How to Add Live Chat to Shopify: Inbox, App or Code
To add live chat to Shopify, install a chat app and switch on its app embed in the theme editor: Online Store > Edit theme > App embeds, toggle the chat on, click Save. Shopify’s free Shopify Inbox works this way, and so does any chat app that uses an app embed. The rest of the setup is deciding when you answer and checking that the button doesn’t cover anything on a phone.
Menu paths below come from the Shopify Help Center pages on Shopify Inbox, read on October 23, 2026.
Add Shopify Inbox chat step by step
- Install Shopify Inbox from the Shopify App Store. After installing, Inbox asks whether the AI Inbox agent should answer customers or your staff should. You can change this later.
- Open the theme editor. In the Shopify admin go to Online Store, and on your published theme click Edit theme.
- Switch the chat on. In the theme editor sidebar click the App embeds icon, find Online store chat, turn the toggle on and click Save.
- Style the button in the same panel: colors, the activator (icon, label and position on the page), font, corner radius and the greeting message.
- Set your hours. Go to Sales channels > Inbox, click Chat settings, then Availability. By default the store is set to always available. Pick the hours somebody actually answers, day by day, or set one day and use Apply these hours to all days. Click Save.
- Turn on the first reply. On the same Availability page, under Automated first reply, click Turn on, then write the During available hours and Outside of available hours messages (up to 2,048 characters each). The outside-hours message is the place to say when you will reply.
Steps 5 and 6 apply to chats your staff handle. If the Inbox agent takes a conversation, it answers with its own persona and settings, which live on the Inbox page of the admin.
Your staff need the right permissions to use Inbox. Shopify lists Products (to share product links), Customers, Discounts (to share codes) and Draft orders. Only users with all permissions can change chat availability, and POS-only staff have no access to Inbox at all.
Add another live chat app the same way
A third-party chat app that adds its widget through an app embed follows the same pattern:
- Install the app from the Shopify App Store and approve its permissions.
- Finish the app’s own setup inside the app (account, team, channels).
- Go back to Online Store > Edit theme > App embeds and switch on that app’s embed.
- Click Save and check the storefront.
The app embed is how a theme app adds something to every page without touching your theme files. We build Shopify apps that use the same mechanism, and the practical upside for you is that switching an embed off removes the widget cleanly. Nothing is left behind in the theme code.
Which app to choose is a separate question. Our comparison of the best live chat app for Shopify covers that, and live chat for Shopify explains when Shopify Inbox is enough.
When the chat tool gives you only a script
Some chat services are not Shopify apps. They give you a snippet of JavaScript to paste into your site. On Shopify that means editing the theme code:
- Work on a copy first. Shopify’s theme pages suggest keeping a copy of your published theme to test changes on, and you can preview it before publishing.
- On the theme you are changing, open the actions menu on the Themes page and click Edit code.
- Paste the snippet into the file the vendor’s instructions name, then save.
Two things to know before you choose this route. The snippet belongs to that theme only: when you switch themes or install a fresh version of yours, it has to be pasted again. And to remove the chat later you have to find and delete the code yourself. If the vendor also offers a Shopify app, the app embed is easier to live with.
Place the button so it works on a phone
The chat button floats over your pages, and on a phone it competes for the same few centimeters as everything else. Before you call the setup done, open your store on a real phone and check:
- The button does not cover Add to cart, a sticky buy bar, or the cookie banner. If it does, change the activator position in the app embed settings.
- The greeting fits on a small screen. A two-line greeting is readable; a paragraph covers the product photo.
- Another app’s floating button (a popup teaser, a back-to-top arrow, a loyalty launcher) is not sitting on top of the chat in the same corner.
- The chat opens and closes with a tap, and the keyboard does not hide the message field.
Test before customers do
Open your store in a private browser window and send yourself a message. Then check where it lands: in Shopify Inbox on the web, the desktop app, or the Inbox app for iOS and Android. Reply from there and confirm the reply shows in the chat window. On a phone with the Inbox app installed, make sure notifications are on, or chats will wait until somebody opens the admin.
Live chat not showing on Shopify: 6 fixes
| What you see | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| No chat button anywhere | The app embed is off, or the change was not saved | Online Store > Edit theme > App embeds, turn the chat on, Save |
| You set it up but customers do not see it | You edited a draft theme, not the published one | Check which theme has the Live status and turn the embed on there |
| Two chat buttons | An old chat app is still switched on | Turn off the old app’s embed, then uninstall the old app |
| Button shows, but customers cannot message staff | Require sign-in to chat with staff is on, so shoppers must sign in first | Leave it on if you want signed-in chats only; otherwise turn it off in the chat settings |
| Button hidden behind something | Another floating element sits in the same corner | Move the chat activator or the other element |
| Chat disappeared after a theme change | The new theme has its own embed settings, or a script was pasted into the old theme’s code | Turn the embed on in the new theme, or paste the script again |
Our guide to Shopify customer service chatbots covers what to automate once the chat is live, and the running a store hub has the rest of the support topics.
Frequently asked questions
Is live chat on Shopify free? Shopify Inbox is a free app from Shopify, so you can add chat at no cost. Third-party chat apps price their paid plans differently; Tidio’s listing, for example, has a free plan and charges by conversations above it.
Can I add live chat to Shopify without an app? You can paste a chat vendor’s script into your theme code with Edit code. You still need an account with that chat service, and the script has to be re-added whenever you change themes.
Where do Shopify chat messages go? Inbox chats arrive in Shopify Inbox, which you can open on the web, in the desktop app, or in the Inbox apps for iOS and Android. A third-party app keeps conversations in its own dashboard.
Can I turn chat off outside working hours? In Shopify Inbox you set availability hours and an outside-hours first reply. Customers can still write to you, and they see the message you wrote for those hours. If you use the Inbox agent in the Only when your staff is unavailable mode, it answers those chats instead.