Tawk.to is the most popular free live-chat widget in the world, and the price tag — genuinely £0 — makes it an obvious first try for cost-conscious estate agencies. It's a legitimately good product. But "free" hides a real cost that matters enormously in estate agency: someone has to be there to answer. This guide explains where Tawk.to fits for agents, where it quietly costs you leads, and how it compares to an automated alternative.
Tawk.to pricing (2026)
| What | Cost |
|---|---|
| Live chat widget (unlimited chats & agents) | Free |
| Remove "powered by Tawk.to" branding | $39/month (or $29/month billed annually) |
| Hired chat agents (Tawk.to's own staff) | From $1/hour (scales by hours and coverage) |
| AI assist add-on | From $29/month (tiered by AI message volume) |
Per Tawk.to's website, June 2026. The core widget is free; revenue comes from add-ons.
Tawk.to is free because you are the chat operator. The widget does nothing on its own — a real person has to watch the dashboard and reply. For a 1–10 person agency, nobody is monitoring chat at 9pm on a Sunday, which is exactly when a buyer is scrolling Rightmove. The enquiry sits unanswered until Monday, and the buyer has already messaged three other agents.
Tawk.to vs Sift at a glance
| Tawk.to | Sift | |
|---|---|---|
| Who answers | You / your staff (manual) | AI agent (automatic) |
| Out-of-hours coverage | ✗ Only if someone's online | ✓ 24/7 automatic |
| Buyer qualification | ✗ Manual, ad hoc | ✓ 14-point scoring |
| Property CRM delivery | ✗ | ✓ Sift dashboard + CSV on every plan; Zapier, webhook & API on Growth & Scale |
| GDPR consent for property data | ~ Configure yourself | ✓ Built in |
| Cost | Free (+ add-ons) | From £149/mo |
Where Tawk.to works for agents
A free, unlimited live-chat widget that's quick to install. Great if you have staff who can monitor it during opening hours.
- Genuinely free, unlimited chats and agents
- Quick to install on any website
- Mobile apps so staff can reply on the go
- Branding removal is a paid add-on ($29–$39/month)
- Good for daytime, staffed coverage
- Fully manual — no answer when nobody's online
- No buyer qualification or lead scoring
- No native property-CRM push
- Misses the 40%+ of enquiries that arrive out of hours (Moneypenny, 2025)
- GDPR property-consent is your responsibility
Pricing: Free; $29–$39/month to remove branding; paid hired-agent and AI add-ons.
Best for: Agencies with staff available to monitor chat during opening hours and a tight budget.
The estate-agency problem Tawk.to doesn't solve
The whole reason agents add chat is to stop losing enquiries. But a large share of property enquiries arrive in the evenings and at weekends — precisely when a manual widget is unmanned. Our breakdown of the cost of missed property enquiries shows how quickly that compounds into lost instructions and viewings.
An automated tool flips the model. Sift answers instantly at any hour, runs a property qualification (chain, DIP/AIP, cash, budget, timeline, scheme eligibility), scores the lead, and lands it in the Sift dashboard with CSV export on every plan — or routes it into your CRM via Zapier, an outbound webhook or the REST API on Growth and Scale — so the 10pm Saturday enquiry is captured, qualified and waiting in your pipeline on Monday morning instead of gone. If your priority is responding faster, see how to respond to property enquiries faster.
To be clear: if you have someone watching chat all day and just want a free widget, Tawk.to does that job well. The moment you want coverage you can't physically staff, the calculus changes.
Frequently asked questions
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