
  • Provides 24/7 Support: Companies can provide round-the-clock support via integration with ChatBot, allowing customers to get their questions answered at any time. 
  • Lightens Workloads: Integration with a knowledge base reduces the number of queries that agents need to handle by allowing customers to find answers in the company knowledge base directly from the chat. 
  • Lets Users Customize: Configurable widgets enable the creation of personal experiences that are on-brand. Users can change colors, upload the company logo, add introductions and agent headshots, set chat button types, and optimize for web and mobile interfaces. The chat window also supports 45 languages. 
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  • Improve Efficiency: Gathers data from third-party apps and websites in one place. Resolve queries and provide instant solutions using gathered information. Customize predefined responses to answer commonly asked questions. Quickly access canned messages by setting up shortcodes. Record customer details and share information in real time. 
  • Boost Productivity: Routes support tickets to the right team. Scan incoming tickets and categorize them according to factors including customer type, language, location and ticket subject. Automate ticket assignments based on the agent’s expertise level. Create rules to send event alerts to the right agent. Encourage agent performance with gamification. 
  • Improve Customer Support: Resolves repetitive questions using intelligent automation. Delivers personalized solutions to customers by learning from past experiences. It provides product information and instant assistance to customers when needed. No need to wait for human assistance. 
  • Free Trial: Get first-hand experience with a 21-day free trial. No need to add credit card details. 
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  • Ticketing System: This module streamlines and simplifies the process of managing tickets. Users can create tickets from email or chat, group related cases with tags, assign tickets, schedule automated follow-ups and track open cases via a dashboard. Any messages sent after hours are saved as a ticket so no conversations are left untouched. 
  • Chat Routing: This feature ensures that customers speak to the most suitable agent based on department (sales or service, for example). Incoming chats can be routed automatically based on criteria like URL, or they can enter a queue for agents to manually select from. 
  • Reporting: A range of reports and analysis tools grant visibility into support efforts for a better understanding of performance. Managers can project staffing needs, monitor agent activity, track effectiveness via ticket statistics, drill down based on tags or groups and view high-level metrics like number of chats. Reports can be scheduled and delivered in multiple formats including CSV and XLS. 
  • Marketplace: LiveChat offers integration with more than 170 third-party tools for CMS, CRM, help desk, analytics, email marketing and e-commerce. Integrations include Slack, Calendly, Dropbox, Salesforce, Google Analytics, Facebook Messenger, ChatBot and MailChimp. 
  • Eye-Catcher: This tool increases engagement with chat widgets by letting users add visuals like images and GIFs that help draw attention to the chat. 
  • Notifications: This feature prevents messages from going unanswered via visual and audio alerts. Users can select the type of notifications to receive — new messages, new chats, etc. 
  • File Sharing: Reps can provide information when needed through this feature, such as sharing tutorials or marketing collateral. Visitors can also share files. 
  • Chat Archives: Users don’t have to worry about losing historical information with the ability to refer to chat histories. This feature is included in all plans, but the Starter package has a limit of 60 days. 
  • E-Commerce: Managers are able to estimate and measure the effectiveness of LiveChat with tools for goal setting and sales tracking. 
  • Security: LiveChat provides robust security via SSL encryption, single sign-on (SSO), two-step authentication, credit card masking, access restriction and audit logs. It’s hosted on U.S. or E.U. data centers and supports IP blocking. 
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  • Messaging Channels: Receive, manage and respond to conversations from multiple channels from a unified inbox. Stay connected with ERP and CRM to automate queries in advance. Launch bots to automate tasks based on hours. 
  • Campaigns: Design flows and set timings to trigger targeted audience emails. Send emails based on user intent and website behavior. Set up different timings to re-engage or send invites and reminder emails. Analyze data gathered from previous campaigns and optimize performance accordingly. 
  • Chatbots: Create bots with the easy-to-use, low code bot builder. Build multiple bots to handle tasks like answering customer questions, updating data or building a single bot to handle multiple tasks. Set up bots for different cases with a predefined, ready-to-use template. 
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Product Ranking

#14

among all
Live Chat Software

#32

among all
Live Chat Software

Find out who the leaders are

Analyst Rating Summary

90
86
93
89
66
89
94
96
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Integration and Extensibility
Online Visitor Management
Conversation Management
Platform Capabilities
Online Visitor Management
Platform Capabilities
Conversation Management
Customer Collaboration

Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

LiveChat
Freshchat
+ Add Product + Add Product
Conversation Management Customer Collaboration Online Visitor Management Platform Capabilities Ticket Management 93 66 94 89 76 89 89 96 96 62 0 25 50 75 100
91%
0%
9%
87%
0%
13%
29%
0%
71%
80%
0%
20%
89%
0%
11%
89%
11%
0%
86%
0%
14%
86%
14%
0%
70%
10%
20%
20%
70%
10%

Analyst Ratings for Technical Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

100%
0%
0%
78%
0%
22%

User Sentiment Summary

Excellent User Sentiment 1298 reviews
Great User Sentiment 720 reviews
93%
of users recommend this product

LiveChat has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 93% when considering 1298 user reviews from 1 recognized software review sites.

87%
of users recommend this product

Freshchat has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 87% when considering 720 user reviews from 4 recognized software review sites.

n/a
4.4 (489)
4.65 (1298)
n/a
n/a
4.1 (112)
n/a
4.2 (28)
n/a
4.4 (91)

Awards

SelectHub research analysts have evaluated LiveChat and concluded it deserves the award for the Best Overall Live Chat Software available today and earns best-in-class honors for Integration and Extensibility. LiveChat stands above the rest by achieving an ‘Excellent’ rating as a User Favorite.

Analysts' Pick Award
User Favorite Award
Integration and Extensibility Award

SelectHub research analysts have evaluated Freshchat and concluded it earns best-in-class honors for Platform Capabilities.

Platform Capabilities Award

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Seamless Customer Support: LiveChat enables real-time communication, allowing businesses to resolve customer queries promptly and efficiently, enhancing customer satisfaction.
Personalized Interactions: Agents can access customer history and context, facilitating personalized interactions that build stronger relationships and drive loyalty.
Increased Conversion Rates: LiveChat provides an opportunity to engage with website visitors proactively, addressing objections and guiding them through the conversion funnel.
Improved Team Collaboration: LiveChat fosters collaboration between agents, allowing them to transfer chats seamlessly and share customer information for effective problem-solving.
Comprehensive Analytics: LiveChat offers robust analytics that provide valuable insights into customer behavior, enabling businesses to optimize their live chat strategy and measure its impact.
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Unified Platform: Freshchat offers a comprehensive customer engagement platform, bringing together live chat, bots, and social media messaging into one interface. This streamlines workflows and provides agents with a holistic view of customer interactions.
Customization Options: Users appreciate the ability to tailor the chat widget's appearance and behavior to match their brand and website. This includes customizing the widget's color, position, and welcome message, creating a seamless brand experience for visitors.
Automation Capabilities: Freshchat's automation features, such as chatbots and canned responses, help to improve agent productivity and response times. Chatbots can handle routine inquiries, while canned responses provide quick answers to frequently asked questions, freeing up agents to focus on more complex issues.
Reporting and Analytics: The platform offers robust reporting and analytics tools, providing insights into chat volume, agent performance, and customer satisfaction. This data empowers businesses to make data-driven decisions and continuously improve their customer support operations.
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Inconsistent Agent Availability: Users experience frustration when they are unable to connect with a live agent during critical moments, leading to unresolved queries and dissatisfaction.
Limited Customization Options: Predefined chat templates and inflexible chat window designs restrict businesses from tailoring the live chat experience to match their brand identity and specific needs.
Data Security Concerns: Users are hesitant to provide sensitive information through live chat platforms due to concerns about data privacy and the potential for security breaches.
Delayed Response Times: Slow response times can lead to frustration and abandonment, especially during peak hours when users expect immediate assistance.
Lack of Proactive Engagement: Live chat software that lacks proactive engagement features limits the ability of businesses to initiate conversations and proactively address customer needs.
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Limited Customization: Freshchat offers limited options for customizing the chat widget's appearance and behavior, making it challenging for brands to achieve a seamless integration with their website's design and user experience.
Mobile App Shortcomings: The mobile app for agents has received criticism for its occasional glitches and lack of features compared to the desktop version, hindering efficient communication and issue resolution on the go.
Reporting Limitations: Some users find the reporting and analytics capabilities of Freshchat to be somewhat basic, lacking the depth and granularity needed for comprehensive performance evaluation and data-driven decision-making.
Pricing Structure: The pricing structure, particularly for larger teams or those requiring advanced features, can be a deterrent for some businesses, especially when compared to alternative solutions in the market.
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LiveChat is often praised for its user-friendly interface and ease of setup. It seamlessly integrates with various platforms and offers a wide range of customization options. One of its strengths is the ability to create automated chatbots, which can handle simple inquiries and free up agents for more complex tasks. LiveChat's analytics and reporting capabilities provide valuable insights into customer interactions, allowing businesses to optimize their support strategies. It compares favorably to similar products due to its comprehensive feature set, intuitive design, and robust reporting functionality. These factors are crucial for businesses seeking a reliable and efficient live chat solution. However, some users have expressed concerns about occasional technical glitches and limited customization options for chatbots. Additionally, LiveChat's pricing can be a consideration for smaller businesses or those with limited budgets. Despite these minor drawbacks, LiveChat remains a top choice for businesses seeking a comprehensive and user-friendly live chat solution. Its strengths in ease of use, automation capabilities, and reporting functionality make it particularly suitable for businesses looking to improve customer support efficiency and gain valuable insights into customer interactions.

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Freshchat has carved out a niche for itself in the customer communication platform market, offering a compelling blend of features and affordability that resonates with many users. Reviewers frequently highlight the platform's intuitive interface and ease of use, making it a popular choice for businesses transitioning from simpler live chat solutions or those new to the world of customer messaging platforms. The seamless integration with other Freshworks products, such as Freshdesk and Freshsales, is another major draw, providing a unified view of customer interactions and streamlining workflows. This integration is particularly beneficial for businesses already invested in the Freshworks ecosystem, allowing them to leverage existing data and processes without the need for complex integrations. However, some users note that Freshchat's reporting and analytics capabilities could be more robust, especially when compared to competitors like Intercom or Zendesk Chat. While the platform offers basic reporting features, it may not provide the depth of insights needed by larger businesses or those with complex reporting requirements. Additionally, some users mention occasional limitations in customization options, particularly regarding chat widget appearance and branding. Despite these drawbacks, Freshchat's strengths in user-friendliness, affordability, and integration make it a compelling option for small to medium-sized businesses seeking a reliable and easy-to-implement customer messaging solution. Its focus on core live chat functionality and seamless integration with other Freshworks products makes it particularly well-suited for businesses already using or considering other tools within the Freshworks ecosystem.

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Screenshots

Top Alternatives in Live Chat Software


Chaport

Chatra

Crisp

Drift

Freshchat

Intercom

JivoChat

LiveAgent

Olark

Pure Chat

Smartsupp

tawk.to

Tidio

Userlike

Zoho SalesIQ

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