Freshchat alternatives and how each bills its AI

The best Freshchat alternatives for a small team are Deacon, Crisp, tawk.to, Tidio, Intercom, LiveChat, HubSpot and Zoho SalesIQ, and the right one depends on who you want answering the chat. We read every price on the vendor’s own pages on 25 September 2026, and each one links to where we read it.

Freshchat is the live chat and messaging tool from Freshworks, and founders usually go looking for an alternative for one of three reasons. Every paid seat is priced per agent, from $19 an agent a month billed yearly. Freddy AI Agent, the AI that answers for you, is billed by the session in packs of 100, whether it solved anything or not. And for tickets and a knowledge base, Freshworks points you to Freshdesk Omni, a separate bundle with its own, higher prices per agent. Freshchat pricing goes through the whole bill.

Deacon comes first because it’s ours, and because it’s built for the founder who answers support alone. Freshchat gives your team a chat to answer. Deacon is an AI customer support agent that answers it for you, in seconds, from your own docs, brings you the conversations that need a person, and shows you what customers are stuck on and asking for. The free plan needs no card and has no end date.

Eight Freshchat alternatives side by side

Freshchat is the last row, so you can hold each tool up against it.

Why people leave Freshchat

Each of these comes from Freshworks’ own pages.

Every agent is a paid seat

Freshchat’s free plan takes up to 10 agents, but it has no AI and keeps Freshworks’ branding on the widget. Once you want either, every agent is a paid seat. Growth is $19 an agent a month billed yearly or $23 monthly, Pro is $49 or $59, and Enterprise is $79 or $95. Sharing chats out automatically, by round robin or by load, starts on Pro. By our sums, three agents on Pro pay $147 a month billed yearly before any AI.

The AI is sold by the session, in packs

Freddy AI Agent comes with 500 sessions once per account, then $49 for each 100. A session is everything a visitor says to the AI within 24 hours, so it’s paid for whether or not the AI settled the question. Freshworks’ sessions FAQ adds the catches. Chatbots and previews spend sessions too, buying a pack takes away what’s left of the free 500, and a pack expires with your billing cycle. When the sessions run out, the AI stops and chats go to your agents, and a self-service widget stops with no handover at all.

Tickets and a knowledge base mean Freshdesk Omni

Freshworks’ own Freshchat page invites you to upgrade to Freshdesk Omni for advanced ticketing and knowledge bases. Omni Growth is $29 an agent a month billed yearly, $10 more than Freshchat Growth, or $35 monthly. So a team that grows from chat into a helpdesk moves to a second price list. If you’re weighing up Freshworks’ helpdesk too, Freshdesk alternatives covers it.

Deacon, for a founder who wants the chat answered

Freshchat gives a team somewhere to answer chats and messages. That works when someone is there to answer. A founder who handles support between everything else usually isn’t, so visitors wait and the same questions come round again. Deacon answers them for you.

You add one script tag and point Deacon at your help pages, files and pasted text, with no flows to build. Its website chat widget answers your customers in seconds, day or night, in the language they write in. 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. Reply from the dashboard, and your words appear in their chat under your name while they have it open.

Every question your docs missed waits with an Answer this button. Write the answer once and it becomes part of what Deacon answers from. Save & check shows you the reply Deacon now gives and how many other open questions your answer covers, so Deacon needs you a little less each time.

Deacon also shows you what 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 the people who asked and label most of them as a bug report, a feature ask, a how-to and so on, so you can see what to fix and what to build next.

Every feature is on every plan, and the plans differ only in answers, knowledge, crawled pages and seats. Free gives you 50 answers a month and 1 seat, with no card and no end date. 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, no plan upgrades itself, and there’s no “powered by” line on any plan.

What a live chat inbox does that Deacon doesn’t

Freshchat is built for agents who sit in a shared inbox. It routes chats to the right person, takes messages from WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and SMS, brings your support email into the same inbox, runs campaigns and adds phone calls. Deacon does none of that. It has no routing, assignment or rota, no WhatsApp, Instagram or SMS channel, no support inbox for email and no tickets. It never starts a conversation, and it always declines questions about a visitor’s own account.

What Deacon does is answer the chat on your website and bring you the rest. Up to your plan’s seats, your team can read every conversation and reply from the dashboard. If several agents staff the chat in shifts, a live chat inbox is the better fit, and chatbot vs live chat sets out where each one earns its place.

Crisp

Crisp charges for the whole workspace rather than each agent, which is the most direct answer to Freshchat’s per-agent bill. Mini is $45 a month with 4 seats, Essentials $95 with 10, and Plus $295 with 20 or more. The free plan gives 2 seats, the shared inbox and the chat widget, with no AI.

Hugo, its AI agent, starts on Mini with $5 of AI credits a month, which Crisp puts at around 90 automated conversations. Crisp’s billing article estimates a Hugo conversation at $0.05 to $0.10, and credits reset on the 4th of each month. Once they’re spent, Hugo stops answering and chats go to your team, unless you switch on Pay-As-You-Go. WhatsApp, Instagram and SMS come in on Essentials. It suits a small team that shares one inbox. There’s more in Crisp chat pricing and Crisp chat alternatives.

tawk.to

tawk.to gives its live chat away, with ticketing and a knowledge base, and makes its money from add-ons. Its live chat page lets you add unlimited team members. That makes it the one to try if paying for every agent is what’s pushing you off Freshchat.

The AI is AI Assist. Its free Hobby tier has 100 message credits a month, and Growth is $29 a month, or $290 a year, for 1,000. Each message the AI sends spends a credit, and more cost $30 for every 1,000. The billing article lists handing chats to your team from Growth, so the free AI can’t pass anyone on. Taking “Powered by tawk.to” off the widget is Whitelabel, another $29 a month for each site. There’s more in tawk.to pricing and tawk.to alternatives.

Tidio

Tidio bills by the conversations your team answers rather than by the agent. Starter is $29 a month, or $24.17 billed yearly, for 100 billable conversations, and the free plan covers 50 a month with 10 seats. A conversation counts once someone on your team replies in it, and replies from Lyro, its AI, don’t count.

Lyro is sold separately, from $39 a month for 50 Lyro conversations, or $32.50 billed yearly, and every account gets 50 once for free. A Lyro conversation is one with at least one reply from the AI. Its inbox connects email, WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger, which suits an online shop. There’s more in Tidio pricing and Tidio alternatives.

Intercom

Intercom is a full helpdesk, with Fin, its AI agent, answering in the Messenger on every plan. It suits a startup whose team already works 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. Two loads of the pricing page on 25 September 2026 showed the two prices, because Intercom is testing both. Fin costs $0.99 an outcome, charged at most once a conversation. Startups with up to $10M in funding and fewer than 15 employees that aren’t Intercom customers yet can apply for Early Stage, which costs $33 a month in its first year. There’s more in Intercom pricing and Intercom alternatives.

LiveChat

LiveChat charges by the person, as Freshchat does by the agent, and it has no free plan, only a 14-day trial with no card. Starter is $25 a person a month, or $19 billed yearly, for 1 user, 100 tracked visitors and 60 days of chat history. Team is $59, or $49 billed yearly, with unlimited users and history.

Its plans don’t include an AI agent that answers customers. LiveChat’s pricing page sends you to Text, a separate product from the same company that puts live chat, tickets and an AI agent in one workspace, from $19 a user a month billed yearly. LiveChat suits a support desk that staffs the chat all day. There’s more in LiveChat alternatives.

HubSpot

HubSpot makes sense if your sales and marketing already run on it, because its chat sits beside your CRM. The free plan puts live chat on your site for up to 2 users, with HubSpot’s branding and bots with limited features. Starter takes the branding off, at $10 a seat a month, marked down from $20, or $7 billed yearly.

Customer Agent, the AI that answers customers, starts on Service Hub Professional. That’s $90 a seat a month billed yearly, or $100 monthly on a yearly commitment, plus a one-time onboarding fee of $1,500. It runs on HubSpot Credits. HubSpot’s product catalogue charges 50 credits for each conversation it resolves in chat and other text channels, and extra credits cost $0.01, so a resolution costs $0.50. Professional includes 3,000 credits a month, which don’t roll over. By our arithmetic that’s 60 resolved conversations if nothing else spends them. There’s more in HubSpot chatbot.

Zoho SalesIQ

Zoho SalesIQ is priced per operator, and its free plan is one of the roomier ones. It gives 3 operators, 100 operator chat sessions a month and 10,000 tracked visitors. Basic is $10 an operator a month, or $7 billed yearly, with 1,000 operator chat sessions, one chatbot, 25,000 bot chat sessions a month, and WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger.

The AI depends on the plan. On Basic, Answer Bot answers from your articles and FAQs using your own key from an outside AI provider, so that provider bills you for it. Basic also includes 1 Zia Agent, Zoho’s AI agent that picks up chats and pulls in data from your records and apps. On Professional, at $17 an operator a month or $12.75 billed yearly, Zia, Zoho’s own AI, gives visitors answers from your knowledge base in the chat. On Enterprise, at $25 or $20, Zia runs Answer Bot too. It suits a team already on Zoho CRM, since SalesIQ comes in the Zoho One and CRM Plus bundles.

Which one fits you

Start from who you want answering the chat. If it’s your team, live chat software for your website compares the inboxes in more depth.

If paying for every agent is the problem, tawk.to gives live chat away to unlimited team members, Crisp charges for the workspace and Tidio for the conversations your team answers. Zoho SalesIQ’s free plan takes 3 operators, and its Basic plan is priced well below Freshchat Growth. If you sell online and want several channels in one inbox, Tidio is built for that. A support desk that staffs the chat in shifts will be at home in LiveChat. A team that works a helpdesk every day will find Intercom’s Fin answering in the same place, and if your sales run on HubSpot or Zoho, their chat sits beside your CRM. And if you like Freshchat but need tickets and a help centre, Freshdesk Omni is its bigger sibling.

If you answer support yourself and nobody can watch the chat all day, start with Deacon. It answers for you in seconds, brings you only the conversations that need you, and its plans aren’t priced by the agent.

Questions about Freshchat alternatives

Is there a free alternative to Freshchat?

Yes, several. For live chat you answer yourselves, tawk.to is free for unlimited team members, Zoho SalesIQ’s free plan takes 3 operators, Tidio’s covers 50 conversations a month with 10 seats, HubSpot’s takes 2 users and Crisp’s 2 seats. For an AI that answers for you, 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. Freshchat’s own free plan takes up to 10 agents, with no AI.

Is Freshchat the same as Freshdesk?

No. Freshworks makes both. Freshchat is its live chat and messaging tool, and Freshdesk is its helpdesk for tickets from email. Freshdesk Omni puts chat, email and social messages into one inbox with tickets and a help centre, priced per agent above Freshchat. Freshdesk pricing sets out both of Freshworks’ helpdesks.

Can Deacon answer on WhatsApp or Instagram like Freshchat?

No. Deacon answers in a chat widget on your website, and you reply from its dashboard. Freshchat adds Facebook, Instagram, SMS and WhatsApp from Growth, and Crisp, Tidio, Zoho SalesIQ and HubSpot also reach past your website.

Can a team share Deacon the way it shares Freshchat’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 Freshchat to Deacon?

Yes, by adding your content again, since there’s no import from Freshchat. Point Deacon at your website or help centre and tick the pages it should learn from, add a single page by its link, or upload PDF, Word (.docx), Markdown, text, CSV or HTML files of up to 10 MB each. Your saved replies can go in as questions and answers with Add Q&A. Then swap Freshchat’s script for Deacon’s one tag. Your old chats stay in Freshchat.