Crisp

Crisp is a rapidly growing all-in-one customer messaging platform that has earned its reputation as one of Europe's most compelling alternatives to Intercom and Drift. Founded in 2015 and headquartered in Nantes, France, Crisp was built from the ground up by co-founders Baptiste Jamin and Valerian Saliou with a clear vision: to provide businesses with a unified platform for managing every customer conversation across every channel, without the bloated pricing and complexity of American incumbents. Today, Crisp serves over 500,000 businesses worldwide and has established itself as a favorite among startups, SMBs, and growing enterprises that value simplicity, affordability, and European data protection.

What makes Crisp particularly noteworthy in the crowded customer support space is its all-in-one approach. Rather than requiring businesses to cobble together separate tools for live chat, chatbots, knowledge bases, CRM, and email campaigns, Crisp bundles all of these capabilities into a single cohesive platform. This unified approach not only simplifies the tech stack but also creates a seamless experience for both support agents and customers, as all interactions and customer data flow through one system. For European businesses concerned about GDPR compliance, having a single French-based vendor handle all customer communication data is significantly simpler than managing data processing agreements with multiple American providers.

Live Chat and Real-Time Messaging

At the heart of Crisp is its live chat widget, which can be installed on any website with a simple JavaScript snippet. The widget is beautifully designed with extensive customization options, allowing businesses to match it to their brand colors, logo, and messaging style. The chat interface supports rich media including images, videos, files, and GIFs, making conversations more engaging than plain text exchanges. The widget also supports real-time typing indicators, read receipts, and message reactions, creating a messaging experience that feels as natural as WhatsApp or iMessage.

Crisp's live chat goes beyond basic messaging with several advanced features. The MagicBrowse feature allows support agents to see a visitor's screen in real-time (with their permission), enabling visual troubleshooting without asking customers to describe what they see. The co-browsing capability takes this further by allowing agents to draw annotations on the visitor's screen or even take control to guide them through complex processes. These features are particularly valuable for SaaS companies and e-commerce businesses where visual context can dramatically speed up issue resolution.

Shared Inbox and Multi-Channel Support

Crisp's shared inbox aggregates conversations from multiple channels into a single unified view. Beyond website live chat, the platform integrates with email, Facebook Messenger, Instagram DM, Twitter DM, WhatsApp, Telegram, and Line. All conversations appear in the same inbox regardless of which channel the customer used, and agents can respond from the same interface. This omnichannel approach ensures that no customer message falls through the cracks, regardless of how they choose to reach out.

The shared inbox includes powerful team collaboration features. Conversations can be assigned to specific team members or departments, with routing rules that automatically direct messages to the right person based on criteria like language, topic, or customer segment. Internal notes allow agents to collaborate on complex issues without the customer seeing the discussion. The inbox also supports canned responses (saved replies) that help agents respond quickly and consistently to frequently asked questions.

Chatbot Builder and Automation

Crisp provides a visual chatbot builder that allows businesses to create automated conversation flows without writing code. The drag-and-drop interface makes it easy to design bot scenarios that can qualify leads, answer common questions, schedule meetings, and route complex inquiries to human agents. The chatbot supports conditional logic, variables, and API integrations, enabling sophisticated automation workflows that go far beyond simple FAQ responses.

The automation extends beyond chatbots to include triggered messages and campaigns. Businesses can set up proactive messages that appear when visitors meet specific criteria, such as spending a certain amount of time on a pricing page, returning to the site for the third time, or being located in a particular country. These targeted triggers can significantly increase engagement and conversion rates by reaching out to visitors at the right moment with the right message.

Knowledge Base and Help Center

Crisp includes a built-in knowledge base that allows businesses to create and publish help articles, tutorials, and documentation. The knowledge base features a clean, modern design with full-text search, categories, and multilingual support. Articles support rich formatting including images, videos, code blocks, and embedded content. The help center can be customized with your brand colors and can be served on a custom domain for a seamless customer experience.

The knowledge base integrates tightly with the chat experience. When customers ask questions in the chat, Crisp can automatically suggest relevant help articles from the knowledge base, helping customers find answers without waiting for an agent. Similarly, agents can quickly share knowledge base articles during conversations, reducing the time spent typing out common explanations. Analytics show which articles are most viewed and which searches return no results, helping teams identify gaps in their documentation.

Built-In CRM and Contact Management

Crisp includes a lightweight CRM that automatically creates contact profiles from chat conversations. Each contact profile shows the complete conversation history across all channels, along with metadata like location, browser, operating system, and any custom attributes you define. The CRM supports segments and filters, allowing you to group contacts by company, plan, engagement level, or any other criteria. While not a full replacement for dedicated CRM platforms like Salesforce, Crisp's CRM is more than sufficient for startups and small businesses that need basic contact management integrated with their customer communication.

Video Calls and Screen Sharing

One of Crisp's standout features is the ability to initiate video calls directly from the chat widget. Support agents can escalate a text conversation to a video call with a single click, without requiring the customer to install any software or leave the website. The video call feature includes screen sharing capability, making it ideal for technical support scenarios, product demonstrations, or sales conversations. This seamless escalation from text to video sets Crisp apart from most competitors that require a separate video conferencing tool.

Pricing and Plans

Crisp offers one of the most generous free tiers in the customer support space. The free Basic plan includes live chat for two operators with a 30-day conversation history, making it suitable for individuals and very small businesses just getting started. The Pro plan at 25 euros per month per workspace (with four operators included) adds the chatbot, knowledge base, and automation features. The Unlimited plan at 95 euros per month per workspace includes unlimited operators, all features, and advanced capabilities like video calls, MagicBrowse, and analytics.

Crisp's pricing model is notably simpler and more affordable than competitors like Intercom, which charges per seat and per feature with prices that can quickly escalate into hundreds or thousands of dollars per month. Crisp's workspace-based pricing means that adding more team members to the Unlimited plan does not increase the cost, making it particularly attractive for growing teams. The platform also offers annual billing discounts and special pricing for startups and non-profits.

Integration Ecosystem

Crisp integrates with a wide range of third-party tools including Slack, WordPress, Shopify, WooCommerce, Zapier, Segment, HubSpot, Salesforce, and many more. The platform also provides a comprehensive REST API and webhooks for custom integrations. Developer documentation is thorough, with SDKs available for JavaScript, iOS, Android, and React Native. The plugin marketplace offers additional integrations built by both the Crisp team and the community.

Data Privacy and European Values

As a French company, Crisp processes all customer data within the European Union and is fully compliant with GDPR. The platform provides data processing agreements, supports data export and deletion requests, and offers consent management features for the chat widget. Crisp does not sell or share customer data with third parties, and the company has a transparent privacy policy that clearly explains how data is collected and used. For businesses that need to demonstrate GDPR compliance to their own customers, having a European customer communication platform significantly simplifies the compliance process.

Who Should Use Crisp

Crisp is an excellent choice for startups, small businesses, and mid-sized companies that need a comprehensive customer messaging solution without the enterprise complexity and pricing of Intercom or Zendesk. The platform's generous free tier makes it accessible for bootstrapped startups, while the paid plans offer enough features and scalability for growing companies with thousands of customers. European businesses will particularly appreciate the GDPR compliance, French headquarters, and EU data processing. Companies looking for a single platform to handle live chat, chatbots, knowledge base, and basic CRM will find Crisp to be one of the most compelling options in the market.