LiveChat versus Hubspot

LiveChat, originally from Poland, has been in the online customer service software business since 2002, being one the first companies to provide a live chat function to websites. Much like Google, Limousine, and Xerox, their brand name has become a synonym for the product.

As one of the largest liver chat providers, they offer a large number of app integrations and customization possibilities, ranging from CRM to e-commerce and help desk software. LiveChat has a substantial customer base of more than 37,000 companies worldwide.

Hubspot has a wide range of tools and products for inbound marketing, sales, and customer service. They offer 5 Hubs for each respective suite.

The idea for Hubspot was conceived in 2004 by two graduate students at MIT who saw the need for a more helpful, less interruptive, customer service platform. Nowadays, Hubspot has over 140,000 customers in 120+ countries and can be seen as one of Salesforce’s main competitors.

Hubspot’s products and plans are sorted into Hubs for Marketing, Sales, Customer Service, CMS, and Operations. You can combine the Hubs to create your own bundle or choose the complete Hubspot suite. Their Live Chat is included in the Free Tools plan of the Service Hub. This suite also includes the free features of their CRM Hub.

In 2017 Hubspot acquired a company named Motion.ai, a company purely focused on creating the best chatbots. Motion.ai is now known as Hubspot’s Chatbot Builder and is included in their CRM hub.

The Service Hub has integration options for more than 50 apps, most of which incur an additional fee.