Free vs paid live chat: what a small business should know
Every live-chat tool seems to offer a free plan, so it's fair to ask: why would a small business pay for chat at all? The honest answer is that free is sometimes enough — and sometimes it quietly costs you more than a paid plan. Here's how to tell the difference.
What free plans usually limit
Free live-chat plans are real products, not demos, but they pay for themselves by limiting something. The common limits:
- Conversation or contact caps. A set number of chats per month; go over and you pay, upgrade, or lose history.
- Per-agent or per-seat pricing as you grow. Free for one person, then a monthly fee for each extra teammate.
- Short message history. Older conversations disappear, so repeat visitors start from zero.
- Branding you can't remove. The provider's logo stays on your widget unless you pay.
- Feature gates. Offline message capture, canned replies, customization, or mobile apps may sit behind the paywall.
- Support priority. Free users often wait longer when something breaks.
None of these are scams — they're how free tiers work. The question is whether the limits hit the way you actually use chat.
What a flat $14.99–$19.99 a month buys
GreetMode has no free tier, so here's plainly what the money is for. Standard ($14.99/month, up to 3 sites) and Multi ($19.99/month, 4–6 sites) both include the full product on every site:
- Live per-site conversation threads in one simple owner inbox that works in any phone browser — no app to download.
- The offline safety net: leave-a-message capture when you're closed, plus unread badges and reply alerts so nothing slips.
- Canned replies for repeat questions, chat color matching, and open/closed hours that control the online/offline display visitors see.
- Flat pricing with no per-agent fees and no per-conversation fees. Adding a teammate or having a busy month never changes the bill.
Signup is checkout-first: pick a plan, pay through Stripe, set a password, paste the one-line snippet (https://www.greetmode.com/widget-1.js with your site id), and you're live — usually in about five minutes.
An honest checklist: stay free or pay?
Free is probably enough if: you get a handful of visitor messages a month, one person answers them, you don't need offline capture or history, and a provider's branding on the widget doesn't bother you. Plenty of brand-new sites fit this — start free and switch when the limits bite.
Pay when any of these are true: you miss messages because nobody was online (offline capture pays for itself with one saved customer); you answer the same questions repeatedly (canned replies save real time); a second person needs to reply (per-agent fees on free plans add up fast — compare them against a flat $14.99); or you want the widget to match your site without someone else's logo on it.
Do the math that matters: one recovered customer or one saved hour a month is worth more than $15 to almost every business. If chat earns its keep, pay for it. If it doesn't yet, don't — check back when message volume grows.
The bottom line
Free chat is a fine starting point with real limits. Paid chat is worth it the moment missed messages, repeat questions, or per-agent fees cost you more than a flat monthly price. Either way, pick the option that matches how you actually reply to visitors — not the one with the longest feature list.