Freshdesk starts free and stops being free the moment you add a second person or want a feature you assumed was included. If you are a small team who mainly needs customers to be able to reach you, you are buying a ticketing system to solve a problem you do not have yet.
Here is the whole alternative: put one line of script on your site, and visitors message a real person. It is free, it takes about ten minutes, and there is no trial to start or sales call to sit through.
This guide sets up a support chat on your website from scratch, using Brane, and shows you where to answer from once it is live.
Why small teams leave Freshdesk
It is priced for a support team you do not have
Ticket queues, assignment rules, SLAs and canned replies all exist to stop two agents answering the same customer. If you are one or two people, you are paying per seat to coordinate a team that does not exist.
Your customers meet a bot before they meet you
Every helpdesk now leads with an AI assistant. For a young company that is backwards. Talking to a founder is the advantage you have over your larger competitors, and a deflection bot is you paying to hide it.
The free tier is a trial with better manners
Free plans are shaped to stop working at the point you rely on them: agent limits, no automation, a reporting tab that upsells. That is fine, it is a business model, but it means “free” has a timer on it.
What you get instead
One line of code
<script src="https://embed.brane.chat/embed.js"
data-user="your-username"
defer></script>That is the installation. No plugin, no build step, no dashboard to configure.
A real person, and the panel says so
Before a visitor types anything, the sign in panel shows your avatar, your name, and this line:
> This is not a chatbot, you are about to message a real person.
Free
No seats, no message caps, no trial clock.
Set it up in about ten minutes
1. Create your support account on brane.chat
Go to brane.chat in any browser. Enter the email address your team can all reach, something like support@yourcompany.com. Brane sends a six digit code, you type it in, and you are signed up. Nothing to install.
Pick your username carefully, because it is what goes in the snippet: data-user="your-username". Changing it later breaks every embed you have already installed.
If more than one person will be answering, give the account a password too. See Sharing it with your team.
2. Make it look like your company
Your profile is what a visitor sees before they message you, so it is your support brand:
- Profile photo. Use your logo.
- Display name. “Acme Support” reads better than a personal name.
- Bio. One line on what you can help with and when you reply.
3. Get your snippet
On a wide screen at brane.chat, open Settings and choose Embed On Website. That opens the setup guide at brane.app/how-to-embed with the attributes listed out.
For a support widget you want the private chat form, data-user, so every visitor gets their own thread rather than walking into a room with your other customers.
4. Paste it on your site
Put the tag anywhere in your HTML, before </body>:
<script src="https://embed.brane.chat/embed.js"
data-user="your-username"
data-primary="#2A99BC"
data-welcome="Ask us anything, a real person replies."
defer></script>Match it to your site with a few attributes:
| Attribute | What it does |
|---|---|
data-primary | Launcher and brand colour |
data-secondary | Unread badge colour |
data-theme | light or dark |
data-position | right or left |
data-welcome | The line above the email field |
data-label | The launcher’s accessible label |
Want your own button instead of the floating bubble? Add data-launcher="none" and open it yourself:
<script>
document.querySelector('#talk-to-us')
.addEventListener('click', () => window.Brane.open());
</script>5. Get the mobile app
Set it up on the web, then put it in your pocket. The app is where a support chat really earns its keep.
Push notifications. A customer’s question reaches you the second they send it, so you can answer while they are still on the page, from wherever you happen to be. Same account, same conversations, already waiting in it.
Get Brane on the App Store · Get Brane on Google Play
Sharing it with your team
One support account, several people answering, one password.
Give the account a password
By default Brane emails you a six digit code every time you sign in. That is ideal for a personal account and awkward for a team, so give the support account a password instead.
Settings → Password. Type a new one, confirm it, Update. You are not asked for a current password, so this works even though you signed up with a code.
Put it in your password manager, share it with whoever answers, and they sign in at brane.chat or in the app: on the sign in screen, tap the envelope button in the row under the email field. That opens email and password sign in.
The six digit code still works too. Anyone who can read the account’s mailbox can request one, so a shared inbox is a second way in if you would rather not circulate a password at all.
The other kind of embed
Everything above uses data-user, a private thread between one visitor and you. There is a second form, data-crowd, and it is worth knowing about even though it is not what you want for support.
<script src="https://embed.brane.chat/embed.js"
data-crowd="your-crowd-name"
defer></script>A Crowd is a group chat, so everyone in the panel is in the same room and the conversation carries on between visits. Think a Discord server living on your own site instead of behind an invite link:
- Building in public. Your changelog page with the people following along talking underneath it.
- A community around your product. Customers answering each other, which is the bit that scales when you cannot.
- A course, a club, a launch. Anywhere the conversation is the point rather than the support queue.
data-user | data-crowd | |
|---|---|---|
| Visitor gets | A private thread | A shared room |
| Good for | Customer support | Community, building in public |
| Conversation is | One to one | Everyone, and persistent |
Support wants data-user. Community wants data-crowd. That second one deserves its own guide rather than a section here.
Where you read and answer
On your phone
The Brane app, iPhone or Android. Push notifications, so you answer while the customer is still on the page.
On the web
brane.chat in any browser. On a wide screen your chats run down the side with the conversation open beside them, which is close to what a helpdesk inbox looks like. Same account as your phone.
Freshdesk and Brane, side by side
| Freshdesk free tier | Brane embed | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free, with paid tiers from the first real feature | Free |
| Setup | Account, agents, portal, widget config | One script tag |
| Who answers | An agent, often after a bot | A person, always |
| Visitor has to | Fill a form or sign up | Enter an email and a code |
| Customising it | Widget settings in the admin portal | Colours, theme, position and wording, set on the tag |
| Tickets, SLAs, macros | Yes | No |
| Mobile app for agents | Yes | Yes |
Checked September 2026. Helpdesk pricing and free-tier limits change often, so confirm the left column before you decide.
Common questions
Is this really free?
Yes. The embed, the account and the messages are free. No seats to buy, no message cap, and no trial to expire.
Do my customers need the Brane app?
No. They sign in with an email code inside the panel and chat in the browser.
Will it slow my site down?
The tag is 4.7 KB and only draws the button. The chat itself does not download until somebody actually opens it, so visitors who never click it barely pay for it being there.
Can I use it on WordPress, Shopify or Webflow?
Yes, anywhere you can paste a script tag. There is no plugin, so use whatever custom-code or header-script field your platform gives you.
What if my site has a Content Security Policy?
Allow frame-src https://embed.brane.chat; and script-src https://embed.brane.chat; or the panel opens blank.
Can I put it on one page only?
Yes. It is a script tag, so it exists on the pages you put it on. A lot of people put it on pricing and docs and nowhere else.
Is my support account the same as my personal account?
It does not have to be. Make a separate account on the shared company address and keep your own profile out of it.
How does my team sign in to the same account?
Set a password on it in Settings and share that, or share access to the mailbox the six digit code arrives at. Either way they sign in at brane.chat or in the app.
Start with the snippet
Create the account at brane.chat, set your logo and name, and paste one line onto your site. Ten minutes, and the people reading your page can talk to you.
Full attribute list and setup steps: brane.app/how-to-embed. Everything else about Brane: the FAQ.
