Your sales team is answering questions in HubSpot. But the moment a customer closes the tab, the conversation ends and the opportunity walks out with them. Live chat is useful. The problem is it has a very clear ceiling, and most stores figure that out too late.
Here’s how to set up HubSpot live chat step by step, what it does well, and what it’s missing if your goal is actually closing more sales.
What Is HubSpot Live Chat?
HubSpot live chat is a feature inside its Conversations module that lets you add a live chat widget to your website. When a visitor clicks it, they can start a conversation with a member of your team or with a bot you’ve set up in advance.
What sets it apart from other chat tools is its native integration with HubSpot’s CRM. Every conversation is automatically logged in the contact’s profile, giving your sales and marketing teams a complete interaction history without any manual data entry.
For eCommerce stores, that’s especially valuable when the goal isn’t just answering questions, it’s converting visitors into customers and following up on every opportunity.
How to Create a Live Chat in HubSpot: Step by Step
The process is managed from the Chatflows section inside HubSpot:
- In your HubSpot account, go to Conversations > Chatflows
- Click Create chatflow
- Select Website as the channel and choose the Live chat option
- Connect the inbox where you want to receive conversations, or create a new one
- Customize the welcome message visitors will see when they open the chat
- Set your availability: define the hours when agents will be online to respond
- Adjust the widget appearance: color, team name, profile photo
- Under the Targeting tab, define which pages of your site will show the chat
- Activate the chatflow and publish
Once live, the widget appears on the pages you configured and conversations land in your HubSpot inbox, where any team member with access can respond.
HubSpot Live Chat for eCommerce: Strengths and Real Limitations
Like any tool, HubSpot live chat has clear strengths and hard limits worth knowing before you go all in.
What works well:
Automatic CRM logging is the standout advantage. Every conversation feeds the contact’s profile, enabling follow-up, segmentation, and personalized campaigns based on real interaction data.
The bot integration lets you automate responses outside business hours or triage queries before routing them to an agent. For lean teams, that cuts operational load significantly.
Page-level targeting is useful for stores that want to activate chat only at high-intent moments in the funnel, like checkout or top-converting product pages.
Where it falls short:
The chat lives inside your website. The moment a visitor closes the tab, the conversation ends. There’s no way to pick it back up through that channel.
Real availability depends on human agents. Outside configured hours, the experience drops or gets handed off to a basic bot.
For stores with high volume or seasonal peaks, staffing live chat can get expensive fast and hard to scale.
Why Combining HubSpot with WhatsApp Improves Conversion
HubSpot and WhatsApp aren’t competing channels. They’re complementary, and stores that use both well cover the entire sales and retention cycle.
The logic is straightforward: HubSpot captures and records. WhatsApp converts and retains.
While HubSpot live chat handles on-site support and feeds the CRM with interaction data, WhatsApp covers the moments where the customer is no longer on your site but is still a live opportunity:
- The cart they abandoned three hours ago and never finished
- The question they asked after hours that went unanswered
- The customer who bought once and will buy again with the right message at the right time
ChateCommerce automates that entire flow through WhatsApp with conversational AI, and integrates with the leading eCommerce platforms across Latin America and beyond.
ChateCommerce is fully in English. Start converting on WhatsApp today.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is HubSpot live chat free?
HubSpot offers a free CRM tier that includes basic live chat and bot features. Paid plans unlock more advanced automations, deeper customization, and expanded reporting capabilities.
Can I use HubSpot live chat without the CRM?
Technically yes, but you lose the main advantage: automatic conversation logging in contact profiles. Without the CRM active, HubSpot live chat is just another chat widget.
Does HubSpot live chat work with Shopify or other eCommerce platforms?
Yes. It installs via HubSpot’s tracking code snippet in your site’s HTML, or through integrations available in each platform’s app marketplace.
What happens to conversations when no agents are available?
If you’ve set up a HubSpot bot, it can handle basic questions and capture visitor data. If not, the chat displays an out-of-office message. Either way, there’s no proactive follow-up with the visitor afterward.
Is ChateCommerce available in English?
Yes. The platform, dashboard, and support are fully in English, making it easy for any English-speaking team to set up and manage from day one.