Tidio Alternatives and Competitors 2026: Pricing Compared

2025-12-18 · Wallu Team · 12 min read · Comparison

Tidio bills its plan and Lyro AI separately: Starter plus Lyro is $68 a month, or $56.67 billed annually. Nine competitors priced as of 10 Oct 2026.

Table of Contents

• Tidio pricing plans in 2026, and what you actually pay
• Why people leave Tidio, and what it does well
• Tidio competitors at a glance
• Tidio alternatives, grouped by what you need
• What one month costs on each tool
• Where Wallu is the wrong choice
• Sources and read dates
• Frequently asked questions

Short answer: Tidio bills for two things: a plan priced by "billable conversations", and its Lyro AI agent, sold separately from $39 month-to-month ($32.50 billed annually) for 50 AI conversations a month. Starter with Lyro is therefore $68 month-to-month, or $56.67 a month billed annually. To pay nothing, use Tawk.to, which is free with unlimited agents; to never have conversations metered, use Crisp, which charges a flat price per workspace. For the strongest AI agent, Intercom charges $0.99 per Fin outcome plus seats; Shopify stores should start with Gorgias, and teams that want to self-host with Chatwoot. Wallu fits a narrower case: AI answers on eight channels, including Discord and Telegram, from $4.99 a month ($3.99 billed annually).

Prices were read from each vendor's own pricing page on 10 October 2026. We show month-to-month first and billed annually (per month) second, as in "$29 / $24.17", because most of these pages open on the annual price.

Tidio pricing plans in 2026, and what you actually pay

Tidio has two meters, and the plan card shows only one.

The plan is priced by billable conversations: "any live chat, ticket, email or social media channel conversation that includes a message from a human agent (you). Unanswered messages initiated by visitors/customers are not counted." Replies from Lyro or from Flows, Tidio's automation builder, do not count.

Growth's higher tiers, month-to-month: 400 conversations for $89, 600 for $129, 800 for $159, 1,000 for $179, 1,500 for $249 and 2,000 for $349. Branding cannot be removed on Free or Starter; on Growth, removal costs $20 / $16.67.

The AI is Lyro, also sold on its own as "Core": $39 / $32.50 for 50 Lyro conversations a month. Month-to-month, it then costs $75 for 100, $110 for 150, $140 for 200, $210 for 300, $350 for 500, $525 for 750 and $700 for 1,000, with more through sales.

A Lyro conversation is any interaction with at least one AI reply, counted once, unless it is handed to a person immediately. So Lyro bills for the conversations it joins, not the ones it resolves, and, by these definitions, a chat that Lyro starts and a person finishes counts on both meters.

Tidio advertises annual billing as "2 months free", and every annual price we recorded is exactly ten-twelfths of the monthly one. By our arithmetic, Starter plus the smallest Lyro tier is $29 + $39 = $68 month-to-month, or $24.17 + $32.50 = $56.67 billed annually.

Three rules from Tidio's help centre matter as much as the prices:

• At the conversation limit you cannot reply until the 1st of the month unless you upgrade. No per-unit overage is published.
• Monthly plans upgrade themselves at 95% usage (Plus excepted). This is on by default; annual plans are exempt.
• The free Lyro allowance never resets: the 50 on Free and Starter are a lifetime allowance.

Flows costs extra, from $29 / $24.17 for 2,000 visitors. The 7-day trial needs no card and ends on the Free plan.

Why people leave Tidio, and what it does well

Tidio does a lot right: a real free plan; 10 seats included on Free, Starter and Growth, so you pay for conversations, not people; published prices up to 2,000 conversations and 1,000 Lyro conversations; and a real AI agent, with pay-per-resolution billing and a "Guaranteed 50% Lyro AI resolution rate" on Premium.

Each reason to leave points to a different alternative:

• The AI bill. Lyro is billed on top of the plan, for every conversation it joins. Per-resolution tools (Intercom, LiveChat, Gorgias) or per-message tools (Tawk.to, Chatwoot, Wallu) can cost less, as the worked month shows.
• Caps. At the limit, replies stop, and monthly plans move up a tier on their own. Crisp and Tawk.to do not meter conversations.
• Seats and branding. Custom seat counts need Plus (from $300 a month plus usage), and the branding stays on Free and Starter.
• Channels. On 20 August 2026, Tidio's pricing page listed Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp and email, but not Discord or Telegram. For Instagram and Messenger automation, see Tidio vs ManyChat.

Tidio competitors at a glance

Sorted by the cheapest paid plan, month-to-month (for Zendesk, the cheapest with live chat; Tawk.to sells only add-ons).

Tidio alternatives, grouped by what you need

If you want it free

Tawk.to has no limit on agents and "no caps on conversations, contacts, or chat history", with no trial and no card. Extras are priced per property. AI Assist is free for 100 AI messages a month, then $29 a month or $290 a year for 1,000, or $99 a month or $990 a year for 5,000. Removing the badge costs $39 month-to-month or $348 a year; the "$29" you may see is the annual rate.

Freshchat (up to 10 agents) and Crisp (2 seats, unlimited conversations) also have real free plans, but without AI.

If you want conversations that are never metered

Crisp charges per workspace, with unlimited conversations on every plan. Month-to-month, Mini is $45 (4 seats), Essentials $95 (10 seats, omnichannel, knowledge base) and Plus $295 (20+ seats, white label). Yearly billing can be switched on in the app, but no yearly price is published.

Crisp estimates the included AI credits cover about 90, 450 and 1,350 AI conversations respectively. After that, chats go to people unless you opt into pay-as-you-go, which Crisp's help centre estimates at $0.05 to $0.10 per AI conversation. Only Plus removes the watermark. See Tidio vs Crisp.

If you want the strongest AI agent

Intercom suits teams that want a mature platform and can pay per seat. Intercom's list price for Essential is $39 per seat month-to-month ($29 billed annually); when we read the page, most visitors were being shown a test price of $29 ($19 annually). Advanced is $99 / $85 and Expert $139 / $132.

Fin costs $0.99 per outcome: a confirmed answer, a customer who asks for no more help, or a completed workflow. It charges at most once per conversation, and never when the customer asks for a human. You pay for results, not attempts, which is the opposite of Lyro. The 14-day trial includes Fin and needs no card.

If you have a team of human agents

LiveChat now prices new trials as "Text" plans, per user. Essential is $25 / $19 with 10 AI resolutions a month, Growth is $99 / $79 with 200, and extra resolutions cost $49.50 per 50. Every user who answers chats needs a seat.

Freshchat charges per agent: Growth $23 / $19, Pro $59 / $49 and Enterprise $95 / $79. Growth adds social messengers, WhatsApp and the Freddy AI Agent, which includes 500 sessions once per account and then costs $49 per 100. A chat session lasts 24 hours.

Zendesk fits structured ticketing at scale. Support Team ($25 / $19 per agent) is email only. Live chat starts at Suite Team ($69 / $55), and Suite Professional is $149 / $115. Each agent brings 5 automated resolutions a month (10 on Suite Professional), and extras cost $1.50 each committed or $2.00 pay-as-you-go. See Zendesk vs Intercom.

If you run a Shopify store

Gorgias is built for Shopify and bills per ticket, never per agent. Starter is $10 (monthly billing only) for 50 tickets, then $0.40 each. Basic is $60 / $50 for 300 tickets, Pro $360 / $300 for 2,000 and Advanced $900 / $750 for 5,000. Extra tickets cost $40 per 100 on Basic and $36 per 100 above it.

The AI Agent costs $1.00 per interaction month-to-month or $0.90 on annual plans. It is charged only when the AI resolves a ticket without a person, and each interaction is also billed as a ticket. See Gorgias alternatives.

If you want open source

Chatwoot's self-hosted Community Edition is "Free forever" but has no Captain AI; Premium Support, at $19 per agent a month, adds it. The hosted Cloud has a free Hacker plan (2 agents, 500 conversations a month, no AI). Startups ($19), Business ($39) and Enterprise ($99) are priced per agent a month and include 300, 500 and 800 AI credits. One credit is one AI message, extra credits cost $20 per 1,000, and no annual prices are published.

If you want AI answers on a small budget

Tawk.to's AI Assist (above) is free for 100 AI messages a month, then $29 a month ($290 a year) for 1,000.

Wallu prices per account, with no per-seat or per-resolution charge; one credit is one AI reply sent. Mini is $4.99 / $3.99 for 350 replies a month (about 110 conversations), Lite $9.99 / $7.99 for 1,000, Starter $19 / $15 for 2,500 plus 45 voice AI minutes, Pro $49 / $39 for 7,000 and Enterprise $149 / $119 for 25,000.

Every plan answers website chat, Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Discord, Slack and email from one shared inbox. Answers come from your own knowledge base, with handover to a person. WooCommerce needs Pro. A free account gets 10 AI replies a month, and the 7-day trial on Mini needs a card. See pricing.

What one month costs on each tool

Three people share the chat, and 600 conversations arrive a month. The AI replies first in all of them and closes 300 itself (50%, the rate Tidio guarantees only on Premium). The other 300 go to a person.

Per-message tools are counted at 3.2 AI replies per conversation, Wallu's own average. That gives 1,920 messages, which overstates the chats handed to people. Rows are sorted by the month-to-month total, before optional add-ons. Our arithmetic from their published rates.

What to take from it:

• Check what is counted. Intercom, LiveChat, Gorgias and Zendesk bill per resolution, so a weaker AI month costs less with them. Tidio and Freshchat bill per conversation or session the AI takes part in. Tawk.to, Chatwoot and Wallu bill per message, and Crisp uses credits.
• Lyro is $525 of Tidio's $614. That is $1.75 per resolved conversation ($525 ÷ 300), against $0.99 per Fin outcome. Chats routed straight to a person stay off the Lyro meter.
• Intercom at its test price is $384 / $354. Olark, which publishes only an annual price, would cost $458 a month billed annually ($400 with one seat, plus 2 × $29), with unlimited AI conversations.
• Price is not quality. We assumed every AI resolves the same half. Real rates vary by product and by your help content.

Where Wallu is the wrong choice

• You want a free plan you can run on. Wallu's free account gets 10 AI replies a month: enough to test, not to run support. Tawk.to, Tidio, Crisp, Freshchat and Chatwoot have real free tiers.
• You want a Shopify-native help desk. Gorgias is built for that. Wallu's Shopify app reads orders and the catalogue but is not in the Shopify App Store, and WooCommerce needs Pro ($49 / $39).
• You need a full help-desk suite. Wallu has no workforce management, multi-brand help centre, SLA policy engine, phone contact centre or skills-based routing. Zendesk is built for that work.
• You only want to pay for resolutions. Wallu charges for every AI reply it sends, including in chats a person finishes. Intercom, LiveChat, Gorgias and Zendesk bill per resolution.
• Your volume is high and steady. Then a flat or unlimited plan, such as Crisp's unmetered conversations or Olark's unlimited AI conversations, can beat per-reply credits.
• You depend on integrations. Wallu is a young company, with no app marketplace, far fewer integrations than Zendesk, Intercom, Freshdesk or HubSpot, and no published uptime SLA below Enterprise.

Sources and read dates

Every price comes from the vendor's own pricing page, not from review sites.

One exception: Tidio's channel list comes from our 20 August 2026 reading of the same page.

Frequently asked questions

How much does Tidio cost in 2026?

Free is $0. Starter is $29 month-to-month, or $24.17 a month billed annually, for 100 billable conversations. Growth runs from $59 ($49.17 billed annually) for 250 conversations to $349 month-to-month for 2,000, and Plus starts at $300 a month plus usage. Lyro AI is extra: $39 ($32.50 billed annually) for 50 conversations a month, up to $700 month-to-month for 1,000.

Does Tidio have a free plan?

Yes. It includes 50 billable conversations a month, 10 seats and 50 Lyro AI conversations, which are a one-off allowance that never resets. The branding cannot be removed. Accounts move to Free when the 7-day trial ends.

Why is my Tidio bill higher than the plan price?

There are usually two reasons. Lyro is billed separately, from $39 month-to-month ($32.50 billed annually). And a month-to-month plan other than Plus moves up a tier automatically at 95% of its limit, which is on by default. Annual plans do not upgrade automatically.

Is Tidio's Lyro billed per resolution?

Not on the self-serve plans. A Lyro conversation is any interaction with at least one AI reply, resolved or not, unless it is handed to a person immediately. Pay-per-resolution billing comes with Premium, which starts at 3,000 Lyro conversations and is priced by sales.

What is the best free alternative to Tidio?

If you want no volume limits, Tawk.to: unlimited agents, no caps on conversations, and AI Assist free for 100 AI messages a month. Freshchat (up to 10 agents) and Crisp (2 seats) have free plans without AI, and Chatwoot's Community Edition is free to self-host.

Who are Tidio's main competitors?

For website chat with AI: Crisp, Tawk.to, Intercom, LiveChat (now sold as Text), Freshchat and Zendesk. Gorgias competes for Shopify stores, Chatwoot for open source, Wallu for AI across chat apps on a small budget, and ManyChat for Instagram and Messenger automation. Drift is being sunset by its owner, Clari + Salesloft.