Crisp chat alternatives and where each AI starts

Most founders who look for a Crisp chat alternative have hit one of four walls. The chat widget on Crisp’s free plan only answers when you do, because Hugo, its AI agent, starts on Mini at $45 a month. Mini comes with $5 of AI credits, which Crisp puts at around 90 automated conversations. Once they’re spent, Hugo stops answering by default, and the chats land back with you. And the “We run on Crisp” watermark only comes off on Plus, at $295 a month.

Here are nine alternatives, with each one’s free plan, its first paid plan, the plan its AI starts on and what it charges to take its badge off your site. We read every price on the vendor’s own pages on 23 September 2026, and each one links to where we read it.

Deacon heads the list because we make it, and because it’s built for the founder who answers support alone. It’s an AI customer support agent that answers your customers in seconds from your own docs, and shows you what they’re stuck on and what they’d like next. Its free plan needs no card and has no end date.

Nine Crisp chat alternatives in one table

Crisp sits at the bottom, so you can read each tool against the plan you’re on now.

What each Crisp plan leaves out

Crisp is a customer messaging platform, a shared inbox with a chat widget in front of it, and it prices each plan per month for the whole workspace rather than per seat. For a small team that’s a kind way to be charged. Here’s where each plan stops, from its pricing page and its help centre.

The free plan is live chat that you staff, for 2 seats, with the shared inbox, mobile and desktop apps and the WordPress, Shopify and WooCommerce integrations. It has no AI credits. Crisp’s comparison table also leaves changing the widget’s colours, text and position to Mini, and lists unlimited data retention as a Mini feature.

Hugo’s credits are dollars spent on tokens, so a long conversation costs more than a short one. Crisp’s article on Hugo billing puts a full Hugo conversation at around $0.05 to $0.10, and the credits reset on the 4th of each month. By our arithmetic, Mini’s 90 conversations come to about three a day.

When the credits run out, the same article says Hugo “stops answering automatically and incoming conversations are escalated to human operators until credits become available again”. Pay-As-You-Go keeps Hugo going if you switch it on, and Crisp doesn’t publish its rate.

Several things you might expect to come with the AI start on Essentials, at $95 a month. Crisp’s table puts AI Knowledge training there, which it describes as ingesting your internal data to train a custom AI model, along with prebuilt analytics, data export, the help centre and round-robin routing. The watermark comes off on Plus, and Crisp’s branding article adds that white labelling isn’t removed during a trial. There are no yearly prices to compare, either. You switch to yearly billing in the app once you’ve subscribed. There’s more in Crisp chat pricing.

Deacon

Deacon is an AI customer support agent for founders who answer support themselves. Live chat support waits for someone to type back. Deacon answers your customers in seconds, day or night, from your help pages, files and pasted text, and in whatever language they write in. You add one script tag to your site, or hand the install prompt to a coding agent such as Claude Code or Cursor, and there are no flows to build before it starts.

Each answer is written from what your content says, and one taken from a page on your site usually links to it. When your content doesn’t cover a question, Deacon says it doesn’t know instead of guessing, and asks for the visitor’s email. You get an email when a visitor leaves their address or asks for a person. Type your reply in the dashboard and it appears in their chat under your name while they have it open, or reaches them by email if they’ve left and gave an address in that conversation.

Every question your docs didn’t cover waits in the dashboard with an Answer this button. Write the answer once and press Save & check. Deacon asks itself the question again, shows you the reply it now gives and tells you how many other open questions your answer covers. So it gets better each time you answer, and needs you less as it goes.

It also tells you what your customers need, which a chat inbox leaves you to piece together. Every conversation is saved and searchable by what visitors asked. Topics group similar questions, count how many people asked and label most of them as a bug report, a feature ask, a how-to and so on. Analytics › Widget shows how many people wrote in, the share Deacon answered and the languages they wrote in. The same script counts your website’s visitors, sources, goals and funnels, and all of it is on the free plan.

Every plan has every feature, and the plans differ only in answers, knowledge, pages from your website and seats. Free gives you 50 answers a month and 1 seat, with room for about 67 pages of docs, no card, no end date and nothing deleted if you go quiet. Starter is $50 a month, or $40 a month billed yearly, for 1,000 answers a month and 3 seats. Growth is $150 a month, or $120 a month billed yearly, for 4,000 answers a month and 10 seats.

Nothing is billed past your plan’s answers, and no plan upgrades itself. If a month’s answers run out, visitors get a short reply saying Deacon can’t look into it right now and are asked for their email, unless they’ve already left it, and you can still read and reply to every conversation. Every plan answers with the same model, and none of them puts a “powered by” line on your site.

tawk.to

tawk.to gives its live chat away. The chat, a knowledge base, ticketing and a CRM are free, with unlimited team members, and the company makes its money from optional paid add-ons. It suits a founder who wants to talk to visitors in person and pay nothing for it.

The AI is one of those add-ons. AI Assist has a free Hobby tier with 100 message credits a month and one AI agent, and paid plans from $29 a month for 1,000 credits. Each message the AI sends spends a credit. tawk.to’s billing article lists handing over to your team on the $29 plan and not on Hobby, so the free AI answers but can’t pass anyone on. Taking “Powered by tawk.to” off costs another $29 a month for each site. There’s more in tawk.to alternatives and Tidio vs tawk.to.

Tidio

Tidio is live chat and a helpdesk, with an AI agent called Lyro sold beside it. It suits an online shop that wants email, WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger in the same inbox, which Tidio includes on every plan, the free one too.

The free plan covers 50 conversations a month with 10 seats, plus 50 Lyro conversations once for the life of the account. Starter is $29 a month, or $24.17 billed yearly, for 100 conversations. Lyro is an add-on, from $39 a month for 50 AI conversations, or $32.50 billed yearly.

A conversation counts once someone on your team replies in it, and Lyro’s conversations run on a meter of their own. At the monthly limit, Tidio’s help centre says you can no longer respond to incoming messages or see their details until the quota resets or you upgrade. The Tidio branding stays on Free and Starter, and removing it is a $20 a month add-on on Growth. There’s more in Tidio alternatives, and Tidio vs Crisp compares the two row by row.

Freshchat

Freshchat is the live chat from Freshworks, the company behind Freshdesk, and its free plan is one of the roomiest here. Up to 10 agents get the chat widget for your site and apps, a shared inbox and email, with no AI.

Growth is $23 an agent a month, or $19 billed yearly, and brings Freddy AI Agent with 500 sessions included once, then $49 for each 100. A session covers everything a visitor says to the AI within 24 hours. When the sessions run out, Freshworks’ help centre says the AI agent stops responding and chats go to your live agents, unless you’ve switched on auto-recharge. Freshworks’ branding comes off the widget on any paid plan. There’s more in Freshchat pricing and Freshchat alternatives.

Help Scout

Help Scout is a shared inbox with a help centre, made for teams that answer email. Its free plan is generous for that, with 5 users, one inbox and one Docs site, but it has no live chat, and its AI is there only to try. Chat, WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger start on Standard, at $30 a user a month, or $25 billed yearly.

Its AI, AI Answers, costs $0.75 for each conversation it resolves, and nothing when the customer asks for more help. A new account gets three months of it free, counted from the day the account is made. You can set a monthly cap, after which AI Answers switches off until the next cycle. The “Powered by Help Scout” mark comes off Beacon, its chat widget, from Plus, at $54 a user a month or $45 billed yearly.

LiveChat

LiveChat is the long-standing name in live chat, and it charges by the person. There’s no free plan, only a 14-day trial with no card. Starter is $25 a person a month, or $19 billed yearly, for one user and 60 days of chat history.

Its plans don’t include an AI agent. LiveChat’s pricing page sends you to Text, a product from the same company that puts chat, tickets and an AI agent in one inbox, from $19 a user a month billed yearly. Taking “Powered by LiveChat” off the widget is for Enterprise customers, who ask for it. There’s more in LiveChat alternatives.

Intercom

Intercom is a full helpdesk, with its Messenger putting chat on your site and Fin, its AI agent, answering in it. It suits a startup that already has a team working a shared inbox every day.

There’s no free plan, only a 14-day trial with no card. Essential is $19 or $29 a seat a month billed yearly, and $29 or $39 month to month, because Intercom is testing two prices on the same page. Fin costs $0.99 for each outcome on every plan, so the bill grows with each conversation it settles. Intercom’s help centre says its branding comes off the Messenger on Advanced and Expert, and Advanced is $99 a seat a month or $85 billed yearly. There’s more in Intercom alternatives and Intercom pricing, and Crisp vs Intercom puts the two side by side.

HubSpot

HubSpot’s free plan puts live chat on your site for up to 2 users, with no card, alongside its CRM, ticketing and bots that follow rules you set. The chat carries HubSpot’s branding until you pay. Starter takes it off, at $10 a seat a month, or $7 billed yearly, marked down from $20.

The AI that answers customers, Customer Agent, starts on Service Hub Professional. That’s $90 a seat a month billed yearly, or $100 paid monthly on a yearly commitment, plus a required onboarding fee of $1,500, and each conversation it resolves costs $0.50. It makes sense if your sales and marketing already run on HubSpot.

Chatwoot

Chatwoot is open source, and its Community Edition is free to run on your own server. Its hosted plans are priced per agent. The free Hacker plan gives 2 agents 500 conversations a month on live chat alone, keeps your data for 30 days and has no AI.

Startups is $19 an agent a month, with every channel but voice, a help centre and 300 Captain AI credits a month, and more credits cost $20 for each 1,000. Captain answers customers, suggests replies to your team and points out questions your help centre doesn’t answer yet. Removing Chatwoot’s branding waits for Enterprise, at $99 an agent a month.

Which one fits you

Start from who will be answering the chat.

If you want to talk to visitors yourself and pay nothing, tawk.to gives you live chat for your whole team for free, and Freshchat’s free plan takes up to 10 agents. If your support happens in email, Help Scout is built around that inbox. If you sell online and want WhatsApp and Instagram in the same place, Tidio includes them on every plan. If you’d rather host it yourself, Chatwoot is open source. If a team already works in Intercom, or your sales run on HubSpot, their AI agents answer where you already work. And if two or more of you sit in the inbox every day, Crisp itself may still be the right tool. If you’re moving off Drift instead, Drift alternatives covers the tools that replace it.

If you answer support yourself, Deacon is made for you. It answers your customers from your docs in seconds with nobody watching the chat, brings you only the conversations that need a person, and shows you what customers are stuck on and asking for. Every feature is on the free plan, and it needs no card.

Questions about Crisp chat alternatives

Is there a free alternative to Crisp chat?

Yes, several. For live chat you answer yourself, tawk.to is free with unlimited team members, Freshchat’s free plan takes up to 10 agents, Tidio’s covers 50 conversations a month with 10 seats, and HubSpot’s takes 2 users. For automated customer service, Deacon’s free plan gives you 50 answers a month with every feature and no card, and tawk.to’s free AI tier has 100 message credits a month. Crisp’s own free plan has 2 seats and no AI credits.

Is there an open-source Crisp alternative?

Chatwoot is the best known. It calls itself an open source, self-hosted customer support platform, and its Community Edition is free to run on your own servers, without its Captain AI or your own branding. Its hosted plans start free for 2 agents. Deacon isn’t open source. It’s a hosted service with a free plan.

Does Crisp have a startup discount?

Yes. Crisp’s Startup Program gives a 30% discount code on Essentials and Plus, though not on Mini, to companies that are new to Crisp, have raised less than $1M and are under three years old. Crisp says the discount stays on the subscription while it remains eligible, rather than running out after a trial period.

Can Deacon answer on WhatsApp, Instagram or email like Crisp?

No. Deacon answers in a chat widget on your website, and you reply from its dashboard. Crisp adds email, Messenger and Telegram from Mini, and Instagram, SMS, WhatsApp and the phone from Essentials. Tidio, Freshchat, Help Scout and Chatwoot also reach past your website.

Can a team share Deacon the way it shares Crisp’s inbox?

Yes, up to your plan’s seats. Free has 1 seat, Starter 3 and Growth 10. Everyone on the team can read every conversation and reply from the dashboard, and the team’s owners get an email when a visitor leaves their address or asks for a person. Deacon has no routing, assignment or rota, because it’s made for a founder or a small team rather than a support desk.

Can I move from Crisp to Deacon?

Yes, by adding your content again. Point Deacon at your website or help centre and it reads the home page and up to four pages linked from it that visitors ask about first, such as pricing and help. It learns from them by itself, so there’s nothing to choose unless you want to leave a page out. Or add a single page by its link, upload PDF, Word (.docx), Markdown, text, CSV or HTML files of up to 10 MB each, or paste text in. Your canned responses can go in as questions and answers with Add Q&A. There’s no import from Crisp, and your old conversations stay there.