Two Hundred and Ten Technologies, Many of Them FreeThin moat

Text (TXT) — moat facet

No licence, no capital barrier, no network effect - and Text counted its own competitors in its annual report.

The reason Text's moat is rated thin is a number Text published about its own market.

A market without efficient scaleCompeting live-chat technologies210+Market size, 2024$1,06-1,17bnText revenue, FY2026$88,2mText's share of the marketabout 8%
No licence, no capital barrier, no network effect, and Text counted the field itself.

Citing Datanyze, the annual report states there are more than 210 different technologies in the live-chat market, and that a substantial number of suppliers offer their solutions on a freemium model1. The market those 210 are dividing was worth 1,06 to 1,17 billion dollars in 20242.

That is the definition of a business without efficient scale. There is no minimum size at which a live-chat product becomes viable, no licence to obtain, no capital barrier and no network effect between one customer's widget and another's. A competent team can ship one, and hundreds have.

Text's own assessment of the freemium half is worth quoting because it is the honest defence: it judges the monetisation of customers who begin on free services to be a very difficult and ineffective process3. Free products acquire users who do not pay and largely never will, so the crowd suppresses price without necessarily taking revenue.

Text also identifies a change that might finally thin the field. Rising artificial-intelligence costs, it argues, should put more pressure on competitors offering products free or freemium4 — because inference is a real marginal cost and a free user now costs money to serve. That is the first mechanism in twenty years that could reduce the number of competitors rather than increase it.

A crowd shows up in price before it shows up anywhere else, and price shows up in gross margin: 67,6% for the year, 69,6% in the June quarter5.

Moat trajectory: Widening

For the first time in twenty years something may thin the field: Text argues that rising artificial-intelligence costs press hardest on rivals giving their products away, because inference is a real marginal cost on an unpaid user.

The number that tests this moat
Reported
Live-chat market size
$1,06-1,17bn in 2024, growing 8-11%

The whole market Text's main product competes in is worth about a billion dollars and is divided among more than 210 technologies, many free. That is a business without efficient scale. Text judges the monetisation of free-tier users to be difficult and ineffective, so the crowd suppresses price without necessarily taking revenue - and it argues that rising AI costs should now press hardest on exactly those freemium rivals, since inference is a real marginal cost.

Source: Text Group Management Board report for the financial year 2025/26 ↗
References
  1. ReportedCiting Datanyze, the annual report states there are more than 210 different technologies in the live-chat market, and that a substantial number of suppliers offer their solutions on a freemium model.
    Text Group Management Board report for 2025/26, strategy, products and market (the Service on Offense goal of turning customer service teams into revenue-generating centres, with the suite monitoring live traffic, recognising visitor intent, identifying returning visitors, enabling proactive outreach and tracking steps to monetisation or a qualified lead; a Go-To-Market period expected to be a long-term process requiring marketing expenditure with effects observed gradually; over 20 years of experience; competing solutions named as Fin, previously Intercom, Zendesk and Freshworks; the live-chat market valued at USD 1,06-1,17bn in 2024 growing 8-11%, the chatbot market at USD 0,7-6,95bn and the helpdesk market at USD 9,82-12,5bn; and Datanyze counting more than 210 different live-chat technologies, a substantial number offered freemium, with monetisation of free users judged difficult and ineffective) — FY2025/26 · publ. June 2026 · source ↗
  2. ReportedThe market those 210 are dividing was worth 1,06 to 1,17 billion dollars in 2024.
    Text Group Management Board report for 2025/26, strategy, products and market (the Service on Offense goal of turning customer service teams into revenue-generating centres, with the suite monitoring live traffic, recognising visitor intent, identifying returning visitors, enabling proactive outreach and tracking steps to monetisation or a qualified lead; a Go-To-Market period expected to be a long-term process requiring marketing expenditure with effects observed gradually; over 20 years of experience; competing solutions named as Fin, previously Intercom, Zendesk and Freshworks; the live-chat market valued at USD 1,06-1,17bn in 2024 growing 8-11%, the chatbot market at USD 0,7-6,95bn and the helpdesk market at USD 9,82-12,5bn; and Datanyze counting more than 210 different live-chat technologies, a substantial number offered freemium, with monetisation of free users judged difficult and ineffective) — FY2025/26 · publ. June 2026 · source ↗
  3. ReportedText's own assessment of the freemium half is worth quoting because it is the honest defence: it judges the monetisation of customers who begin on free services to be a very difficult and ineffective process.
    Text Group Management Board report for 2025/26, strategy, products and market (the Service on Offense goal of turning customer service teams into revenue-generating centres, with the suite monitoring live traffic, recognising visitor intent, identifying returning visitors, enabling proactive outreach and tracking steps to monetisation or a qualified lead; a Go-To-Market period expected to be a long-term process requiring marketing expenditure with effects observed gradually; over 20 years of experience; competing solutions named as Fin, previously Intercom, Zendesk and Freshworks; the live-chat market valued at USD 1,06-1,17bn in 2024 growing 8-11%, the chatbot market at USD 0,7-6,95bn and the helpdesk market at USD 9,82-12,5bn; and Datanyze counting more than 210 different live-chat technologies, a substantial number offered freemium, with monetisation of free users judged difficult and ineffective) — FY2025/26 · publ. June 2026 · source ↗
  4. ReportedRising artificial-intelligence costs, it argues, should put more pressure on competitors offering products free or freemium - because inference is a real marginal cost and a free user now costs money to serve.
    Text Group Management Board report for 2025/26, strategy, products and market (the Service on Offense goal of turning customer service teams into revenue-generating centres, with the suite monitoring live traffic, recognising visitor intent, identifying returning visitors, enabling proactive outreach and tracking steps to monetisation or a qualified lead; a Go-To-Market period expected to be a long-term process requiring marketing expenditure with effects observed gradually; over 20 years of experience; competing solutions named as Fin, previously Intercom, Zendesk and Freshworks; the live-chat market valued at USD 1,06-1,17bn in 2024 growing 8-11%, the chatbot market at USD 0,7-6,95bn and the helpdesk market at USD 9,82-12,5bn; and Datanyze counting more than 210 different live-chat technologies, a substantial number offered freemium, with monetisation of free users judged difficult and ineffective) — FY2025/26 · publ. June 2026 · source ↗
  5. ReportedA crowd shows up in price before it shows up anywhere else, and price shows up in gross margin: 67,6% for the year, 69,6% in the June quarter.
    Text Group results for the first quarter of the 2026/27 financial year, published 28 August 2026 (revenue of PLN 83,20m, down 1,9% year on year and up 4,1% on the previous quarter; net profit PLN 29,11m down 6,2%; operating profit PLN 31,36m down 11,0%; EBITDA PLN 38,56m down 7,4%; revenue in US dollars of 22,61m up 2,1%; MRR of USD 7,46m at 30 June 2026, up 4,0% year on year and 7,6% on the previous quarter, giving ARR of USD 89,52m against the USD 100m goal, with the chief executive attributing the growth largely to the completion of price grandfathering for LiveChat customers; a record PLN 77,2m of deferred revenue and net operating cash flow up 22,2% to PLN 41,5m on a high share of annual payments; margins of 69,6% gross, 37,7% operating, 46,4% EBITDA and 35,0% net; SOC 2 Type 2 attestation in May 2026; the new visual identity and Go-To-Market start in May 2026; purchase of the livechat.ai domain and a seventh US patent in June 2026; a Klaviyo integration and Google Cloud Marketplace listing in July; a MarTech Breakthrough award and an official ChatGPT marketplace listing in August; and the annual general meeting of 6 August 2026 allocating PLN 109,7m to dividends, PLN 4,26 per share) — Q1 2026/27 · publ. 28 August 2026 · source ↗
Sources
Generated September 24, 2026