Chatbase vs tawk.to Comparison 2026
Chatbase is a paid AI agent from the start, $32 a month for 700 message credits, trained on your own site rather than staffed by people. tawk.to gives away live chat entirely instead, with no seat limit and no expiry, and only charges for extras: removing its branding at $29 a month, an AI bot called AI Assist from $29, or hired human agents at $1 an hour. The closest real comparison is Chatbase's $32 against tawk.to's AI Assist at $29, both AI bots answering from your own content.
At a glance
- Both have a genuinely free tier.
Side by side
Chatbase | tawk.to | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $32 | Free |
| Pricing model (they differ) | Free plan, paid tiers | Free |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Not stated |
| Free trial | 7 days | Not stated |
| API | Yes |
Chatbase
A support agent trained on your own pages
Chatbase builds a chat agent from your site, your documents and your help centre, then puts it on the page as a widget. Answers come from what you fed it rather than from the open web, which is the whole reason to use one of these rather than a general assistant. It also hands off to a person when the agent is out of its depth.
Our note
This is the cheapest sensible way to put a support agent on a site whose answers already exist in writing. Manychat and Chatfuel are the better fit when the conversation happens in Instagram or Messenger rather than on your own page.
tawk.to
Live chat that is free, with paid extras
tawk.to gives away the live chat widget itself, with unlimited agents and no seat count, and earns from three things around it: taking the branding off, an AI bot answering from your knowledge base, and hired human agents who answer chats for you by the hour. That last one is unusual enough to be the reason to look. The free product is not a trial and does not expire.
Our note
Why people weigh these two
- tawk.to instead of Chatbase
- tawk.to answers the same site visitors with free live chat and humans typing, the zero-cost alternative to training an AI agent.
- Chatbase instead of tawk.to
- Chatbase trains an AI agent on your own pages to answer instead of a live human, from $32, automation where tawk.to is a live widget waiting for someone to type.
Which one should you pick
Chatbase is the more focused product if an AI agent trained on your documentation is the whole requirement: $32 a month buys 700 credits, an API and handover to a person, with nothing else to configure.
tawk.to is worth having regardless, because the base chat widget costs nothing forever and carries no seat count. Add AI Assist at $29 a month for a comparable bot, or skip it and pay $1 an hour for a hired human agent to answer chats instead, which is not an option Chatbase offers at all.
Common questions
- Is tawk.to's chat widget really free with no catch?
- Yes, the core live chat product has no seat limit, no expiry and is not a trial. The catches are optional: removing branding, the AI bot and hired agents all cost extra.
- Which AI bot is cheaper, Chatbase or tawk.to's AI Assist?
- tawk.to's AI Assist starts at $29 a month, three dollars less than Chatbase's Hobby plan at $32, and has its own free tier for low chat volumes.
- Can I hire a person to answer chats instead of using AI?
- tawk.to sells that directly at $1 an hour per hired agent. Chatbase has no equivalent; it hands off to your own team when the AI agent is out of its depth.
- Which one is a live human chat product first?
- tawk.to. The free widget with unlimited agents is the core product. Chatbase is an AI agent first, with no live human-chat inbox described in its own features.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.