Cove

Widget studio

A live chat widget you brand: theme, glass, radius, launcher

Most live chat products give you a color and a greeting. Cove’s Widget studio sets theme, glass, a single radius on the panel and launcher, starter copy, and which tabs appear — then the thread opens in the same inbox as email, help, and CRM.

Radius, theme, and launcher change together. The snippet does not.

Why the look is the product

Visitors decide whether a messenger belongs on your site in the first second.

A default Intercom or Zendesk chrome signals “vendor.” Teams that already spent money on a design system should not have to apologize for the chat bubble. Widget studio is how Cove makes that argument — appearance first, then a real inbox behind it.

  • It looks like the site, not a vendor

    Theme, glass, and one radius on the panel, bubbles, chips, and launcher. Intercom’s public defaults are a color and a greeting. Zendesk’s Web Widget is a suite chrome. Cove is built for teams whose site already has a design system.

  • They stay on the page they were already reading

    The messenger is an iframe on the host site. Help articles open in the panel. The checkout or docs page they were on does not unload. That is the difference between a support tab and in-product help.

  • A person answers. Drafts come from your articles.

    The visitor writes first. A teammate replies from the shared inbox. Drafts from published articles still need a send. If you need an agent that resolves 76% of chats, that is Intercom — not this product.

  • The thread is a conversation, not a ticket object

    Assign, notes, macros, snooze, resolve, CSAT. Typing is visible so two people do not collide. That is the desk behind the widget — not a signed-in portal and not a visitor map.

How it works

Paste the tag. Set the look. Reply from the inbox.

  1. 01

    Paste one script

    data-website is the public key. Allowed origins lock it. Appearance is not in the tag, so you are not shipping theme CSS on first paint. See the install page for HTML, Next.js, React, and CSP.

  2. 02

    Open Widget studio

    Theme, glass, radius 0–32px, launcher icon or pill, two copy fields, Help and News visibility. Hide the Cove mark on Plus. The next iframe load picks it up — about a minute of public-config cache.

  3. 03

    Take the first chat

    Write as a visitor. The thread is a conversation in the shared inbox with an owner, notes, macros, snooze, and resolve. CSAT can fire after you close the thread.

Install details live on /sdk/web. The desk behind the widget is the shared inbox.

Who this is for — and why they switch

A fit if

Two to twenty people answer from the website. You wanted more messenger control than a default color and greeting, and a shared inbox at a workspace price — not per conversation, not per outcome. Theme, glass, radius, launcher, and copy are on every plan. White-label (hide the Cove mark) is listed on Plus.

Switch if you already have a suite

Tickets, SLAs, phone callbacks, a portal, WhatsApp, and Broadcasts ship in Cove. Load the widget in a WebView; install the inbox as a PWA. You are not bolting another vendor chrome onto a desk you already hate — you are replacing the messenger and keeping the queue.

Objections we hear before a trial

“We already have Zendesk.”
Switch if you wanted a messenger that matches the site and a complete desk — plus tickets, SLAs, and a portal without 80 empty fields. Read Cove versus Zendesk.
“Intercom already brands Messenger.”
Cove’s studio is the product: unified radius, glass, launcher marks, and two copy fields on every plan. See Cove versus Intercom.
“What does this cost?”
Workspace price. Unlimited conversations. Extra seats $6 on Mini and up. Theme and radius are not locked behind Plus. Pricing lists Free through Plus. Fourteen-day trial, card required. Cancel before day 14.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

What the studio sets, what the snippet does not, and why the look is the product.

A website messenger whose appearance you control — theme, radius in pixels, launcher, and copy — instead of a vendor default. In Cove that conversation lands in the shared inbox.

Cove’s studio sets theme, a unified radius, launcher shape and icon, badge, two copy fields, and which tabs show. Compare Cove vs Intercom.

Switch if the job is a messenger that matches the site and one desk for chat, help, and team workflows — not a suite you are not using. Start from pricing or signup.

The loader is small. The panel loads in an iframe. Put the script at the end of body if you care about LCP. Appearance is not in the tag, so you are not shipping theme CSS on first paint.

Theme, glass, radius, launcher, copy, and Help or News tabs are on every plan. Hiding the Cove mark is listed on Plus. See pricing.

No. data-website is the public key. Appearance is saved on the Widget screen. See install. The next load of the iframe picks it up — there can be about a minute of public-config cache.

Blog

How the look actually works

Set the look in Widget. The inbox is already behind it.

Fourteen-day trial. Card required. Cancel before day 14. Paste one script. Open Widget studio. Conversations are unlimited on every plan.