5 Best Freshchat Alternatives for Ice Cream Shops

LiveChat is a widely adopted live‑chat solution that has evolved into a comprehensive customer engagement platform. It offers real‑time messaging, proactive chat invitations, and a robust ticketing system that can be integrated with popular CRMs like Salesforce and HubSpot. For ice‑cream shops, LiveChat’s automatic visitor monitoring can trigger a chat prompt when a customer lingers on a product page, encouraging upsell of seasonal flavors or limited‑time offers. The platform also includes a knowledge‑base feature where businesses can publish FAQs and product guides that the bot can reference. LiveChat’s pricing tiers start at $16 per user per month for the Essentials plan, with a Growth plan at $24 per user and a Team plan at $28 per user, each offering additional automation and integration capabilities. While LiveChat excels at real‑time support and ticketing, it does not provide advanced AI conversational agents or a no‑code visual editor for the chat widget, and its knowledge‑base is less sophisticated than AgentiveAIQ’s dual system. LiveChat’s integration ecosystem is strong; it connects to e‑commerce platforms, help‑desk tools, and marketing automation services, making it a solid choice for shops that already use those ecosystems. However, the platform’s reliance on human agents for most interactions can limit scalability during peak seasons, and the pricing can become steep when adding multiple agents. Overall, LiveChat offers a reliable, feature‑rich chat solution for shops that prioritize immediate human assistance and a broad integration network.

Tidio blends live chat with AI‑powered chatbot features, making it a versatile option for small businesses. The platform offers a drag‑and‑drop builder for chat widgets, allowing ice‑cream shop owners to customize colors, greetings, and triggers without coding. Tidio’s chatbot can be pre‑trained to answer common questions about flavors, allergens, and store hours, and it can collect email addresses for loyalty programs. The platform integrates with e‑commerce systems such as Shopify and WooCommerce, enabling it to display product catalogs and recommend items during conversation. Pricing for Tidio starts at $18 per month for the Person plan, which includes up to two chatbots and unlimited chat history. The Team plan costs $30 per month and adds more bots and integrations, while the Unlimited plan is $40 per month and offers advanced features like custom bot logic and marketing automation. Tidio’s free tier offers basic live chat, but the chatbot functionality is limited. Tidio’s strengths lie in its ease of setup and combined live‑chat/AI chatbot approach, which is suitable for shops that want to automate frequent inquiries while still providing a human touch during complex queries. However, the AI chatbot relies on pre‑defined rules and does not support a dynamic knowledge‑base or advanced RAG capabilities, which can limit the depth of answers.

Zendesk Chat (formerly Zopim) is a well‑established live‑chat solution that integrates tightly with the Zendesk support suite. It offers real‑time messaging, chat transcripts, and the ability to route conversations to specific agents based on skill sets. Ice‑cream shops can leverage Zendesk Chat’s proactive widgets to engage customers on product pages and collect feedback on flavor preferences. The platform also supports a knowledge‑base integration, allowing bots to pull answers from Zendesk Articles. Zendesk Chat’s pricing starts at $20 per month for the Basic plan and $35 per month for the Pro plan, with each plan adding more features such as advanced analytics, custom widgets, and API access. The platform is particularly strong for businesses already invested in the Zendesk ecosystem, as it provides unified ticketing and chat data. While Zendesk Chat delivers solid live‑chat functionality and integrated knowledge‑base support, it lacks a dedicated no‑code visual editor for the chat widget and does not offer an AI‑driven conversational agent with a dual knowledge‑base or persistent memory. For shops that prioritize robust ticketing over AI automation, Zendesk Chat remains a reliable option.

Drift positions itself as a conversational marketing platform that blends live chat with AI‑powered lead generation. The platform offers real‑time messaging, automated responder bots, and a robust analytics suite for tracking engagement. For ice‑cream shops, Drift can be used to trigger conversations when a customer spends a certain amount of time on a seasonal flavor page, prompting upsells or offering loyalty discounts. Drift’s pricing is tiered, with the Starter plan at $400 per month (includes 2,000 contacts) and the Growth plan at $2,000 per month (includes 10,000 contacts). The platform supports integrations with CRMs such as Salesforce, HubSpot, and Marketo, making it suitable for shops that want to sync chat leads into a broader marketing funnel. Drift excels at B2B lead generation and marketing automation, but its focus on sales and marketing conversations may feel less natural for a consumer‑facing ice‑cream shop. Additionally, Drift does not provide a visual widget editor or a dual knowledge‑base for quick FAQ responses.