LiveChat vs tawk.to Comparison 2026
LiveChat charges $19 a person a month billed annually for the chat widget itself, with no free tier at all. tawk.to gives away the chat widget entirely free, with unlimited agents and no seat count, earning instead from three optional extras: removing the branding for $29 a month, an AI chatbot from $29, and hired human agents at $1 an hour. The axis is not close on price: tawk.to costs nothing to run at any team size, while LiveChat charges per person from day one.
At a glance
- Only tawk.to has a free tier.
Side by side
LiveChat | tawk.to | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $19 | Free |
| Pricing model (they differ) | Paid subscription | Free |
| Free tier (they differ) | No | Yes |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Not stated |
| Free trial | 14 days | Not stated |
| API | Yes |
LiveChat
Live chat with the price printed both ways
LiveChat puts a chat window on a site and routes the conversations to whoever is answering, with canned replies, transcripts and a record of what somebody was looking at when they asked. It is priced per person rather than per conversation, so a solo operator pays for one seat. The chatbot is a separate product from the same company at its own price. For a creator selling a course or a service, this is the direct line.
Our note
Price the chatbot in from the start if deflecting questions was the reason you came, because the live chat subscription does not include it and the combined figure is a different decision. For a one-person operation the entry tier is genuinely usable rather than a stripped demonstration.
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.
Why people weigh these two
- tawk.to instead of LiveChat
- tawk.to is free live chat software, with paid add-ons layered on top rather than a seat fee, the plain option for anyone who wants the window without a monthly bill.
- LiveChat instead of tawk.to
- LiveChat has no free tier at all, from $19, but is built as a live chat product from the ground up rather than free with paid extras layered on.
Which one should you pick
Choose LiveChat if per-person pricing on a small, paid team is worth the trade for canned responses, transcripts and visitor context built specifically for a sales conversation. It suits a solo operator selling a course or service where the question before the purchase is the purchase, at $19 a month for one seat.
Choose tawk.to if the badge in the corner is not a dealbreaker, since the chat software itself is free forever with no seat limit at all. Read the hired-agent option twice: trained people answering chats on your behalf for $1 an hour is priced unlike anything else in this category and is genuinely worth considering.
Common questions
- Which one is cheaper?
- tawk.to, by the widest possible margin: the chat software is free with unlimited agents and no expiry. LiveChat charges $19 a person a month billed annually with no free tier at all.
- Does tawk.to really have no seat limit?
- Correct, unlimited agents at no cost is the whole proposition, unlike LiveChat which is priced per person from the first seat. tawk.to earns instead from optional branding removal, an AI bot and hired human agents.
- Can I hire someone to answer chats through tawk.to?
- Yes, at $1 an hour, trained agents answer on your behalf around the clock, which is how the company states it funds the free product. LiveChat's listing does not describe an equivalent hired-agent service.
- Which one includes a chatbot in the base price?
- Neither does. LiveChat's chatbot is a separate product from $52 a month. tawk.to's AI Assist also costs extra, from $29 a month, though it has its own free tier for low chat volumes.
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.