Live Chat for Website: Support for Small Teams
Live chat for website support gives visitors a way to ask questions from the page they are using and lets your team respond in a shared workflow. If your team repeats answers about orders, shipping, returns or products, compare how each option answers routine questions and gets the conversations needing a person to your team.
Choosing a setup
Why free website chat can cost time when limits are unclear
Free website chat can reduce the time between a visitor asking for help and your team seeing the question, but the word “free” does not tell you how the workflow or limits work. Before installing a widget, check whether the offer is ongoing or a trial, how many teammates can use it, what conversation or AI allowances apply, and where a chat goes when nobody can answer live. The fit depends on those details, not just the button a visitor sees.
A chat product may bring messages into a shared inbox, while a contact form usually collects a message for a later response. A chatbot adds automated replies; that can help with recurring questions, but it does not remove the need for a human route when the answer is uncertain or needs judgment. Some providers describe ways to continue a conversation by email or hand it to an agent. For example, Crisp describes chat-to-email continuity and human handover, while tawk.to states that its free service has no limit on agents or conversations. Those are provider-specific claims, not a reason to assume all free plans work the same way. To compare the wider workflow, see this guide to live chat support.
Crisp’s supplied offer is a free trial, not evidence of an ongoing free plan. Chatwoot describes monthly AI credits on paid plans, and its self-hosted plans are presented separately. These differences make it worth checking the actual offer you plan to use: seats, AI usage, included channels and any add-on charges. Do not compare an introductory trial with a permanent free tier as if they were equivalent.
The Free plan is an ongoing plan with a one-time allowance of AI conversations, a website widget and a shared helpdesk inbox. Paid plans have monthly AI conversation allowances and flat fees in euros, with no per-resolution fee or credit packs. That pricing structure can be easier to forecast than a charge tied to each resolved conversation. For more on free-plan trade-offs, see this guide to free live chat plans.
How a website widget moves a question to a human
A useful chat workflow starts with a clear entry point and ends with a useful answer or a person taking over. With content-grounded AI, prepare the material visitors ask about, let the system answer when it can support its draft, and make the human route visible when it cannot.
Add the entry point
Put a chat widget on the site
Choose a tool and add its website widget using the setup it provides. Check the widget on the pages where support questions arise, such as product, shipping and returns pages, so visitors can reach help in context.
Visitors have a place to ask instead of searching for a contact address.
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Use current support content
For content-grounded answers, gather the current policies and product information your team relies on. The system can use a website crawl, PDFs, Word files, plain text and Q&A pairs. Review the content for outdated delivery promises or return conditions before relying on it.
Routine questions can be answered from the business's own material.
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Let a teammate take over
A shared inbox gives the team a place to handle conversations that need judgment or follow-up. Teammates can take over live; handoff collects the details the business chooses before a conversation reaches a human. A human answer can then be saved as approved knowledge for future answers.
The team handles the questions that need a person and can improve its approved knowledge.
Compare plan fees and AI conversation limits
The service uses a flat monthly or yearly plan fee with an included AI conversation allowance; Free usage is one-time, while paid allowances renew monthly.
Included: Helpdesk inbox for human follow-up · Flat plan fee with no per-resolution fee or credit packs
Free
Try momo with real visitors.
€0€0 forever
- 30 AI conversations, one-time
- 1 agent, 1 team member
- Website widget
- Helpdesk inbox
- Basic analytics
- 2 MB of knowledge, 10 sources
Starter
One agent, steady traffic.
€29€27per month
- 500 AI conversations / month
- 1 agent, 2 team members
- Website widget and email
- Helpdesk inbox and Help Center
- Basic analytics
- No momo badge
- 20 MB of knowledge, 50 sources
Growth
More agents, more channels.
€129€118per month
- 2,000 AI conversations / month
- 3 agents, 5 team members
- Slack, Shopify, WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger
- API, Zapier and webhooks
- Advanced analytics
- 100 MB of knowledge, 200 sources
Scale
High volume, every channel.
€399€366per month
- 6,000 AI conversations / month
- 10 agents, 10 team members
- Every channel
- API, Zapier and webhooks
- Advanced analytics
- 500 MB of knowledge, 1,000 sources
Need more resources or custom solutions? Contact us for Enterprise plans
Website live chat questions
Check the installation, human fallback and plan limits before choosing a chat workflow.
How do I create a live chat on my website?
Choose a chat tool, add its widget to your website using the provider's setup instructions, and test it on the pages where visitors need help. Before launch, check that messages reach the right inbox and that a teammate can respond or take over. For a step-by-step overview, read this live chat application setup guide.
Is there a free live chat service for websites?
Some services offer ongoing free plans and others offer a free trial, so check which one you are considering. The Free plan includes a website widget and helpdesk inbox, one agent, one team member and 30 AI conversations as a one-time allowance.
What happens when no support agent is available?
The exact behavior depends on the tool and how the team configures its workflow. With momo, an uncertain AI answer leads to a message that it is not sure and a ticket in the shared inbox, where the team can follow up.
Can a website chat widget hand a conversation to email or a human agent?
Some chat workflows support a human handover or a continuation by email; check how context is preserved in the specific tool you choose. In momo, teammates can take over conversations live, and the handoff collects the details the business chooses before the conversation reaches a human.
Start with one widget and a clear fallback
Try momo Free with a website widget and shared inbox, then check how real visitor questions move from an answer to your team.