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Alex Quasar
Alex Quasar

Posted on • Edited on

Re:Plain Rocks!

Summary

I been doing some research on getting a website chat application in with my React/Gatsby App. I am looking for something pretty simple for budget conscious clients.

Crisp although it has a free tier, the free tier is very limited. Intercom has all features and more, but is pricey.

My Requirements

The requirements would be

  • Budget Friendly (Free tier preferably)
  • User notified in live time when someone sends message to phone, email and / or fb messenger
  • Ability to customize welcome message

Nice to haves

  • Ability to create simple chatbot to answer common questions (Like on FB Messenger)
  • Online vs Offline modes (i.e set hours of operation for when representative is online)

Which chat platforms are developers today using for smaller clients, what would you recommend or are you creating your own!?

Please let me know your recommendation or what you use below and why!

Top comments (5)

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dvis003 profile image
dvis003

I would vouch for Re:plain, been using it for over a year with no complains whatsoever. If all you need is just one seat (so it's just you replying, no team) then it is completely free. It is a thin layer between chat modal (supports pics, vids and docs transfer) deployed on your site and your messenger of choice ( either facebook or telegram), so it piggybacks on messenger's infrastructure (thus resilient) and you do not need to install any other app on your smartphone/ desktop. The catch (at least for the free tier) is that it is only chat modal to messenger communication (in real time), so it would not aggregate other points of contact, like email.

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aquasar profile image
Alex Quasar • Edited

Thanks for this great suggestion :) Re:Plain is everything I have been looking for and the support is absolutely amazing too!

If anyone needs help to get it up with Gatsby please shoot me a message!

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ben profile image
Ben Halpern

We use Front and are pretty happy with it. Looks like the intro tier is cheaper than Intercom.

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aquasar profile image
Alex Quasar

Thanks Ben, Front looks pretty nice, it is unfortunate that it is min two users

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cescquintero profile image
Francisco Quintero πŸ‡¨πŸ‡΄

Take a look at Tawk