SimplyChat vs Tawk.to
Tawk.to is the popular free live chat tool — it's also ad-supported, lacks co-browse, and charges per-site to remove branding. SimplyChat is the ad-free, feature-richer alternative at $29.99 flat for unlimited sites.
- Tawk.to is free with ads in the widget. SimplyChat is $29.99/month, ad-free, with co-browse and AI-suggest included.
- Tawk.to charges $19/month per site to remove their branding. SimplyChat removes branding by default and covers unlimited sites for one flat fee.
- SimplyChat ships built-in co-browse (live screen view of the visitor) — Tawk.to doesn't.
- Both run lightweight widgets (~28KB vs ~95KB) and install in roughly the same time.
If you want truly free and don't mind ads + missing features, Tawk.to wins. If you want a clean, ad-free experience with built-in co-browse, AI-suggested replies, and the ability to install on unlimited sites without paying per site, SimplyChat is the better fit.
Pricing, side by side
Feature comparison
| Feature | SimplyChat | Tawk.to |
|---|---|---|
| Widget size (gzipped) | <30KB gzipped | ~95KB |
| Free tier | — | Yes (ad-supported) |
| Cost to remove branding | Included ($29.99 covers it) | $19/mo per site |
| Sites covered | Unlimited | Per-site billing |
| Real-time visitor tracking | Built-in | Built-in |
| Co-browse / screen view | Built-in, view-only | — |
| AI-suggested replies | Built-in (Claude) | — |
| Ads in widget | No | Yes (unless paid) |
Honest pricing comparison
Tawk.to wins on raw price for a single site if you can live with the small ad banner inside the chat widget. The moment you want to remove that ad — usually a hard requirement for any brand that takes itself seriously — you pay $19/month per site. Run SimplyChat on three sites? That's $57/month with Tawk.to's branding removal vs $29.99/month with SimplyChat. At unlimited sites the gap grows. Tawk.to is genuinely free if free is good enough; SimplyChat is the right answer the moment ads or per-site fees become a problem.
Co-browse — the feature Tawk.to doesn't have
Tawk.to doesn't offer co-browse. For ecommerce stores especially, that's a notable miss — you can't see the visitor's cart or the size selector they're stuck on without asking them to describe it. SimplyChat ships co-browse built in: one click to view the visitor's screen in view-only mode, with password and payment-card fields automatically masked. No extra software for the visitor to install.
AI-suggested replies, included
Tawk.to relies on Tawk.to AI as a separate paid product. SimplyChat includes AI-suggested replies (powered by Claude Haiku 4.5) in the base $29.99 plan — click the sparkle button in the dashboard reply box and the model drafts a response from the last 20 messages of the conversation, ready for the agent to edit and send.
Frequently asked questions
Is Tawk.to actually free?+
Yes, the base tier is free — the cost is the small Tawk.to ad shown inside the widget on your site, plus the absence of co-browse and AI features. To remove the ad you pay $19/month per site.
Can I migrate my Tawk.to setup?+
Yes — Tawk.to lets you export contacts and transcripts. Install SimplyChat on your site (one script tag), and you're live. We don't auto-import Tawk.to message history, but most teams find it accumulates fast enough on the new tool that the migration cost is small.
Why pay for SimplyChat instead of staying on free Tawk.to?+
Three reasons: (1) no ads in your widget, (2) co-browse — you can see what visitors are seeing, which is hard to replace, (3) AI-suggested replies included. If those don't matter to you, Tawk.to free is a fine choice.
Switch to SimplyChat in 2 minutes
$29.99/month flat. Unlimited sites, unlimited agents. No credit card to start.
Get started