Best Shopify Live Chat App: 8 Top Picks Compared (2026)

Shoppers leave when their questions go unanswered. A Shopify live chat app catches them in that moment and turns a hesitation into a sale. I tested seven of the best live chat apps for Shopify against their live App Store listings, so every rating and price here is current, not copied from last year’s roundups. I’m Allan Vu, Digital Marketing Specialist at BOGOS, and I review Shopify apps for store owners every week. Here is what actually fits your store, and where the popular rankings get it wrong.

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TL;DR

• Best all-in-one pick: Moose (formerly MooseDesk). It holds a perfect 5.0 rating, carries the Built for Shopify badge, and combines an AI chatbot, live chat, and a helpdesk in one Shopify-native app. Every plan includes unlimited AI replies, even the free one, with no per-ticket fees.
• Best proven alternative for most stores: Chatty AI Chatbot & Live Chat. It has the largest track record here, a 4.9 rating from 1,880 reviews, and the Built for Shopify badge.
• Best for high-volume support teams: Gorgias. It runs a full helpdesk across chat, email, SMS, voice, and social, with ticket-based pricing that fits busy stores.
• Best for AI Shopping Assistant: Carti. It gives every visitor a personal AI shopping assistant. It automatically learns the store’s products, collections, policies, reviews, and FAQs
• tawk.to’s real App Store rating is 3.6 from 89 reviews, with 21% one-star. Other roundups cite 4.2 to 4.8 from 200-plus reviews. That number is stale.
• All ratings, review counts, and prices below come from live Shopify App Store listings and developer pricing pages, checked in September 2026.

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1. How I tested and chose these apps, plus my 3 quick picks

I built this list from primary sources. For each app I read the live Shopify App Store listing, the developer’s documentation and pricing page, and the most recent merchant reviews. I checked every app for renames, price changes, and delistings, because those are exactly the details older articles miss. You can read our full method on the how we judge a Shopify app page.

This matters because most live chat roundups repeat outdated data. One popular article still calls Tidio “the highest-rated live chat app on the Shopify App Store” with “approximately 900 reviews.” Tidio now has 1,340 reviews, and it is no longer the highest-rated. I verified each number so you can install with confidence.

Based on these criteria, the three apps I recommend most highly are:

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2. Essential features to look for in a Shopify live chat app

The best live chat apps share a core set of features. Check each app against this list before you install.

• Real-time chat and a shared inbox: Agents answer shoppers live and manage every conversation in one place.
• AI chatbot and automation: A bot answers common questions, tracks orders, and covers you when no agent is online.
• Order, cart, and customer visibility: Agents see what the shopper has in their cart and their order history during the chat.
• Channel integrations: The best apps pull WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and email into the same inbox.
• A mobile app: You reply to shoppers from your phone when you are away from the desk.
• Proactive and cart-recovery messaging: The app reaches shoppers who hesitate at checkout and nudges them back.
• Low setup effort and no speed drag: A good widget installs without a developer and loads without slowing your store.
• A clear pricing model: Apps charge per agent, per conversation, per AI message, or per Shopify plan. Match the model to your volume.

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3. The 8 best Shopify live chat apps reviewed

App	Rating and reviews	Best for	Cons	Pricing
Moose	5.0 (482)	All-in-one AI chatbot, live chat, and helpdesk	Newer, smaller community than Tidio or Gorgias	Free; paid from $19/mo
Chatty	4.9 (1,880)	Proven AI plus live chat at scale	AI conversations capped by plan	Free; paid from $19.99/mo
Tidio	4.8 (1,340)	AI that acts on orders	Higher cost as you scale	Free; paid from $29/mo
Eesel	5.0 (4)	Stores that already run a helpdesk like Gorgias or Zendesk	Paid plans start higher than basic chat widgets	Based on your monthly usage
Algoshop	4.9 (79)	Proactive sales outreach	New app with a short track record	Free; paid from $39.90/mo
Carti	5.0 (5)	AI shopping assistant	Does not include traditional live-agent inbox	Free; paid from $49/mo
tawk.to	3.6 (89)	A genuinely free tool	Notification issues, fee to remove branding	Free
Gorgias	4.3 (705)	High-volume support teams	Ticket pricing gets expensive	From $10/mo
Reponse	No rating yet (0)	Chat, tickets, reviews, and loyalty in one app	No track record; French and English only	Free to install; All-in $99/mo

#1 Moose: AI Chatbot & Live Chat (formerly MooseDesk)

️🏆 Best for: Shopify merchants who want an AI chatbot, live chat, and a helpdesk in one Shopify-native app, without stitching together several tools or paying per-ticket fees.

Pricing:

• Free: $0 a month, with unlimited AI replies, AI training on 100 products, and 1 team member
• Starter: $19 a month, with 500 products, 3 team members, 1 email channel, and a 7-day trial
• Growth: $49 a month, with 5,000 products, 10 team members, unlimited email, and 300 tickets a month
• Business: $249 a month, with 20,000 products, unlimited team members, and 2,000 tickets a month

Rating and reviews:

• 5.0 stars from 482 reviews
• 98% of ratings are five stars

Moose is my top pick overall. Most Shopify chatbot apps do one job well. Moose combines three: an AI chatbot that handles FAQs, order tracking, and product questions on its own; live chat for human handoff; and a helpdesk that keeps every support conversation in one dashboard. It connects directly to your Shopify product catalog and order data through the API, so it answers with real store information instead of generic replies. The app was renamed from MooseDesk and now has paid tiers after an early free period.

The pricing is what sets it apart. Every plan includes unlimited AI chatbot replies, even the free one. There are no conversation caps, no per-resolution fees, and no surprise invoices in a busy month. MooseDesk’s team says it kept per-conversation pricing off on purpose, because it kept seeing merchants hit a cap mid-BFCM, when the chatbot would go quiet at the worst possible moment. For a small Shopify team, a predictable monthly cost matters more than usage-based billing.

Key features:

• Unlimited AI chatbot replies on every plan, including free
• Shopify-native connection to orders, products, and customer data through the API, with no manual sync
• Three tools in one: AI chatbot, live chat, and helpdesk under a single subscription
• FAQ builder, order tracking, and self-service support
• Mobile app and a multilingual widget

Pros and cons:

• Pro: Unlimited AI chatbot replies on every tier, including free
• Pro: Flat monthly pricing, with no per-ticket or per-resolution fees
• Pro: Shopify-native, so it reads orders, products, and customer data without a manual sync
• Pro: A free plan that is genuinely usable for a store getting started
• Con: A newer player, with a smaller community and fewer third-party tutorials than Tidio or Gorgias
• Con: Advanced ticket workflows and custom roles sit on the higher tiers

What merchants say: Merchants repeatedly praise the free plan and the fast, helpful support team, naming specific agents. Reviewers also call the setup quick and the interface clean. I found no recurring complaint pattern. Moose is not the right fit if you need a full omnichannel helpdesk that pulls email, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and phone into one inbox at scale. Gorgias handles that channel breadth better.

#2 Chatty AI Chatbot & Live Chat

️🏆 Best for: Stores that want a proven AI chatbot and live chat in one built-for-Shopify app.

Pricing:

• Free: 50 AI conversations a month, unlimited human conversations, AI trained on up to 200 products
• Basic: $19.99 a month, adds AI order tracking, a multi-channel inbox, and five members
• Pro: $68.99 a month, adds the AI shopping assistant, proactive engagement, and cart recovery
• Plus: $199 a month, adds up to 1,000 AI conversations and AI training on up to 20,000 products
• Extra AI conversations cost $0.40 each

Rating and reviews:

• 4.9 stars from 1,880 reviews
• 95% of ratings are five stars

Chatty pairs an AI sales agent with live chat and a helpdesk inbox. The bot answers product questions, suggests products, and tracks orders while you are away. Your team then manages WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and email from one dashboard. It launched in 2022 and has the largest review base of any app here.

Key features:

• AI chatbot trained on your products, FAQs, and past chats
• Multi-channel inbox for chat, email, and social messages
• FAQ help center that lets customers self-serve
• Proactive messages based on visitor behavior
• Mobile app for replies on the go

Pros and cons:

• Pro: Highest review count on this list, plus the Built for Shopify badge
• Pro: Free plan runs unlimited human conversations
• Con: AI conversations are capped by plan, and overages cost extra
• Con: The feature set takes time to learn

What merchants say: Merchants praise the support team by name and the ease of customizing the chat widget and FAQ page. The common complaint is a learning curve for new users, though reviewers say support helped them through it.

#3 Tidio: AI Chatbot & Live Chat

️🏆 Best for: Stores that want an AI agent that acts on orders, not just answers questions.

Pricing:

• Free: live chat for 50 users, automation flows for up to 100 visitors a month, ticketing, and the mobile app
• Customer Service: $29 a month for 100 conversations, scaling to $59 for up to 1,000
• Lyro AI Chatbot: $39 a month for up to 200 AI conversations with native Shopify actions

Rating and reviews:

• 4.8 stars from 1,340 reviews
• 86% of ratings are five stars

Tidio is one of the most established apps in this category, live since 2014. Its Lyro AI agent goes beyond answers. It handles order status, refunds, cancellations, and order edits inside Shopify, and it sells on product pages by comparing products and adding items to the cart. AI usage is capped, so your bill never surprises you.

Key features:

• Lyro AI agent with native Shopify order actions
• Chat, email, Instagram, and WhatsApp in one inbox
• Proactive AI on product pages that recommends and adds to cart
• Visual chatbot builder and automation flows
• Capped AI usage to control costs

Pros and cons:

• Pro: AI that takes real actions on orders, not just replies
• Pro: Long track record and strong onboarding
• Con: Costs climb as your conversation volume grows
• Con: Some merchants want better email ticket assignment

What merchants say: Merchants highlight easy setup and high AI resolution rates, with one store reporting around 90% of inquiries handled by Lyro. A few larger teams ask for more control over routing email tickets.

#4 Eesel: AI Chatbot & Live Chat

🏆 Best for: Stores that already run a helpdesk like Gorgias or Zendesk and want AI that answers from their own past tickets and Shopify orders.

Pricing:

• Free: $0 a month with 100 credits to try every feature and integration, no card needed
• Teammate: from $299 a month for 500 credits, where a ticket or chat is 1 credit however long it runs
• Enterprise: $5,000 a month, flat, with no credits to count

Rating and reviews:

• 5.0 stars from 4 reviews
• 100% of ratings are five stars

Eesel AI works inside the helpdesk you already use, or as a chat bubble on your store, so you add AI without switching tools. It learns from your past tickets and help docs, and it reads Shopify order data so it can answer “where is my order” and return questions with real details. Before it talks to a shopper, you can test it on your old tickets and see how it would have replied, then hand anything tricky to a person with the conversation attached. It connects to 3,000+ apps and answers in more than 80 languages. Technical teams can also set it up from the terminal with the eesel CLI: one command connects a helpdesk, uploads knowledge or adds a chat bubble, and every command returns JSON, so coding agents like Claude Code, Cursor and Codex can run the setup for you.

Key features:

• AI agent that plugs into Gorgias, Zendesk, Freshdesk and other helpdesks
• Answers with live Shopify order details
• Test on past tickets before going live
• eesel CLI for setup from the terminal or a coding agent
• 3,000+ integrations and replies in 80+ languages

Pros and cons:

• Pro: No need to switch helpdesks to add AI
• Pro: You see how it would have replied before shoppers ever do
• Con: Paid plans start higher than basic chat widgets
• Con: Best results need good help docs or ticket history

What merchants say: Merchants praise how easily it connects to their helpdesk and Shopify, and how it pulls answers from thousands of past tickets and orders. They also single out the eesel team as quick to help with setup.

#4 Algoshop AI Chatbot & Live Chat

️🏆 Best for: Stores that want a chatbot to sell proactively, not just answer support questions.

Pricing:

• Free: 100 AI messages and 100 live chat messages a month, 100 products synced, custom logo and avatar, analytics
• Starter: $39.90 a month, adds 1,000 AI messages, order tracking, and 1,000 products
• Essential: $79.90 a month, adds the WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram AI chatbot
• Ultimate: $199.90 a month, adds 10,000 AI messages and unlimited product sync

Rating and reviews:

• 4.9 stars from 79 reviews
• 94% of ratings are five stars

Algoshop treats the chatbot as a sales engine. It watches shopper behavior in real time and triggers Outreach Cards with coupons, product recommendations, and countdown timers. It also manages WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram messages and auto-replies to social comments. It is the newest app on this list, launched in January 2026, so it has a shorter track record than the others.

Key features:

• Proactive Outreach Cards triggered by shopper behavior
• 24/7 multilingual AI chatbot across 20-plus languages
• WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram management with social auto-reply
• Self-service order tracking with live chat handoff
• Analytics dashboard for behavior insights

Pros and cons:

• Pro: Proactive selling features that most support-first apps lack
• Pro: Built for Shopify badge despite being new
• Con: New app with the smallest review base here
• Con: Message-quota pricing can add up for busy stores

What merchants say: Merchants like the human-like tone, the single dashboard for social channels, and the fact that the widget does not slow their store. One reviewer felt the free trial was too limited to judge performance, and the developer replied that the free plan renews monthly.

#5 Carti: AI Shopping Assistant

🏆 Best for: Stores that want their chat to sell, not just answer support tickets.

Pricing:

• Free: 50 AI conversations per month, full AI sales assistant, proactive engagement, and support for 90+ languages
• Starter: $49 per month for 250 AI conversations, advanced conversion analytics, and no Carti branding
• Growth: $99 per month for 600 AI conversations, incremental-lift reporting, and a monthly performance report
• Scale: $249 per month for 1,750 AI conversations, white-glove onboarding, and unlimited integration builds
• Every paid plan includes a 14-day free trial

Rating and reviews:

• 5.0 stars from 5 reviews
• 100% of ratings are five stars

Carti gives every visitor a personal AI shopping assistant. It automatically learns the store’s products, collections, policies, reviews, and FAQs. There are no scripts to write or conversation flows to build.

Carti answers questions, helps shoppers discover products, and addresses the concerns stopping them from buying. It can compare options, recommend related products, and build a shopper’s cart directly inside the conversation.

Carti also steps in proactively when shoppers are most likely to need help. It notices when shoppers are lingering on a product, browsing without deciding, or preparing to leave. Carti then offers relevant assistance, identifies the roadblock, and helps move the shopper toward checkout.

Every conversation is logged, and every order Carti influences is attributed. Merchants can review performance, uncover recurring questions, and learn what prevents shoppers from buying. Paid plans even include holdout testing to measure Carti’s incremental lift.

Key features:

• Instant answers to product, sizing, shipping, and policy questions
• Natural-language product search beyond exact keyword matches
• Personalized recommendations and product comparisons
• In-chat upsells, cross-sells, and add-to-cart
• Proactive messages based on shopper behavior
• Revenue attribution and customer conversation insights
• Integrations with Judge.me, Loox, Yotpo, Klaviyo, Gorgias, and Zendesk
• Support for 90+ languages and 15+ currencies
• Five-minute, no-code setup

Pros and cons:

• Pro: Combines proactive engagement, product discovery, and in-chat cart building
• Pro: Automatically learns the store without scripts or manual conversation flows
• Pro: Includes revenue attribution and holdout testing on higher plans
• Con: Relatively new, with fewer reviews than more established alternatives
• Con: Does not include a traditional live-agent inbox

What merchants say: Corinthian’s Corner reports that shoppers who engage with Carti convert at 3.5 times the store average. The app also generated $3,480 in attributed revenue over 30 days. Fans Of Free reported a 35% increase in its overall store conversion rate after installing Carti. All of Carti’s Shopify App Store reviews are five stars.

#7 tawk.to Live Chat

️🏆 Best for: Stores that need live chat and have zero budget.

Pricing:

• Free: real-time chat, ticketing, a knowledge base, and unlimited agents
• Paid add-ons: branding removal and hired agents cost extra

Rating and reviews:

• 3.6 stars from 89 reviews
• 71% of ratings are five stars, but 21% are one star

tawk.to is genuinely free, with no limit on agents, chats, or sites. It includes ticketing, a knowledge base, and visitor monitoring, and it runs on iOS and Android. The catch is the polarized rating. Many roundups cite tawk.to at 4.2 to 4.8 from 200 or more reviews. Its live Shopify App Store listing tells a different story: 3.6 stars from 89 reviews, with one in five ratings at one star.

Key features:

• Unlimited agents and unlimited chats for free
• Ticketing and a built-in knowledge base
• Real-time visitor monitoring
• 45-plus languages
• iOS and Android apps

Pros and cons:

• Pro: Truly free for the core features
• Pro: No cap on agents or chat volume
• Con: A $29 charge just to remove the branding, and the AI plan is not available through Shopify
• Con: Merchants report missed-chat notifications and leftover code after uninstall

What merchants say: Positive reviews focus on the price, since the core tool costs nothing. The one-star reviews cluster around real issues: notifications that fail, a fee to remove branding, settings you manage on tawk.to’s site instead of your Shopify admin, and tracking code left behind after uninstall.

#8 Gorgias: AI, Helpdesk & Chat

️🏆 Best for: High-volume stores that need a full helpdesk, not just a chat widget.

Pricing:

• Starter: $10 a month for three agents and 50 tickets, then $0.40 per extra ticket
• Basic: $60 a month for unlimited agents and 300 tickets
• Pro: $360 a month for 2,000 tickets
• Advanced: $900 a month for 5,000 tickets

Rating and reviews:

• 4.3 stars from 705 reviews
• 82% of ratings are five stars

Gorgias is a helpdesk built for ecommerce. It centralizes chat, email, SMS, voice, and social in one inbox, then layers an AI agent on top that resolves tickets end to end. It pulls order data, tracking, and customer history straight into the widget, and it connects to more than 100 other tools. Pricing is based on ticket volume, which suits stores with steady support demand.

Key features:

• Unified inbox for chat, email, SMS, voice, and social
• AI agent that resolves tickets on its own
• AI shopping assistant that recommends and upsells
• Deep Shopify data inside every conversation
• 100-plus integrations

Pros and cons:

• Pro: The most complete helpdesk on this list
• Pro: AI agent deflects a real share of routine tickets
• Con: Ticket-based pricing climbs to $900 a month at the top tier
• Con: Heavier than a small store needs

What merchants say: Merchants praise the AI agent for handling routine tickets and single out their customer success managers by name. Many have used Gorgias for years. The recurring concern is cost, since ticket-based pricing adds up for growing stores.

#9 Reponse: Chat/Support/Loyalty

🏆 Best for: Stores that want live chat, tickets, reviews, and loyalty in one app, with unlimited human chat and unlimited seats on the free plan.

Pricing:

• Reponse: $0 a month to install, plus usage. AI Tasks cost $0.05 each
• Reponse All-in: $99 a month, with all AI agents and 2,000 AI conversations included, then $0.05 per extra conversation
• Billed through Shopify, so usage charges land on your Shopify invoice

Rating and reviews:

• No rating yet, 0 reviews
• Launched 2 October 2025 by Shmore (La Chevrolière, France)

Reponse is the broadest app on this list and the newest. It runs as four modules you switch on one by one: a shared inbox with unlimited human live chat, tickets with assignment and SLA, product reviews you collect and moderate, and loyalty points with referrals. All of it sits inside your Shopify admin, and the human side is free for as many team members as you need. The $99 All-in plan turns on the AI agents, which guide shoppers to checkout, sort tickets and draft replies, moderate reviews, and flag customers who look likely to leave.

The angle here is consolidation. Most stores pay for a chat app, a reviews app, and a loyalty app separately. Reponse puts all three under one subscription and shows tickets, reviews, and points on the Shopify customer page, so your team sees one history per shopper instead of three.

Key features:

• Shared inbox with unlimited human live chat on every plan, including free
• Tickets with assignment, SLA, and saved replies
• Product review collection and moderation, with AI-drafted replies on All-in
• Loyalty points, tiers, rewards, and referrals in the same app
• Contacts, segments, and analytics, with tickets, reviews, and points on the Shopify customer page
• Works with customer accounts and Shopify Flow

Pros and cons:

• Pro: Unlimited human live chat and unlimited team members on the free plan
• Pro: Replaces separate chat, helpdesk, reviews, and loyalty subscriptions with one app
• Pro: You only start paying when you switch the AI on
• Con: Zero reviews so far, so there is no merchant track record to check before you install
• Con: The app supports French and English only
• Con: No WhatsApp, Instagram, or Messenger inbox, so multichannel stores still need another tool
• Con: AI billing is usage-based at $0.05 a conversation, which is harder to forecast than a flat cap

What merchants say: Nothing yet. The listing has no reviews, so there is no feedback pattern to read. Treat it as an early-stage app, and test it on a quiet week rather than during BFCM.

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4. How to pick the right live chat app for your store

The best app depends on your store’s size, budget, and support volume. Match your situation to one of these.

• You run a new or small store on a tight budget: Start with Moose for unlimited free AI replies, or tawk.to if you want a free tool with human chat only.
• You want one app for chatbot, live chat, and support tickets: Choose Moose. It combines all three in a Shopify-native app with flat pricing and no per-ticket fees.
• You are growing and want AI to deflect tickets: Choose Chatty or Tidio. Both pair a capable AI agent with live chat and scale as you grow.
• You sell across many channels: Pick an app with a true multichannel inbox, such as Chatty, Tidio, or Algoshop, so WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, and email land in one place.
• You handle high support volume: Choose Gorgias for a full helpdesk with ticketing across email, SMS, voice, and social, or Tidio for a lighter established option.
• You want chat to recover carts and drive sales: Look at Algoshop for proactive Outreach Cards, or Tidio and Chatty for cart recovery on their higher tiers.
• You want chat, support tickets, reviews, and loyalty in one subscription: Look at Reponse. Human live chat and team seats are free, and you only pay once you turn the AI on. Just accept that it has no review history yet.

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Conclusion

The right Shopify live chat app depends on what your store needs today. For most stores, Moose is the pick, combining an AI chatbot, live chat, and a helpdesk in one Shopify-native app with unlimited AI replies on every plan. For the longest proven track record, Chatty is the strong alternative. For high-volume support teams, Gorgias delivers a full helpdesk. Before you install any of them, check the live App Store listing yourself, and if you want the exact setup steps, our guide on how to add live chat to Shopify walks through all three install methods. Ratings, prices, and even app names change, and the current data should guide your choice, not a ranking from last year.

FAQs