# Is LiveChat Free? The 14-Day Trial, Free Extras and Real Costs

> LiveChat has no free plan: new sign-ups get a 14-day Text trial with no card and no auto-charge. Essential then costs $19 per user a month billed yearly.

_Source: https://professionalstoolkit.com/articles/is-livechat-free — The Professional's Toolkit · updated November 2026_

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No. LiveChat, now sold to new customers as Text plans, has no free plan and no free version. What you get instead is a 14-day trial of Text Essential or Growth with no credit card, the full plan for the whole trial and no automatic charge when it ends[1]. After that, the cheapest way to keep going is Essential at $19 per user per month billed annually, or $25 per user per month billed monthly. If you need live chat that costs nothing at all, Text is the wrong shop. A few rivals keep a permanent free tier, with real limits.


**14 days** — Free trial of Text Essential or Growth: no credit card and no automatic charge at the end.



- **$0** — Charged automatically when the trial ends
- **$19** — Essential, per user per month billed annually
- **10** — AI resolutions per account a month on Essential


## How the 14-day trial works, from sign-up to day 15

Signing up on livechat.com, whether from the pricing page, the Shopify page or the WordPress page, creates a Text account rather than a LiveChat one. You pick Essential or Growth for the trial, and nothing asks for a card. Text, the next product from the team behind LiveChat, puts live chat, a shared inbox, ticketing and an AI Agent in one workspace, so the trial covers all four. WhatsApp is installed on every trial and new account as well, with nothing extra to buy from Text.

The end of the trial is where Text differs from most subscription software. **There is no automatic charge.** When the 14 days run out, you choose a plan and a billing period and add a payment method yourself. Your workspace, conversation history and settings carry over into the paid plan, so nothing you configured during the trial has to be rebuilt. Forgetting to cancel costs you nothing. The flip side is equally plain: there is no free plan to drop back to, so a team that wants to keep chatting has to pay.

Pick the trial plan deliberately. The allowance you will live with afterwards is 10 AI resolutions per account a month on Essential and 200 per account a month on Growth, and Growth is also the first plan with chat routing rules, working hours, supervision and takeover, shared canned responses, chat summaries and unlimited history. Enterprise is not one of the two trial plans; it is a custom quote through a booked call, billed annually only. If you are unsure, trial the plan your busiest week would need.


> 💡 **Trial the plan you will buy:** Test on the plan you expect to pay for. A Growth trial shows routing rules, supervision and summaries that Essential does not include.


## What is genuinely free, and what only looks free

Several things around Text cost nothing, and none of them turns the service itself free. The WordPress plugin, AI Chatbot by Text, is free from the WordPress plugin directory. The desktop apps for macOS and Windows and the mobile app for iPhone and Android, now listed as Text - Live Chat for Business, are free to download[2]. Each one still needs a Text account on an active trial or paid plan before it does anything useful. A download is not a plan.

Two free items work without any account. The AI Agent preview on livechat.com reads a site URL you paste and shows how the AI Agent would answer your visitors, with no sign-up, no card and no change to your live site[3]. OpenWidget is a separate free website widget from Text, Inc., with contact forms, product cards, an FAQ and AI recommendations, and no code needed. It is a sister product, not a free edition of Text, and it is not part of any Text plan.


> 💡 **Preview the AI Agent first:** Paste your site URL into the AI Agent preview before starting the 14-day clock. It needs no sign-up and changes nothing on your site.


Platform connections are the last free piece. Hooking Text to Shopify, WordPress, Webflow or another platform carries no separate fee on any Text plan, whether you use a ready-made integration or a custom API connection[4]. So the per-user plan price is not stacked with integration fees, though a custom API connection draws on the plan's 10,000 (Essential) or 20,000 (Growth) API calls a month, and an extra pack of 100,000 calls costs $29.50. Two other exceptions remain: SMS runs through your own Twilio account, which Twilio bills, and third-party Marketplace apps may carry their developers' own fees. WhatsApp numbers, by contrast, are free from Text, though Meta's own requirements still apply.

## Why some older LiveChat pages say otherwise

Search around and you will find pages that disagree. A handful of LiveChat integration and solution pages describe a no-cost tier. They are out of date. They were not updated when new sign-ups moved to Text, and the pricing page is the one that decides. Do not budget around them. The same goes for pages that quote a figure without a unit; the correct short form is from $19 per user per month billed annually, never a flat monthly fee for the whole account.

The help center adds a second layer of confusion. Articles under livechat.com/help describe the LiveChat app, and some of them say the trial runs with Team plan features. That described the old LiveChat trial; a new sign-up today gets a Text trial of Essential or Growth instead. Existing LiveChat customers keep their LiveChat plan, price and login, and Text features such as the AI Agent, the inbox and ticketing are not included in legacy subscriptions. Legacy plan details sit in our [LiveChat pricing guide](/articles/livechat-pricing).

## The cheapest way to keep going after day 14



> **About these prices:** Prices shown are what LiveChat lists for visitors in the United States, in US dollars. Your price can differ by country, currency and local taxes such as VAT. Check your current price — LiveChat: https://api.colosus.site/go/livechat?to=pricing


| Text plan | Billed annually | Billed monthly | AI resolutions included |
|---|---|---|---|
| Essential | $19 per user per month | $25 per user per month | 10 per account a month |
| Growth | $79 per user per month | $99 per user per month | 200 per account a month |
| Enterprise | Custom quote | Not offered (annual only) | Custom |

Essential is the floor. Every user who answers chats or tickets needs a seat, there is no minimum team size, and the lower figure assumes 12 months paid upfront. For one person that comes to $228 a year billed annually or $300 a year billed monthly, by our arithmetic, and a three-person team pays $57 a month billed annually or $75 a month billed monthly. Annual billing wins once you keep the plan 10 months or more. If you might stop within nine months, monthly is cheaper: $225 against $228 for one user.

Essential has real gaps. Know them before you skip Growth. Conversation and file history is kept for 60 days, there is 1 AI Agent, and Copilot gives 5 reply suggestions and 5 AI text edits per user a month. Live visitor tracking stops at 50 simultaneous visitors, with 3 proactive campaigns and five default chat tags. Chat routing rules, working hours, supervision and takeover, and chat and ticket summaries all start on Growth. For a team of one to five, our guide to [LiveChat for small business](/articles/livechat-for-small-business) works through when Growth pays off.


> ⚠ **Ten AI resolutions go quickly:** Essential includes 10 AI resolutions per account a month. Extra packs cost $49.50 per 50 resolutions, and unused resolutions do not carry over.


AI volume is the cost that surprises small teams. The 10 AI resolutions per account a month on Essential run out quickly if the AI Agent handles real traffic. Extra packs cost $49.50 per 50 resolutions, which works out to $0.99 per resolution; once added they recur each cycle until you reduce them at renewal, and unused resolutions never carry over.

One user who needs about 100 resolutions a month on Essential pays $118 a month at the annual rate: the seat plus two packs. For that solo user Growth is cheaper: $79 per user per month billed annually, or $99 billed monthly against $124 for Essential plus packs, with 200 AI resolutions per account a month already included, by our arithmetic. From two users, Essential plus two packs costs less on either billing term, for example $137 against $158 a month billed annually.

Non-profits and educational institutions can ask Text about additional discounts, though the pricing page gives no fixed percentage. Prices are in USD before tax, payable by all major credit cards, and subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each cycle. Downgrades and removed users take effect only at renewal with no credit, cancellation goes through support, and livechat.com publishes no refund policy, and Text's HelpDesk.com pricing page, which sells the same Text plans, says refunds are reviewed case by case on request. That is why the no-card trial matters: it is the only point at which trying Text carries no financial commitment.

## Free rivals, and what their free tiers leave out

Three catalog help desks have free plans, and only Tidio's includes live chat. Help Scout Free costs $0 for up to 5 users, with 1 Inbox, 1 Docs site and 100 contacts a month, and replies stop at that cap. Help Scout's live chat starts on Standard, at $25 per user per month billed annually or $30 per user per month billed monthly. Zoho Desk Free costs $0 for 3 users and covers email ticketing. Zoho Desk's live chat comes through its Business Messaging channel from Standard, at $14 per agent per month billed annually or $20 per agent per month billed monthly. Tidio's Free plan costs $0 a month per project with 50 billable conversations, 50 one-time Lyro AI conversations and up to 10 seats, and it includes live chat; its 7-day trial needs no card and falls back to Free automatically ([Tidio pricing](/articles/tidio-pricing)).

Two tools outside our catalog also offer free live chat. Crisp's Free plan is $0 forever with 2 seats, a website chat widget, a shared inbox and mobile apps, but no AI credits. tawk.to keeps its core live chat free, and removing its branding costs $29 a month. Each free tier caps something, so check the cap against your traffic before you switch. Our [LiveChat alternatives](/articles/livechat-alternatives) guide compares the paid plans side by side.


## FAQ

**Can I trial Growth and then pay for Essential?**

Yes. When the trial ends you choose the plan and billing period yourself, so a Growth trial can end on Essential; Growth features such as chat routing rules and chat summaries are then not part of your plan.

**Does installing from the Shopify App Store change how Text bills?**

Installing from the Shopify App Store bills Text through Shopify every 30 days, and Text says signing up directly makes annual billing cheaper. Either way Text has no free plan; connecting Shopify carries no separate fee, and the 14-day trial needs no card.

**Can an existing LiveChat customer try Text for free?**

Yes. An existing LiveChat customer can run a 14-day Text trial side by side; Text is a separate workspace, so creating one does not move the LiveChat plan or its conversation history.


## The bottom line

LiveChat is not free, and Text, which new sign-ups now get, has no free plan either. The honest free part is the trial: 14 days of Essential or Growth, no card, no automatic charge, and everything you set up carries over if you buy. After that, Essential at $19 per user per month billed annually is the cheapest way in, with tight AI and history limits. Use the trial and the AI Agent preview to decide. If your budget is truly zero, look at the rivals with permanent free tiers instead.



## Sources

[1] Text Live Chat Pricing: Plans from $19/User — https://www.livechat.com/pricing/ (2026-11)
[2] Live Chat App for iPhone: Download Text for iOS — https://www.livechat.com/app/livechat-for-iphone/ (2026-11)
[3] See your AI Agent in action, ready in seconds — https://www.livechat.com/try-ai-agent/ (2026-11)
[4] Text Integrations: Shopify, WooCommerce, and More — https://www.text.com/integrations/ (2026-11)
[5] LiveChat help center — https://www.livechat.com/help/
[6] Text Terms of Use — https://www.text.com/legal/terms-of-use/
[7] Text API documentation — https://www.text.com/docs/