Live Helper Chat sells open-source live support chat for self-hosting, plus paid hosting, support, integration and customization services to banks, health-sector organizations, universities and game-industry clients, with founder-reported revenue of $7.5K a month as of 2021-12.
What it sells and how it charges
Live Helper Chat can be self-hosted or hosted by the provider. Its open-source software is free to use for everyone, and the official site says enterprise-level features are free to use everywhere. Paid options cover hosting, support, integration and customization, but the official source states no prices for those services or paid plans.
The official site describes use by banks, the health sector, universities and the game industry in settings where data protection is a top priority.
How it started
In a Starter Story founder interview dated 2021-12-27, the founder said a web-agency client asked for a live-support script because there was no good open-source alternative, so he built the first version in two weeks during his holidays.
After a period of being unmaintained, he returned to the project during summer holidays and worked on it for six months without outside attention, according to the same interview. He says growth came from the website, a GitHub repository created in 2013 and organic Google traffic, with no marketing budget or advertising.
The founder eventually left his job to work on the project alone after realizing that he had no spare time left outside work. He also identified Discord as the main channel for questions, with direct personal access through chat channels becoming central to supporting and retaining users.
The numbers
The headline revenue is $7.5K a month, founder-reported as of 2021-12 in a Starter Story founder interview dated 2021-12-27. It is a historical figure, not a statement of current revenue.
The one-person classification rests on the founder’s statement in that interview: “As of today, the only boss is me.” This is founder-reported evidence for the period, rather than independent verification of present staffing. The source does not state a start cost.
What stands out
- The product has two paths: free self-hosted software or paid hosting and related services.
- The founder credits the website, GitHub and organic Google traffic—not a marketing budget or ads—for growth.
- Personal service is central to the model. The founder describes the main business as support and integration rather than automated hosting, identifies Discord as the main question channel, and says more large companies were adopting the product.
Sources
Income figures are what the founder reported, or what a payment platform verified, on the date shown. They are not current income and not a prediction of what you will earn. Method & sources · Disclosure