Tawk.to Alternatives 2026: Pricing, AI Costs, Free Plans

2026-02-15 · Wallu Team · 11 min read · Comparison

Tawk.to is free with unlimited agents; paid AI Assist is $29-$399/mo and badge removal $39/mo. Eight alternatives, both billing cycles, read 10 Oct 2026.

Table of Contents

• What Tawk.to costs in 2026
• Reasons to stay, and reasons to leave
• The alternatives at a glance
• The alternatives, grouped by what you need
• What adding AI costs: a worked example
• Where Wallu is the wrong choice
• Sources and read dates
• Frequently asked questions

Short answer: Tawk.to is genuinely free: no limit on agents, no caps on conversations, contacts or chat history, no trial and no card. You pay only for add-ons, per property: AI Assist ($29, $99 or $399 a month after a free 100-message tier; $290, $990 or $3,990 a year) and badge removal ($39 a month or $348 a year). To stay free elsewhere, Freshchat (10 agents), Crisp (2 seats) and HubSpot (2 users) have real free plans, none with an AI agent for customers. For the strongest AI agent, Intercom is $39 per seat month-to-month ($29 annually) plus $0.99 per Fin outcome; for AI at a fixed monthly price, look at Crisp ($45 a month) or Wallu ($4.99 month-to-month, $3.99 yearly), and at Chatwoot if you want open source.

About the prices. All figures were read from each vendor's own pricing page on 10 October 2026, in both billing cycles where both exist.

What Tawk.to costs in 2026

The core platform is $0 in both cycles: no limit on agents, "no caps on conversations, contacts, or chat history", and "No trial periods, no credit card." On 10 October 2026, tawk.to/pricing redirected (301) to a page called /why-free/. What you can buy are add-ons, billed per property (Tawk.to's unit for a website or app):

Two catches: the add-ons page's $29 branding price is the annual rate ($348 ÷ 12), and AI Assist counts every AI response ("message completion"), with paid-tier top-ups at $30 per 1,000 credits that do not expire. Annual AI Assist is ten months' price (our arithmetic).

Reasons to stay, and reasons to leave

Reasons to stay

• Free at any team size. Other free plans here cap people (Crisp 2 seats, HubSpot 2 users, Chatwoot cloud 2 agents, Freshchat 10 agents) or volume (Tidio 50 conversations a month; Wallu 10 AI replies).
• Cheap badge removal. $39 a month beats Tidio (Growth only: $59 + $20 = $79 month-to-month, $65.84 annually), Crisp (Plus only: $295) and Wallu (Enterprise only: $149 month-to-month, $119 yearly). LiveChat removes its branding only on custom-priced Enterprise.
• Cheap AI at low volume. 100 AI messages a month are free; 1,000 cost $29.

Reasons to leave

• AI. "Tawk.to has no AI" is out of date, but AI Assist is per property, capped per tier, and counts every response. Alternatives offer AI billed only on resolution (Intercom, LiveChat, HubSpot), AI credits inside a flat plan (Crisp, Wallu), or several messaging channels with AI on the same plan (Chatwoot Startups, Freshchat Growth, Wallu).
• The badge. Removing it costs $39 a month ($348 a year) per property, still less than the branding fees listed above.
• Channels. If customers also write on Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger or Telegram, you want one inbox. We verified Tawk.to's prices, not its channel list, so check its integrations against yours.
• Several sites. Three sites with AI Assist Growth and no badge cost 3 × ($29 + $39) = $204 a month, or 3 × ($290 + $348) = $1,914 a year billed annually (our arithmetic).

The alternatives at a glance

Entry prices only. Tawk.to is the first row, for reference; the rest are sorted by month-to-month entry price ($0 where a free plan can run support, otherwise the cheapest paid plan), ties alphabetical. See also best live chat software 2026.

The alternatives, grouped by what you need

If you want to stay free

No hosted free plan here is as open as Tawk.to's; move only if one fits better.

Freshchat: free for up to 10 agents. Chat widget and shared inbox, but no Freddy AI Agent. Paid plans are per agent: Growth $23 month-to-month ($19 annually), Pro $59 ($49), Enterprise $95 ($79). Growth adds social messengers, WhatsApp and Freddy at $49 per 100 sessions after a one-time 500 free. 14-day trial. Freshchat pricing

HubSpot: free for up to 2 users. Ticketing, live chat with HubSpot branding, and Breeze Assistant. Starter is $10 per seat ($7 annually; a limited-time discount from $20) with no Customer Agent. The AI Customer Agent needs Professional at $100 per seat ($90 annually) plus an onboarding fee whose amount is not shown, and costs $0.50 per resolution. Worth it mainly if you already use HubSpot. HubSpot pricing

If you want AI at a fixed monthly price

Crisp: flat per workspace, from $45 a month. Every plan, Free included, has "unlimited conversations". Free: 2 seats, 100 customer profiles, no AI. Mini $45 (4 seats, $5 of AI credits, about 90 AI conversations by Crisp's estimate), Essentials $95 (10 seats, about 450, omnichannel, knowledge base), Plus $295 ("20+" seats, about 1,350, white label). No yearly price is shown. When credits run out the AI stops, unless you opt into pay-as-you-go (no published rate; a help article estimates $0.05 to $0.10 per AI conversation). 14-day trial, no card. Crisp pricing; see also Tidio vs Crisp.

Wallu: $4.99 a month month-to-month, $3.99 billed yearly. Per account, never per seat or per resolution; one credit is one AI reply sent. Mini includes 350 replies; Lite is $9.99 ($7.99) for 1,000, Starter $19 ($15) for 2,500, Pro $49 ($39) for 7,000, Enterprise $149 ($119) for 25,000. Every plan has one AI agent answering website chat, Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Discord, Slack and email from one inbox, using your knowledge base, with human handover. Voice AI from Starter, WooCommerce on Pro, white-label on Enterprise. 7-day Mini trial, card required. It fits if you want AI on chat and social messages for a small fixed fee. Wallu pricing

If you want the strongest AI agent

Intercom: $39 per seat month-to-month, $29 billed annually, plus $0.99 per Fin outcome. That is Essential's list price; most visitors were shown a $29 ($19 annually) test price when we read the page. Advanced is $99 ($85), Expert $139 ($132). Fin has no included allowance but charges only for an outcome (the customer confirms resolution, does not ask for more help, or Fin completes a workflow), at most once per conversation and never when the customer asks for a human. Spending limits and a 90-day money-back guarantee apply. No free plan; 14-day trial, no card. Intercom pricing

If you want open source or self-hosting

Chatwoot: open source, free to self-host. Cloud plans are per agent: Hacker free (2 agents, 500 conversations a month, live chat only, no AI), Startups $19 (all channels except voice, 300 Captain AI credits), Business $39 (adds voice; 500 credits), Enterprise $99 (800 credits). Annual prices are not published. AI uses 1 credit per message; extra credits are $20 per 1,000. The self-hosted Community Edition is "Free forever" without AI; Premium Support at $19 per agent a month adds it. 15-day trial. Chatwoot pricing

If your team answers most chats itself

LiveChat, now sold as Text: $25 per user month-to-month, $19 billed annually. New trials are sold as Text plans. Essential includes 1 AI agent, 10 AI resolutions a month and 60 days of history; Growth is $99 ($79) with 200 resolutions and unlimited history; Enterprise is custom. Extra resolutions cost $49.50 per 50, and everyone who answers chats needs a seat. No free plan; 14-day trial, no card. LiveChat pricing; more in LiveChat alternatives.

Tidio: $29 a month month-to-month, $24.17 billed annually. Free, Starter and Growth include 10 seats; you pay by conversations your team answers: 50 a month free, 100 on Starter, Growth from $59 ($49.17) for 250. At the limit you can't reply until the 1st unless you upgrade; monthly plans auto-upgrade at 95% by default. Lyro AI is an add-on: $39 ($32.50 annually) for 50 conversations a month, up to $700 for 1,000. No branding removal on Free or Starter. 7-day trial, no card. Tidio pricing; more in Tidio alternatives.

What adding AI costs: a worked example

Here is one AI job priced on each tool: our arithmetic from their published rates. Three people, one website; the AI handles about 30, 300 or 1,500 conversations a month, roughly 100, 1,000 or 5,000 AI replies at 3.2 per conversation (Wallu's measured average; yours will differ). The team answers up to 100 conversations itself, which affects only Tidio. Month-to-month, branding not removed, packs rounded up. Per-resolution figures are ceilings, because those tools charge only when the AI succeeds. Sorted by the first figure column. HubSpot is left out because its AI needs Professional seats and an unpublished onboarding fee.

How each line is built:

• Tawk.to and Wallu: plan prices (Tawk.to Hobby, Growth, Business; Wallu Mini with 350 replies, Lite 1,000, Pro 7,000).
• Crisp: Mini's credits cover about 90 conversations; the rest at Crisp's $0.05 to $0.10 estimate (210 more: $10.50 to $21; 1,410 more: $70.50 to $141).
• Chatwoot: 3 × $19 = $57 with 300 credits, plus one or five $20 packs of 1,000.
• Tidio: Starter $29 plus Lyro $39 (50) or $210 (300); above 1,000 is sales-only.
• Freshchat: 3 × $23 = $69 plus 1, 3 or 15 packs of 100 sessions at $49, after the one-time 500 free.
• LiveChat: 3 × $25 = $75 with 10 resolutions, plus 1, 6 or 30 packs of 50 at $49.50 (Growth costs more).
• Intercom: 3 × $39 = $117 plus $0.99 per outcome; $30 less at the test price.

Below about 100 AI replies a month, staying on Tawk.to costs nothing. Higher up, message meters and bundled credits (Tawk.to, Wallu, Chatwoot, Crisp) stay under $190, while session and resolution meters reach about $800 to $1,600. But a ceiling is not a bill: per-resolution tools charge nothing when the AI fails, and message meters charge for every reply. If half resolve, Intercom at 300 conversations is $117 + $148.50 = $265.50. Per-seat tools also climb with every hire.

Where Wallu is the wrong choice

• You want to stay free. Wallu's free account gets 10 AI replies a month, enough to test, not to run support on. Tawk.to, Freshchat, Crisp, HubSpot, Chatwoot and Tidio have usable free plans.
• The badge is your only complaint. Wallu's white-label is Enterprise-only ($149 month-to-month, $119 yearly); Tawk.to charges $39 a month or $348 a year.
• Your conversations run long. Every AI reply is a credit (about 3.2 per conversation); per-conversation meters like Tidio's Lyro or Freshchat's sessions charge the same for a ten-reply chat.
• You need a full help desk. Wallu has no workforce management, multi-brand help centre, SLA policy engine, phone contact centre or skills-based routing.
• You rely on integrations. No app marketplace, far fewer third-party integrations than Intercom or HubSpot, and a young company.
• You run a store. The Shopify app is not listed in the public Shopify App Store, and WooCommerce is Pro-only ($49 month-to-month, $39 yearly).

Sources and read dates

Frequently asked questions

Is Tawk.to really free?

Yes. The core platform is $0 with no limit on agents and "no caps on conversations, contacts, or chat history", with no trial or card. Only add-ons cost money: AI Assist, branding removal, video and screen sharing, and hired agents.

How much does Tawk.to cost?

Add-ons are per property: AI Assist is free for 100 messages a month, then $29, $99 or $399 a month ($290, $990 or $3,990 a year); badge removal $39 a month or $348 a year; video, voice and screen sharing $49 a month or $348 a year; hired agents from $1 an hour.

Where is Tawk.to's pricing page?

There isn't a conventional one: on 10 October 2026, tawk.to/pricing redirected to /why-free/. Add-on prices are on tawk.to/add-ons and in Tawk.to's help centre.

How much does it cost to remove the Tawk.to branding?

$39 a month month-to-month or $348 a year billed annually (the $29 a month on the add-ons page), per property, so each site is billed separately.

Does Tawk.to have AI?

Yes, as the AI Assist add-on. Hobby is free (1 AI agent, 100 messages a month); Growth is $29 a month (3 agents, 1,000 messages, human takeover); Business $99 (5 agents, 5,000); Enterprise $399 (10 agents, 20,000, 99% uptime SLA). Every AI response counts as a message.

What is the best free alternative to Tawk.to?

It depends on team size, since every hosted free alternative has a cap: Freshchat up to 10 agents, Crisp 2 seats (unlimited conversations), HubSpot 2 users (with its branding), Chatwoot's cloud plan 2 agents and 500 conversations a month, Tidio 50 conversations a month. None includes an AI agent for customers.