For many companies, the chat is critical. Also, if one person has to fix the chat for 1 hour a month, you are easily paying more for that person then for the ex

For many companies, the chat is critical. Also, if one person has to fix the chat for 1 hour a month, you are easily paying more for that person then for the external service. I would question that hosting in-house would be cheaper. As stated in other threads: that's less then the cost of an employee qualified to run all those services.