Live chat is changing the game in the customer support and service world. From improving customer experience, to driving sales, to growing retention, live chat has arrived as a new, useful way to engage and support customers.
Take a look at these live chat statistics:
- Live chat can bring a significant improvement in marketing awareness (+29%), early-stage sales development (+32%), and post-sales customer support (+39%)
- Website visitors that engage with a business via live chat are worth 4.5 times more than visitors that don’t.
- Average order value increases by 10% when reviewing the sales from customers who engaged in a live chat before making a purchase than those that didn’t.
So, your However, finding the best Shopify live chat app can become a nightmare when you have so many choices — 405 options, to be exact.
That’s why, as ecommerce helpdesk experts, we want to share a list of the best 14 live chat software for Shopify to help you find the app that works for your business. You’ll learn their main features, pros, cons, Shopify reviews, and pricing options — all in this post.
(Don't use Shopify? Check out our general list of live chat apps overall or the best live chat apps for ecommerce.)
The 14 best Shopify live chat apps
- Gorgias
- Zendesk
- Pure chat
- Takw.to
- PingMe (Facebook Messenger live chat)
- Chatra
- Reamaze
- Tidio
- LiveChat
- JivoChat
- Shopify Inbox
- Facebook Chat Box by Autoketing
- Formilla
- eDesk
What the live chat apps on this list offer your business
We've already looked at several statistics showcasing the benefits of live chat for ecommerce stores. However, choosing the right live chat solutions can provide your business with features that extend beyond the base benefits of live chat customer support.
With the live chat solutions that were useful enough to make our list, you can look forward to beneficial features such as:
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning tools
Live chat solutions that are powered via AI and machine learning technology allow you to automatically detect the sentiments of customers contacting you via live chat. From there, the customer is directed to the appropriate customer service channel.
For example, say that a customer contacts you regarding an order they want to cancel. In this instance, live chat solutions that feature customer intent detection will automatically trigger the cancellation and message the customer.
This process helps streamline your customer support process to both boost customer satisfaction and improve the efficiency of your support team.
Low-code or no-code setup
All of the live chat apps on our list are either low-code or no-code platforms. This means that these apps can be installed, customized, and used without any need for coding expertise or outside help from a software development service.
However, still look for some customizable features in your live chat. Your live chat tool will display on your website, so you don’t want it to clash with your colors and fonts.
Integrations with all of your other Shopify and customer service tools
Powerful integrations are essential for any Shopify app, and live chat apps are no exception. Most live chat apps will be a feature of the larger customer service platform you end up choosing. Choosing a live chat app and helpdesk that are able to integrate with all of your other Shopify and customer service tools can provide a range of benefits.
A live chat app that integrates with your email marketing tools, for instance, means that you can easily transition customer conversations from live chat to email. Integrating live chat with social media tools enables customers to contact live chat representatives via the social messaging apps that they are already most familiar with. These are just a couple of examples of how choosing live chat apps that will integrate with the other tools you happen to utilize can provide your ecommerce store with powerful capabilities.
Analytics capabilities
There are plenty of ways that you can leverage customer data to improve your company's customer service quality, but only if you are able to collect quality data and organize it in a way that makes it easy to analyze for insights.
Thankfully, all of the live chat solutions on this list feature analytics capabilities that make it simple to gather and analyze data regarding common customer issues, the performance of your customer service team, and beyond.
Automation features
Features designed to automate time-consuming customer service tasks such as creating and prioritizing customer support tickets can go a long way toward freeing up time for your customer service team. Some of the live chat solutions on our list are also able to provide canned responses to common customer questions, lowering your support team's ticket volume and further reducing their workload.
However, be careful of installing an unhelpful chatbot. Watch the following video to understand why we prefer self-service features in the chat widget over chatbots alone:
1) Gorgias Live Chat: 4.4 ⭐ (541 reviews)
Gorgias is the best help desk ticketing system for eCommerce merchants. It provides you with all the features you need to create an incredible customer support experience, improve team performance, and increase sales.
One of Gorgias’ most noticeable features is its tight integration with eCommerce platforms, including Shopify, Magento, and BigCommerce. Hence, Gorgias can pull relevant data like order tracking numbers, last order details, loyalty points, etc., from your Shopify dashboard and put it right in front of you.
Another exciting feature of Gorgias live chat is chat campaigns, which allow you to prompt chat messages on specific pages of your website. This way, you can quickly start conversations and guide specific visitors through the checkout process.
If you’re running a Shopify store, you can be sure Gorgias will integrate well with your website. It’s quick to install, easy to use, and affordable for eCommerce business owners.
Pricing: Basic plans start at $10/mo. A 7-day free trial is available.
Main features:
- Support omni channel communication, i.e., email, live chat, phone, and social media
- See full live chat and message history with a specific customer across different channels in one view
- Support for multiple stores
- Chat in real-time with customers currently on your store
- Respond in one click using pre-made templates
- See which pages customers are on and their purchase history
- Trigger live chat and popup form on important pages like checkout page
- Perform actions like rewarding loyalty points without leaving the chat
- Set up automated responses and bot for common tickets like “Where’s my order?”
Pros:
- Clean and intuitive user interface
- Offer affordable pricing plans
- Deep integration with Shopify and Shopify Plus
- Support many powerful live chat features
- Fantastic customer support team
Cons:
- No free plan
Who is this for?
As an all-in-one customer service solution for Shopify store owners, Gorgias is an excellent option for anyone who is looking for a comprehensive ecommerce customer service solution. Gorgias’ features include fast-loading live chat widgets in addition to a number of other powerful customer service features.
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2) Zendesk Chat: 3.6 ⭐ (151 reviews)
Developed by Zendesk, Zendesk Chat is a live chat app for Shopify stores. It allows you to communicate with customers over your Shopify storefront, mobile apps, and popular messaging apps like Facebook Messenger, Twitter, and Line.
If you’re a Zendesk customer using the Team plan or above, you can use Zendesk Chat for free.
Pricing: Starting from $49 per agent per month. A 14-day free trial is available.
Key features:
- Send targeted and behavior-based messages to customers
- Use pre-chat and offline forms to collect customer information
- Support chat ratings to gather customer feedback
- Share files like screenshots, product guides, or GIF images with customers
Pros:
- It’s a good choice if you're using Zendesk Support Suite
- Support all essential features of a typical live chat app
Cons:
- Non-user-friendly interface and steep learning curve for beginners
- Expensive pricing plans for Shopify store owners
- Bad customer support team
- A lot of technical errors when installing and using the app
- Not suitable for eCommerce businesses
Who is this for?
As an expensive and often difficult-to-use solution, Zendesk Chat is really best suited for those who are already familiar with Zendesk Support Suite. Nevertheless, Zendesk Chat does provide a lot of impressive features for those who can stomach its price tag and learning curve.
📚Related reading: Our rundown of Zendesk’s features, plus pros and cons.
3) Pure Chat: No official Shopify app store listing
Another top live chat app for Shopify in this list is Pure Chat. This app focuses solely on live chat, which means that if you want to manage customer requests across channels, from live chat to email and social media, you’ll have to switch to another app like Gorgias.
Pure Chat currently supports two plans: Growth and Pro. The Pro plan offers you unlimited websites, 10 agents, up to 1,000 SMS notifications, and Pure Chat branding removal. You can’t install Pure Chat from the Shopify app store, but you can install it from Pure Chat’s website.
Pricing: Starting from $49 per month. A 30-day free trial is available.
Key features:
- Unlimited chats
- Advanced widget customization
- Security roles like admin, power users, and operators
- Canned responses
- Chat notifications
- File transfer
- Real-time analytics
Pros:
- All features are the same in both Growth and Pro plans
- Extensive integrations
- Allows you to customize the look and feel of the chat widget
Cons:
- Technical errors occur when installing the app
Who is this for?
Pure Chat focuses only on live chat directly from your ecommerce website. This makes it an optimal choice for ecommerce store owners who aren't interested in offering live chat support via any other messaging platforms.
4) Takw.to Live Chat: 4.4 ⭐ (229 reviews)
Tawk.to Live Chat is an agent-centric chat application for Shopify stores. The best thing about this app is it’s 100% free — there’s no limit to the number of agents, chat volumes, or sites you can add widgets to.
Pricing: Free.
Key features:
- Video and voice
- Agent messaging, screen sharing
- Desktop notifications
- 1880+ emoji
- JavaScript API
- Unlimited history
- Fire transfer
- Report and analytics
Pros:
- Support 27 languages
- Easy to set up, free forever, and secure
- Available on web browser, desktop, macOS, iOS, and Android
Cons:
- Too many features cause the app not to be user-friendly
- Need to pay a small fee to remove the “Powered by Tawk.to” branding
- The customer support team isn’t always responsive
Who is this for?
For an app that is completely free to install and use, Tawk.to Live Chat is a highly effective live chat solution. This makes it an ideal option for store owners who want to try out the benefits of live chat before they make an investment in a more capable live chat app.
5) PingMe Facebook Messenger Live Chat: 4.9 ⭐ (427 reviews)
If you currently support your customers through Facebook Messenger, you may want to install PingMe Live Chat for your store. This app allows you to connect your Shopify store with your Facebook page, and then a Facebook Messenger icon will appear on your website.
Pricing: $9.99 per month. A free plan is available.
Key features:
- Add a live chat button to your website to chat directly with customers
- Schedule the working time to enable or disable live chat
- Save the history of conversations with customers.
- See a full overview of interactions on one page
- Leave an offline message to get back later when your customer supports are unavailable
- Connect to your Facebook page and live chat through Facebook messages
Pros:
- Simple and easy to use
- The pricing plan is affordable for eCommerce merchants
Cons:
- The chat function sometimes doesn’t work
- Errors happen when trying to connect the app with Facebook page
- Not an ideal choice if you need a professional live chat app
Who is this for?
Thanks to its powerful plugin with Facebook and Facebook Messenger, PingMe Live Chat is an ideal choice for anyone who wants to start leveraging Facebook as a customer support channel.
6) Chatra Live Chat: 4.8 ⭐ (638 reviews)
Chatra Live Chat claims to help you “sell more, answer questions, and alleviate concerns to help visitors place an order.” It also allows you to see a shopper's cart contents in real-time to identify the most valuable customers and provide tailored assistance.
Pricing: Starting from $17 per month. A free plan is available.
Key features:
- Contact customers stuck on the checkout
- See who’s on your website, where they’re from, and what they have in their cart
- Answer chat messages sent by Facebook users to your store’s page directly from the app
- Create group chats with other agents
- Save previous conversation history
- Correct answers after sending the chat message
Pros:
- Support a free forever plan
- Provide useful live chat features like typos correction and group chats
Cons:
- Most advanced features aren’t available in the free plan
- Lack of customization options
Who is this for?
If you would like to leverage live chat specifically for contacting customers pre-purchase in order to boost conversions, then Chatra Live Chat is an option to consider.
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7) Reamaze Live Chat: 4.7 ⭐ (212 reviews)
Reamaze is a helpdesk, live chat, ticketing, chatbot, and FAQ for small, medium, and enterprise businesses. It allows you to handle support tickets across channels, including emails, live chat, Facebook pages, Messenger, Twitter, Instagram, SMS, VOIP, and WhatsApp.
Reamaze Live Chat aims to help you support customers faster by chatting with them in real-time. It offers many features that are similar to Gorgias’ and other live chat apps.
Pricing: Starting from $29 per month. A 14-day free trial is available.
Key features:
- Support multiple stores
- Send products to customers in chat
- Support rules and automation to streamline workflow
- Allow to build chatbots to help, guide, and sell to customers
- Offer Live Chat and Bots to automatically engage specific types of customers
Pros:
- Flexible pricing, no contract
Cons:
- The user interface is a bit outdated and not user-friendly
- Macros and rules need improvement
Who is this for?
Re:maze Live Chat is a well-rounded live chat solution that offers just about everything you might need to start offering live chat support across a variety of channels. This makes it an excellent app for ecommerce stores of all sizes.
8) Tidio Live Chat: 4.8 ⭐ (1,549 reviews)
With approximately 1,014 reviews, Tidio Live Chat is currently the highest-rated live chat app on the Shopify App Store. Tidio merges live chat, bots, and marketing automation to provide you with a comprehensive live chat app.
Pricing: Starting from $39 a month. A free plan is available.
Key features:
- Support customers 24/7 with chatbots
- Reduce cart abandonment rate with the Abandoned Cart Bot works
- Free to design the live chat widget the way you want
- Customize the live chat to match with your brand
- Monitor results and automate chats with AI
Pros:
- Clean and modern user interface
- Many automation and bot templates
- Multiple languages supported
- Rich widget customization options
Cons:
- Not tight integration with Shopify and other ecommerce platforms
- Pricing plans are a bit high for Shopify merchants
Who is this for?
Tidio Live Chat is a top choice for ecommerce store owners who are looking for a live chat solution that offers plenty of automations for both customer support and marketing.
9) LiveChat: 5.0 ⭐ (98 reviews)
LiveChat is a messaging app that offers many unique features for its live chat service. It can integrate with most customer relationship management (CRM) like Zendesk and website platforms like Shopify.
Pricing: Starting from $16 per month. A 14-day free trial is available.
Key features:
- See a real-time view of a customer’s cart
- Send product recommendations known as Product Cards right in the live chat widget
- Get more detailed customer information with Customer Insight
- Support more than 170 integrations
- Provide in-depth analytics, multi-channel capabilities, and data security
Pros:
- Chat window loads fast and is easy to use
- Clean and well-designed user interface
Cons:
- Not optimized for Shopify since LiveChat is also a CRM
Who is this for?
As a CRM platform first and foremost, LiveChat is an excellent choice for ecommerce store owners looking for an app that offers CRM solutions in addition to live chat capabilities.
10) JivoChat Live Chat: 4.4 ⭐ (105 reviews)
JivoChat is an all-in-one business messenger that teams use to talk to customers everywhere: live chat, phone, email, and social. The app also includes a built-in CRM allowing you to follow up and convert leads into actual sales.
Pricing: Free or starting from $8 per agent per month. A 14-day free trial is available.
Key features:
- Track visitors and chat with them in real-time
- See the message that visitors are typing before they hit send
- Support canned responses
- Transfer and invite agents to join the open chats with customers
Pros:
- A forever free basic plan is supported
- Prices are affordable for Shopify merchants
Cons:
- Doesn’t support rules and automation
- Not integrated deeply with Shopify
Who is this for?
If you are looking for an app that will make it easy to connect with customers via live chat, phone, email, or social then JivoChat Live Chat is worth considering. However, this app's lack of automation features means that it isn’t as effective in regards to streamlining your customer support as apps such as Gorgias.
11) Shopify Inbox: 4.5 ⭐ (1,499 reviews)
Shopify Inbox is Shopify’s native live chat function that allows you to have real-time conversations with customers visiting your Shopify store. It’s an extension to the messaging capabilities already available within Shopify Ping.
Note that all your chats are managed in Shopify Ping. Shopify also asks your customers to provide a phone number or email address in order to start a chat with you. Their information will be added to your Customer list in Shopify or matched to an existing customer.
Pricing: Free
Key features:
- Add and customize a chat button on your online store
- Respond to customers in real-time while they’re at your store
- Recommend products and share promotional offers in chat
- Capture customer’s contact information
- Track Shopify sales using your sales channel overview and Analytics pages
Pros:
- Clean and intuitive interface
- Free forever
Cons:
- A bit complicated for beginners to install the app
- To use Shopify Chat, you must use Shopify Ping on your desktop (shopifyping.com) or install it on an iOS, iPad, or Android device to receive and respond to messages.
Who is this for?
Shopify Chat is a worthy option for Shopify store owners who are searching for a free live chat solution that integrates deeply with Shopify.
Using Shopify Inbox? Learn why Gorgias is a top Shopify Inbox competitor.
12) Facebook Chat Box by Autoketing: 4.6 ⭐(489 reviews)
Apart from PingMe Live Chat, you can use Facebook Chat Box by Autoketing to connect with customers through Facebook Messenger.
Pricing: Free.
Key features:
- Send messages to your Facebook page through Messenger
- Show a popup with a discount code to encourage customers to join your email list
- Send a friendly reminder message to abandoned customers
- Show detailed notifications about the order status
- Create automated marketing campaigns through Messenger
Pros:
- Free forever
- Simple and easy to use
Cons:
- Can’t control when the chat box pops up
- Lack of customization options, rules, and automation
Who is this for?
Anyone looking for a free and easy-to-use solution for leveraging Facebook Messenger as a customer support and marketing avenue would do well to consider Facebook Chat Box by Autoketing.
13) Formilla Live Chat: 5.0 ⭐ (40 reviews)
Formilla Live Chat offers free live chat and premium services for your Shopify store. You can use this app to chat with your visitors live if they have any questions or need support from your store.
Pricing: Starting from $17.49 per month. A 15-day free trial is available.
Key features:
- See the number of active visitors on your website and start live chats with them. View each visitor’s page URL, referring site, new users vs. returning, and more.
- Support a Helper Bot to automatically respond to common questions at any time
- Customize the text of the live chat buttons, chat forms, and offline email forms
- Enable proactive chat to trigger live chat automatically with a visitor after a defined number of seconds
- Support file sharing, email messaging, desktop notifications, custom banners, and other style options
Pros:
- Easy and simple to use
- Fast connect with customers
Cons:
- Many features are available at higher plans
- Lack of rules and automation
Who is this for?
Formilla Live Chat is a solid solution for store owners who want to connect with customers while they are browsing the store. A lack of rules and automation features, though, means that this live chat app isn't quite as capable as some of the other options on our list.
14) eDesk Live Chat: 4.8 ⭐ (30 reviews)
eDesk is a comprehensive customer helpdesk designed for ecommerce. It helps you create a positive experience for customers across your marketing channels: email, live chat, social media, and online store.
Pricing: Starting from $69 per month per agent. A 14-day free trial is available.
Key features:
- Respond faster with snippets and templates
- Built-in autoresponder
- Instantly respond with live chat
Pros:
- Good customer service team
- Clean and intuitive user interface
Cons:
- Pricing plans are steep for Shopify merchants
- Not optimized for ecommerce
- Lack of essential live chat features
Who is this for?
If you would like to offer live chat support across multiple channels from a single platform, eDesk Live Chat is an excellent app to consider.
Benefits of a live chat app for Shopify
Choosing a powerful live chat app for your Shopify store is something that can offer a variety of different benefits. Here are some of the most significant benefits of incorporating a live chat app into your Shopify store:
Increases conversions and customer retention
Live chat apps allow you to contact customers while they are still shopping for products. This allows you to answer any questions or objections that might be preventing customers from making a purchase, provide product recommendations, upsell customers, and walk customers through the checkout process — all of which can help you improve your store's conversion rate.
By enabling you to resolve customer issues in a way that is as swift and convenient as possible, live chat can help you to boost your customer retention rates as well.
📚Recommended reading: Our guides to conversion rates and retention rates.
Reduces back and forth and customer frustration
Live chat customer support can reduce customer frustration by eliminating the need for extended, back and forth conversations via email. This lets your support team resolve issues in one session rather than dragging them out into email threads that take several days to resolve.
Cut the response and handle times
According to data from SuperOffice, 46% of customers expect companies to respond to customer service inquiries in four hours or less, while 12% of customers expect a response in fifteen minutes or less.
By enabling customers to instantly connect with a customer support agent and eliminating the need for extended back and forth conversations, live chat customer support can reduce both your average initial response time and average resolution time. This helps you meet customer expectations regarding customer service that are growing more demanding by the day.
📚Recommended reading: Our guides to response times and resolution times.
Personalizes and humanizes the customer experience
Communicating with a customer support agent in real-time via live chat personalizes the customer support experience much more than communicating with customers via email. Logically, customers are aware that they are communicating with another human being in both cases. The real-time conversations that live chat apps allow feel much more personal than email conversations, making customers more likely to walk away satisfied with the support that you provide.
Which Shopify app do you choose?
In an ideal world, there would be a Shopify live chat app that works for all stores.
But on the planet Earth, there’s no one-size-fits-all app for live chat software. As one of the most important customer service tools, it’s worth spending some time on before making a decision.
Our advice for you is to try a couple of apps above and check if they offer what you need. Your chosen live chat app should be the one that helps you increase customer satisfaction, make your team members’ job easier, and boost your bottom line.
In case you want a customer support tool solely focused on ecommerce, we recommend you give Gorgias a try. This is the ultimate solution that can bring your customer experience to a whole new level.
