In-house vs outsourced live chat: which costs less?

Key takeaways

In-house vs outsourced live chat depends on opening hours. Staffing chat 84 hours a week in-house needs about 2.5 full-time agents, roughly £74,000 a year in employment costs alone. An outsourced team at £12 per hour costs about £52,000 for the same hours, and a shared model costs less again.

• In-house: about £74,000 a year to staff 84 hours a week.
• Outsourced: about £52,000 at £12 per hour, cover included.
• In-house: best for complex, pre-sale product advice.
• Outsourced: best for long hours and routine questions.

What does live chat staffing involve?

Live chat staffing means having someone ready to reply within seconds or minutes during the hours the chat is shown as online. An experienced agent can often handle two or three simple chats at once. The cost is driven by the hours covered, not only by the number of chats.

• In-house vs outsourcing: which model is more cost-effective?
• Live chat outsourcing for UK websites

What does in-house live chat cost?

Covering 9:00 to 21:00, seven days a week, is 84 hours a week, about 4,368 hours a year. At 1,740 worked hours per full-time agent, that needs about 2.5 agents. At £26,000 each, employment costs are about £74,400 a year, before software seats, overheads and management.

• The true cost of an employee in the UK

What does outsourced live chat cost?

A dedicated outsourced seat for the same 4,368 hours at an indicative £12 per hour costs about £52,400 a year, with cover included. If chat volume is modest, a shared seat or per-chat pricing can cost much less, because the agent also serves other clients or tasks during quiet periods.

• BPO pricing models explained

How fast do chat replies need to be?

Visitors expect a chat reply within about a minute, far faster than email. That is why chat needs staffed hours rather than a queue. If you cannot staff it, show chat as offline and offer a message form or WhatsApp instead of leaving an online chat unanswered.

• Customer service response time benchmarks

When should live chat stay in-house?

When chat is mainly expert pre-sale advice on complex or high-value products, and volume is steady within your business hours. There, product knowledge wins sales and justifies the cost. Out-of-hours chat can still be outsourced.

When is outsourced live chat the better choice?

When you want evenings and weekends covered, when most chats are order status, delivery or account questions, or when volume swings with campaigns. A provider with written answers and an escalation route handles these well and at lower cost.

• In-house vs outsourced customer service: the real cost
• BPO Solutions for UK businesses

What about data and chat transcripts?

Chat transcripts contain personal data. An outsourced provider is a processor, so you need a written processor contract, and an offshore team needs a valid transfer safeguard under UK GDPR. Set retention rules for transcripts and restrict who can export them.

• Data security with an outsourced team

Should chat be staffed by people, a bot, or both?

A chatbot can answer simple, repeated questions instantly at any hour, such as opening times or delivery policy. It struggles with anything unusual, emotional or high-value. Many businesses use a bot for the first question and hand over to a person for the rest, with clear rules on when the hand-over happens.

• AI chatbots on small business websites

What does this look like in practice?

A pattern we see in UK online retailers: chat is switched off after 17:00 because no one is available, yet many visitors browse in the evening. An outsourced evening and weekend chat team answers delivery and sizing questions and passes complex cases to the in-house team next morning.

• See client work

Live chat cost checklist

Use these steps to compare.

• Decide the hours chat will show as online.
• Count chats per hour, by hour of day.
• Cost in-house agents for those hours.
• Price dedicated and shared outsourced options.
• Write answers for the 20 most common questions.
• Set an escalation route for complex chats.

Next step

Send us your chat volumes by hour. We will cost in-house, dedicated and shared outsourced options in a 30-minute call.