Chatwoot vs Crisp Comparison 2026
Both cover dm & comment automation. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
Open-source inbox for every channel at once
Shared inbox priced per workspace, not per seat
At a glance
- Chatwoot starts cheaper, at $19.
- Both have a genuinely free tier.
Side by side
Chatwoot | Crisp | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $19 | From $45 |
| Pricing model | Free plan, paid tiers | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Billing | Not stated | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | Not stated | 14 days |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Data export | Everything, in an open format | Not stated |
| Their cut | Not stated | None |
Shaded rows are where the two answers disagree and both listings have answered. A row where one side has not stated a fact is left plain, because silence is not a difference.
Chatwoot
Open-source inbox for every channel at once
Chatwoot collects website chat, email, Instagram, WhatsApp and the rest into one queue, and it is open source, so the version you self-host costs nothing and keeps the conversation data on your own server. That is the reason most people arrive. The hosted plans are priced per agent for anybody who would rather not run it. Setting up the self-hosted route is a real infrastructure job and the docs do not pretend otherwise.
Our note
Be honest about whether you have somebody who will keep a self-hosted deployment patched, because the free version is only free if that person already exists. If not, the hosted tier at $19 an agent is competitive on its own terms and the open source part is a nice fallback rather than the plan.
Only on this side
- Covers community platforms
Crisp
Shared inbox priced per workspace, not per seat
Crisp puts live chat, email, and the social inboxes into one thread per customer, and charges for the workspace rather than for each person in it. For a small team that pricing is the reason to look: adding a second and third person changes nothing on the bill. The free tier is a real chat widget rather than a countdown, which makes it a fair place to start.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.