Crisp

What is Crisp?

Crisp is affordable live chat and customer support software that bundles live chat, a shared inbox, a chatbot, and AI features into a single tool. Requests from multiple channels — website chat, email, and on higher plans also WhatsApp, Instagram, or SMS — are routed into one shared inbox so small teams can handle them centrally. This is complemented by a no-code chatbot, a knowledge base, and an internal AI CoPilot (including MagicReply for AI-drafted answers) that helps agents draft replies and summarise conversations. Crisp is aimed primarily at startups, small businesses, and solo operators looking for an affordable alternative to large support suites.

To see how Crisp stacks up against the established competition, check our overview of the best AI tools for customer service 2026, where Crisp competes as the most affordable AI live chat.

Crisp in our review: Strengths and weaknesses

Crisp's greatest strength is its value for money: even the free plan includes a fully functional website chat and shared inbox, and the paid tiers are significantly cheaper than many established competitors. The interface is clean and quick to set up, and the AI features — chatbot, CoPilot, automatic summaries, and multilingual replies — are sensibly integrated. Because Crisp is based in France and hosts its data in the EU, it is an attractive choice for privacy-conscious European businesses.

Weaknesses show up in the feature depth compared to larger platforms: reporting and automation are solid but less comprehensive than enterprise solutions, and some advanced features such as the ticketing system and white-labelling are only available on higher plans. AI credits are capped depending on the plan, which can lead to additional costs at very high conversation volumes.

Pricing and plans

Crisp is billed per workspace per month. The Free plan ($0) includes two agents, website chat, and the shared inbox, but no AI credits. Mini ($45/month) adds an email inbox, shortcuts, and chat triggers for up to four agents. Essentials ($95/month) brings omnichannel support (WhatsApp, Instagram, SMS), workflow automation, a knowledge base, and analytics. Plus ($295/month) includes the "AI-First Support Suite", a ticketing system, over 100 integrations, and white-labelling. A custom-priced Enterprise plan is available for larger organisations. All paid plans can be trialled free for 14 days.

Crisp alternatives compared

If you are weighing Crisp against other customer service tools, there are essentially three directions to consider. The most direct alternative is Tidio: similarly affordable, also with a free plan and strong Shopify and WooCommerce integration — the natural choice for e-commerce stores. If you need more AI automation and are willing to pay per resolved conversation, Intercom and its Fin AI agent are the better fit. For large support teams with high ticket volume and enterprise requirements, Zendesk AI is the more comprehensive but significantly more expensive platform. In all three cases, Crisp's argument stays the same: predictable flat pricing per workspace instead of billing per agent or per resolved request.

Who is Crisp for?

Crisp is particularly well-suited for startups, small support teams, and solo founders who want to bundle live chat, a shared inbox, and a chatbot at a manageable price — without the feature overhead and cost of an enterprise suite. Anyone who values EU hosting and data privacy will find a credible provider here. For very large organisations with complex routing, reporting, or ticketing requirements, more comprehensive platforms such as Intercom or Zendesk AI are the more natural choice; a similarly beginner-friendly alternative is Tidio.