Crisp

What it is

Crisp is a customer messaging platform that pulls website chat, email, WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, and more than ten channels total into one shared inbox, with a built-in CRM and knowledge base around it. Its AI agent answers routine questions through no-code workflows, handing over to a person when needed.

The most distinctive thing about Crisp is the pricing shape: a flat price per workspace. Not per seat, not per conversation. Your whole team works in it, your busiest month costs the same as your quietest, and the bill doesn't grow because your support volume did.

Who it's for (and who it isn't)

Crisp fits small teams that talk to customers across several messaging channels and want one place for all of it without per-agent math. The flat pricing is at its best exactly where per-seat tools sting: a five-person team where everyone occasionally answers chat would pay five seats elsewhere and one workspace here. The free plan covers two seats, enough for a founder duo to run real support on it, including outside office hours with the AI agent as the night shift.

It's a weaker fit for teams needing formal support structure: deep ticketing workflows, SLA management, and enterprise reporting are helpdesk territory, see Zendesk. And for a solo founder with modest chat volume, Tidio reaches a paid AI setup at a lower entry price.

Pricing

Crisp is freemium: the free plan includes 2 seats, and paid plans start from $45 per month, flat per workspace regardless of team size or conversation volume. That flat shape is the calculation to make: cheap per person for a team, but a bigger first step than per-seat entry prices if you're one person.

Set it up

Official guide: Getting Started With Crisp for Customer Support

1. Create a Crisp account on the Free plan: go to crisp.chat/en/pricing and click "Use Crisp for free". The Free plan has 2 seats, so you and one teammate can answer customers. Have your website address ready. You now work in app.crisp.chat.
2. Go to "Settings" > "Workspace Settings" > "Setup & Integrations" > "Chatbox setup instructions". Copy the full script, a short piece of code that adds the chat window to your site. You now have the script copied.
3. Paste the script into the head section of your site's code, or into your website builder's custom code area, then publish your site. Your chatbox, the chat window your visitors see, now appears on your live site.
4. Open your live site and send a test message through the chatbox, then open your Crisp Inbox. Your test message now shows up there as a conversation.
5. Open your test conversation in the Inbox and type a reply. Your reply now appears in the chatbox on your site.
6. Go to "Settings" > "Workspace Settings" > "Operators and Teams" and invite your second teammate. An operator is a person who answers customers. Your invitation now shows under "Operators and Teams".

When this works, visitors on your website can chat with you, every message lands in one shared inbox, and you and a teammate answer from it.

On a paid plan (from $45/mo per workspace, flat): Hugo, Crisp's AI agent, and the knowledge base (a set of help articles Hugo can answer from). The Free plan has neither, and not every paid plan includes both, so check Crisp's pricing page before you upgrade.

Strengths and limitations

Crisp's strengths are consolidation and predictable cost: many channels in one inbox with CRM context attached, at a flat price that doesn't punish adding teammates or having a busy month.

The limitation is the jump from free to $45 flat, which is real money for a solo founder, and the ceiling: it's built as a messaging-first tool, so formal ticketing depth and enterprise reporting are thinner than dedicated helpdesk platforms.