LiveChat Buyer's Checklist: What to Check Before a Text Plan

Before you buy LiveChat, now sold to new customers as Text plans, settle four numbers: how many people answer chats, how long you will stay, how many AI resolutions you need a month, and which team controls you cannot work without. Text charges per user per month: Essential is $19 billed annually or $25 billed monthly, and Growth is $79 billed annually or $99 billed monthly ^[1]. One gate usually decides the plan. Essential fits a small team that answers its own chats and can live with 60 days of history. Growth earns its higher seat price once you need routing, supervision or real AI volume. Enterprise is for SSO, audit logs and contracts.

Seats and billing term set most of the bill

Every user who logs in to answer chats or tickets needs a seat. Text sets no minimum team size and no fixed user cap on Essential or Growth; teams that need custom limits, SSO or invoicing go to Enterprise, a custom quote billed annually only. By our arithmetic, five users cost $95 a month on Essential billed annually, or $125 billed monthly, and $395 a month on Growth billed annually, or $495 billed monthly. Ten users double both, so forecast hiring before you commit.

Annual billing means 12 months paid upfront, adjusted or cancelled only at renewal. A year of Essential costs $228 per user billed annually, while nine monthly payments of $25 come to $225, so annual wins only if you keep the plan about 10 months or longer. Growth lands in the same place: $948 per user a year against $891 for nine months at the monthly rate. Over a full year, monthly billing costs about 32% more on Essential and 25% more on Growth. Unsure about the tool? Pay monthly first.

• Count everyone who answers chats or tickets, including managers who step in at busy hours.
• Removing a user mid-cycle gives no credit, so size annual seats for the year.
• Expect to leave within nine months? Monthly billing is cheaper.

Size your AI volume against a per-account allowance

The AI Agent is billed by AI resolutions, and the allowance belongs to the account, not to each user: 10 a month on Essential, 200 a month on Growth, custom on Enterprise. Adding seats does not raise it. On Essential and Growth, extra packs cost $49.50 per 50 resolutions, or $0.99 each. Packs recur every cycle until you reduce them at renewal, and unused resolutions, included or bought, do not carry over. Tests, spam, greetings and fallback tickets do not count; our AI playbook lists the rest.

Now compare the two paths for your volume. By our arithmetic, a team that needs about 200 resolutions a month would buy four packs on Essential, $198 a month on top of seats. Billed annually, Growth adds $60 per user per month, so it is cheaper for one, two or three users ($60, $120 or $180 a month extra). Billed monthly, the step-up is $74 per user per month, and Growth stays cheaper only for one or two users. Beyond that, Essential plus packs costs less, but you give up routing, supervision, summaries and unlimited history. Even a solo user needing about 100 resolutions a month pays $118 on Essential with two packs at the annual rate, more than one Growth seat at $79 per user per month billed annually.

• Estimate AI resolutions per account a month from last quarter's chat volume.
• Budget packs as a recurring line that renews until you cut it.
• Need separate AI Agents per team or language? Essential allows one; Growth allows ten.

Check which Growth features your team will use

Growth is the first plan with the controls a multi-person team usually leans on. The step-up from Essential is $60 per user per month billed annually, or $74 billed monthly; by our arithmetic that is $300 a month for five users and $600 for ten, both at the annual rate. If any item below is a must-have, Essential is the wrong plan, however cheap its seat.

• Chat routing rules by page URL, domain, country or channel.
• Working hours, so chats outside shifts follow different rules.
• Chat supervision and team member takeover for training and escalations.
• Shared canned responses and custom chat tags; Essential has five default tags only.
• Multilingual support through agent groups per language.
• Chat and ticket summaries, tag suggestions and the chat topics report.
• Agent performance and agent activity reports.
• Conversation and file history beyond 60 days.

History deserves its own look. Essential keeps conversation and file history for 60 days, and Text does not publish what happens to those conversations afterward. If you need old transcripts for disputes or coaching, plan on Growth or export on a schedule; raw chat exports are capped at the latest 100,000 records. Custom customer segments and AI canned reply suggestions are listed as coming soon, so do not buy Growth for them.

Enterprise gates, compliance and data questions

Custom SSO (SAML 2.0), audit logs, SLAs and on-demand reports are Enterprise only, and white label applies only when it is written into the signed Order Form. If your IT policy demands SAML sign-in or an audit trail, there is no cheaper route. Healthcare buyers should stop here: HIPAA compliance with a BAA is listed as coming soon on Enterprise, not available today. Text's DPA says a BAA applies only when both parties sign it separately, and without one no ePHI may go through the Services ^[2].

For general reviews, Text says it is SOC 2 Type 2 audited and compliant with GDPR, CCPA and PCI DSS SAQ A. Hosting runs on Google Cloud in the US (Texas, Iowa) and the EU (Frankfurt), but Text does not publish which region a new Text account uses. Text says it does not use client data to train general-purpose or third-party models, OpenAI included, though it may use customer data to improve its own services and AI models. OpenAI is a named AI partner bound by a DPA. Ask your questions before signing.

• SAML SSO, audit logs or SLAs required: Enterprise only.
• Patient data in chats: send no ePHI without a signed BAA.
• Data residency rules: ask which region your account will use.

Channels, integrations and API quotas

Every Text plan covers the website widget, in-app chat, a hosted chat page, Messenger, email forwarding into tickets and WhatsApp, native since June 2026 with numbers free from Text under Meta's requirements. Instagram is native for Business or Creator accounts, with no plan named. SMS runs only through your own Twilio account, which bills you directly. Text says it is not a phone system. Apple Messages for Business stays on legacy LiveChat Business and Enterprise plans. Our channels guide covers setup per channel.

Shopify, WordPress, WooCommerce and Webflow connect with no separate fee on any plan; checkout chat needs Shopify Plus. CRMs connect through Skills in Playbook, configured actions rather than a full field sync, and there is no native Google Analytics integration. The API quota matters if you sync a CRM or build a custom widget: 10,000 calls a month on Essential and 20,000 on Growth, with every request counting except HTTP 500 errors. Extra packs cost $29.50 per 100,000 calls.

Migration, existing customers and the billing fine print

Moving from another help desk takes planning. Text documents API-based ticket import, and WhatsApp numbers move with Text's migration guide ^[3]. Decide early who maps your ticket fields. For a WhatsApp number coming from the LiveChat app, Text requires a new WhatsApp Business Account in your own Meta portfolio. Do not cancel LiveChat before the move is confirmed, because the number can go offline.

Existing LiveChat customers keep their plan, price and login, and Text features such as the AI Agent, shared inbox and ticketing are not added to LiveChat plans. Text is a separate workspace and account, so creating one moves neither plan nor history, and you can run a Text trial side by side. Text's Context 2025 page says the Text App will be the sole supported platform in the long run. Our pricing guide sets the two price lists apart.

The trial runs 14 days on Essential or Growth, needs no card and never charges automatically; the workspace carries over. Downgrades, removed users and pack reductions take effect at renewal with no credit. Cancellation is not self-serve: it goes through support by chat or email. 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, so ask in writing before an annual payment.

• Torn between plans? Trial Growth, then choose at the end.
• Export data with the in-product tools before you cancel.

The bottom line

Text is easy to price and easy to misjudge. The seat price is only half the decision; the per-account AI allowance, Essential's 60-day history and the team controls that start on Growth decide whether the cheap plan stays cheap. Small teams that answer their own chats with light AI use fit Essential. Teams that route, supervise or lean on the AI Agent should price Growth from day one. Anyone needing SSO or audit logs should talk to sales before trialing. Anyone needing a BAA today should wait, since HIPAA with a BAA is listed as coming soon on Enterprise.