# tawk.to

> Free live chat, ticketing and help center, with paid add-ons

tawk.to is a free customer messaging platform with a website chat widget, a shared inbox, ticketing, a knowledge base, chat pages and a simple CRM. It charges nothing per seat; its income comes from optional add-ons, such as an AI agent and removing its branding, and from hired chat agents who answer on your behalf by the hour.

- **Category:** Help Desks & Live Chat
- **Made by:** tawk.to (since 2013)
- **Website:** https://www.tawk.to
- **Runs on:** Web, Windows, macOS, iOS, Android
- **Facts last checked:** Oct 17, 2026

## Pricing

tawk.to has a free plan. Paid plans start at $29 per month for the AI Assist or Whitelabel add-on.

- **Pricing model:** Free plan
- **Free plan:** The whole platform is free: live chat, inbox, ticketing, knowledge base, chat pages and CRM, with no seat charges. A "Powered by tawk.to" badge stays unless removed for a fee.
- **Free trial:** None listed.

| Plan | Price | What you get |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free | $0 | Live chat widget, shared inbox, ticketing, a hosted knowledge base, chat pages and contacts, with the tawk.to badge shown. AI Assist has a free tier for limited volume. |
| AI Assist | $29 per month and up | Add-on: AI agents that answer from your knowledge base and AI workflows that route and follow up, handing off to a person when needed. |
| Whitelabel | $29 per property / month | Add-on: removes the tawk.to badge and puts the chat page, knowledge base and ticketing emails on your own domain and address. |

Read from https://www.tawk.to/add-ons/ on Oct 17, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with tawk.to before buying.

## Key features

- **Live chat widget:** A chat box for websites that can be styled to match a brand, plus chat pages that turn a link into a conversation for businesses without a site.
- **Inbox and ticketing:** Chat, email, form and messaging conversations arrive in one dashboard, with free ticketing for issues that need follow-up.
- **Knowledge base:** A free hosted help center where customers can look up answers, which the AI Assist add-on also draws on.
- **AI Assist:** AI agents and workflows that answer routine questions and hand off to a person with the conversation's history attached.
- **Hired chat agents:** Trained human agents who answer chats on your behalf around the clock for $1 an hour, offered as a paid service.
- **CRM and pipeline:** Contact records built from conversations, segments and tags, a deal pipeline and booking activities in the same dashboard.

## Good for

- Small businesses that want website chat without paying per seat
- Teams that need chat, tickets and a help center on one free account
- Businesses that would rather pay someone else to staff the chat

## Worth knowing

- Removing the "Powered by tawk.to" badge from the widget, chat page and knowledge base costs $29 a month per property.
- AI Assist is free only for limited volume; paid plans start at $29 a month.
- Hired chat agents cost $1 an hour and dedicated virtual assistants from $7 an hour.
- Voice Agents (from $49 a month plus usage) and Data Enrichment (from $59 a month) were waitlist-only when read.

## ToolGPA grades

**GPA: 3.0 out of 4**, graded Oct 17, 2026. tawk.to gives you website chat, a shared inbox, tickets, a help center and a simple CRM for nothing, with no charge per seat, and its apps cover every device. You could run it free for good. The catches: its "Powered by tawk.to" badge stays unless you pay $29 a month, and the AI agent is free only at small volumes.

- **Value for money: A.** The whole platform is free, chat, inbox, tickets, help center and CRM, with no seat charges, which is free and substantial. You'd pay only for add-ons: $29 a month for the AI agent or for removing the badge.
- **Free plan and trial: A.** Free outright for every seat, with no cap on chats in the listing. The catch is the "Powered by tawk.to" badge on your widget, chat page and help center, which costs $29 a month per site to remove.
- **Features: C.** Website chat, chat pages for businesses without a site, an inbox for chat, email and forms, tickets, a help center, a CRM, and people you can hire to answer for $1 an hour. The gap: no phone, as voice agents were still waitlist-only.
- **Ease of use: C.** No store rating on record. It's free to start, but you still paste the chat box into your site, set up the help center and, if you want it, teach the AI agent.
- **Platforms and integrations: B.** Web, Windows, Mac, iPhone and Android apps, so every device is covered. What keeps it off an A is the connections: the listing names just Shopify and WordPress, and no API.

These are ToolGPA's own grades. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from tawk.to's own pages on 17 October 2026. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews.

## Where it stands among help desk and live chat tools

- tawk.to's GPA of 3.0 is higher than 17 of the 19 other help desk and live chat tools we grade.
- It stands best on free plan and trial (A, above 19 of 19) and worst on features (C, above 0).
- Its paid plans start at $29 a month, against a middle price of $24.17 for the category: 11 of the 18 others that charge start lower.
- On features, ease of use and platforms it scores 2.3 out of 4. 10 tools score higher and cost less.

The category's chart of price against score: https://toolgpa.com/charts/customer-support

## Keep it, or make your own?

**Keep it.** To replace tawk.to you would be making an AI model answering your customers from your own help articles. That is not a weekend's work, with an AI app builder or without one. It is one of the better ones too: its GPA of 3.0 is higher than 17 of the 19 other help desk and live chat tools we grade. It costs $348 a year.

- You could make: Help desk and help center: an app builder makes these well.
- You could not: An AI model answering your customers from your own help articles.
- You could not: A chat box on your site that reaches you the moment a customer types.
- You could not: Apps for macOS, Windows, iOS and Android that stay in step with each other.
- You could not: Hooks into the device itself: widgets.

A judgement by ToolGPA from this listing, by rules that are the same for every tool. Nothing was built to test it.

## Works with

Shopify, WordPress

**Tags:** Live chat, Help desk, Help center, AI support agent

## Alternatives

- [Tidio](https://toolgpa.com/tools/tidio): Live chat, ticketing and the Lyro AI agent priced by conversations. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/tawk-to-vs-tidio)
- [Crisp](https://toolgpa.com/tools/crisp): Live chat and shared inbox priced per workspace, not per seat. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/crisp-vs-tawk-to)
- [Text by LiveChat](https://toolgpa.com/tools/livechat): Website chat, ticketing and an AI agent from the LiveChat team. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/livechat-vs-tawk-to)
- [Chatwoot](https://toolgpa.com/tools/chatwoot): Open-source support inbox you can self-host or use in the cloud. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/chatwoot-vs-tawk-to)
- [Smartsupp](https://toolgpa.com/tools/smartsupp): Live chat, WhatsApp and email inbox with the Mira AI shopping agent. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/smartsupp-vs-tawk-to)

## Sources

The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Oct 17, 2026:

- https://www.tawk.to/add-ons/
- https://www.tawk.to/why-free/
- https://www.tawk.to/

Page: https://toolgpa.com/tools/tawk-to
Listed by ToolGPA (toolgpa.com).