Pure Chat isn’t exactly a pioneer in the live chat business, but it is one of the better-known names, especially in the US. This Arizona-born company has been around since 2012, and, according to its website, serves over 14,000 users across 150 countries.
Pure Chat was acquired by virtual receptionist company Ruby in late 2020, and curiously (or perhaps tellingly), it doesn’t look like a lot has been updated since then. Its standalone AI-powered chatbot tool, ArtiBot.ai, doesn’t seem to get much of a mention on its website either.
Despite this, it does offer one key advantage: affordable plans that include multiple users, which is certainly interesting for budget-conscious businesses. And although we don’t go into it in this review, we do think its ArtiBot.ai chatbot - available for free - is worth checking out.
But, overall, does the good outweigh the bad? Let’s find out in this Pure Chat review.
Screenshots
Pure Chat Pricing
| $39 |
Growth For up to 4 users, on 1 website only. Includes all features (except for the ability to remove Pure Chat branding). 100 SMS notifications included. |
| $79 |
Pro For up to 10 users, for use on an unlimited number of sites. 1,000 SMS notifications included. All the same features as Growth plan, plus the ability to remove Pure Chat branding from chat widget. |
Prices for annual billing. Additional users can be added for $13/month on Growth plan, and $8/month on Pro plan.
Pros / Cons of Pure Chat
Simple pricing
Rather than having to choose from a long list of plans and pay per user, Pure Chat makes it easy: choose from either their Growth plan (for up to 4 users), or Pro plan (for up to 10 users). You can pay for more users if needed.
Easy to use
The tool is mostly self-explanatory, and is designed to get your live chat widget up and running in minutes.
Live analytics
When chatting to a user, you’ll be able to see their location, referral source, pages they’ve visited, and chat history. You can also integrate a Contact Tab, which loads up a predefined URL within the chat console (e.g. if you want to subscribe the user to your newsletter using a signup form)
No free plan
While you can take advantage of a free 30-day trial, you’ll need to opt for one of Pure Chat’s paid plans to continue using the service.
Lack of advanced features
If you need features such as advanced triggers/automations, integrations with other messaging channels, and voice/video calls, it’s better to look at alternatives such as Livechat or Userlike.
Not ideal for multilingual chat
While it’s possible to set up chat widgets in more than one language, the system isn’t really built to support this.
Rating Details
| criterion | rating | comments |
|---|---|---|
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Ease of use |
|
The platform is very simple to navigate, with a handful of manageable menu options. We’d love to see a slightly more modern and exciting design, but it’s certainly not a dealbreaker. However, we couldn’t find an easy way to access the support guides from inside the platform, which would be useful. |
|
Setup |
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As simple as can be – paste some code on your website, or use a plugin for tools like Shopify, Weebly and WordPress. The chat widget will appear on the whole site although you can specify pages where you don’t want it to appear. |
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Themes and Style Options |
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No themes to choose from although you can choose to display your chat button in their default ‘Modern’ style, display your own image, or simply show a button. Colors, text and image can be customized. |
|
Chat client |
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Displays a standard chat widget on your website. Visitors can send files and emoji, rate chat experiences and request a transcript. Nothing groundbreaking, but enough for basic chat needs. |
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Chat agent console |
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Integrated into the platform under the main dashboard. Mostly works well, however there are a few quirks in the user experience – for example, if you have an in-chat form activated (which is optional for users to fill in), you won’t get notified of new messages until the user fills in the form. |
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Automatic messaging |
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Triggers are limited to just a handful of options: time-based, URL-based and chatbot. We actually weren’t able to edit the latter – so not sure why this option is offered. |
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Offline mode |
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You can display an email form, show an unavailable message, or simply choose not to display the chat box. Asynchronous messaging is not available, which is a shame as many competitors offer this. |
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Shortcuts / canned messages |
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It’s possible to set up canned responses for individual agents, or for the whole team to use. The ‘Quick Add’ feature (which lets you create a new canned response mid-chat) is great. However, at times there was a lag between adding canned responses and being able to actually use them – we had to log out and in again first. |
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Tracking & live analytics |
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One of their best features. You get conversation history (including previous chats), referral source, location, and pages the contact has visited. |
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Multiple languages |
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A weak point. While you can create separate chat widgets for different languages, these will be very simplistic – they can’t be triggered based on geography or browser language, for example. The dashboard is also only available in English. |
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Ticketing system |
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Not offered. |
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Integrations and add-ons |
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There are direct integrations with Hubspot, Infusionsoft, Google Analytics and Zapier. |
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Team Management |
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You can add users and assign various roles/permissions to them. It’s also possible to invite team members to a chat. But it lacks advanced functionality such as chat routing, groups/teams, skill-based assignments, transferring chats etc. |
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Mobile support / apps |
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Android and iOS apps are available. |
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Voice/video calls |
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Not available. |
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Cobrowsing |
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Not available. |
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Ban users |
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It’s possible to ban IP addresses but not individual users. |
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Log creation |
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All chat transcripts are automatically saved and can be searched. You can also tag both contacts and transcripts (e.g. ‘support queries’, ‘sales queries’) to organize them. |
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Support |
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Their support articles are a bit tricky to access and are not the most comprehensive we’ve come across. Some also seem out of date. Email support was also a little slow to respond. |
|
Overall rating |
3.0/5 |
Pure Chat’s ease of use comes down to its simplified user interface and stripped-down list of features. It’s ideal for businesses with basic live chat needs, who want an affordable solution for multiple users. But it lags behind many of its competitors in terms of functionality and performance. |
Conclusion
After spending some time getting to know Pure Chat, I have to say my feelings towards it are a little mixed. On the one hand, I do appreciate its ease of use and simplicity, and can see how some businesses might appreciate having an affordable, no-fuss live chat solution. There are also some handy features like Automatic Scheduling (where you can set available and offline hours) and customizable visitor notifications, which are pretty unique in a live chat software.
In terms of reporting, you get a nice snapshot view into how your agents are doing (satisfaction rates, average chat durations etc). However, it’s not the most comprehensive reporting we’ve come across – so if you need to dig deeper into your analytics, we’d recommend a tool like LiveChat or Userlike.
And that’s not the only drawback. Compared to other live chat tools, it definitely feels like it’s missing a few key features – advanced triggered messages, chat routing, multilingual chat, voice calling, and multichannel integration being just a few of them.
It’s also lucky that the tool is so easy to use, because we did find the support articles a little lacking.
Overall, the software feels a bit neglected, which is not something you want to hear when signing up to a new tool. Nonetheless, if its attractive multi-user pricing is too strong a pull for you, we’d encourage you to give it a try. Just bear in mind that if your needs change, you might quickly find yourself limited by Pure Chat’s basic feature list.
About Inka Wibowo
Hi! My name is Inka Wibowo. I started using website builders and content management systems over 10 years ago, when I managed websites for clients in my first marketing role. Since then, I've worked on hundreds of web and digital projects. Now, at Tooltester, I'm happy to be able to use my experience to help users like you find the right website builder for your needs.
