Most "best chat for website" lists are written by a vendor that ranks itself first. This one is too, so here's when each of 7 tools is the better pick, including when it isn't ours.
Search "best chat for website" and you get a page full of comparison lists. Look at who wrote them and a pattern shows up: most come from chat companies, and the author's own product tends to sit near the top. Tidio's list does it. Zipchat's list does it.
This list is written by a chat company too. I build AI chat agents at AtomicX, so I'm not neutral. What I can do is tell you where each tool is genuinely the better pick, including the cases where that isn't us, and point out what the pricing pages don't put up front.
One more thing most of these lists share: they're written for online stores. If you run a company website, where visitors ask about your services, compare you with competitors and sometimes turn into sales leads, the best chat for your website can look quite different.
What actually matters when you choose a website chat
Four questions decide almost everything.
Who answers? A person, an AI, or both. If it's both, check how the handover works. A visitor shouldn't have to repeat themselves when a human steps in.
How do you pay? Per seat, per conversation, per AI answer, or a flat fee. This shapes your bill far more than the headline price does.
Which languages? If your site runs in three languages, your chat should too, without you building three bots. We cover this in more depth in what to check in a multilingual chatbot.
Where do the answers come from? Some tools answer from your own content. Others need you to script every reply in advance.
The 7 options at a glance
| Tool | Best for | Free plan | Paid from | How AI is billed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| tawk.to | Free human live chat | Yes, unlimited agents | Add-ons from $29/mo | AI Assist add-on from $29/mo, small free tier |
| HubSpot | Teams already on HubSpot CRM | Yes, up to 2 users, with HubSpot branding | Per-seat Service Hub plans | AI agent on Professional and Enterprise, uses credits |
| Crisp | Flat pricing for small teams | Yes | €45/mo per workspace | Hugo AI, read the current terms |
| Tidio | Small online stores | Yes, 50 conversations | $29/mo | Lyro from $39/mo for 50 AI conversations |
| LiveChat | Mid-size support teams | No, trial only | $19 per agent/mo (annual) | AI resolutions metered past an allowance |
| Intercom | B2B SaaS support at scale | No | $29 per seat/mo (annual) | $0.99 per AI resolution, 50/mo minimum |
| ChatX (AtomicX) | Company sites that want AI answers with a person on call | Yes, 100 conversations/mo (no AI) | $29/mo; AI plans from $59/mo | Monthly AI allowance, no overage bills |
Prices checked in October 2026, in US dollars unless marked. Vendors change them often, so confirm on their own pages before you decide.
tawk.to is hard to beat if people on your team answer the chats. The core product costs nothing for any number of agents, and its AI Assist add-on starts at $29 a month with a free tier for small volumes. Removing the tawk.to badge is a separate charge.
HubSpot makes sense when the CRM is the real purchase. Live chat is free with HubSpot branding for up to two users, according to its pricing page. Its AI Customer Agent, though, is only on the Professional and Enterprise plans.
Crisp charges per workspace, not per seat, which suits small teams that would otherwise pay for every login. How Hugo, its AI agent, is billed is the part worth reading closely before you commit.
Tidio is built around ecommerce. Paid plans start at $29 a month, and its Lyro AI agent is a separate purchase from $39 a month for 50 AI conversations.
LiveChat is a polished tool for support teams that staff the chat all day. Seats start at $19 per agent per month on annual billing, and AI resolutions beyond the included amount are charged in packs.
Intercom is strong for software companies with a large support load. Its AI agent, Fin, costs $0.99 per resolution with a 50-resolution monthly minimum, on top of seat fees.
Where ChatX fits, and where it doesn't
We built ChatX for company websites: a visitor asking which service package suits them, a prospect comparing you with someone else, or an employee looking up a policy through an internal HR assistant. There's more on that in what an AI chatbot for business should do.
A concrete example. A visitor from Germany lands on your site at 9pm and asks whether you work with companies their size. ChatX answers from your own pages, documents and FAQs. It starts in the language of the page they're on, falls back to their browser language, and switches if they write in another one. If the question turns into a real sales lead, ChatX can qualify it and send it to HubSpot, Slack or any tool through a webhook. Someone on your team can then Take over the conversation, from the dashboard, Slack or the mobile app, with the full transcript in front of them, and click Release to AI when they're done.
Accuracy gets the same care. When the agent gets something wrong, ChatX drafts a fix, tests it against the current version, and only puts it live once you publish it. You can see how the handover works in our help centre.
Pricing is plain. There's a free plan for up to 100 conversations a month where your team answers every chat, and AI plans start at $59 a month. AI plans come with a monthly allowance, and there are no overage bills: when it runs out, the AI stops taking new chats and hands them to your team. You get alerts at 80% and 90% along the way.
If your site runs on Umbraco, there's one more reason to look. AtomicX is native in Umbraco: add the AtomicX block to a page and manage the agent from the Umbraco backoffice, with no script tags to paste.
Where ChatX is the wrong pick: if you want free human-only chat with unlimited agents, choose tawk.to. If your team lives in HubSpot, use HubSpot's chat. If you run a Shopify store and want a tool built entirely around ecommerce, Tidio is made for you.
The bigger pattern: paying per answer
Look across the table and you'll see AI pricing moving toward paying for each answer. Intercom bills per resolution. LiveChat meters resolutions past an allowance. HubSpot uses credits. Tidio counts AI conversations.
To be fair, this model has a real logic: you pay when the AI does the work. For a large team that gets plenty of questions answered automatically, it can cost less than hiring.
The catch is predictability. Your bill follows your visitors' behaviour, not your budget. And the definition of "resolved" matters: one pricing breakdown notes that if a customer simply stops replying, Intercom can count that as a resolution and charge for it. We wrote more about this in why per-resolution bills surprise people. Before you sign up for any of these tools, estimate your monthly conversation volume and run the numbers at two or three times that level.
So, what's the best chat for your website?
It depends on who answers and how you want to pay. For free human chat, tawk.to. For HubSpot users, HubSpot. For stores, Tidio. For large SaaS support teams, Intercom. For a company website that wants AI answers in your visitors' language, with a person ready to step in and a bill that doesn't grow with a busy month, I think ChatX is worth 20 minutes of your time.
Want to see it running on a site like yours? Book a 20-minute demo, or start on the free plan.