Tawk.to Review, Pricing & Features
What is Tawk.to?
Tawk.to is a free live chat and customer support software with features geared toward customer support. It offers key live chat features as well as additional services like chat agents and virtual assistants for hire.
Table of Contents
- What is Tawk.to?
- Tawk.to Review Summary
- Tawk.to Pricing & Cost
- Tawk.to Features
- Tawk.to Customer Support
- Tawk.to vs. Competitors
- Is Tawk.to Right For You?
Tawk.to Review Summary
Tawk.to was founded in 2010 by Robert D’Assisi & Shankar Karupp, and is currently headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada. Today, the free live chat software has over 3,600,000 users worldwide, making it one of the most widely used live chat applications in the world.
Tawk.to is unique because it offers the most advanced free live chat capabilities across the major live chat softwares. Though many competitors offer free live chat plans, none offer a feature list as comprehensive as tawk.to’s list. It should be noted, however, that tawk.to is solely a live chat and ticketing software, not an all-encompassing customer enhancement software with email campaigns and chatbots.
Overall, tawk.to is a reliable, free live chat tool that is ideal for businesses of all sizes that are specifically interested in live chat and ticketing capabilities. If these are the only features you need, tawk.to will help you save money. However, if you want a software tool that comes with a broader set of features, such as chatbots or email marketing, then you’ll likely prefer a more advanced software like Freshchat or Intercom.
Tawk.to Pricing & Cost
For live chat, tawk.to pricing is free and will remain free forever. There are a few add-on features that tawk.to sells for a monthly cost. Tawk.to is also currently working on features that will be paid in the future, like real-time chat translations and in-chat payments.
- Hire Live Agents: From $1 per hour
- Hire Virtual Assistants: From $7 per hour
- Remove tawk.to Branding: $12 per month
- Video, Voice, & Screen Sharing: $29 per month
Tawk.to Key Features
This review will provide an overview of tawk.to’s major features, along with their notable benefits and drawbacks. We’ll also provide images to give you an idea of what the software looks like.
To learn more about how we research and rate software tools, read about SoftwarePundit’s review methodology.
Live Chat
Live chat is a tool that allows companies to connect with website visitors in real time. Tawk.to’s main offering is live chat and it includes all the must-have live chat features. We found that the interface can be slightly clunky compared to more expensive alternatives, yet the live chat itself functions smoothly.
Chat Interface
The tawk.to chat interface is pictured below. Agents can view up to four chats side by side; the image below shows what the chat interface looks like when viewing two chats at once.
Tawk.to offers some helpful agent-focused features, such as the “Whisper” function, where agents can discuss visitor chats amongst each other without the visitor knowing. Multiple agents can also be added to a chat for group chatting. Additional tawk.to chat live chat features are outlined below.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Triggered Messages | Triggered messages allow the chat to send automated messages to visitors based on requirements such as time spent on the site, visitor actions, or visitor demographics. |
| Canned Responses | Canned responses are pre-typed responses to common questions that will save agents time. Tawk.to allows unlimited canned responses. |
| Visitor Typing Preview | The typing preview gives agents a view of what visitors are typing before they’ve sent the message, allowing for quicker response times. |
| Visitor Satisfaction Ratings | Visitors can mark a chat as helpful or unhelpful, which helps you determine whether you are successfully resolving customer pain points. |
| Email Transcripts | Chat transcripts can be sent via email to agents and visitors alike. This allows visitors to reference the chat and helps agents keep track of their messages. |
| Screen Sharing | Assist visitors by viewing their screen and guiding them to a solution. Visitors will be asked for permission before initiating screen sharing. |
| Mobile Application | The tawk.to mobile application allows customer support representatives to answer chats and support tickets without needing to use a desktop. |
| Supported Languages | Tawk.to supports 27 languages, making it easy to communicate with visitors worldwide. |
Chat Widget
The tawk.to chat widget is what visitors will use to chat with agents. The widget appears as a small chat window, which you can lightly customize to your preference:
Visitor Information
Tawk.to captures visitor data that your team can use to better understand your customers and their activity on your site. The Monitoring tab categorizes site visitors by active, idle, and served. This section will also include the visitor’s browser, device type, number of visits, and number of chats.
Across different sections of the software, tawk.to provides various metrics concerning visitor activity and information. The most important of this information includes:
- IP address
- When visitor maximizes chat window
- When the visitor leaves site
- Typing preview
Reports
Reporting is crucial to track and improve agent productivity and customer engagement. Tawk.to includes a built-in reporting section with key metrics about live chat, tickets, and the knowledge base. The tool includes all basic metrics that a company would require. One drawback is that the data take a few hours to populate within the reports section, so it cannot be reliably used for real-time reporting.
Reports can be viewed as lists or as graphs, as shown below:
The top reports are:
- Chat volume
- First response time
- User satisfaction
- Ticket volume
- Ticket resolution time
Hired Chat Agents & Virtual Assistants
Tawk.to’s most unique feature is their hired chat agents and hired virtual assistants service. For a monthly fee, you can hire chat agents and virtual assistants to support your business functions and site visitors, which is ideal for small businesses that don’t have the bandwidth to interview and train in-house customer service representatives.
Chat Agents
Tawk.to allows you to hire chat agents directly from their site. This feature is fairly unique to tawk.to and would benefit a business that wants 24/7 live chat availability. You can purchase as few or as many hours per week as you like. To ensure that agents communicate most effectively with your visitors, you will provide information on your business so agents can accurately relay information and answer questions.
Below are the pricing options for hired chat agents:
Virtual Assistants
A virtual assistant is an employee who provides technical, administrative, or customer service assistance to your internal team or your customers. You will be responsible for the majority of training and onboarding for your virtual assistants to ensure a seamless integration with your company.
Tawk.to’s virtual assistant pricing is outlined below:
Chat Pages
Tawk.to hosts chat pages that you can use if you don’t have a website, or if you want your live chat tool to live on its own webpage. This feature would benefit small businesses that do not have their websites set up but want to be able to support customers with live chat.
Tawk.to customers can customize the chat page URL, add agent photos, and include job title, a description, and social media and external links. Below is an example of how the chat page will look if customized as an agent profile page:
Knowledge Base
A knowledge base is a resource that addresses your customers’ common concerns and FAQs. Having a knowledge base for your company is key for customer support, as visitors can search for information without speaking directly with a customer service representative. Like many competitors, tawk.to hosts a landing page for the knowledge base rather than housing FAQs within the live chat interface.
When creating a knowledge base with tawk.to, you’ll design a landing page that contains knowledge base articles. The landing page will look like this when configured:
Additional features of the knowledge base include:
- Search bar for easily locating articles
- Chat widget
- Ticketing capabilities
Ticketing
A ticketing system is designed for businesses to capture, track, and resolve customer issues. Tawk.to includes a built-in ticketing system that allows agents to receive tickets through the Knowledge Base and the chat widget during offline hours. Tawk.to’s ticketing system is effective, though slightly outdated in appearance.
To submit a ticket, visitors provide their email address and message. Agents can respond to the ticket from within the tawk.to system or via their email account. Below is an image of the ticketing tool:
With the ticketing interface, agents can:
- Assign agents to the ticket
- Update the ticket status
- Give tickets low, medium, or high priority
- Send attachments to visitors
Tawk.to Customer Support
Tawk.to’s customer support is available round-the-clock every day of the year. We found that agents were available to speak immediately after sending a chat and resolved all questions about the software.
| Customer Support Channels | Live chat, Email, Social media |
| Customer Support Availability | 24x7x365 (chat) |
| Other Support Resources | Blog, Videos, Help center, Developer platform |
| Application Status Page | No |
Tawk.to Alternatives & Competitors
A top tawk.to alternative is Smith.ai, another live chat tool that also offers agents for hire. In terms of pricing, there are no true comparisons to draw; however, across tools that are solely dedicated to live chat, tawk.to has the best value. Additional competitors that offer live chat tools are:
For more in-depth comparisons between tawk.to and competitors, check out our Olark vs. tawk.to and tawk.to vs. Tidio articles.
Is Tawk.to Right For You?
Tawk.to is an entirely free live chat solution with over 3 million customers across the world. The software provides all key live chat features required to support and engage customers. Though the best offering is their live chat, it's a full-featured customer support platform that companies can use for various support avenues.
Tawk.to offers the most robust free plan across live chat softwares. It also offers unique services like chat agents and virtual assistants for hire. This solution is ideal for any company searching for a free yet reliable live chat solution. However, if you require email campaign capabilities, chatbots, or advanced integrations, we recommend opting for more full-bodied customer engagement solutions like Tidio or LiveChat.
If you are interested in trying tawk.to, sign up for free.