6 Best Live Chat Tools for Shopify Stores in 2027

Choose a chat widget or a helpdesk first

The first decision is not which brand to buy. It is whether you need a chat widget that answers shoppers on your storefront, or a helpdesk that puts chat, email and order context in one queue. A live chat tool is software that lets a shopper message your staff from a product or cart page, with the conversation saved so it can be followed up. If most of your chats are "is this in stock" and "where is my order," a widget with order visibility is usually enough. If you also handle returns, disputes and email, a helpdesk with chat built in saves you from running two inboxes.

TL;DR: A store that wants zero software cost should start with Shopify Inbox or tawk.to. A team that wants AI or sales-focused features should look at Tidio or LiveChat. A team where tickets and order actions drive the day should look at Gorgias or Re:amaze. Confirm the plan limits on each vendor page before you commit, because the vendors bill by different units.

Key Takeaways

• Price each tool by the unit you will actually be billed on: agents, tickets or billable conversations. A cheap entry plan can get expensive once volume rises.

• Shopify Inbox is free and built into the Shopify admin, but a 2024 review and Shopify's own listing point to a basic feature set with few integrations.

• Tidio has a free plan, and its AI product is sold as a separate line, so the AI cost is a second item on the budget.

• LiveChat prices per user, which suits teams with a known headcount. Its self-serve plans have no fixed user cap on the pricing page.

• Gorgias and Re:amaze fit teams where tickets and order actions matter more than a chat box. Their pricing pages need checking on the live site before you budget.

• Several vendor pages do not match their own Shopify App Store listings, or even themselves. Check the price inside the install flow or checkout before you sign.

How we evaluated these tools

This is an informed buyer's guide built from public pages. It is not hands-on use of any product. We weighted five criteria, shown in the table below. Vendor pricing pages were treated as the source for plan facts, and independent evidence was limited, which we say where it matters. Roundup articles, including affiliate-supported ones, were not used to score any tool.

The weights are our judgment for a small store, not a vendor ranking or a published standard. A larger team with many agents might weight staffing much higher. Where a vendor does not publish a price, we write "Quote-based" rather than estimating one.

Feature matrix at a glance

"Not stated" means the public text we read did not say. It does not mean the feature is missing. That distinction matters for the cells below, because we could not confirm every Shopify-specific or live-chat detail on every pricing page.

The matrix shows where the public record is thin. A "Not stated" cell is a question to ask the vendor, not a reason to rule the tool out.

What the plans cost, checked October 27, 2026

Pricing checked October 27, 2026. Each figure below comes from the vendor's own pricing page or the Shopify App Store listing we opened that day. Billing terms are quoted as the page states them.

Shopify Inbox: free, 4.6 out of 5 from 5,803 reviews according to Shopify (2026). The App Store listing shows "Free" under pricing and lists no paid tier or trial terms.

The Tidio pricing page lists a Free plan at $0 a month with 50 billable conversations, a Starter plan at $24.17 a month for 100 billable conversations, a Growth plan from $49.17 a month for 250 billable conversations, and a Plus plan from $300 a month with custom usage. Its Premium plan has no public price, so it is quote-based. The page offers an "Annually (2 months free)" toggle, but the text we read does not say which billing option each figure assumes, so ask before you assume an annual rate. Growth plan on Tidio starts at $49.17 a month according to Tidio (2026).

On the tawk.to pricing page, core live chat is described as free, with a "Free Forever" badge. The add-ons are priced separately: removing the "Powered by tawk.to" branding is $29 a month, AI Assist starts at $29 a month, and hiring chat agents costs $1 an hour, according to tawk.to. The page does not list named live-chat plan tiers.

The LiveChat pricing page lists Essential at $19 per user a month billed annually or $25 a month billed monthly, and Growth at $79 per user a month billed annually or $99 billed monthly. Enterprise is quote-based, according to LiveChat. Essential and Growth have no fixed user cap for self-service teams, so the cost moves with headcount alone.

On the Gorgias pricing page, the Starter plan is $10 a month with monthly billing only and 50 tickets. Basic is $50 a month billed annually or $60 billed monthly for 300 tickets. Pro is $300 billed annually or $360 monthly for 2,000 tickets, and Advanced is $750 billed annually or $900 monthly for 5,000 tickets. Extra tickets cost $0.40 on Starter and Basic and $0.36 on Pro and Advanced, according to Gorgias. That same page carries a second set of numbers that does not match these plan offers, and the text we read did not say which plans include live chat, so confirm both on the live page before you budget.

The Re:amaze pricing page lists Basic at $29 per team member a month or $26.10 billed annually, Pro at $49 or $44.10, and Plus at $69 or $62.10. Those three plans are priced per team member. The flat Starter plan is $59 a month with unlimited team members and 500 responded conversations, according to Re:amaze. On a per-seat plan, a team of three pays three times the per-seat rate, so compare that against the Starter plan's conversation cap before you choose.

Vendor profiles

Each profile separates the facts a vendor publishes from our read of them. The best-fit and limitation lines are our judgment.

Shopify Inbox

Vendor facts: The help page says to install Shopify Inbox from the Shopify App Store. Shopify Inbox can be used from desktop and mobile apps, and you can add chat buttons to store pages. The Inbox agent is opt-in, answers from your product catalog, store policies and published storefront content, and stays off until you turn it on. The help page does not give a staff limit or a Shopify plan requirement.

Best fit: A store that wants a free, native chat box and a shared inbox for a small team, and does not need ticketing or many third-party channels.

Limitations: The article, updated April 17, 2024, says Shopify Inbox does not rival the more advanced chat apps on the Shopify App Store and that there are not many integrations, according to Ecommerce-Platforms (2024). The same article notes that Apple Business Chat is not fully supported, and that quick replies must be sent by a person, so they are not fully automatic.

Implementation: Install the app, turn on the chat button on your store pages, and assign conversations to staff from the desktop or mobile app. Check your channel list against your customer habits before you commit.

Primary evidence: Shopify Inbox help.

Tidio

Vendor facts: Tidio has a Free plan and paid plans with a monthly conversation allowance. The pricing page says native Shopify actions are included in the Growth, Plus and Premium plans, but not in Free or Starter. Its Lyro AI product is sold as its own plan. The Shopify App Store listing shows the Customer Service plan at $29 a month for 100 conversations and $59 for 250 to 1,000 conversations, with a rating of 4.8 from 1,359 reviews, according to Shopify. That $29 figure does not match the $24.17 Starter price on Tidio's own page, so confirm which plan you are buying.

Best fit: A store that wants a free start, multichannel messaging and an AI option that can be switched on later.

Limitations: Trustpilot reviewers rate Tidio lower than its App Store average, as covered in the review section below. Costs can stack, because the AI bot and the Shopify-specific features sit on different plan lines.

Implementation: Connect the store from the listing and start on the Free plan to test the chat flow. The listing says each paid plan includes a 7-day free trial, so check the trial terms on the plan you choose.

Primary evidence: Tidio pricing.

LiveChat

Vendor facts: LiveChat sells per-user plans. Essential and Growth have no fixed user cap for self-service teams, and Enterprise is quote-based. The pricing text we read does not say which Shopify-specific features each plan includes.

Best fit: Sales-led teams with a known headcount who want cost per agent to be clear before they buy.

Limitations: LiveChat's Shopify App Store listing presents a different entry price structure than its own pricing page, so compare the price inside the install flow. Its Trustpilot profile has a very small review sample, so it gives limited comfort either way. An unused seat still costs money, so a team that rotates staff should count seats carefully.

Implementation: Settle the agent count first, then price the plan. Each agent is a billable seat, so the monthly cost grows in step with headcount.

Primary evidence: LiveChat pricing.

tawk.to

Vendor facts: Core live chat is free on the pricing page. The paid items are add-ons: branding removal, AI Assist and hired chat agents. The page does not list prices for messaging, phone or in-chat payments, so those are not priced here.

Best fit: A low-volume store with no software budget that accepts the free tier and is comfortable with add-ons as it grows.

Limitations: The free tier is the product, so every upgrade is an add-on purchase you will need to track. Review data is weak, as the Trustpilot figures in the next section show.

Implementation: Install the widget and set the greeting. Then decide early which add-ons you need, so they do not arrive as surprise line items.

Primary evidence: tawk.to pricing.

Gorgias

Vendor facts: Gorgias prices its plans by ticket volume and publishes overage rates. Its developer reference lists HTTP integration triggers such as ticket-created and ticket-message-created under http.triggers, and the integration object includes the ticket_id field, according to the Gorgias developer reference. Its HTTP integration help says triggers fire automatically on selected ticket events, while an HTTP hook in a macro runs only when an agent applies the macro.

Best fit: Teams where order context and tickets drive most of the work, and chat is one channel among several.

Limitations: It is a helpdesk, not a chat widget, so it is more setup than a free widget, and it needs an owner. The pricing page contradicts itself, so the live figures matter more than any single number here.

Implementation: Pick the plan from your monthly ticket count, then decide which events should fire HTTP integrations, so only the ones you need run.

Primary evidence: Gorgias pricing, and the HTTP integrations help.

Re:amaze

Vendor facts: The pricing page lists live chat as included on each plan it shows. It lists a Re:amaze for Shopify integration, but does not say which plans include it. Pricing is per team member except for the flat Starter plan.

Best fit: Small-to-mid teams that want one shared inbox across channels, and that can use the flat Starter if they have many team members and modest conversation volume.

Limitations: We could not confirm which plans include the Shopify integration, so check that before you rely on it. The per-seat plans grow with headcount, while the Starter plan caps responded conversations.

Implementation: Compare the integration list against your plan, then count your team members and expected responded conversations against the Starter cap.

Primary evidence: Re:amaze pricing.

Review evidence is thin, so weigh it lightly

Trustpilot is the independent review platform we could open for these vendors. Tidio on Trustpilot: 3.5 out of 5 from 225 reviews according to Trustpilot (2026). tawk.to's Trustpilot page shows 2.2 out of 5 from 108 reviews, according to Trustpilot (2026). A page with a few hundred reviews is a useful signal, but it is a self-selected sample, not a verdict on the product.

G2 and Capterra pages returned errors when we tried to open them, so we did not use their ratings. Read the Shopify App Store counts as marketplace signals, not as independent audits.

Our read: which buyer should choose which

Who this is for

This guide fits a small ecommerce team that is choosing its first dedicated chat tool or replacing one, and that can name who will answer chats each day. It fits less well for a store with no one who can own the setup. Red flags: you cannot read or export order data from your store, you expect a tool to make refund or chargeback decisions without a person, or no one has time to review errors and failed automations each week.

Mistakes that cost small stores time

• Comparing monthly list prices without checking whether they assume annual billing.

• Counting agents on a per-seat plan but forgetting that seats grow with every person you add.

• Treating a free tier as unlimited. Tidio's free plan and tawk.to's free core both have limits or add-ons.

• Assuming the Shopify App Store price matches the vendor's own page. Several listings differ.

• Buying a helpdesk when you only need a widget, or the reverse.

Three agents, 600 chats: the math before you buy

This is an illustrative store, not a customer. Suppose three agents handle 600 chats in a month, and 40% of them are order-status questions, which is 240 chats. If each order-status chat takes four minutes of agent time, that is 240 × 4 = 960 minutes, or 16 hours a month, or about 5.3 hours per agent across three people (16 ÷ 3). Whether you can automate much of that depends on how many of those order-status chats need a human anyway, and on whether the order lookup is read-only and reliable. On Gorgias, an HTTP integration can pass the ticket_id field to an outside workflow when http.triggers fires on a ticket event, which is the kind of hook that would carry the lookup.

Where a proposed US Tech Automations workflow fits

The two workflows below are proposed, configurable designs. They are not a deployed setup, and they do not describe a measured result or a live customer. They show where a person still makes the decision.

Order-status routing (proposed). The trigger is a new chat in the tool you pick that includes an order number or a phrase like "where is my order." The action is a read-only lookup of that order in your store's order data, through the platform's API or a scheduled export you approve. The output is a drafted reply with tracking status and a conversation tag, which goes to the shopper only after a person approves it. Prerequisites are read access to orders, an API key or export schedule, and a list of which staff roles can see customer details. Human review points are refunds, address changes, and any order the lookup cannot match, which go to an agent queue. US Tech Automations would configure the trigger, the lookup and the queue as one flow, with the review step fixed in place.

Helpdesk escalation (proposed, Gorgias example). The trigger is a Gorgias HTTP integration firing on the ticket-created trigger, which the developer reference lists under http.triggers. The action checks ticket_id against a record of tickets already processed, so a retried event does not create a second case, and then routes the ticket by tag. The output is a case in a separate escalation queue and a log line for each run. Prerequisites are an HTTP integration you own, a key with the narrowest scope that works, and a named owner for the queue. Human review points are any ticket that mentions a chargeback, legal language or a safety issue, which goes to a named person immediately.

The no-code alternative is stitching flows like these together in Zapier, Make or n8n, or building them in-house. Those tools can keep run histories, retry failed steps, branch on errors and keep audit evidence when you configure them. The buyer still owns the parts that fail quietly: duplicate-event handling, escalation rules, who can see customer data, and maintenance when an API changes. A proposed US Tech Automations design would configure those controls as part of the flow, but you would still approve the access scope and name the escalation owner before anything runs.

When NOT to use US Tech Automations

A simpler tool wins in three cases. If your chat volume is light and a free widget covers it, Shopify Inbox or tawk.to will cost you less effort than any automation layer. If your only need is a staffed chat box with no order lookups or routing, the native tool in your shortlist already does that. If no one on your team will own the flow, review its failed runs and approve access changes, an unowned automation will fail without anyone noticing, and a plain rule inside your chosen helpdesk is the safer choice.

Questions buyers ask before switching

Which live chat tool is free for a small Shopify store?

Shopify Inbox is the free native option, and tawk.to's core live chat is free on its pricing page. Both have trade-offs: Shopify Inbox has a basic feature set, and tawk.to's free core relies on paid add-ons as you grow.

Does a free plan mean unlimited chats?

No, a free plan is a starting point with limits, so check the conversation or seat cap before you rely on it. Tidio's Free plan has a monthly conversation cap, and tawk.to's free tier depends on which add-ons you need.

Should I pick a chat widget or a helpdesk?

Pick a widget if chat is most of your volume and you rarely need tickets. Pick a helpdesk when email, returns and chat share one queue and you need the same team to work all three.

Is Shopify Inbox enough for a small team?

Yes, for simple storefront chat with quick replies and basic branding, according to the 2024 review. It has few integrations, so check your channel list before you commit.

Can we build this ourselves in Zapier or Make instead?

Yes, but you own the failure handling. Set up run history, retries, error branches and access controls before you depend on the flow, because those are the parts that fail quietly.

Why do the prices I see not match?

Vendor pricing pages, Shopify App Store listings and third-party roundups often disagree, and some pages contradict themselves. Confirm the live price in the install flow or checkout before you budget.

Bottom line

The category decision comes first. Choose a widget for storefront questions, and a helpdesk when tickets and order actions drive the day. Start with Shopify Inbox or tawk.to if the budget is zero, Tidio or LiveChat if you need AI or sales features on a clear seat count, and Gorgias or Re:amaze if the queue is the work. Confirm each price on the live page, and name one owner for the tool before you sign. If order-status questions make up most of your queue, see how US Tech Automations configures this as a proposed flow with review points before you commit.