Website chat widget
A website chat widget is the button in the corner of a site and the chat window it opens. It’s the part of your support your customers actually see, so it has to load quickly, look like your site and say something useful. Deacon’s widget is the front of an AI customer support agent for founders. It answers your customers in seconds from your own docs, says so when it doesn’t know and asks for their email, and when you reply from the dashboard while they’re still there, your words appear in the same chat. You add it with one script tag and match it to your site against a live preview. Every question it hears shows you what customers are stuck on, and no plan has a badge you pay to remove.
On every plan, including the free one.
At a glance
| What it is | A button that opens a chat window on your site. Deacon answers in it from your content, and you can reply in it too. Everything Deacon does behind the widget |
|---|---|
| Install | One script tag, loaded with async, and a list of the domains it may run on, each with its subdomains. On any other domain it stays hidden. |
| Your colours | The button, the window and its border, Deacon’s words, your visitor’s words and your team’s replies, the ask box’s text, the accent and the send button, plus corners from square to 32 pixels. |
| Placement | Bottom right, left or centre, up to 64 pixels in from each edge, with a button label of your own. Or hide the button and open the chat from your own link with Deacon.open(). |
| On a phone | Below 640 pixels wide it opens as a full-width sheet above the home bar. |
| What stays | The Deacon mark on the button and beside each of Deacon’s replies, and the Ask AI box and the widget’s other fixed words, which are in English. There’s no dark mode. |
| Plans | Every plan, the free one included, with the same widget and no badge to pay to remove. |
| What it isn’t | Live chat with a queue. You can reply in any conversation, but nothing routes chats or shows who’s online. Chatbot vs live chat |
From one line of code to your customer’s first answer
Only the first step needs code on your site, unless you open the chat from your own link. You match and place it in Deacon’s dashboard, against a live preview.
One line, loaded after your page
Copy the script tag from the Install page, where the site you signed up with is already listed, and paste it before the closing body tag. It loads with async, so your page draws first. The button sits in a closed shadow root and the chat in a frame of its own, so your styles and the widget’s can’t touch each other, and it claims no keyboard shortcut on your page. The chat window itself loads when a visitor points at the button or tabs to it, or straight away for someone who had it open on the page before. Building with Claude Code, Cursor, Codex or ChatGPT? Press Copy the prompt, and an agent adds the tag and checks it’s live.
Match it to your site
The Appearance editor sets the colours of the button, the window and its border, Deacon’s words, your visitor’s words and your team’s replies, the ask box’s text, the accent and the send button. Corners run from square to 32 pixels, with Square, Soft, Round and Default presets over the slider, and the greeting is yours to write in up to 300 characters. Every change shows in a live preview, and a note warns you when two colours are hard to read together. Your changes stay a draft, even through a refresh, and nothing changes on your site until you press Publish. Revert to live throws the draft away.
Put it where it fits
The button can sit bottom right, bottom left or bottom centre, up to 64 pixels in from each edge, which clears a cookie bar or another floating button. Its label is yours, up to 24 characters, and it reads Help until you change it. If a floating button doesn’t suit your design, hide it and open the chat from your own Help link with Deacon.open(). Deacon.close() and Deacon.toggle() work too, from the moment the script has run, and your page hears deacon:open and deacon:close as the chat opens and closes.
What your visitor sees
The window opens on your greeting, with the Deacon mark beside it and a box that reads Ask AI. While Deacon works, a line says it’s searching the docs and then drafting an answer, and the answer arrives in seconds, written out as it comes. When it comes from a page of your site, a link to that page usually sits under it. When your content doesn’t cover the question, Deacon says so and offers a field for the visitor’s email. If you reply from the dashboard while they still have the chat open, your words appear there under your first name. Clicking your page doesn’t close the chat, so a visitor can look something up and come back to a half-typed question, and on a desktop they can drag the window out of the way. The conversation follows them from page to page and survives a reload, and after 20 quiet minutes the next question starts a new one.
On a phone, a sheet
Below 640 pixels wide, the window opens as a sheet across the full width of the screen, no taller than four fifths of it, and it sits above the home bar on an iPhone. The button grows to a size a thumb can hit. The ask box uses type large enough that Safari doesn’t zoom the page when a visitor taps it.
Put it on your site free, with no badge to pay to remove
Install it, set your colours, and ask it the question your customers ask most. You get 50 answers a month on the free plan, and it needs no card.
How to choose a website chat widget
Ask these of any widget before it goes on your site. The answers matter more than the feature list.
It loads after your page
A chat widget is someone else’s code on every page you have. Look for a script tag marked async, so your page draws first, and a chat window that loads only when someone wants it. Run a page speed test before and after.
It says who’s answering
People write differently to a bot and to a person, and they feel misled when they find out late. The widget should say plainly when an AI is answering, and show when a person takes over.
It admits what it doesn’t know
A bot that guesses your refund policy costs you more than one that says it doesn’t know. Ask what it does when your docs don’t cover a question. The right answer is to say so, take an email address and tell you.
Nobody has to sit and watch it
A live chat box with nobody behind it is worse than no chat at all. If you can’t staff it all day, choose one that answers on its own and takes a message for you.
Your colours, without a paid plan
Colours, corners and position should be free to change. Some tools charge to remove their badge, so find out which plan that’s on before you start.
It works on a phone
Open your site on your own phone and start a chat. The window should use the full width of the screen, and the page shouldn’t zoom when you tap the box to type.
It opens from your own button
A floating button suits most sites. If your design wants the chat behind a Help link or a button on your pricing page, the widget needs a JavaScript call you can hook up.
The conversation follows the visitor
Someone who asks a question and then clicks through to your pricing page should find the conversation still there.
You know what it stores
Find out which cookies it sets, for how long, and what it keeps on its own servers. You need both for your privacy policy.
Questions about the widget
Yes. The widget, the Appearance editor and the dashboard are all on the free plan, which needs no card and has no end date. There’s no “powered by” line on any plan, so there’s no badge to pay to remove. A paid plan buys more answers, knowledge, pages a month from your website and seats, never a better widget. See the plans
There’s no “powered by” line to remove, on any plan. The Deacon mark sits on the button and beside each of Deacon’s replies, and that stays. The default greeting says it’s Deacon, an AI assistant, and you can write your own.
The script loads with async, after your own page, and the chat window waits until a visitor points at the button, tabs to it or opens the chat. Run a page speed test before and after to see the difference on your own site.
Yes, on any of their plans that lets you add a script tag, and on any other site that does. Wix, Webflow and Carrd keep custom code for paid plans. There are guides for WordPress, Webflow, Shopify, Wix, Framer, Squarespace, Kajabi, BigCommerce, Carrd and Bubble.
Partly. Anyone on your team can reply inside any conversation from the dashboard, and a visitor with the chat still open sees the reply there. There’s no queue or rota and nobody shows as online, so nobody has to sit waiting for chats, and Deacon answers the rest in seconds. For live chat with a queue, live chat software for a small business website compares eight tools. How human handoff works
No. Deacon answers in the chat on your site and nowhere else. There’s no WhatsApp, Instagram or SMS channel, and no phone line or email inbox.
Deacon answers in the language each visitor writes in, whatever language your docs are in. The widget’s own words, such as Ask AI and the buttons, are in English, and so are the short fixed replies it sends when a month’s answers have run out or nothing in your content matched.
Yes. As soon as the script loads, it sets a cookie called deacon_visitor_id and keeps the same id in local storage, so Deacon can tell a returning visitor from a new one. The cookie asks for 90 days, and Safari cuts it to about 7. It’s set even on a domain that isn’t on your list, where the widget stays hidden, so list both in your cookie policy.
No. Deacon hosts the widget and the chat behind it, so there’s nothing for you to run or update.
Put it on your own site
It takes about five minutes to install. The free plan is 50 answers a month, for as long as you like.