Tawk.to is fantastic for what it is: a free, no-frills live chat tool. But what if your chat could do more, like automate repetitive questions, recommend products, and integrate seamlessly with your CRM?
In this guide, we’re diving into the best Tawk.to alternatives that help you turn your support channel into a powerful engine for growth. You’ll learn how tools like Chatty can act as an AI sales assistant for e-commerce, why Zendesk and Freshdesk are built to scale for growing teams, and how Crisp and Gleap give you more power over the user experience.
Let’s get started!
The weaknesses of Tawk.to & possible solutions
Launched in 2010, Tawk.to gained massive adoption thanks to its free, easy-to-use live chat. For small businesses, it remains an attractive entry point with zero subscription cost and quick setup.
However, the same simplicity becomes a barrier as companies grow. Tawk.to lacks automation, advanced analytics, deep integrations, and branding flexibility (features now essential for scaling support and driving revenue). The table below will display more clearly its main weaknesses, the solutions required, and the alternatives worth considering for you.
| Weakness/Limitation of Tawk.to | Solution required | Alternatives that address this |
| Limited advanced automation / AI | A native chatbot engine, contextual replies, and automated workflows | Chatty (chatbot that sells), Zoho SalesIQ (includes bots), Gleap (AI-powered support) |
| Poor customization/branding control | Flexibility to adjust widget design, white-label options, and custom CSS | Crisp (strong in widget customization) |
| Scaling constraints: multi-teams, routing, permissions | Capability to assign chats to teams, use smart routing, and agent permissions | Zendesk (enterprise-grade support), Freshdesk (scalable support workflows) |
| Weak or limited integrations (CRM, e-commerce, marketing tools) | Native connectors to Shopify, WooCommerce, HubSpot, APIs & plugins | Chatty (built for Shopify), Zoho SalesIQ (built for integration), ProProfs (live chat + CRM + KB) |
| Insufficient analytics & insights | Advanced reporting: agent performance, conversation trends, conversion funnel | Gleap (rich context + metrics), ProProfs (analytics + reporting), Zendesk (strong reporting) |
| Only reactive support (no proactive engagement) | Ability to trigger messages based on user behavior, pop-ups, push notifications | Zoho SalesIQ (behavioral chat triggers), Gleap (in-app surveys & outreach), risp (pop-ups, chat prompts) |
7 best Tawk.to alternatives for smarter customer conversations
While Tawk.to sets the stage for basic customer chat, these seven alternatives are built to help you create truly intelligent, proactive, and revenue-driving conversations.
Chatty (best for AI-driven automation and e-commerce)
After reviewing dozens of chat tools, we can confidently say Chatty is the best choice for any e-commerce store wanting to turn support into a real sales machine. Unlike Tawk.to which just passively waits for questions, Chatty proactively sells for you. Its most powerful feature, in my opinion, is its ability to learn your entire product catalog and then provide smart recommendations, upsells, and cross-sells just like an experienced human sales associate.
Imagine a customer is browsing at midnight, unsure about a technical detail; Chatty’s AI not only answers them but also suggests a compatible accessory, just as it learned to do with Decathlon’s 10,000 products overnight. This is no longer just about support; it’s about selling more and delivering a fantastic customer experience, even while you sleep.
Key features:
- An AI assistant trained on your unique business data, including up to 10,000 products and FAQs.
- Natural, multi-language conversations that preserve your brand’s unique voice.
- A collaborative live chat system for seamless agent hand-off.
- One-click, on-site order tracking to reduce support tickets.
- A centralized inbox for email, Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp.
- Proactive automation workflows to engage visitors with targeted messages.
Price: Starts at $19.99 per user per month, with Pro at $49.99 and Plus at $199.99.
Zoho SalesIQ (best for CRM integration and behavior triggers)
For businesses in the Zoho ecosystem, SalesIQ is a powerful customer engagement platform that combines live chat with website tracking and analytics.
While Tawk.to offers basic chat, SalesIQ excels at proactively engaging visitors with “behavioral triggers” that start a chat based on user actions. We believe its greatest advantage is turning conversations into actionable data that feeds directly into Zoho CRM, building a detailed customer profile with every interaction.
Key features:
- Deep, native integration with the Zoho ecosystem, especially Zoho CRM.
- Intelligent routing to direct chats to the right department or agent.
- Advanced real-time visitor tracking across your site.
- Powerful chatbots (Zobots) to automate lead qualification.
- Comprehensive analytics dashboards for monitoring performance.
However, its deep integration is also its main limitation. If your business doesn’t use Zoho CRM, setting up SalesIQ feels overly complicated and clunky.
You lose the seamless data flow that makes it so powerful, leaving you with a tool that feels less intuitive than more focused competitors. This can lead to a fragmented workflow and wasted time trying to connect data between different systems.
Price: Free plan available, paid plans from $7 to $20 per operator per month.
Gleap (best for in-app support and feedback)
Gleap reframes customer communication from a simple chat to a complete feedback platform, making it perfect for SaaS and mobile app companies. Where Tawk.to focuses only on live chat, Gleap combines chat with powerful visual bug reporting, allowing users to send annotated screenshots and screen recordings directly to your developers.
We love how it automatically captures all the technical data in the background, which dramatically speeds up bug-fixing time and improves the product with every user interaction.
Key features:
- Visual bug and feedback reporting with automatic technical data capture.
- Contextual AI support that understands user issues.
- In-app surveys and public feature request boards.
- Session replays to see what a user did before an issue occurred.
- A “Magic Search” widget for finding help articles or reporting a bug.
The limitation here is its specialization. Gleap is a niche tool designed for product-led businesses, not a general-purpose chat tool like Tawk.to. If you run a standard e-commerce store or a content website, its features for bug tracking and in-app surveys will be largely irrelevant.
For these businesses, choosing Gleap would mean paying for a suite of product development tools you’ll never use, while missing out on the sales-focused features other alternatives provide.
Price: Starts at $31 per month, with Team at $119 and Enterprise from $799.
Crisp (best for customization and branding)
Crisp is a modern live chat platform loved for its clean interface and extremely flexible customization. It allows businesses to create chat widgets that can be deeply tailored to perfectly match their brand identity. We appreciate that Crisp is more than just a chat tool; it’s a multichannel inbox that unifies email, Messenger, and even WhatsApp into one place, making team collaboration effortless.
Key features:
- Shared multichannel inbox (email, chat, Facebook, WhatsApp).
- Unlimited chat widget customization to fit your brand.
- Ability to create chatbots and automated interaction scenarios.
- Built-in knowledge base and co-browsing features.
- Allows for direct video and audio calls from within the chat.
Compared to Tawk.to, Crisp’s clear advantages are its branding control and proactive engagement features. However, its limitation lies in its analytics. While it offers basic reports, it lacks the in-depth agent performance metrics or conversation trend analysis that enterprise-level tools provide.
If you need detailed data to make decisions at scale, you might find Crisp a bit “light.” Furthermore, some of its advanced AI and automation features are paid add-ons, which can increase costs beyond initial expectations.
Price: Free plan available, paid plans from $45 to $295 per month per workspace.
Zendesk Chat (best for enterprise scalability)
As part of the broader Zendesk customer service ecosystem, Zendesk Chat is built for large organizations that need powerful scalability. It excels at managing huge volumes of interactions thanks to advanced routing, detailed permissions, and complex workflow automation.
When integrated with the full Zendesk Suite, it creates a comprehensive customer experience solution that leaves Tawk.to far behind in its ability to handle multi-team environments.
Key features:
- Automated chat routing and assignment based on skills or priority.
- Seamless integration with Zendesk Sell (CRM) and Support (Ticketing).
- Provides an AI-powered Answer Bot to handle common questions.
- Enterprise-grade reporting and performance analytics.
- High scalability to handle sudden traffic surges.
However, Zendesk’s power is also its main weakness for smaller businesses. The platform can be overly complex and expensive. Setting up and customizing workflows requires a significant learning curve, and teams without prior experience may struggle.
We believe businesses should be prepared for a substantial investment and dedicated training time to fully leverage Zendesk’s potential.
Price: Plans range from $19 to $169 per agent per month, billed annually.
Freshdesk (best for growing teams)
From the Freshworks suite, Freshdesk (formerly Freshchat) is tailored for small and mid-sized businesses on a growth trajectory. It strikes an excellent balance between powerful features and an approachable interface.
We find that Freshdesk does a great job of automating workflows, allowing teams to collaborate efficiently and support customers across multiple channels. It scales much better than Tawk.to in multi-agent environments.
Key features:
- Omnichannel support including web, mobile, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger.
- Workflow automation and smart chat routing (IntelliAssign).
- Provides an AI-powered chatbot (Freddy AI) to handle repetitive questions.
- Offers real-time insights into visitor behavior.
- “Journeys” feature to send targeted messages based on user behavior.
Freshdesk’s main limitation is an interface that can sometimes feel a bit heavy and cluttered, especially when compared to minimalist options like Crisp.
Additionally, many of its most valuable features, like advanced chatbots or skill-based routing, are locked behind higher-tier plans. This means smaller businesses might need to upgrade sooner than anticipated to get the tools they need, driving up costs.
Price: Starts at $15 per agent per month, with advanced plans up to $79.
ProProfs Chat (best all-in-one SMB tool)
ProProfs Chat is a very strong all-in-one choice for SMBs, combining live chat with a CRM, knowledge base, and ticketing system. It offers a much more complete customer support toolkit than Tawk.to at a very affordable price. We particularly like how it allows you to set up proactive greetings and monitor visitor behavior to initiate conversations at just the right moment.
Key features:
- 100+ customization settings and ready-made templates.
- Visitor monitoring and proactive chat engagement.
- Built-in integration with a knowledge base and ticketing system.
- Provides reports on agent performance and customer satisfaction.
- Unlimited chat history storage on paid plans.
However, as a budget-friendly, multipurpose tool, ProProfs has its trade-offs. It lacks the truly advanced AI capabilities or deep customizations found in enterprise-grade platforms like Zendesk. Its chatbot is primarily based on preset rules rather than machine learning.
For large organizations that require complex automation, predictive analytics, or extensive API integrations, ProProfs will likely fall short.
Price: Free for single operators, then just $19.99 per operator per month, or from $99 to unlock a full support suite under one roof.
Match your needs with the right Tawk.to alternatives
Choosing the right tool depends entirely on what problem you’re trying to solve. Here’s how to match your goals with the perfect alternative.
1. If you need smarter automation and engagement…
Your goal is to reduce repetitive questions, qualify leads automatically, and create more personalized, proactive conversations. You want a tool that doesn’t just answer questions but actively helps you sell.
👉Best picks:
- Chatty: Its e-commerce focused AI learns your product catalog to provide smart recommendations and upsells.
- Zoho SalesIQ: It uses visitor behavior to trigger conversations and enriches your CRM with every chat.
2. If you need scalability and team efficiency…
Your business is growing fast, and you need structured workflows to manage a larger team and higher chat volume. You require advanced routing, clear agent permissions, and detailed reporting to maintain service quality.
👉Best picks:
- Zendesk Chat: This enterprise-grade tool is built to handle complex, high-volume support environments.
- Freshdesk: It offers an affordable and scalable option for growing teams with strong workflow automation.
- ProProfs Chat: This all-in-one tool combines chat with a help desk and knowledge base for SMBs.
3. If you need a better brand experience and product feedback…
You care most about how the chat widget looks and feels on your site, and you want to use customer conversations to gather direct insights. Your focus is on creating a seamless brand experience and improving your product based on user feedback.
👉Best picks:
- Crisp: This platform leads in customization, allowing you to create a beautifully branded chat experience.
- Gleap: It is the best tool for in-app feedback, offering visual bug reporting and surveys.
FAQ
What is Tawk.to and why do businesses look for alternatives?
Tawk.to is a totally free live chat software that allows businesses to monitor and chat with website visitors in real-time. Businesses look for alternatives when they outgrow its basic features and need more advanced capabilities. Common reasons for switching include a need for better automation, deeper e-commerce integrations, more branding control, and more robust analytics to support a growing team.
Which is the best free alternative to Tawk.to?
For businesses seeking a free alternative, Tidio & Freshdesk are excellent choices. Tidio’s free plan includes chatbots and a generous number of conversations, making it great for automation, while Freshdesk’s free offering supports up to 10 agents and is ideal for teams needing a more structured ticketing system from the start.
Which live chat tool is best for e-commerce stores on Shopify or WooCommerce?
Chatty is the best live chat tool for e-commerce stores because it is built specifically to drive sales on these platforms. Its AI learns your entire product catalog to provide smart recommendations, upsells, and cross-sells directly in the chat. This proactive, sales-focused approach helps increase average order value and converts more shoppers into customers, something general-purpose chat tools don’t do.
Are there AI-powered alternatives to Tawk.to?
Yes. Chatty and Tidio are leading examples, using AI to automate conversations, provide intelligent product recommendations, and handle common customer questions 24/7. These tools use AI not just to answer questions, but to actively engage customers, qualify leads, and drive sales, offering a much more advanced solution than Tawk.to’s basic live chat.
Final thoughts
After comparing the top tools, it’s clear that moving beyond Tawk.to is a necessary step for any serious business. The right Tawk.to alternatives will depend on your specific needs, whether it’s scalability, CRM integration, or branding. From our experience, if you’re in e-commerce, no tool provides a better return on investment than one built to sell, which is why Chatty is our top recommendation.