Relentify Chatbot vs LiveChat: Premium Features Without the Premium Price
LiveChat is a genuinely good product. Founded in 2002, it's spent two decades perfecting live chat. Thirty-seven thousand businesses use it. They didn't choose it by accident.
But the pricing is punishing. LiveChat's Starter plan costs £15/agent/month. The Team plan costs £31/agent/month. For a five-person support team, that's £155/month minimum. Before you add their separate AI product.
Relentify Chatbot delivers the same quality experience—modern widget, comprehensive features, AI replies included—completely free. Not a trial. Not a limited version missing the good bits. Actually free.
Here's what you should actually compare.
The Price Trap: Where LiveChat Gets Expensive
LiveChat's pricing works like this: pick your plan, multiply by your number of agents, add anything you actually want to use, watch the bill climb.
Here's the honest breakdown for a typical five-person support team:
| Relentify Chatbot | LiveChat Starter | LiveChat Team | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base cost (5 agents) | Free | £75/month | £155/month |
| Chat widget | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Unlimited conversations | Yes | 100/agent/month | Unlimited |
| AI responses | Free | No (ChatBot: £39+) | No (ChatBot: £39+) |
| Chat routing | Yes | No | Yes |
| Full reporting | Yes | Limited | Yes |
| Agent limits | Unlimited | Per-seat pricing | Per-seat pricing |
| Total for 5-person team | Free | £114+/month | £194+/month |
LiveChat has no free tier. After the trial ends, you pay or you lose access. For a small business testing whether live chat is worth the hassle, that creates pressure to buy before you know if it works.
Relentify Chatbot has a free tier. Unlimited agents. Unlimited conversations. No watermark. No countdown timer before everything vanishes.
If you're bootstrapped or watching every expense, this difference isn't cosmetic—it's the difference between "we can try this" and "we need to budget for this."
Features: Where They're Actually Similar (and Where Relentify Pulls Ahead)
Fair first: LiveChat's widget is excellent. Polished, responsive, beautiful. One of the best-designed chat widgets on the market. Relentify Chatbot's widget is built to the same standard. Modern. Smooth. Fully customizable. Both are good.
Same with agent experience. Both dashboards give your team visibility into visitor info, chat history, canned responses, internal notes. Both were designed by people who've actually done support, not just engineers. Neither feels clunky.
But Relentify pulls ahead in the places that matter:
Unlimited conversations. LiveChat Starter limits you to 100 chats per agent per month. For any business with actual traffic, that's a ceiling you'll hit in week two. Relentify: no limits.
AI included, not bolted on. LiveChat's ChatBot (their AI product) is a separate purchase—£39/month minimum, on top of your chat subscription. Relentify includes AI responses in the free tier: automatic replies powered by your knowledge base, a 24/7 AI agent handling common queries without your team, conversation summaries, suggested responses for live agents.
Full reporting from day one. LiveChat's Starter plan gives basic metrics. Detailed reporting—agent comparison, custom dashboards, heatmaps, export—requires Team or higher tier. Relentify includes comprehensive reporting in the free tier: chat volume trends, response times, agent performance comparison, satisfaction ratings, peak hours analysis, AI resolution rate.
Here's the full feature table:
| Feature | Relentify Chatbot (Free) | LiveChat Starter (£15/agent) |
|---|---|---|
| Live chat widget | Yes | Yes |
| Unlimited conversations | Yes | 100/agent/month |
| Permanent chat history | Yes | 60 days |
| Canned responses | Yes | Yes |
| File sharing | Yes | Yes |
| Visitor information | Yes | Yes |
| Custom branding | Yes (no watermark) | Yes |
| Pre-chat forms | Yes | Yes |
| Offline messages | Yes | Yes |
| Chat routing | Yes | No (Team+) |
| AI responses | Yes (free AI agent) | No (ChatBot £39+) |
| Knowledge base integration | Yes | Manual setup |
| Chat surveys | Yes | Yes |
| Mobile app | Yes | Yes |
| Agent limits | Unlimited | Per seat |
The pattern: LiveChat says "premium," which usually means "we built this five years ago and kept polishing it." Relentify says "free," which means "we built this recently and decided not to charge."
AI That Doesn't Cost Extra
This is the biggest gap. LiveChat offers chatbot AI through a separate product called ChatBot. You create decision trees, configure escalations, hope it qualifies leads properly. Separate subscription: £39/month minimum, on top of your LiveChat subscription.
Relentify Chatbot includes AI in the free tier:
- 24/7 AI agent handling common queries without human involvement
- Automatic responses powered by your knowledge base
- Suggested responses for live agents (your team sees AI-generated options as they reply)
- Conversation summaries for handoff between agents
- Automatic language detection (reply in the visitor's language)
For a five-agent team wanting AI-powered live chat:
- LiveChat Team + ChatBot: £155 + £39 = £194/month
- Relentify Chatbot: Free
That's not subtle.
Reporting & Analytics: What Actually Gets Measured
Both platforms track conversations and provide metrics. LiveChat front-loads you toward paid tiers for anything useful.
Relentify includes in the free tier:
- Chat volume and trend analysis
- First response time and average response time
- Agent performance comparison (who replies fastest, whose chats have best satisfaction)
- Customer satisfaction ratings
- AI resolution rate (how many chats did your AI agent resolve without human handoff?)
- Peak hours analysis
- Queue metrics
- Export to CSV
| Relentify Chatbot | LiveChat Starter | |
|---|---|---|
| Basic metrics | Yes | Yes |
| Agent comparison | Yes | No (Team+) |
| Custom date ranges | Yes | Yes |
| Heatmaps | Yes | No (Team+) |
| AI analytics | Yes | N/A |
| Export reports | Yes | No (Team+) |
For teams trying to understand where support time goes and which agents need help, Relentify's reporting is more detailed at zero cost.
Where LiveChat Actually Wins
LiveChat has 200+ integrations. This is real. If your CRM is obscure, or your helpdesk is legacy, there might be a LiveChat integration that doesn't exist elsewhere. Relentify has fewer integrations, but we support API and webhooks for custom connections. If your specific tool isn't pre-built, you can usually build it.
E-commerce: LiveChat has deep integrations with Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce. You can see what's in a visitor's cart, recommend products, track revenue from chat. Relentify doesn't focus on e-commerce. If chat-driven sales are your primary use case, this matters. If chat is a support channel (not a sales channel), you won't notice.
Scale and maturity: LiveChat has been at this longer. The product is very stable. No surprises. Relentify is newer and growing faster, which means more frequent updates and features—but also more change.
So... Which One?
Pick Relentify Chatbot if:
- You want professional live chat without the professional price tag
- You need unlimited conversations and permanent history (not 100/agent/month, not 60-day retention)
- AI-powered responses matter and you don't want a separate ChatBot subscription
- You're a small or mid-size business watching every expense
- You want to test whether live chat works before committing budget
- You're considering whether to consolidate into a unified platform
Pick LiveChat if:
- You need specific integrations from their 200+ partner list
- E-commerce features are central (product recommendations, cart preview)
- You're already using other LiveChat products (HelpDesk, ChatBot, Ticketing)
- Your budget accommodates £20–60/agent/month without flinching
- You need guaranteed SLA response times (enterprise support)
If you're comparing live chat against other tools, we've also looked at how Relentify Chatbot stacks against Olark, Tidio, and Tawk.to. And if you're building out a broader customer-facing platform, compare us on helpdesk or CRM as well.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the free tier really unlimited, or will we hit a paywall later? Genuinely unlimited. Free tier includes unlimited agents, unlimited conversations, permanent chat history, AI responses, full reporting. No hidden limit that disappears once you've got ten chats. You can stay on the free tier indefinitely.
How fast is setup? Five minutes. Add the chat widget code to your website, configure your team's email addresses, you're live. If you want AI responses, point it at your knowledge base or FAQ. Most teams take their first chat within an hour.
Can Relentify handle our chat volume? Yes. No conversation limits on the free tier. If your average volume is 500+ conversations per month and you want guaranteed response times, paid features are available. But there's no hard ceiling below which you're forced to upgrade.
Does it integrate with our CRM? If you're using Relentify CRM, it integrates natively. If you're using another CRM (Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive), we support API and webhooks so you can pull chat data into your system. Not a single click, but achievable. We also have detailed comparisons if you're considering switching—Relentify CRM vs Salesforce and Relentify CRM vs Zoho CRM cover that decision.
What about e-commerce (cart preview, product recommendations)? LiveChat's Shopify integration is more mature. If you're a retailer where chat-driven sales are the goal, their depth matters. If you're an agency, SaaS company, service business, or retailer where chat is support (not sales), you won't miss it.
Can we export our data if we leave? Yes. You own your data. Export conversations, visitor records, analytics at any time. Switching platforms later is straightforward.
Do you offer training or support? Every plan includes access to our knowledge base and email support. For integrations, custom automation, or bulk imports, optional support add-ons are available.
Can we use this alongside our existing helpdesk? Yes. Relentify Chatbot works alongside any helpdesk (Zendesk, Intercom, Jira Service Management) via API and webhooks. If you're considering consolidating your helpdesk, we compare against Zoho Desk and others.
The Bottom Line
LiveChat is a premium product that charges premium prices. It deserves its reputation—it's well-maintained and stable.
Relentify Chatbot delivers the same quality experience (modern widget, full feature set, AI replies, comprehensive reporting) for free. Not as a teaser or loss leader. As a product we believe small businesses shouldn't have to pay for.
If you're tired of paying £15–60 per agent for live chat, or if you want to try live chat without committing budget, start using Relentify Chatbot free today. Takes five minutes to set up. Your first chat will arrive within the hour.