LiveAgent Review
Help desk combining email ticketing, live chat, call center and social channels.
- Starting price
- $19/agent/mo
- Tier
- niche
- Founded
- —
- HQ
- Bratislava, SK
Our verdict
LiveAgent is the cheapest way in this comparison to get a real phone channel, and that is the reason to shortlist it. A built-in call centre with IVR arrives at $29 an agent a month, where most of the field either sells voice as a metered add-on or leaves it to Aircall entirely. The trade is at the other end: every social and messaging channel, WhatsApp included, is locked behind the $49 tier. If your customers reach you by phone, this is good value. If they reach you on Instagram, it is not the bargain the entry price suggests.
LiveAgent is the one to look at when somebody still picks up the phone. A built-in call centre with IVR lands on the second plan at $29 an agent a month, and almost nothing else in this comparison does that without an add-on, a Twilio account or an Aircall subscription. What you pay for it is a channel ladder that puts every social network three tiers up.
What it does
- Ticketing, live chat, knowledge base, customer portal, contact forms and automation rules on the entry plan
- A built-in call centre with IVR from the second plan, not a third-party integration
- AI agents included from the entry plan, with full setup assistance from the second
- Service levels, SSO and custom roles at the second plan, which is early for those
- Missing: SMS is not named on the pricing page at any tier
Pricing at a glance
- Per agent, per month. Small $19, Medium $35, Large $59, Enterprise $85 billed monthly
- Billed annually: $15, $29, $49 and $69
- Both figures are printed side by side on every plan. No toggle, nothing to misread, which makes LiveAgent the easiest pricing page in this comparison to check
- No free plan. A 30-day trial, no card required, no contracts, cancel any time
- Extra knowledge bases are $19 a month each, on every tier
The channel ladder is the catch
- Email, live chat, contact forms and a customer portal: entry plan, $15
- Phone and IVR: second plan, $29
- Facebook, Instagram, X, Viber, Telegram and WhatsApp: third plan, $49
- All the messaging channels arrive together, so there is no cheaper route to just one of them
- That is more than three times the entry price to answer an Instagram message, and a higher gate than any comparable desk here
Before you commit
- Work out which channels your customers actually use before reading the entry price as the price
- SMS is absent from the pricing page entirely. Ask rather than assume either way
- Removing LiveAgent branding from chat windows, the knowledge base and call windows is only free at Enterprise
- Each additional knowledge base is a recurring $19 a month, which adds up for multi-brand operations
Who should buy
- Teams with meaningful phone volume that cannot justify a separate call-centre product
- Smaller operations that want SLAs, SSO and custom roles without an enterprise contract
- Buyers who want to compare honestly, since the pricing page makes that unusually easy
Who should skip it
- Anyone whose customers mostly arrive on social or WhatsApp, where the real price is $49
- Teams wanting a free tier to grow into
- Buyers who need SMS confirmed before signing
How we checked this
Plan names, both billing bases, the channel gating and the trial terms were read from LiveAgent's own pricing page on 2026-09-25. Nothing needed to be inferred or screenshotted, because the page prints the monthly and annual figures together on every plan. SMS is recorded as not stated rather than unavailable, since absence from a pricing page is not a denial. No review-site text was used.
Channels
How each channel is delivered, and the plan it starts on. Native, through an integration, or absent.
Contact forms are listed on the entry plan.
Ticketing is on every plan, including the entry tier.
Native live chat from the entry plan. Proactive chat invitations arrive at Medium business.
A built-in call centre with IVR, not a third-party integration. Unusual at $29 an agent a month - most competitors in this set treat voice as a paid add-on or leave it to Aircall.
Facebook, Instagram, X, Viber and Telegram all arrive together at Large business. A markedly higher gate than most of this set.
Only from the third tier at $49 an agent a month, alongside the other messaging channels.
Checked on the vendor’s own pages, .
Strengths
- A built-in call centre with IVR from $29 an agent a month, not an add-on and not a third-party integration.
- The only vendor in this set to print both the monthly and the annual price side by side on every plan, with no toggle to misread.
- Ticketing, live chat, knowledge base, customer portal and automation rules all on the $15 entry plan.
- Service levels, SSO and custom roles arrive at the second tier rather than being held for enterprise.
- No contracts, cancel any time, and a 30-day trial with no card required.
- AI agents are included from the entry plan rather than metered separately.
Trade-offs
- Every social and messaging channel - Facebook, Instagram, X, Viber, Telegram and WhatsApp - needs the $49 Large business plan.
- That gate is roughly three times the entry price, and higher than any comparable vendor here.
- There is no free plan, only a 30-day trial.
- SMS is not named anywhere on the pricing page, at any tier.
- Extra knowledge bases cost $19 a month each, on every plan including Enterprise.
- Removing LiveAgent branding is only free at the Enterprise tier.