Individuals and organizations use live chat software tools to connect with website visitors. Live chat software is also often equipped with marketing features like email campaigns and on-site chat campaigns.

There are many live chat solutions on the market today, which can make it hard to decide which one will be the best for you and your business. We’ve written this guide to help simplify your decision and to help you understand the major differences between tawk.to and Tidio.

tawk.to & Tidio Comparison Summary

tawk.to and Tidio are two popular live chat solutions. We gave each solution a high overall score in our rankings; the key differences between them are the price and top features.

Tawk.to is an entirely free live chat solution with the option to hire agents to chat with website visitors on your company’s behalf. It may be the right choice for you if you’re looking for live chat for free or want to outsource the management of your live chat to a team of virtual agents. Tidio, on the other hand, may be ideal if you’re looking for a combination of live chat, email marketing, & chatbot capabilities, and want to manage your live chat in-house.

Here’s a quick breakdown to determine which solution is best for you:

Table of Contents

• tawk.to & Tidio Comparison Summary
• Who Should Purchase tawk.to?
• Who Should Purchase Tidio?
• tawk.to & Tidio Price Comparison
  • tawk.to Pricing
  • Tidio Pricing
• tawk.to & Tidio Feature Comparison
  • tawk.to’s Top Features
  • Tidio's Top Features
• Bottom Line

Who Should Purchase tawk.to?

Tawk.to is a strong solution that will benefit companies of any size that want live chat for free. This is going to be a solid choice especially if you’re looking to have tawk.to chat agents handle chats on your behalf.

In our research, we found that tawk.to provides the most robust free live chat plan. Though the interface is not as modern as the interface found within other tools, it works well. While testing the tool, we also found their customer service team to be reliable, which is a benefit for any customer who has questions or needs assistance.

David Plumridge from ActionBuddy, who has been using tawk.to for about two months, finds that the tool is quick to load on the page and finds that it's superior to other free live chat offerings. Customers are generally happy with the tool overall, but have noted that the mobile application is fickle when it comes to notifications and ease of use.

Who Should Purchase Tidio?

Tidio is a reliable choice for small to medium businesses looking for a one-stop customer engagement solution. If you don’t currently have an email provider, and believe that you can grow your business by strengthening your customer relationships, then this is a good solution for you.

In our research, we determined that Tidio customers are pleased with its ease of use and broad range of features. Jeff Moriarty from Moriarty's Gem Art uses Tidio to help close sales and noted that it works well with Shopify. He also mentioned that it has a good user interface, which contributes to a better customer experience.

Customers have also expressed, however, that chat notifications can be unreliable, and we had the same problem when testing the software. Overall, Tidio offers a wide range of marketing capabilities at a lower cost than many other live chat solutions on the market.

tawk.to & Tidio Price Comparison

Tawk.to is entirely free for live chat and add-ons are available for a monthly fee. On the other hand, Tidio offers a free plan as well as features that range from $10 to $46 per month.

tawk.to Pricing Details

For live chat, tawk.to pricing is free. Live chat agents and virtual assistants can be hired for a low hourly rate. Below is a guide of tawk.to’s paid add-on features:

Tidio Pricing Details

Tidio pricing ranges from free to $46 per month depending on which features you wish to pay for each month. There are no long-term contracts, which will provide you with a high degree of flexibility. Here’s an overview of Tidio’s plans and pricing:

tawk.to & Tidio Feature Comparison

Tawk.to and Tidio are two live chat tools that offer similar chat features but differ across the range of other tools offered. In the live chat category, both solutions offer canned chat responses, visitor typing previews, visitor information, file sharing, and a chat history log.

As displayed in the table below, each platform also includes features not found in its competitor. Of particular note is that Tidio offers both chatbot and email marketing features, neither of which tawk.to includes. For a full analysis of each solution’s features, read our tawk.to review and Tidio review.

tawk.to's Top Features

Tawk.to offers advanced live chat capabilities for free. Its main features, as well as a few unique offerings, are outlined below. Understanding the features below will help you determine if tawk.to will benefit your business.

Live Chat

Tawk.to’s live chat feature is shown below. You can view up to four chats side by side within the tawk.to inbox, which you cannot do with Tidio’s inbox. This feature is helpful for agents to carry out multiple conversations at once without having to switch screens.

Visitors will use this widget, which is slightly less modern in appearance than Tidio’s widget:

Reporting

While both solutions offer a reporting section, tawk.to’s is in-depth and offers more sections than Tidio’s reporting section. Though tawk.to’s reports take a couple of hours to populate data, the included metrics are helpful for understanding chat efficiency.

Chat Agents for Hire

Chat agents or virtual assistants can be hired directly through tawk.to. This is a fairly unique feature, and Tidio does not offer this service. Chat agents will respond to visitors for your company, while virtual assistants can provide administrative, technical, or customer support assistance.

Knowledge Base

Tawk.to allows businesses to create searchable knowledge bases for their customers to find answers to commonly asked questions, which Tidio does not. In Tidio, frequently asked questions can be answered by chatbots.

Tidio's Top Features

Tidio offers not only live chat, but also additional marketing and engagement tools. Because of this, Tidio might be for you if you’re looking for a well-rounded engagement solution that extends beyond live chat.

Live Chat

Both Tidio and tawk.to have live chat features. We found that Tidio’s live chat has a more streamlined and modern look, both within the inbox itself and within the visitor widget.

Chatbots

Tidio includes chatbots, which can be programmed to interact with customers while agents are unavailable. Tidio’s chatbots are easy to configure with their library of pre-built bot templates or buildable workflows.

Email Marketing

Tidio offers built-in email marketing capabilities, which tawk.to does not. Email marketing is a marketing strategy that can capture leads, notify visitors of company events, and more. We found this feature particularly useful and easy to use, especially with a wide variety of templates, one of which is shown below.

Bottom Line

Tawk.to and Tidio are two popular live chat tools. Tawk.to has over 3,600,000 users, making it one of the most widely used live chat software on the market. Alternatively, Tidio is utilized on over 300,000 websites. Both solutions have significant benefits — the main difference lies in what features you want, and whether you want a free or paid solution.

If you’re interested, visit tawk.to or Tidio today to get started.