Pure Chat Review Easy and Affordable, But What Is It Missing?

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Inka Wibowo

Inka Wibowo

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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

  • Pros
  • Cons

Pros

  • 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)

Pure Chat Review Details

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 Info popup

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.

Themes and Style Options Info popup

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 Info popup

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.

Chat agent console Info popup

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.

Automatic messaging Info popup

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.

Offline mode Info popup

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.

Shortcuts / canned messages Info popup

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.

Tracking & live analytics Info popup

One of their best features. You get conversation history (including previous chats), referral source, location, and pages the contact has visited.

Multiple languages Info popup

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.

Ticketing system Info popup

Not offered.

Integrations and add-ons Info popup

There are direct integrations with Hubspot, Infusionsoft, Google Analytics and Zapier.

Team Management

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.

Mobile support / apps Info popup

Android and iOS apps are available.

Voice/video calls Info popup

Not available.

Cobrowsing Info popup

Not available.

Ban users Info popup

It’s possible to ban IP addresses but not individual users.

Log creation Info popup

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.

Support

  • Live Chat
  • Email
  • Telephone

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

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.

Pure Chat Alternatives

LiveChat comes packed with features and is ideal for companies who want to proactively employ live chat as a sales or support channel. Its wide list of integrations, engaging ‘rich messages’, advanced team management features, and excellent multilingual widgets make it our top-rated live chat software.

Tidio is a top choice if you’re looking for advanced chatbots and automation, as these come included for free. The great news is that there’s also a free plan for up to 3 agents.

JivoChat offers an impressive range of features, including CRM, triggered chats, one-click calling, email and social integration, and internal team chats. A free plan is also available.

The author

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Inka Wibowo

Content Manager

Hi, I'm Inka! 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.

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