Crisp vs LinoChat (2026): Honest Free-Tier Comparison

TL;DR. Crisp wins on widget polish and magic browse (live visitor session preview). LinoChat wins by including AI on the free tier, capping at workspace not seat count, and shipping built-in ticketing. If AI is non-negotiable in 2026, the comparison ends there.

Crisp and LinoChat both ship a free tier you can install in under 10 minutes. Both have clean widgets. Both work on mobile. Both offer some form of AI.

But — and this is the part the marketing pages don't make easy — the differences matter once you're past the install. We ran both on the same staging site for 30 days, with the same five help articles, the same volume of test chats, and the same agent workflow. Here's what we found.

The 30-second comparison

What you actually get for free

Crisp Free. 2 seats, the chatbox, mobile apps (iOS + Android), Magic Browse (live preview of what the visitor is doing), 30-day conversation history. AI features (chatbot, FAQ-grounding) are paid.

LinoChat Free. A small-team seat allowance, full chatbox, mobile + desktop apps, unlimited conversation history, AI assistant grounded on your help docs, and built-in ticketing for escalations.

The biggest practical difference: LinoChat ships AI on free, Crisp doesn't. If you want AI in 2026 — and most teams should — LinoChat ends the comparison there.

Round 1: Setup speed

Both are quick installs. We measured:

• Crisp: 24 minutes from signup to first live chat
• LinoChat: 18 minutes (no email verification + AI training in parallel)

Negligible for most teams. Crisp's onboarding is slightly prettier; LinoChat's is slightly shorter.

Round 2: Widget aesthetics

Crisp has been a design-forward brand for years. The widget feels handcrafted, with subtle micro-animations that competitors don't bother with. The default colors and shapes work without theming.

LinoChat's widget is more conservative — clean, professional, themable in two clicks. For most SaaS and marketing sites it's the safer default. For a portfolio, gallery, or design-led brand, Crisp will feel slightly more at home out of the box.

Verdict: Crisp on aesthetics, LinoChat on safety.

Round 3: Magic browse — Crisp's real differentiator

This deserves its own section. Crisp's "magic browse" lets you watch what a visitor is doing on your site, live, while you're chatting with them. You can see them scrolling, hovering, getting confused at a checkbox.

For some products — onboarding-heavy SaaS, complex configurators, multi-step checkout flows — this is genuinely useful. For most use cases, it's a feature you'll use twice and forget.

LinoChat doesn't have this today. If magic browse is non-negotiable for your workflow, that's a Crisp argument.

Round 4: AI co-pilot

LinoChat's AI works in three modes — suggest, supervised, full automation. Even on the free tier, the suggest mode is on by default: as a customer types, LinoChat drafts a reply that the agent can read, edit in one click, and send.

Crisp's AI requires a paid upgrade and even then is positioned more as customer-facing chatbot than agent-side co-pilot.

If you want the AI to help your humans (the safest entry point — see The AI Customer Support Playbook), LinoChat is the only free option that does it well in 2026.

Round 5: Mobile and notifications

Both have iOS + Android apps. Both are reliable. LinoChat additionally fires desktop browser notifications on incoming chats by default; Crisp does too but requires a permission flow you have to opt into.

For solo founders working from one device, this might not matter. For two-person teams where one person is on mobile and one on desktop, LinoChat's defaults reduce friction.

Round 6: Pricing past the free tier

Crisp's paid tiers jump in functionality, not just seats:

• Pro (~$25/month) — unlocks multi-conversation routing, MagicMap, integrations
• Unlimited (~$95/month) — unlocks unlimited everything plus AI

LinoChat's paid tiers are workspace-priced. You pay one flat workspace fee that doesn't scale by seat. The upgrade trigger is AI volume, not headcount.

For a 3-person team that wants AI:

• Crisp: ~$95/month (Unlimited) for ~$285 saved against Tidio + AI elsewhere
• LinoChat: flat workspace plan, AI included, no per-seat scaling

For a 5-person team, the gap widens further in LinoChat's favor.

Where Crisp wins

• Widget aesthetics out of the box
• Magic browse (live visitor session preview)
• Slightly nicer mobile composer
• Better fit for design-led brands

Where LinoChat wins

• AI on the free tier
• AI co-pilot for human agents
• Unlimited conversation history (not 30 days)
• Workspace pricing on paid tiers
• Built-in ticketing for escalations
• Multi-tenant for agencies — see Customer Support for Agencies

The decision tree

• Want AI from day one? → LinoChat
• Want magic browse? → Crisp
• Need ticketing alongside chat? → LinoChat
• Solo founder, design-led brand, no AI yet? → Crisp
• Will scale past 2 seats this year? → LinoChat

Frequently asked questions

Is Crisp free actually free?

Yes — 2 seats, basic chatbox, magic browse, 30-day history. Features beyond that (AI, multi-conversation routing, integrations) require paid tiers.

Is LinoChat free actually free?

Yes — small-team seat allowance, full chatbox, AI assistant included, unlimited history, ticketing. The natural upgrade trigger is AI volume.

Can I migrate from Crisp to LinoChat?

Yes. Export your Crisp conversations as CSV (Settings → Export), install LinoChat's widget, train the AI on your help docs. Plan 24–48 hours of parallel operation for a soft cutover.

Which has better mobile apps?

Both are reliable on iOS and Android. Crisp's mobile composer is slightly more polished. LinoChat's notifications are slightly more aggressive by default, which helps small teams not miss messages.

Why doesn't Crisp ship AI on free?

Crisp's positioning has historically been design-led, with AI as a paid upgrade. LinoChat made the opposite bet — AI is the floor, not the ceiling.

Get started

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