TY Live Chat Wordpress Plugin - Rating, Reviews, Demo & Download
Plugin Description
TY Live Chat lets visitors chat with you directly from your website. A chat button appears on your pages. When a visitor clicks it, they type their question and your team answers from a private chat portal, live, like WhatsApp or Messenger, but on your own website.
Everything runs inside your WordPress site. There is no external chat service to sign up for, no monthly fee and no per-agent pricing.
How it works
- Install and activate. A short setup guides you through your colors, the chat style, the visitor form and your availability.
- The chat button appears on your website. Visitors click it, fill in a short form (for example name and email) and start chatting.
- Add your team as agents. Create an email and password for each person under Live Chat > Agents. They do not need a WordPress account and never see your WordPress dashboard.
- Answer chats in the chat portal. Your team opens the portal at an address like
yoursite.com/chat-admin/, sees every conversation as it arrives and replies in real time, on a computer or a phone.
Who is it for?
- Businesses, shops and agencies that want to answer questions before a visitor leaves.
- Teams that want several people answering chats without giving them access to WordPress.
- Site owners who prefer to keep chat data on their own site instead of a third party service.
Why TY Live Chat
- Separate chat portal. Chats are answered in a clean workspace outside wp-admin, so support staff never touch your site settings.
- No extra accounts. Agents sign in with the email and password you create for them.
- Real time. New messages, typing indicators and unread counters update automatically, with optional sound and desktop alerts.
- Looks like your brand. Five widget styles, your colors, logo and texts, with a live preview before you save.
- Works on phones. The widget opens full screen on mobile, and the portal works like an app on a phone.
- Private by design. Data stays in your WordPress database, with a consent option, automatic clean-up and the WordPress export and erase tools.
Good to know
- There is no chatbot or AI. Real people on your team answer the chats.
- When nobody is available, the widget shows a “Leave us a message” form, and you can get an email for every new chat.
- The plugin works on normal shared hosting. It does not need WebSockets or any external service.
All features
Chat widget
- Five widget templates: Classic, Compact, Premium, Minimal and Expanded.
- Customize the colors, launcher shape and icon, position, size, corner radius, texts, logo and team picture.
- A live preview shows your changes before you save them, on desktop and mobile.
- Full-screen chat on phones, plus an option to hide the widget on mobile.
- Optional automatic opening after a delay (once per visit, desktop only).
- The widget is added for you. There is no code to paste into your theme.
Visitor form builder
- Collect details before the chat starts, or let visitors chat right away.
- Drag and drop fields to reorder them (keyboard buttons are included for accessibility).
- Field types: short text, email, phone, long text, dropdown, radio buttons, checkbox and hidden page information.
- Set labels, placeholders, required fields, options and length limits. Every rule is checked again on the server.
Chat portal for your team
- A clean, separate workspace at an address you choose (for example
yoursite.com/chat-admin/), outside wp-admin. - Agents sign in with the email and password you create for them. They get no access to WordPress.
- Administrators can open the portal with one click using their WordPress account.
- Overview with live numbers, an inbox and a visitor list.
- Conversations update automatically, with typing indicators, unread counters, sound alerts and optional desktop notifications.
- Filter by All, Unanswered, Unassigned, Mine, Open, Pending and Closed, and search by name, email or message.
- Assign conversations, mark them pending, close and reopen them.
- Visitors and agents can send images (JPG, PNG, GIF or WebP up to 5 MB). Images show as previews and open full size with download and close buttons. Visitor uploads can be switched off.
- Works like an app on phones: a list view, a full-screen conversation view and bottom navigation.
Agents and availability
- Create, edit, disable and delete agents under Live Chat > Agents. Passwords are stored as secure hashes.
- Each agent has a name and picture that visitors see.
- Failed sign-ins are limited, and changing a password or disabling an agent signs them out everywhere.
- Availability modes: automatic (online while someone has the portal open), business hours, always online or always offline.
- When you are offline, the widget collects a message instead.
- Optional email alerts for new conversations.
Privacy and data
- Optional consent checkbox with a link to your privacy policy.
- Automatic deletion of inactive conversations after a period you choose.
- Works with the WordPress personal data export and erase tools.
- Suggested text for your privacy policy page.
- Chat data is never deleted when the plugin is deactivated. It is only removed on uninstall if you switch that option on.
How real-time messaging works
TY Live Chat uses the WordPress REST API with adaptive polling: about once a second during an active conversation, slower when the chat is quiet, and much less often in background tabs. This works on almost any WordPress hosting, including shared hosting, without WebSockets or third-party services. Messages are stored in your database, so conversations survive page reloads, and every message has a unique ID so retries never create duplicates.
Bundled resources
- Sora font, Copyright 2019 The Sora Project Authors, SIL Open Font License 1.1 (https://github.com/sora-xor/sora-font).
- Manrope font, Copyright 2018 The Manrope Project Authors, SIL Open Font License 1.1 (https://github.com/googlefonts/manrope).
The fonts are served from the plugin folder. No external font service is used. License files are in assets/fonts/.
Privacy
When a visitor starts a chat, TY Live Chat stores the details entered in the chat form, the messages, the page where the chat started and the time of each message in your WordPress database. A random identifier is kept in the visitor’s browser (local storage) so they can continue the conversation. No data is sent to external services by this plugin. Images sent in a chat are stored in wp-content/uploads/ty-live-chat/ under random file names, are not added to the Media Library, and are deleted together with their conversation. Large photos are resized and re-saved, which removes most embedded data such as location. For chat agents, the plugin stores their name, email address, a hashed password, an optional picture and sign-in times. Site owners can set an automatic retention period, delete conversations and visitors, and use the WordPress personal data tools.
Screenshots
The chat portal inbox: every conversation with filters, and the open chat where your agent replies.
The chat widget on a website, with the visitor form shown before the chat starts.
The chat portal sign-in page for your agents.
Widget design screen with a live preview on desktop and mobile.
Visitor form builder: drag and drop the fields you want to ask for.
Agents screen: create sign-in accounts for the people who answer chats.
The chat portal on a phone: the inbox and a conversation.
