Crisp vs HelpLoom
No hands-on testing was done, so no quality winner is claimed. Both are flat-priced challengers to per-seat incumbents, and both are cheap — the split is maturity versus price floor. Crisp: Free (2 seats), Mini $45/workspace/mo, Essentials $95, Plus $295 — flat per workspace, with AI credits included per tier ($5/$25/$75). HelpLoom: Free (30 threads/mo), $29/mo flat (inbox + help center + live chat), $59/mo adds the AI agent — unlimited users, no per-seat fees. HelpLoom's paid entry ($29) undercuts Crisp's ($45) and adds AI at $59; Crisp offers the more established product and a genuinely free tier. Small teams wanting the lowest flat bill should price both at their actual thread volume.
| Decision point | Crisp | HelpLoom |
|---|---|---|
| Best suited to | Small and mid-sized teams that want live chat, a shared omnichannel inbox, and AI support agents at a flat per-workspace price. | Small businesses that want affordable live chat, help centre and AI support.; Teams that want unlimited agents and threads without per-agent pricing. |
| Plans and cost | The Free plan is free forever with 2 seats included and no AI credits. Mini is $45 per month, per workspace (4 seats), Essentials is $95 per month, per workspace (10 seats), and Plus is $295 per month, per workspace (20+ seats); every plan can be tried free for 14 days, and Enterprise is custom-priced. | The pricing page read lists Free at $0 per month forever with 30 active threads per month and 3 team seats, Base at $29 per month with unlimited threads and team members, and Plus at $59 per month with 5,000 AI messages per month and a 250 MB knowledge base; the page read names no currency for these amounts, so no settled charge is recorded here. |
| Limitations | The free plan includes 2 seats and no AI credits, and AI usage on paid plans is capped by included credits ($5 on Mini, $25 on Essentials, $75 on Plus). Higher tiers are needed for the ticketing system, white labelling, and the full AI-first support suite. | Positioned against enterprise complexity, so it is not an enterprise support suite.; Free plan limited to 30 threads and 3 seats. |
Use the same input
Run your full support inbox on each for one month at 800 conversations and compare the invoice plus the AI deflection rate.
What a successful result must preserve
The platform must offer live chat plus an AI chatbot, avoid per-seat pricing (flat rate), publish its plans, and include a help center or knowledge base.
Evidence and test status
Official specification comparison. Pricing below comes from each vendor's official pricing pages, re-checked 2026-10-24. We did not run a scored deflection test; no quality ranking is claimed.
- Crisp — AI for customer service teams - Try for free - Crisp ↗, Pricing and plans - Crisp best deals - Crisp ↗
- HelpLoom — Helploom homepage ↗ (reviewed 2026-11-04), Helploom pricing ↗ (reviewed 2026-11-04)