Cheap software, and an AI that costs more than the software

JivoChat is an omnichannel service product built around a chat widget with a team behind it. The free tier alone carries online chat for websites, integration with Telegram, Facebook, Instagram and Viber, a callback feature, offline forms, and desktop, mobile and browser applications for the agents. Every tier advertises unlimited chats and unlimited websites, a chat widget in 25 languages, and unlimited chat history storage on the paid plans. It is sold to businesses that want people answering, on many surfaces, without counting conversations.

The plans are per agent and the published figures on the date checked were all shown billed annually: Free at $0 including 5 agents, Basic at $28 per agent a month, Professional at $42 and Enterprise at $56. Basic adds proactive invitations and pre chat buttons, real time visitor monitoring, ready answers with an automatic assistant, anti spam and the Jivo CRM. Professional adds the Telephony Plus module, WhatsApp integration, voice messages on Telegram, Instagram and Facebook, chatbot integration and chat rescue. Enterprise adds the mobile SDK, chat routing, video calls and the chat API. Professional and Enterprise carry a 14 day trial period, and the page notes that VAT is not included and is calculated at checkout based on your location.

The AI is sold as two separate modules on top of all that. The AI assistant, described as integrated technology from a named model vendor that helps your support team write, is $13 a month when paying for a year. The AI Agent, which is the thing that actually answers customers, is listed at $69 per agent per month when billed annually and is described as resolving up to 80 percent of conversations automatically. Their own AI Agent page states that when setting it up you specify your website and upload information to the knowledge base, and that it will only consider your content. It also says it integrates with any channel including website chat, messaging apps, social media and email, and that support agents can monitor conversations in real time and connect at any time.

So the shape is unusual. The support software is priced to be bought without much thought, and the AI is priced like a separate product, per agent, above every plan underneath it. Five people with the AI Agent enabled is $345 a month for the AI before the $140 of Basic licences beneath it. That may be exactly right for a call centre replacing headcount and it is a strange purchase for a marketing site with one person. Every figure above is what JivoChat published on the checked date. Prices move, so read their pricing page and ours before deciding.

Written to be used rather than to be waved at. If any of these describe you, this is the wrong product and the rest of the page will not change that.

• The free tier is the most generous on any of these pages. Five agents, unlimited chats and unlimited websites at $0, with Telegram, Facebook, Instagram and Viber connected and real agent applications for desktop and mobile. If you have people and no budget, install Jivo and come back when the AI line item starts to make sense.
• Unlimited websites, on every tier, at no extra fee. If you are an agency or a group with fifteen properties, that is a materially better shape than any allowance we sell, and it does not become a conversation with sales at any point.
• You need channels and a telephone. WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram, Facebook, Viber, telephony, voice messages, video calls and a mobile SDK are all published, and their AI Agent is described as working across all of them. This product answers text on your own website and has no second surface at any price.
• You are running a support desk, not a page. Chat routing, departments, positions and permissions for registered employees, webhooks, a chat API and CRM are the actual product, and nothing here queues, assigns, routes or reports on a team.
• You want a person able to take over mid conversation. Their AI Agent page states that support agents can monitor conversations in real time and connect at any time. Askably cannot be joined. When a visitor asks for a person it takes a name, an email and a message and sends an email.

• Nothing here is priced per agent, so the AI does not get more expensive as the team grows. The whole list is $0, $29, $99 and $299 a month. On their published figures, the AI Agent alone is $69 per agent per month billed annually, which is more than the Enterprise support licence it sits on.
• Every answer carries numbered references into the passages behind it. Their AI Agent page says it will only consider your content, which is the same restriction, but we found no claim that a visitor is shown which part of your content produced the sentence they are reading.
• The stopping rule is yours. You set a match score, and beneath it the question never reaches a model and the visitor gets your fallback wording. A published figure of up to 80 percent of conversations resolved automatically is a claim about their fleet, not a control you can turn.
• Their pricing page did not address removing the JivoChat name from the widget on any tier. Here the name is off from $29 a month, and appearance is yours down to custom CSS with the launcher in a closed shadow root and the panel in its own frame.
• Every price above is the price. Jivo's figures are all shown billed annually, with VAT added at checkout depending on where you are, and the AI is a module rather than part of a plan.

Read off their own site on that date, quoted narrowly. Prices and packaging in this category change often, so treat this as a snapshot and check both before you decide.

Listing this is more useful than filling it in. Every line here is something that was not clearly published, or was behind a sign-up.

• Every plan and module figure was shown billed annually. The monthly billing price for Basic, Professional, Enterprise or the AI Agent was not visible, so what a month to month commitment costs is unknown.
• Removing the JivoChat name from the chat widget was not addressed on the pricing page or on any page read, so whether it is possible, and on which tier, is unknown.
• Whether AI Agent conversations are metered in any way on top of the per agent fee, or whether the fee covers unlimited automated conversations, was not stated.
• Whether the AI Agent shows a visitor which uploaded document or page an answer came from was not claimed on its own product page.

Is JivoChat cheaper than this?

The support software is, comfortably. The AI is not. Basic at $28 an agent a month is excellent value and their free tier is better than ours. Add the AI Agent at $69 an agent a month billed annually and the arithmetic reverses for anyone with more than one person.

Can I run their live chat and this together?

Only by putting two launchers on one page, which visitors handle badly. If you want people in the widget, use Jivo's own AI Agent with it rather than bolting ours alongside.

Does this work on WhatsApp or Telegram?

No. There is no messaging channel, no social channel, no telephony, no video and no mobile software development kit. Your own website only.

How many websites can one plan cover here?

Free is one assistant on one site, Starter is three assistants at three sites each, and Agency is ten assistants at ten sites each with a custom domain. Jivo publishes unlimited websites on every tier including the free one, which is plainly better if site count is your constraint rather than answer volume.