A one-line AI chat widget that answers visitor questions and turns them into leads.
Best for: Small business sites wanting a free always-on chat widget
ai-for / live-chat
As of , EffectHub tracks 9 AI tools for live chat; 5 of the 9 have a free tier, and paid plans run from $5 to $99 a month.
Chatporch, Saufter and Tiledesk lead the list on click-through. 7 of the 9 ship a public API.
ranked by click-through
A one-line AI chat widget that answers visitor questions and turns them into leads.
Best for: Small business sites wanting a free always-on chat widget
E-commerce helpdesk with email, chat and knowledge base plus behaviour-driven campaign suggestions.
Best for: Small e-commerce teams on Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento or BigCommerce
Open-source live chat and chatbot platform for customer service, run in their cloud or self-hosted
Best for: Teams required to keep chat data on their own servers
AI support agent trained on your site content, paired with shared live-chat and email inboxes for small teams.
Best for: Small teams replacing a shared inbox with something that auto-answers routine questions
Customer service helpdesk built around Fin, an AI agent billed per resolved conversation
Best for: Mid-market and enterprise teams automating a large share of tier-1 support
Customer communication suite whose knowledge base feeds self-service articles and the AI agent answering in live chat.
Best for: Small and mid-sized teams consolidating chat, inbox and help centre
Support agent that resolves tickets over chat, email, voice and social from your help content and connected systems, billed per outcome.
Best for: Support teams with a large, well-maintained help centre where deflection can reach the levels the per-outcome price assumes
A lightweight live-chat widget you answer from Gmail or your phone, with an optional pay-per-conversation AI assistant.
Best for: Agencies running the same chat widget across many client sites
Tidio's support agent that answers from your own help content inside live chat, priced per conversation
Best for: Small e-commerce teams on Shopify or WooCommerce already using Tidio chat
| Tool | Price | Free plan | API | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chatporch | from $19/mo | Yes | Not confirmed | Active |
| Saufter | from $99/mo | No | Not confirmed | Unverified |
| Tiledesk | Not confirmed | Yes | Yes | Active |
| Chatisto | from $29/mo | Yes | Yes | Active |
| Intercom | from $29/seat/mo | No | Yes | Active |
| HelpCrunch | from $12/seat/mo | No | Yes | Active |
| Fin | from $0.99/request | No | Yes | Active |
| GhostChat | from $5/mo | Yes | Yes | Active |
| Lyro AI Agent | from $32.50/mo | Yes | Yes | Active |
5 of the 9 AI tools for live chat on EffectHub's list have a free tier — Chatporch, Tiledesk, Chatisto and GhostChat; the rest are paid, from $5 a month.
As of October 26, 2026, paid plans for the 9 AI tools for live chat on EffectHub's list run from $5 to $99 a month. Each card shows the pricing model and the cheapest paid plan as EffectHub last verified it; 5 of the 9 can be started for free.
7 of the 9 AI tools for live chat on EffectHub's list ship a public API, including Tiledesk, Chatisto, Intercom and HelpCrunch. The API badge on each card is re-checked against the vendor's documentation.
For journalists, researchers and AI assistants: the figures on this page in one sentence you can quote.
As of October 26, 2026, EffectHub tracks 9 AI tools for live chat; 5 of the 9 have a free tier, and paid plans run from $5 to $99 a month. (EffectHub, “AI Tools for Live Chat”, Oct 2026, https://effecthub.net/ai-for/live-chat)
Figures as of How we count
These figures are free to use under CC BY 4.0 with a link to this page.