Chatbot Alternatives 6 min read
tawk.to Pricing 2026: What's Free and What Isn't
tawk.to’s core software is free: live chat, chat pages, a hosted knowledge base, ticketing and a contacts CRM. You pay only for add-ons. Removing the “Powered by tawk.to” branding costs $29 a month. AI Assist, the chatbot that answers visitors for you, starts at $29 a month, with a free plan for sites with low chat volume. If you’d rather have people answer, tawk.to’s hired chat agents cost $1 an hour. These figures are from the official tawk.to pricing page, as of October 2026.
| What you get (as of Oct 2026) | Price |
|---|---|
| Live chat, chat pages, knowledge base, ticketing, contacts | Free |
| Remove “Powered by tawk.to” branding | $29/month |
| AI Assist (AI chatbot) | Free plan for limited chat volume, paid from $29/month |
| Hired chat agents (people answer for you) | $1/hour |
| Virtual assistants (admin, design, bookkeeping and more) | From $7/hour |
If you’re comparing tawk.to with AI-first support tools, our guide to Intercom Fin alternatives covers the wider field. Below is what tawk.to does well, what the free price leaves to you, and where ZynfoAI is a different kind of tool.
What tawk.to does well
Free live chat is a real offer. tawk.to says plainly that it believes you should never have to pay to talk to your customers. A small team can put a chat box on its site, answer from the dashboard, and keep a help center, a ticket queue and a contact list in the same place without paying anything.
The hired agent service is unusual too. For $1 an hour, tawk.to supplies trained people to answer chats on your behalf. If you want humans on your chat and can’t staff it yourself, few tools offer that.
What “free” leaves to you
Free software still needs someone to answer it. Live chat without automation means every question waits for a person on your team. After hours, chats turn into offline messages that someone answers the next morning.
You have three ways to close that gap on tawk.to:
- Answer chats yourself. Free, but it costs your team’s time.
- Pay for hired agents at $1 an hour. Covering every hour of a 30-day month at that rate comes to $720.
- Add AI Assist. The pricing page says it answers chats using your knowledge base and a set of shortcut FAQs, from $29 a month. The AI Assist page adds that it can train on FAQs, your help center, your website and documents, and suggest replies to your agents while they chat.
Option 3 is the closest to what ZynfoAI does. The difference is in what the bot can do beyond answering.
Where ZynfoAI is a different tool
tawk.to is a live chat platform with AI added on. ZynfoAI starts from the AI agent: it answers first, acts on orders, and hands the chat to your team with a summary when a person is needed.
There is one plan: $99 a month or $990 a year, with a 7-day trial. It includes 5,000 conversations a month, 11 team seats, one AI agent and up to 500 training sources. There are no per-resolution fees.
What that covers in practice:
- Answers with the source. Train the agent on website pages, PDFs, DOCX and XLSX files, and Google Drive. It shows which source an answer came from, and replies in the customer’s language.
- Store actions on Shopify: order lookup (“Where’s my order #1042?”), cancelling unshipped orders, return requests and refund status, product recommendations and add to cart.
- Leads that reach your CRM: capture, qualification and demo booking, synced to Freshsales.
- A handoff with context. The agent spots when a customer wants a person, writes a summary and routes the chat within working hours (round-robin, least busy or broadcast). Unclaimed chats go back to the queue. Outside working hours, the AI keeps helping or opens a ticket. See how human handoff works.
- WhatsApp as well as your website. Both land in one team inbox with private notes, transfers and CSAT.
Side by side
| Feature | Zynfo AI | tawk.to |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $99/mo or $990/yr, one plan | Free core, paid add-ons |
| AI chatbot | Included, 5,000 conversations/mo | AI Assist, free tier or from $29/mo |
| People answering for you | Your own team | Hired agents at $1/hr |
| Shopify order actions | Yes | Not listed on pricing page |
| WhatsApp Business API | Yes | Not listed on pricing page |
| Hosted help center | Trains on your existing help content | Yes, free |
When tawk.to is the better choice
Pick tawk.to if your budget is zero and your team can answer chats during the day. Nothing in this category beats free.
Pick it if you want people, not AI, on your chat and can’t hire them yourself. The $1-an-hour agent service has no equivalent at ZynfoAI.
Pick it if you also need a free hosted help center for customers to browse. ZynfoAI trains on your existing help content rather than replacing it.
And pick tawk.to with AI Assist if your volume is low and the free AI plan covers it.
When ZynfoAI is the better fit
Pick ZynfoAI if most of your chats are the same questions and you want them answered at night without paying someone by the hour. Pick it if you run a Shopify store and want order lookups, cancellations and returns handled in the chat. And pick it if you want website chat and WhatsApp in one inbox, with a handoff that tells your team what already happened.
ZynfoAI does not cover email, SMS, Instagram or Facebook Messenger. If those channels matter, the other tools in our Intercom Fin alternatives guide may suit you better. You can also browse all ZynfoAI comparisons, or read ZynfoAI vs LiveChat for another live-chat-first option.
Full plan details are on the ZynfoAI pricing page.
Tools and guides
Put this into practice
AI with Human Handoff
Escalate complex chats to live agents with complete conversation context.
Free ToolChatbot ROI Calculator
Calculate your projected cost savings, ticket deflection rate, and revenue impact.
FeatureShared Team Inbox
Manage website chat and WhatsApp conversations from one workspace.
Free ToolAI FAQ Generator
Turn documents, manuals, and URLs into structured FAQs and schema markup.


