6 Best Live Chat WordPress Plugins: For AI Chats or Not

Read it before your next visitor clicks away. By the end, you will know each plugin inside out, and the final section shows you exactly how to pick the right one.

Our selected list 🤖💬

1. LiveChat

Notable features ⚙️

• Over 200 total integrations
• Live tracking of traffic on your website
• Asynchronous messaging for offline conversations
• Advanced team management tools
• Canned responses

Notable integrations 🔗

• Elementor
• HelpDesk
• ChatBot
• WhatsApp Business
• Facebook Messenger
• Salesforce

Limitations 👎

• Limited ability to automate live chats
• Limited chatbox customization options on the Starter plan
• Fully automated chatbot conversations require an additional bot solution, such as ChatBot.com

How it works 🖱️

LiveChat is a robust tool for managing real-time conversations with your website visitors. You can install the LiveChat WordPress plugin, connect it to your LiveChat account, and instantly start tracking visitors to your site. You can then go to the LiveChat Dashboard for analytics display.

If someone is on your website, LiveChat can notify you and give you the option to open a chat. This gives you the opportunity to be proactive about connecting with potential customers.

If someone attempts to message you while you’re offline, it will appear as an unassigned chat in the Chats section. An agent can select Assign to me, reply in LiveChat, and the customer can receive and reply to that response by email. If you specifically want offline messages to become tickets, you’ll need to use the separate HelpDesk.com integration.

LiveChat also makes it easy to add agents to your team and split your workflow evenly between team members. More advanced plans even offer scheduling tools and other advanced team management tools.

Another great thing about LiveChat is the Reports area, where you can get more detailed breakdowns on chat engagement, conversions, and more.

Pricing 💳

LiveChat pricing plans start at $19.00 per agent per month, billed annually.

Overall thoughts 👈

LiveChat makes it easy to build live chat into your business model, with systems to make sure that you can still connect with customers while you’re offline.

2. Hyve

Notable features ⚙️

• AI chatbot trained on your posts, pages, and products
• Retrieval-augmented answers with source links back to your content
• Able to say it doesn’t know the answer vs inventing things
• Hosted AI credits included (Hyve Connect), or bring your own OpenAI key
• Auto re-indexes on save and update
• Content moderation screens visitor messages before they reach the AI
• Available in pro: lead capture, file imports, webhooks, and WooCommerce skills

Notable integrations 🔗

• OpenAI API
• WooCommerce
• Qdrant
• Webhooks (Pro)
• File and web imports (Pro) – upload your own PDFs, Word docs, Markdown, text, CSV

Limitations 👎

• No support for multichannel (Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram, etc.)
• It is a WordPress tool first of all, which can be a downside if you have a bigger platform that has lots of other tools as part of it

How it works 🖱️

Hyve is just a standard WordPress plugin for the most part, so it installs like all the other ones. After you activate it, you’ll see the main dashboard, which is very clear and guides you through the setup process.

You can choose if you want to use Hyve Connect – the plugin’s all integrated AI backend, or if you want to bring your own OpenAI key. With that done, you can start adding content to your knowledge base.

Hyve supports multiple sources here:

All the conversations can also be exported from the user panel.

Then, there are also lots of settings as to where you want to display the chat, how you want it to look and behave when interacting with your visitors.

Pricing 💳

The free version of the plugin you can get from WordPress.org. The Pro is available on the official site and starts from $79. It’s a one-time, lifetime license for one site. Gives you lifetime support and updates.

Overall thoughts 👈

Overall, Hyve is a very complex solution if you run your operation entirely through WordPress. It will build its knowledge base on your exact content and then respond to any questions that your visitors might have.

3. Olark

Notable features ⚙️

• Live chat automation
• Chatbox customization
• Real-time chat reporting
• Team management tools

Notable integrations 🔗

• WooCommerce
• Salesforce
• Slack
• Help Scout

Limitations 👎

• Just one pricing plan available at this time, and it’s the most expensive option on this list.

How it works 🖱️

One thing that immediately makes Olark stand out from other options on this list of live chat plugins is the chatbox design area, where you can adjust the color scheme, button style, and more.

The Olark Dashboard is also highly attractive, with visual representations of conversation volume, duration, coverage, and AI-assisted topic reporting. Agent Activity and Transcripts are separate destinations in the admin navigation, and recent completed conversations appear under Recent Contacts in the chat interface.

Olark also offers excellent automation options for sending greetings to visitors, connecting them with the right agent, and more.

You can even leave an offline message with a contact form for users to contact you outside of your business hours.

Pricing 💳

Olark’s Standard AI Website Agent is priced at $400 per month, billed annually ($4,800/year). Yeah, it’s quite expensive to say the least. It includes Aiden, unlimited AI conversations, lead capture and qualification, proactive engagement, support/account management, and one human agent seat. Extra human seats are $29 per agent per month.

For enterprise requirements, such as multiple teams, advanced integrations, workflows, SSO, and custom SLAs, you can contact the company to get a custom package.

Overall thoughts 👈

Olark’s current focus on AI and conversation automation makes it a worthwhile choice if that’s the main thing you want to achieve. However, I can’t ignore the high price to entry. This investment can only pay off if you have lots of conversations going on and you can craft a good knowledge base for the agent to use.

4. Support Board

Notable features ⚙️

• Ability to manage chats within the WordPress dashboard
• Highly customizable chatbox
• Rich message types & customer surveys
• Sorting tools to separate leads from regular visitors
• User registration and login tools
• Tools for creating a knowledge base (a dedicated customer-facing support area requires the $19 Tickets app)
• Saved messages
• Single-message automations
• Chat and agent ratings
• Detailed analytics
• Easy translation into over 41 languages

Notable integrations 🔗

Support Board integrates with WordPress for free, and it also comes with built-in newsletter synchronization for services like Mailchimp, Brevo, and SendGrid, plus connections with GetResponse, ConvertKit, ActiveCampaign, MailerLite, and Mailjet. However, you can pay a small one-time fee to combine Support Board with a variety of other services, including: WooCommerce, ZenDesk ,WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, or Slack

Notable limitations 👎

• Most integrations are paid add-ons

How it works 🖱️

Support Board is incredibly easy to get started with. Simply buy the plugin, install it on your site, and head to the Support Board area in your WordPress dashboard to start chatting. The first time you enter this area, you may also need to log in.

The great thing about Support Board is that you can do everything directly from inside your WordPress dashboard, including:

• Manage your chats in the main area.
• View information about your visitors, including who’s online, so that you can proactively open a chat with them. You can access this area by clicking on the button shaped like a person’s head and shoulders.
• Control how and when your chat box appears, plus create custom messages for things like welcoming new visitors, asking people to subscribe to your newsletter, and letting people know your business hours when you’re offline. These settings can be accessed via the gear-shaped button.
• Create automated messages to share with visitors in certain situations. For example, if you have a time-sensitive promotion, you might automate a message promoting it to people who visit your website while the promotion is running. Again, these settings can be managed via the gear-shaped button.

Here’s what the chat settings area looks like:

The final area of Support Board is the Reports area, where you can view analytics detailed analytics for conversations, visitors, agents, and more.

Pricing 💳

You can buy Support Board for a one-time fee of $59. This is particularly notable since most of the best live chat WordPress plugins use a monthly or annual subscription model; choosing a one-time payment can allow you to save a lot of money over time.

Unfortunately, you’ll also need to buy any integrations you want. These are also available for a one-time fee and cost anywhere from $9 (ZenDesk) to $39 (WooCommerce). There’s also a $79 bundle for the messaging apps. This can raise your initial cost significantly, but you’ll largely avoid ongoing subscription costs.

Who this plugin is best for 👈

Support Board is ideal if you want a simple-to-use live chat plugin that allows you to control your live chats directly within the WordPress dashboard. The one-time payment model also makes it a budget-friendly choice for small businesses.

5. Tidio Live Chat

Notable features ⚙️

• Fully automated chatbot
• Easy-to-use chatbot conversation builder
• Permanent free plan
• Ticket system for managing queries

Notable integrations 🔗

• Facebook Messenger
• Instagram
• Slack
• Pipedrive
• Salesforce

Limitations 👎

• You’ll need to pay for automation as an add-on when you outgrow the free plan, which is then split into two separate products: Lyro AI (billed by AI conversation) and Flows (billed by visitors reached)

How it works 🖱️

Tidio is a robust chat program that allows you to manage live chats with customers and set up chatbots to help customers when you’re away from the office. This allows you to answer common questions in a timely manner regardless of when your visitors ask them.

The chatbot conversation maps in Flows are highly flexible, allowing you to build pre-made conversations that branch in different directions based on your visitors’ inquiries.

In terms of live chat, Tidio tracks all visitors to your website and gives you the option to open a conversation with them at any time. You can also assign conversations to specific agents and turn conversations into tickets when customers need more specific guidance via email.

And you can test it all out using the Tidio chatbox simulation:

Tidio also has an Analytics area where you can view information about individual conversations, conversation trends, and the performance of your team members.

Pricing 💳

Tidio offers a free plan with up to 50 billable conversations per month and 100 Flows visitors reached, plus the first 50 Lyro AI conversations free for the lifetime of your account.

When you outgrow this plan, you can upgrade to the Starter plan for $24.17 per month (annual billing) for 100 billable conversations, or Growth from $49.17 per month for 250. Both of them include 10 seats. Automation is priced separately: Lyro AI starts at $32.50 per month for 50 AI conversations, and Flows starts at $24.17 per month for 2,000 visitors reached.

Overall thoughts 👈

Tidio offers good tools for handling live chats and managing customer service requests while you’re online, but what really makes it stand out in this list of the best live chat WordPress plugins is the built-in chatbot function. The chatbot is easy to use, highly flexible, and quite affordable compared to other chatbot options.

6. Chaport

Notable features ⚙️

• Free plan
• Automated invitations for customers to interact with you
• Ability to customize what information you collect about visitors
• Chat ratings to help you determine how successful conversations are
• Typing insights
• Offline messenger mode

Notable integrations 🔗

• Facebook
• Google Analytics
• Zapier

Limitations 👎

• The free plan only offers basic chatbox customization
• Zapier only available on the Unlimited plan

How it works 🖱️

Chaport offers a powerful set of tools for communicating with your customers both during office hours and outside of them. This includes an easy-to-use chat area where you can easily manage multiple chats, complete with a visitor information panel:

Another standout feature of Chaport is the Pre-chat form, which you can use to collect information like a name, email, and more about customers before you start chatting.

Chaport also offers a variety of automation options. You can use Auto-Invitations to start conversations when you’re online (offline, or both) and autoresponders to let people know you’re still receiving their messages when you’re not.

Users on the Unlimited plan can access even more tools for automation, including an FAQ bot that suggests relevant knowledge base articles based on keywords. This gives you more time to focus on answering complicated questions and ensures that customers can get answers even when your team is offline.

Last but certainly not least, Chaport offers reporting on conversations, including chat ratings, so you can see how well your team is performing. Chatbots get their own separate report, since the rating survey isn’t sent when the last message came from a bot.

Pricing 💳

Chaport offers a free plan with unlimited chats and websites, including one default branded auto-invitation.

Automation and other advanced features are largely limited to paid plans, which start with the Pro plan at $29 per month billed annually (or $39 per month billed monthly) for up to four operators. The Unlimited plan costs $99 or $129 per month respectively.

Overall thoughts 👈

Chaport is one of the best live chat WordPress plugins for businesses on a budget, with a decent free plan and affordable paid plans. Features aren’t sacrificed to make it affordable, either; Chaport has some of the best tools around for both live chats and automation.

Final thoughts 🧐

Adding a live chatbox to your site makes it easier to connect with website visitors and turn them into leads or even paying customers.

👉 When choosing a live chat plugin for your website, consider your goals:

Out of these live chat plugins, which one sounds best to you? Let us know in the comments section below!