10 Best Customer Service Chat Software For Small Business [2023]

3CX is a business communications solution designed to replace the traditional private branch exchange (PBX) system. It is a software-based PBX system with a cloud-hosted option. It offers users various capabilities including a live chat function, instant messaging, web conferencing, and CRM integration.

3CX’s live chat feature is a great way to initiate non-intrusive connections between agents and customers at scale. Since often live chats end up being forwarded to a call center agent, 3CX's live chat tool is designed so that it’s easier to elevate the conversation from live chat to an actual call. The customer or the agent can initiate the call to expedite the resolution of whatever issues there might be.

The live chat tool is also available with 3CX’s free plan, which means that small businesses and startups can take full advantage of this feature for no charge for up to 10 users without having to worry about added monthly fees. They can also customize the live chat tool to add voice and video call functions too. 3CX also offers free Android and iOS apps, allowing contact center agents to respond to live chat, WhatsApp, and SMS messages through their smartphone or tablet. This can help boost the productivity and efficiency of any company’s customer service program.

3CX is free for up to 10 users. Paid plans start at $175/year.

Hiver has a borderline devotional love for email—seriously, they say it on their homepage. Their intuitive Gmail integration lets your team control and organize customer chats and inquiries all from their email with tools that help to collaborate with context by adding colorful notes alongside each customer inquiry.

Their easy-to-navigate, vibrant, and integrated help desk is incredibly easy to set up with almost no learning curve. For small live chat customer service teams and startups, Hiver offers one of the most affordable beginner plans to get your team members up and running.

Starting at $7/month/user, you get a shared inbox, templates, analytics, and up to ten users.

Podium started in a tire shop when CEO Eric Rae built a product for his father that made getting better reviews as easy as sending a simple SMS.Their platform unifies customer support interactions and reviews into a single, easy to access dashboard to help your customer service team manage online reviews through live chat solutions.

Within this dashboard, users are able to send messages, review invitations, and respond to reviews in real-time.

Pricing is only available upon request — Podium understands every business and situation is different, so they help you to identify what you’ll need for your business to thrive.

HubSpot brings messaging and live chat contextualization, freedom, and real-time implementation of customer support to the forefront of its design. Small business owners and startups will love to have this sleek CRM at their fingertips. The tool offers custom templates, Gmail and Outlook integrations, and company insights—and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

As seen in the screenshot, HubSpot offers robust live chat software and simple-to-use bot options.

If you’re looking for more than their plethora of marketing, messaging, and free live chat support tools, they offer an awesome starter plan from $45/month for 2 users.

From the popular Freshworks applications, Freshchat combines mobile app messaging with an intuitive AI chatbot aimed at customer support sales and marketing teams.The app allows your team to discover leads, create contextual live chat solutions, send messages, and collect data by integrating with other popular applications such as Google, Freshdesk, and Freshsales.

You are also able to BYOB (bring your own bot) if your team already had an external one created. On top of everything, Freshworks offers teams a free plan with up to 100 agents to get your customer service team started.

Their next “blossom” plan starts at $15/month for small teams.

Intercom’s case studies demonstrate an exceptional boost in sales, marketing, and support through their conversational support and customer support software. Used by Facebook, IBM, and Microsoft, Intercom uses a 3-part unification system to combine human, self-serve, and proactive solutions to stay ahead of the game and provide clients with the customer support they need.

They have an add-on that enables some advanced workflow automation features that lets your team easily use automated live chat solution and resolution bots, measure and improve importance, and integrate apps like Shopify and Stripe.

Intercom’s “starting” plan for their live chat tool and messaging comes at a price of $39/month. Although it comes in a little higher than the others, Intercom prides itself as being the #1 business messenger so your customer support team can build the best relations with the highest quality.

Olark combines automation, analytics, and actionable insights into its stylish, customizable chat window interface. I’ve found that their users love the PowerUp feature which allows your team to create a more personalized tone with translation options, co-browsing, chat service tools, and an unbranded live chatbox.

One of their standout features is the live chat software integration system—with a simple learning curve and the ability to link with dozens of popular tools and apps to easily share customer support data.

Olark has a more cost-efficient yearly program starting at $15/month/agent, ultimately saving you 21% over 12 months — compared to their monthly $19/agent plan.

With over 40,000 trusted businesses and online stores, Chatra aims to combine live chat software, email, and your social media to automate and create a more seamless customer experience.

Chatra monitors current and potential customers within a real-time list in order to pinpoint where they are from so your team can greet them with an effective message. Their automated live chatbot offers quick options and solutions, taking a load off your team so they can get back to what’s important.

Their free chat plan allows for one customer service agent to access channels, customer support tools, visitor intelligence options, and live chat features among many other things.

Their paid plans start at $15/month/agent.

Getting right into it, Kayako provides live chat support teams with a powerful, customizable system and as a result, it comes with a relatively steep learning curve. More customization leads to more integration for your help center, iOS, website, and android applications, all through Kayako.

This large amount of integration proves extremely valuable in connecting with, following, and allowing your customer service team to truly know your customer through an innovative chat solution.

Although it offers a lot, Kayako comes in with simple and transparent pricing for small teams starting at $15/month/agent.

Helpshift is a modern live chat and conversational software that takes customer service communication to heart by creating their customer support software around the mission of learning, being in the know, and creating a space that empowers colleagues to do great things (sure, it might sound cheesy, but I love the company’s mission of keeping it real and showing passion towards their brand).

Their bot-friendly technology is great for small teams who can’t spend much time face-to-face with customers—this keeps your self-service responses automated, convenient, and contextual.

Helpshift offers essential, business and elite starter pack with additional add-on features and integrations available by request.