Best free live chat widgets for your site (2026)

Every live chat tool advertises a free plan. Almost none of them tell you where the cap is until you hit it. Conversation limits, seat limits, forced branding, features that quietly disappear once you’re past trial. Here’s what each free tier actually gives you, and where it breaks.

What makes a free plan actually usable?

Not all “$0” plans are equal. Before comparing tools, here’s what separates a usable free tier from a demo with a paywall:

• No conversation cap. A monthly message limit means you’re rationing support, or paying to keep talking to your own customers.
• Enough seats for your team. A cap of 1-2 seats works for a solo founder, not a team of three.
• No forced branding, or branding you can live with long-term, not just during a trial.
• Core features included, not locked behind the first paid tier the moment you need them.
• No expiration. A “free trial” is not a free plan.

1. Bubblegram (flat, no seat limit)

Bubblegram doesn’t have a seat-based free plan because it isn’t seat-based at all. You connect a Telegram group, and however many people are in that group can reply. The free tier covers a single site with the full widget: email capture, real-time replies, no cap on conversations.

Good for: Solo founders and small teams who want a working chat widget without adding a per-seat bill later.

Not great for: Teams that need a shared inbox, CRM, or automated workflows. Bubblegram is deliberately narrow.

2. Tawk.to (unlimited agents, but branded)

Tawk.to’s free plan is generous on paper: unlimited agents, unlimited conversations, $0 forever. The catch is everything past the basic widget. Removing Tawk.to branding, AI assist, and video/voice chat are paid add-ons at $29/mo each, stacked on top of a “free” plan.

Good for: Teams that don’t mind the Tawk.to badge on their widget and just want unlimited basic chat.

Not great for: Anyone who wants a clean, branded widget without paying extra on top of “free.”

3. Tidio (capped at 50 conversations)

Tidio’s free plan includes 3 team members and 50 conversations per month. That’s fine for a low-traffic site, but 50 conversations disappears fast once a widget is actually working. Past that, you’re on Starter or Growth at $29-59/seat/month, priced by conversation volume.

Good for: Very low-volume sites testing whether live chat is worth having at all.

Not great for: Any site with real traffic. The conversation cap turns into a monthly countdown.

4. Crisp (2 seats, no workflows)

Crisp’s free plan allows unlimited conversations, which is better than Tidio, but caps out at 2 seats with no workflows and no AI features. The moment you need a third teammate, you jump straight to Mini at $45/mo for 4 seats. There’s no in-between.

Good for: A founder or two-person team that just needs the chat widget, nothing else.

Not great for: Teams of three or more. The pricing cliff from 2 seats to $45/mo is steep for one extra person.

5. Chatwoot (self-hosted, genuinely unlimited)

Chatwoot is open-source and self-hosted, so its free plan has no seat cap, no conversation cap, and no branding requirement. It’s the most generous free tier here, if you’re willing to run the infrastructure yourself. Chatwoot Cloud, the hosted version, drops the self-hosting requirement but also drops the free plan, starting at $19/agent/month.

Good for: Developers comfortable maintaining a self-hosted service in exchange for a genuinely unlimited free plan.

Not great for: Anyone who wants “free” to mean “no server to maintain.”

Side-by-side comparison

Which one should you pick?

If you want unlimited conversations without running your own server, Chatwoot self-hosted or Tawk.to are the most generous, as long as you can live with self-hosting or branding. If you’re a solo founder or small team that wants a working widget with no seat math and no conversation countdown, Bubblegram is built for exactly that case. If your team is growing past 2-3 people, budget for the jump: Crisp and Tidio’s free tiers don’t scale with headcount, they just stop.

For pricing math on a specific tool, see our breakdowns for Crisp, Tawk.to, Tidio, and Chatwoot. If you’re specifically after a Telegram-based widget, we also compared 5 Telegram chat widgets.