9 Best Shopify Live Chat Apps of 2026

Tidio covers the three jobs most stores want from a chat app: live chat, a help desk and an AI agent. The free plan is a real starting point, with live chat for 50 users, Flows automation for up to 100 visitors a month, ticketing, a mobile app and social media integrations. Paid plans are modular. Customer Service costs $29 a month for 100 conversations and adds analytics, a live visitors list, operating hours and the Tidio AI reply assistant, with 250 to 1,000 conversations for $59. Flows is $29 for a visual chatbot builder reaching up to 40,000 visitors, and Lyro AI Chatbot is $39 for up to 200 Lyro conversations with a website scraper and native Shopify actions. Lyro can recommend in-stock products, answer order status questions in the shopper's language and win back abandoned carts with discount codes. The catch is that costs add up if you buy several modules, and branding removal is extra.

Shopify Inbox is the obvious first install for a store that has never offered chat, because it costs nothing and is made by Shopify. The listing describes it as an AI sales associate: buyers ask questions on the storefront and the agent answers from your catalog, inventory and policies, which it connects to automatically. When buyers sign in with Shop, replies can draw on their preferences and purchase history from across Shopify. You can run Inbox with or without the agent, set its tone, style and rules, and rate chats to train it. Built-in analytics report orders assisted and buyer satisfaction. Its feature list covers live chat, email chat, quick replies, business hours, chat assignment, discounts and order updates. What it lacks is the multichannel inbox and ticketing that apps like Tidio, Chatty and Gorgias provide, so stores that also answer Instagram or WhatsApp messages will outgrow it.

Chatty is built around an AI sales agent rather than a classic support desk. When a shopper asks about a product, the AI answers from your catalog and inventory, recommends items, upsells, applies discounts and sends checkout links, and a human can step in when asked. The free plan is generous for live chat: unlimited human conversations, 50 AI conversations a month, AI trained on up to 200 products, widget customization and after-hours auto replies. Basic at $19.99 a month adds 100 AI conversations, AI order tracking, five members, a multichannel inbox, translation and 12 months of chat history. Pro at $68.99 brings 500 AI conversations, the AI shopping assistant, proactive engagement and abandoned cart recovery. Every paid plan charges $0.075 per AI reply over its allowance, up to a monthly cap you set, which avoids surprise bills. The trade-off is that the stronger sales features sit on Pro, not Basic.

Chatway is a straightforward live chat app with a shared inbox, and its free plan is enough for a solo merchant. Free covers one seat, 50 conversations a month, 30 days of history, FAQs and canned responses, iOS and Android apps, buttons for social chat channels, and MCP, API and webhook access. Agents can see Shopify cart, order and coupon data in the inbox and send offers to visitors. The Business plan at $39 a month includes two seats and 200 conversations, and adds a help center, two automations, email, WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram, live translation and a multilingual widget. Plus at $199 a month covers 10 seats, 1,000 conversations, 15 automations and advanced routing. AI chatbot agents run on optional credits on every plan, so the AI cost is separate from the subscription. The app launched on the Shopify App Store in September 2023, so its review base is still small compared with Tidio or Chatty.

Gorgias is a helpdesk first and a chat widget second, which is why support teams choose it. Email, live chat, SMS, social and voice land in one inbox with order and customer history beside each ticket, and agents can edit orders, refund and cancel without leaving Gorgias. Rules, macros and auto-tagging cut repeat work, and an AI Agent handles order, shipping and return questions and hands conversations to staff with context. Pricing is by ticket volume. Starter is $10 a month for three agents and 50 tickets, with $0.40 per additional ticket. Basic is $60 a month for 300 tickets with unlimited agents, Pro is $360 for 2,000 tickets and Advanced is $900 for 5,000. Every plan lists live chat and a 7-day trial, and the AI Agent is an add-on. For a store that only wants a chat bubble this is more tool than needed, but for a team handling hundreds of tickets the order actions save real time.

Re:amaze is a helpdesk with chat built in, and it suits teams that want unlimited live chat without paying per conversation. The Basic plan costs $29 a month per staff user and includes unlimited email inboxes, social integrations, unlimited live chat and chatbots, workflows and macros, an FAQ and 1,000 free push notifications. Agents can manage, modify and create Shopify orders from chats. Pro at $49 per user adds multi-store support, SMS and VoIP integrations, live view, advanced reports and a status page, and Plus at $69 adds staff roles, shifts, departments, satisfaction surveys and co-browse. There is also a Starter plan at $59 a month that includes 500 responded conversations, with 100-conversation packs for $15. AI Agent resolutions are capped per user, from five a month on Basic to 20 on Plus, so heavy AI use needs a different tool. Every plan carries a 14-day trial.

LiveChat is aimed at turning chats into sales. Agents can suggest products that link to product pages, drop in discounts and help buyers during checkout, while AI chatbots handle quick questions and an AI Copilot drafts replies. A built-in helpdesk and knowledge base cover support requests and self-service. The Starter plan costs $25 a month and includes customer information, product cards, Text Intelligence AI features, traffic tracking for up to 100 visitors and 60 days of chat history. Team at $59 a month adds order details, a real-time cart preview, sales tracking from chats, unlimited chat campaigns and unlimited history. Business at $89 adds advanced AI features, a work scheduler, Apple Messages for Business, geolocation routing and agent performance reports. The vendor lists more than 200 integrations. The Shopify listing has only 49 reviews, so there is less merchant feedback to judge by than for the apps above it.

tawk.to is the option for teams that want many agents on chat without paying per seat. The Shopify listing shows it as free and describes unlimited messaging, ticketing and agent seats, with apps for iOS, Android, Windows and Mac so staff can answer from anywhere. Agents can view and manage Shopify orders from chats and tickets, triggers personalize greetings by location and past visits, and canned shortcuts speed up common answers. The package also includes a CRM with unlimited customers and organizations and a knowledge base, and the vendor offers 24x7 live support. The weak point is merchant sentiment: the listing showed a 3.7 rating from 90 reviews, and 21 percent of those ratings were one star, the second lowest score on this list. The listing also does not name AI chatbot features, which most competitors now include. It works best as a no-cost human chat tool for larger teams.

Zendesk is a full customer service suite rather than a Shopify chat app, and its Shopify integration connects the store to Zendesk Support and Chat. Agents see relevant customer data without leaving the conversation, can process refunds and cancellations from the Zendesk Support sidebar, and can embed live chat in a storefront with one click. The suite handles messaging, phone, chat, email and social media. Pricing is per agent and billed annually: Suite Team is $55 a month per agent, Growth $89, Professional $115 and Enterprise $150, each with a 14-day trial, and the listing notes that Zendesk may bill separately from your Shopify invoice. For a five-agent team, Suite Team alone comes to $275 a month. The listing's 3.2 rating from 96 reviews is the lowest here. Zendesk makes sense when a business already runs support on Zendesk across channels beyond Shopify, not as a first chat tool.