There’s something every WordPress website needs – WordPress Chat Plugins. Everyone is talking about it. Or you must have seen it on some other website and now want to integrate it into your website. Trust me! You’re doing the right thing.
Everyone loves personal attention. They get the same when they walk up to showrooms/stores. But what about your 24/7 open shop? What about your website? That’s why chat plugins or a widget are really important for your website to grow and improve customer experience. Be it a live chat plugin or a chatbot. We will discuss it later.
In this article, I have listed down 10 Best Chat Plugins for WordPress which I have personally used, tried, and tested while creating a lot of websites. I will be sharing these things in every listing:
- Key Features
- Pricing
- How their chat widget look
- Pros and Cons
Let’s dive straight into the list:
Top 10 WordPress Chat Plugins
I have spent hours testing these chat plugins. My ranking factor depends on my likeness/recommendations. But hey! You can try any of them whichever suits you the best.
1. Tidio Chat
This Polish startup has already won hearts of 300K+ Website owners in addition to 4.8 stars ratings. The best part is, they are focused on the smallest business and providing the highest quality possible.
Tidio Chat is the easiest one to integrate and customize. All you have to do is, Sign Up on the platform, download the plugin and install. That’s It!
The best part? It comes with a fully equipped chatbot who will take care of your visitors in case you’re not around. (Check here why Chatbots are important).
Here’s how their chat widget looks:
Key Features
- Live Typing: You can actually see when your visitors are typing somethings even before they send it. Which helps in saving a lot of time.
- Visitor List + Viewed Pages: You can see the list of people who are currently browsing the website and initiate the chat yourself. Also, you can which pages they have already viewed and currently viewing.
- Live Chat Mobile App: You can use Tidio Chat on the go. The mobile app makes it super easy to respond to customer queries.
- Chat Transfer: You can transfer the chats to the relevant operators within the team.
- Omnichannel: You can use Tidio chat Dashboard to respond to Emails and Facebook Messenger Queries.
Learn more about this chat plugin in my Tidio Chat Review.
Pricing
There are 4 Plans which you can choose from:
- Free Plan: Up to 3 operators but limited features.
- Chatbot Plan: If you just want to use automated responses. You can pay $18/Month for this awesome feature and automate your business.
- Communicator Plan: If you want to use it as a live chat plugin with operators handling the chat, you can go for it in $18/Month (3 Operators). An additional $10 per month for adding a new operator.
- Professional Plan: This is for large enterprises. They provide customized solutions as per business needs.
If you want to use both chatbot and live chat plugin, you can add both of them to the cart.
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- Canned Responses
- Visitor Tracking
- Chat Transfer/Routing
- Chatbots
- Analytics
- Customer Geolocation
- Best Price
Cons:
- No Customisable Branding
- No Post Chat Survey (Only Like & Dislike)
- Best Price but Confusing
2. Live Chat Inc
Live Chat is trusted by larger brands. The WordPress chat plugin is easy to install and really easy to setup. It has a minimalist look which makes the widget a lot more appealing. This WordPress plugin can be integrated with almost all the CRMs. Unfortunately, this doesn’t have a free plan. But you get a 14-day free trial period.
Live Chat has an AI Automation Touch which helps in the auto transfer of chats to the right department.
This is how it looks:
Key Features
- Integration: Can be integrated with 170+ Tools
- Message Sneek Peek: You can see what the visitor is typing.
- Rich Messages: You can make your message more appealing with buttons, carousels – As shown in the above screenshot.
- Chat Routing: You can create customized links for each department and place it on your website.
- Ticketing System: It works as a CRM too. Where visitors can create a ticket if you’re away.
- Omnichannel: Just like Tidio Chat, Live Chat Inc supports Omnichannel too. With extended channels like WhatsApp or SMS.
- 20+ Other Features
Learn more about their features on the Live Chat Website.
Pricing
They too have 4 Pricing Plans
- Starter: Starts at $16/Month/Agent with very basic features and 60 Days chat history and no customization
- Team: Great for small teams at $33/Month/Agent which grouping options, unlimited chat history.
- Business: $50/Month/Agent comes will all the features in Starter and Team Plan with advanced reporting systems. Work scheduling of chat support agents.
- Enterprise: For large companies and customized requirements.
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- Well designed dashboard
- Omnichannel
- Ticketing System
- Dedicated App for every device
- Great Support
- High security
Cons:
- Expensive for startups
- Few users have complained about Dashboard being the slow
3. Freshchat
If you already use any product of Freshworks such as Freshsales or Freshdesk, this is the chat plugin you need. Freshworks creates awesome tools to make your Customer Service extremely organized and fast. They almost have 8+ Tools that any business needs. Those tools work really well with each other.
It is always better to have everything in one place rather than scratching your head during integration. Right?
Freshchat is a premium WordPress chat plugin with a lot of features similar to Live Chat Inc.
But the great thing is people can navigate through their department before initiating the chat and you can add your FAQ section too where users can just search and find the solution themselves. Here’s a look of Freshchat plugin:
Key Features
- Omnichannel live chat plugin
- Event-based triggered messages
- Train your Bot for answering complex queries.
- Connect to the tools you already use.
Learn more about Freshchat features here.
Pricing
I would say the pricing is really confusing, but I would try to make it look easier.
- Sprout (Free): Freshchat has a free plan available for up to 100 agents which has all the basic features that any live chat plugin would have.
- Blossom: $15/user/month which includes all the Sprout features (Basic Features) along with agent assignment rules, canned responses, user events, Faceb00k Messenger integration, and FAQ section as few major ones.
- Garden: $29/user/month includes everything that the Blossom Plan has. You would need this if you use plenty of other tools. If you’re more into reportings where you track your agent’s performances, this would be the plan you needed. This plan is eligible for WhatsApp Integration.
- Estate: $45/user/month with everything Garden plan has to offer. This has excellent features like intelligent assign (based on the skillset of agents), live translate, co-browsing (screen sharing with users), and Apple business chat to name few.
- Forest: $69/user/month with everything in Garden Plan along with Freddy Intelligent chatbot (the one you can train to respond), IP whitelisting, and domain whitelisting.
Freshchat also offers a few add-ons which you can add to any plan – Freddy Chatbot and WhatsApp Business.
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- AI Automation
- Omnichannel Options
- Team Collaboration tools
- Pre-resolution options before connecting to an agent.
Cons
- Confusing Price
- Works best with only Freshworks Products
Check Detailed Freshchat Pricing
Now, I’m going to list down some of the great WordPress Chatbot Plugins:
4. Collect Chat
Collect chat one of the best WordPress chat plugins in – Only Chatbot version. This plugin doesn’t have a live chat system and works best for solopreneurs who can’t be active all the time. This Chatbot plugin is perfect for repetitive queries, lead generation, making appointments, and much more. It works on rule-based responses where you predefine all the questions and responses.
Here, visitors are not allowed to type any query. They have to select from pre-defined responses. Pretty much like any other chatbots out there. It works mostly as an engagement tool. It can be integrated anywhere – as a widget, between the posts or a completely separate landing page.
I myself as a blogger use it to generate more subscribers. Here’s the look:
Key Features
- Drag & Drop Builder
- Lead Generation
- Appointment Booking
- Pre-Built Chatbots – Just sign up with Collect Chat, install the plugin and import some pre-built bots.
Pricing
You can create unlimited bots in all the plans
- Free: Collect 50 Responses. The appointment booking feature is available in the free plan and some see insights.
- Lite: $18/Month. Collect up to 500 responses and allows logical jump which is an extremely important feature in any chatbot. Also, allows webhook integrations.
- Standard: $35/Month. Collect up to 2500 responses. Includes all the features of the Lite version along with branding removal and integration with 3rd Party apps like Zapier and Mailchimp.
- Plus: $69/Month. Collect 5000 Responses and the same features as Standard.
- Unlimited Plan: $219/Month with all the features and unlimited responses.
It comes with a 30-Day money-back guarantee. If you don’t like the plugin, you can ask for a refund.
Pros:
- Easy integration
- All templates are free to use.
- Easy chatbot creation
Cons
- Branding can be removed only from Standard Plan onwards.
- No option for the human to take over.
5. Chatbot by Live Chat Inc
Live Chat Inc has few more products apart from a normal live chat plugin. One of them is Chatbot. This too comes with some of the pre-built templates. It comes with rich messages feature the same as Live Chat Inc. Also, it easily connects with Facebook Messenger too. You can add human support but you will have to buy Live Chat Inc too.
Just like Freshchat, you can train your bot here too.
Chatbot is pretty expensive than Collect Chat and some of the live chat plugins too. Here’s how it looks:
Key Features
- Drag & Drop Builder
- Templates
- Open API (Flexibility to connect with other apps)
- Rich Messages
- Ability to connect with Human (Require Live Chat Inc Plan too)
Pricing
- Starter: $50/Month which includes 1000 chats/Month and if you exceed this threshold, you will be charged $0.01 per chat. It will give you 1 active chatbot limit and basic reporting.
- Team: $149/Month with 5000 chats a month and $0.01 if exceeded that markup. However, this gives you 5 active chatbot options with the same features as a Starter plan and smart actions which will help in creating custom lists of the users.
- Business: $499/Month with 25,000 chats per month which include the same features as Team plan and personal onboarding with premium customer support.
- Enterprise: They also have an enterprise plan for which they have not disclosed the price. They probably have more limits along with chatbot set up service.
Pros:
- Rich messages
- Train your chatbot
- Easy Integration
Cons
- Expensive
- You need Live Chat Inc Plan too for the Chatbot+Live Chat option.
Conclusion: WordPress Chat Plugins
The flexibility of choosing the best WordPress chat plugin is really great. There are literally 100s of live chat plugins as well as chatbot plugins. But, these were the Top 5 on the list. In 2020, it is really important for online businesses to have a chat plugin on their website.
I know may have missed some more of the best WordPress chat plugins, but I wanted to complete this list only with those which I have personally used.
Let me know which chat plugin you are going to use?