Factual comparison

Stand Chat vs tawk.to AI Assist

tawk.to provides a free human live-chat and support suite with AI Assist metered separately. Stand uses a per-conversation allowance for human-first website chat and AI coverage.

Latest first-party source check: August 22, 2026. Unknowns and modeled assumptions stay labeled.

Scope

These products solve different jobs.

The comparison separates product scope from price so a broader suite is not penalized for costing more, and a focused tool is not credited with features it does not have.

Stand Chat

Stand is website chat for product learning with live human participation. Available people receive new chats first; AI Stand-ins cover when no eligible person can answer.

Important boundary: Stand does not provide a full ticketing suite, visitor-channel omnichannel inbox, workforce management, ecommerce order automation, or a native meeting scheduler.

Review Stand sources

tawk.to

tawk.to's core live-chat, ticketing, CRM, and knowledge-base product is free. AI Assist is a separate message-credit product with paid escalation and top-ups.

Important boundary: Hobby's 100 credits cover AI-generated messages, not full conversations. Human chat remains available when AI credit is exhausted.

Review tawk.to sources

Product facts

The same questions, answered for both products.

Every page uses the same rows. Feature gates are named when public documentation identifies them.

Product scope
Stand ChatHuman-first website chat. An eligible Available rep receives a new chat first; a named AI Stand-in with a visible AI badge can cover when no eligible rep can answer and Stand-in coverage is active.
tawk.toFree human live chat and support suite with ticketing, CRM, knowledge base, visitor monitoring, and a separately metered AI Assist layer.
Recurring autonomous AI entry
Stand ChatBase is $0 with no card and includes 15 new visitor conversations per week. AI Stand-ins and human takeover are included on every plan.
tawk.toAI Assist Hobby is $0 with 100 credits/month, one AI agent, and 100 crawled pages. Growth is $29 monthly or $290/year with 1,000 credits.
AI billing unit
Stand ChatOne newly created visitor session counts as one chat. Page views, widget loads, visitors who do not start a chat, message count, message length, language changes, and human takeover do not multiply usage.
tawk.toEach AI Assist-generated message uses one credit, including bot replies, Smart Reply, and AI Commands. Paid plans can buy non-expiring $30 packs of 1,000 credits.
Human live-chat baseline
Stand ChatUnlimited reps and unlimited sites on every plan, with no per-seat or per-site charge. Each rep chooses a concurrent human-chat limit from 1 to 20.
tawk.toThe core product publishes unlimited free human agents, live-chat volume, and website properties.
AI-to-human path
Stand ChatReps can watch the same transcript and use Take over now, Offer to join, or type a reply. Offer to join waits for visitor consent; signals do not route or hand off automatically.
tawk.toHuman chat is available in the core product. Automatic AI-to-human escalation begins on AI Assist Growth, not Hobby.
Proactive engagement
Stand ChatSite and path rules can reveal chat on load, after a delay, at a scroll point, or manually from page-native buttons and cards. Rules also control greeting, desktop auto-open, and display mode.
tawk.toSmart triggers, live visitor context, departments, and routing are part of the core live-chat product.
Contact capture and booking
Stand ChatStand-ins can store visitor-authored name, email, and phone. A follow-up request is submitted only after the visitor agrees and supplies a name plus an email address or phone number. There is no native meeting scheduler.
tawk.toPre-chat details feed contact and organization records in the included CRM. No native meeting scheduler was verified.
Knowledge sources
Stand ChatBase includes one website knowledge base with up to 10 indexed pages. Pro adds document and sitemap sources, up to five knowledge bases, 50 MB, and 200 indexed web pages.
tawk.toThe core product includes a knowledge base. AI Assist crawled-page allowance is 100 on Hobby and 500 on Growth.
Workspace and support scope
Stand ChatLive chat dashboard, Stand-in monitoring, contact details, conversation labels, and site controls. Stand is not a full ticketing system or a visitor-channel omnichannel inbox.
tawk.toShared inbox, ticketing, knowledge base, CRM, visitor monitoring, and unlimited team members in the free core product.
History and reporting
Stand ChatEvery plan includes 90-day searchable History, JSON export, email digests, usage views, and evidence-linked Product Discovery findings. Pro adds selectable longer retention, custom signals, and AI digest analysis.
tawk.toThe core product publishes chat history and reporting; AI Assist usage and credit balance are managed separately.
Next material feature gate
Stand ChatPro is $10/month for 150 chats and adds owner-prepaid reserve chats at $0.10 each, document and sitemap knowledge, three custom signals per Stand-in, longer retention, AI digests, and branding removal.
tawk.toAI Assist Growth adds 1,000 credits, three AI agents, 500 pages, human escalation, top-ups, and API calls. Branding removal is $39/month or $348/year per property.

Pricing scenarios

The same modeled volumes used on the main comparison.

Message-metered products use 8 AI replies per conversation. Monthly cost is one month; full-year cost uses the same plotted monthly volume for 12 months, applying published annual pricing where available and otherwise 12 monthly charges.

22 conversations
5/week
Stand Chat
Monthly cost
$0
Base; assumes no week exceeds 15 conversations
Full-year cost
≈$0
Base; assumes no week exceeds 15 conversations; 12 months at the monthly rate; no public annual discount
tawk.to
Monthly cost
≈$29
Growth; 176 AI messages
Full-year cost
≈$290
Growth annual billing; 176 AI messages/month; 12 months at the plotted monthly volume
65 conversations
15/week
Stand Chat
Monthly cost
$0
Base; assumes no week exceeds 15 conversations
Full-year cost
≈$0
Base; assumes no week exceeds 15 conversations; 12 months at the monthly rate; no public annual discount
tawk.to
Monthly cost
≈$29
Growth; 520 AI messages
Full-year cost
≈$290
Growth annual billing; 520 AI messages/month; 12 months at the plotted monthly volume
150 conversations
35/week
Stand Chat
Monthly cost
$10
Pro
Full-year cost
$120
Pro; 12 months at the monthly rate; no public annual discount
tawk.to
Monthly cost
≈$59
Growth + whole 1,000-credit top-up packs; 1,200 AI messages
Full-year cost
≈$380
Growth annual billing + whole 1,000-credit top-up packs; 1,200 AI messages/month; 12 months at the plotted monthly volume
650 conversations
150/week
Stand Chat
Monthly cost
≈$60
Pro + $0.10/chat overage
Full-year cost
≈$720
Pro + $0.10/chat overage; 12 months at the monthly rate; no public annual discount
tawk.to
Monthly cost
≈$129
Business + whole 1,000-credit top-up packs; 5,200 AI messages
Full-year cost
≈$1,080
Business annual billing + whole 1,000-credit top-up packs; 5,200 AI messages/month; 12 months at the plotted monthly volume

Decision boundary

Choose based on requirements, not a winner label.

These lists turn documented differences into buyer requirements. They are not scores.

Stand is the closer fit when

  • AI and human coverage should share one per-conversation allowance.
  • A named Stand-in with a visible AI badge should cover an unavailable human-first team.
  • The broader free ticketing, CRM, and knowledge-base suite is not required.

tawk.to is the closer fit when

  • Unlimited free human live-chat volume and team members are required.
  • Ticketing, CRM, a knowledge base, and visitor monitoring should be included in the same free suite.
  • Message-credit AI with paid escalation and optional top-ups fits the operating model.

Sources and caveats

What the public evidence does—and does not—establish.

Vendor marketing language is excluded unless a pricing page, help article, or product reference makes the capability concrete.

Stand Chat sources

  • Base resets at 15 chats each week; it is not a pooled 65-chat monthly allowance.
  • Stand publishes no annual discount, so the full-year view uses 12 monthly charges.
  • On Pro, an organization owner signs in to manually pre-fund reserve chats at $0.10 each. Public visitor requests never dispatch a purchase, and new chats pause when included quota and the purchased balance are exhausted.

tawk.to sources

  • Top-up costs are rounded up to whole non-expiring 1,000-credit packs at $30. The monthly view rounds one month's excess; the annual view totals 12 months of excess credits before rounding.
  • When credits are exhausted, AI Assist may finish an existing conversation using excess credits but will not join new conversations until credit is available.
  • The pricing curve includes recurring Hobby at $0 when the selected reply volume stays within 100 credits.