A Tidio alternative in 2026 is a tool you pick mainly because of how it charges you. Tidio moved to billable conversations and sells its Lyro AI agent as a metered quantity on top, so the useful comparison is no longer the feature list: it is which platforms meter the AI, which bundle it into a seat, and which sell it flat. The ten tools below are sorted by how far they sit from Tidio, starting with the closest like-for-like swap and ending with a different category of product.
This page was first written in December 2024, when Tidio’s free plan was the main reason people chose it and the alternatives were judged on widget features. That framing no longer matches the product or the market. Tidio now sells conversation capacity, its AI agent is priced and capped separately, and the competitors have followed it in different directions. Some meter every automated reply. Some bundle AI into a support seat. Two sell it flat. If the widget alone is your requirement and you have no ticketing to migrate, the narrower question is answered in our roundup of customer service AI chatbots.
The practical consequence is that two platforms quoting similar headline prices can differ by more than a thousand dollars a year at the same support volume. The sections below show where that gap comes from, using each vendor’s own published prices in October 2026.
What Tidio costs now, and why people leave
Tidio’s pricing page defines the billing unit in its own words. A billable conversation is “any live chat, ticket, email or social media channel conversation that includes a message from a human agent”. Messages a visitor sends that nobody answers are not counted, and one thread bills once however many messages it contains. That part is fair and unusually clear.
The AI is a separate line. Responses from Flows and from Lyro AI Agent are explicitly not counted as agent replies, which means automated work does not consume a billable conversation. It consumes the AI quota instead.
| Plan | Price | Billable conversations | Lyro AI conversations |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0/month | 50 | First 50 free, lifetime |
| Starter | $24.17/month | 100 | 50, described as one-off |
| Growth | from $49.17/month | Up to 2,000 | Bought as a monthly quota |
| Plus | from $300/month plus usage | Custom | Custom |
| Premium | Contact sales | Custom | Custom |
Two details on that table matter more than the headline numbers. The free plan’s AI allowance is capped for the lifetime of the account rather than reset each month, so 50 Lyro conversations is a trial rather than a monthly entitlement. And Starter’s 50 Lyro conversations are labelled one-off on the pricing page, with ongoing AI capacity bought as a monthly quota between 50 and 1,000. Lyro also ships as a standalone product starting at $32.50 a month from 50 AI conversations.
So the honest reading of Tidio in 2026 is this: it is a reasonably priced human chat and ticketing tool with a small AI allowance attached, and it becomes a metered product the moment the AI starts doing meaningful volume. That is the specific thing most people are leaving over, and it is worth checking the current terms directly with Tidio, because consumption pricing is the part of a pricing page that changes most often. Our breakdown of AI agent pricing models covers the credits, seats and per-task billing patterns behind these numbers.
The 2026 dividing line: who meters the AI
Almost every tool in this list now charges for automation by the unit. The differences are what the unit is called and how fast it grows.
Metered AI units. Tidio counts Lyro conversations. LiveChat sells extra AI resolutions in packages of 50 for $49.50, which works out near a dollar per automated resolution. Freshdesk sells additional AI Agent sessions at $49 per 100, plus day passes at $2 or $7 depending on tier. Help Scout prices its AI assistant as an add-on at $0.75 per resolution. Crisp includes AI credits of $5, $25 or $75 depending on tier. Gorgias counts automated interactions and splits billing into a helpdesk component and an AI agent component. Chatwoot meters its Captain assistant in credits at $20 per 1,000.
AI bundled into a seat. Zendesk puts AI Agents into Suite Growth at $55 per agent per month billed annually and above, so the automation is part of the tier rather than a separate meter. That is simpler to budget and more expensive at low volume.
Flat or fair-use. Olark sells an AI website agent at $400 a month billed annually with unlimited conversations and no token limits. Shogo sells seats with usage inside rolling fair-use windows and charges overage at provider cost plus 20 percent. tawk.to gives the chat software away free with branding.
Why the split matters: deflection is the whole point of support AI, and on a metered plan every successful deflection consumes the thing you are paying for. On a seat plan it does not. If a bot resolves 400 conversations a month, that is a real cost on one model and zero marginal cost on the other.
How this list is ordered
The list is ordered by how much of your stack the tool replaces, because that is the sequence in which the decision actually gets made. Items one to five are live chat products you can drop in where the Tidio widget sits, without changing how the team works. Items six to nine are helpdesks, which replace the inbox as well as the widget, and that is a bigger migration. Item ten is an agent platform, a different category that only makes sense when the work you want automated extends past the chat window.
Every entry covers the same four points: what it is, where it is strong, where it falls short, and who it suits. Prices come from each vendor’s own pricing page in October 2026. Where a vendor does not publish a readable figure, this article says so rather than estimating.
The 10 best Tidio alternatives in 2026
1. Crisp
What it is: Crisp is a live chat and shared inbox product with an AI agent layered on top, sold per workspace rather than per seat.
Strengths: The pricing model is the reason it tops this list for many Tidio users. Mini is $45 a month per workspace with 4 seats included, around 90 automated conversations and $5 of AI credits. Essentials is $95 with 10 seats, around 450 automated conversations and $25 in credits. Plus is $295 with 20 or more seats, around 1,350 automated conversations and $75 in credits. Because seats are included in the workspace price rather than billed individually, adding a fifth support person costs nothing on Mini. Crisp also publishes a direct comparison against Tidio, which is useful reading, provided you remember it was written by Crisp.
Weaknesses: The AI still runs on credits, so a busy month of automation pushes you into buying more. The advertised automated conversation counts are approximate, which makes them hard to model against a real forecast. The jump from Essentials to Plus is more than triple the price, so the tier that fits a 12-person team is a sharp step up.
Best for: small support teams that want a flat workspace bill and would rather pay per team than per head.
2. tawk.to
What it is: tawk.to is a live chat product that is free to use indefinitely, funded by charging for branding removal, AI and human agent services.
Strengths: The chat software genuinely costs nothing for life if you keep the small “Powered by tawk.to” mark on the widget. Removing the branding is $29 a month, and an AI bot that answers from a knowledge base starts at $29 a month with a free tier for low volume. It also sells a human agent service at $1 an hour, which is an option no other vendor here offers and is worth understanding before assuming it is a gimmick: the economics rely on agents covering several chats at once, which suits low-complexity queues and not technical support.
Weaknesses: The free tier is free because the product is the distribution channel, and the branding on your widget is the price. AI quality and analytics are behind the paid tier and behind the dedicated support products in this list. If support is a revenue function for you rather than a cost centre, the free option tends to show.
Best for: a first chat widget on a site with low, simple volume, or a side project where the budget is genuinely zero.
3. Chatwoot
What it is: Chatwoot is an open source customer engagement platform available as a hosted service or on your own infrastructure.
Strengths: The hosted Hacker tier is free for up to 2 agents and 500 conversations a month. Startups is $19 per agent per month with unlimited conversations, Business is $39 and Enterprise is $99. Unlimited conversations at a per-agent price is the cleanest answer in this list to Tidio’s conversation metering, because a thread costs nothing extra no matter how long it runs. Because the product is open source, self-hosting is a real option for teams that need the data on their own servers.
Weaknesses: The AI is metered separately through Captain, at $20 per 1,000 credits, so choosing Chatwoot dodges conversation billing and not AI billing. Self-hosting moves the operational burden onto your team, including upgrades and uptime. The interface is denser than Tidio’s and takes an afternoon to learn.
Best for: teams with some technical capacity who want unlimited conversations and the option to own the deployment.
4. LiveChat
What it is: LiveChat is a dedicated live chat product aimed at sales and support teams, with AI resolutions sold in packages.
Strengths: Essential is $19 per user per month billed annually and Growth is $79, with Enterprise custom. The product is mature and the reporting is stronger than most of the chat tools here, particularly around chat-to-sale attribution. AI resolutions come in an extra package of 50 for $49.50, so the per-resolution cost is visible and about a dollar.
Weaknesses: It is a chat product rather than a ticketing platform, so email and social channels need other tools around it. The per-user price means a small, busy team pays more than a workspace-priced product. At roughly a dollar per automated resolution, buying AI in bulk is a meaningful line item at scale.
Best for: sales-led teams that run chat as a conversion channel and need the attribution reporting.
5. Olark
What it is: Olark is a long-running live chat product that now sells an AI website agent on a flat monthly fee.
Strengths: The Standard AI Website Agent is $400 a month billed annually, which is $4,800 a year, and includes unlimited conversations and no token limits with one human agent seat. Additional seats are $29 per agent per month. This is the clearest unlimited-AI pricing in the list, and for a team handling several thousand automated conversations it is likely the cheapest option here. Olark also sells the humans-only chat product at $29 per agent for teams that want the widget without the AI.
Weaknesses: $400 a month is a large commitment for a small site, and there is no cheap entry point into the AI product. The flat fee only pays off above a volume threshold that many Tidio users will not reach. Feature depth in reporting and integrations is behind Zendesk and Freshdesk.
Best for: established live chat teams with steady, high chat volume who want AI cost to stop moving with traffic.
6. Gorgias
What it is: Gorgias is a support platform built for ecommerce, with ticket handling and an AI agent priced as separate components.
Strengths: It is the strongest option here for a Shopify or BigCommerce store, because order data sits next to the conversation and the agent can act on it rather than just read it. The AI Agent Starter bundle is $40 a month with 50 tickets and 30 automated interactions, split as $10 for helpdesk and $30 for the AI agent. Basic is $90 a month, or $77 billed annually at $924, with 300 tickets and 30 automated interactions, split as $50 helpdesk and $27 AI agent. Seeing the AI priced on its own line is clearer than burying it.
Weaknesses: The automated interaction allowance of 30 is small, and it does not appear to scale with the ticket allowance, so a store with heavy chat volume will buy automation on top. The AI Agent Starter bundle is monthly billing only. Gorgias also charges a helpdesk fee per additional ticket tier, so the bill has two moving parts rather than one.
Best for: ecommerce stores where most conversations are about an order that the support tool can see.
7. Freshdesk
What it is: Freshdesk is Freshworks’ helpdesk, with Freddy AI agents and copilots sold alongside the ticket plans.
Strengths: Growth is $19 per agent per month billed annually and Pro is $55, which is competitive for a full helpdesk. The add-on pricing is published in unusual detail, which makes forecasting possible: additional AI Agent sessions at $49 per 100, day passes at $2 on Growth or $7 on Pro, connector app tasks at $80 per 5,000 and MCP actions at $15 per 1,000. Freddy AI Copilot is $29 per agent per month.
Weaknesses: The stack of separate meters is the most fragmented in this list. Sessions, day passes, connector tasks and MCP actions are four different units, and a support lead modelling a year of cost has to forecast all four. The cheapest route to AI is often a day pass, which is fine for a spike and awkward for steady volume. Our Freshworks vs Zendesk comparison works through the tier arithmetic in more detail.
Best for: teams that want a full helpdesk at a low per-agent price and are willing to manage several add-on meters.
8. Zendesk
What it is: Zendesk is the enterprise support platform in this list, with AI Agents included from the Growth tier upward.
Strengths: Suite Team is $19 per agent per month billed annually, or $25 monthly; Suite Growth is $55, or $69 monthly; Suite Professional is $115, or $149 monthly. AI Agents are included from Growth, so the automation is part of the seat price rather than a separate meter, which is the simplest model here for a buyer who wants one number. The ecosystem of apps and integrations is the deepest available.
Weaknesses: The entry tier does not include AI agents, so the real starting price for an AI-capable Zendesk is $55 per agent, nearly three times the headline $19. Copilot is a further $50 per agent per month billed annually as an add-on. Implementation typically needs a partner, which adds cost that never appears on the pricing page.
Best for: support organisations planning to grow past a few thousand conversations a month and wanting AI inside the seat price.
9. Help Scout
What it is: Help Scout is a shared inbox and helpdesk built around email, with an AI assistant sold per resolution.
Strengths: Standard is $25 per user per month, Plus is $45 and Pro is $75, and the product is the most pleasant of the helpdesks to use, with a genuinely simple inbox model. Pricing the AI assistant at $0.75 per resolution aligns cost with outcomes, which is the fairest meter in this list: you pay when a customer’s question is actually resolved.
Weaknesses: It is email-first, so live chat exists but is not the centre of the product, which is a mismatch for anyone leaving Tidio for chat reasons. The per-resolution add-on means the bill depends on how good the AI is, so a bad month for the bot is a good month for the invoice. Per-user pricing at $25 makes a five-person team more expensive than a workspace-priced chat tool.
Best for: email-heavy support teams that measure themselves on resolution rather than chat volume.
10. Shogo
What it is: Shogo is an AI agent platform that builds and runs working applications, including support tooling, from conversational prompts. It is not a chat widget, which is why it sits last here.
Strengths: Pricing is seat based with usage inside rolling fair-use windows rather than per conversation or resolution. Free is $0, Basic is $8 a month for a single user, Pro is $20 per seat per month, and Business is $40 per seat with SSO, audit logs and per-member spending limits. Overage is billed at provider cost plus 20 percent, so a spike is passed through rather than marked up per unit. Pre-built skills cover automated ticket triage, escalation workflows and customer knowledge bases, with 1,018 or more integrations.
Weaknesses: There is no visitor-facing live chat widget, so a team that needs a chat window on a marketing site should look at items one to five. Sharing and separation across seats start at Pro. Building a support agent here is a build rather than an installation, and it needs someone to own it.
Best for: teams whose support work extends past the chat window, such as triage across email and ticketing systems, escalation routing, and knowledge base upkeep.
Which one fits your situation
You want the same product, cheaper and without conversation metering. Crisp for a flat workspace bill, or Chatwoot Startups at $19 per agent for unlimited conversations.
Your budget is genuinely zero. tawk.to, accepting the branding.
You run a Shopify store and most questions are about orders. Gorgias, and budget the extra automated interactions.
You want one price that includes AI. Zendesk Growth at $55 per agent, or Olark at $400 flat if volume is high enough.
You want AI cost tied to results. Help Scout at $0.75 per resolution.
You have outgrown the small support tool category entirely. Intercom, which we compare against Zendesk and others in our competitors to Intercom breakdown.
Your support work is really triage across several systems. Shogo, or a helpdesk plus an automation platform, and plan for someone to own the build.
Where Shogo fits, and where it doesn’t
Shogo is the right choice when the support problem is not the chat window. Ticket triage that reads the queue, decides priority, routes to the right owner and keeps the knowledge base current is work that happens behind the conversation, and it is where a seat-priced agent platform beats a chat tool. Because usage sits inside fair-use windows rather than on a per-conversation meter, high deflection volume does not turn into a larger bill, which is the specific trap in Tidio’s model.
It is the wrong choice if you need a live chat widget on a website today. Shogo does not ship one, and installing a dedicated chat product alongside it is the honest answer. It is also wrong for a team with no one to build and maintain the agent: the platforms in items one to five work out of the box, and Shogo does not. A solo user on Basic can run support agents, but team sharing and audit controls begin at Pro.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best free alternative to Tidio?
tawk.to is the only genuinely free live chat product in this list, and it stays free if you keep its branding on the widget. Chatwoot’s hosted Hacker tier is also free, but limits you to 2 agents and 500 conversations a month. Tidio’s own free plan still exists at 50 billable conversations, but its AI allowance is capped at 50 Lyro conversations for the lifetime of the account rather than per month.
Why are people leaving Tidio in 2026?
The most common reason is the pricing model rather than the product. Tidio bills by conversation that includes a human reply, and its Lyro AI agent is metered as a separate conversation quota. A team that deflects a lot of traffic with AI is buying two quantities at once, and the free AI allowance does not reset monthly.
Is Tidio still worth using?
Yes, if your volume is low and your team is small. Tidio is inexpensive at the entry tier, the definition of a billable conversation is unusually fair, and unanswered visitor messages are not counted. It stops being cheap when AI does most of the work, which is exactly the situation the tools above are designed for.
What counts as a billable conversation in Tidio?
According to Tidio’s pricing page, any live chat, ticket, email or social media conversation that includes a message from a human agent. Messages a visitor sends that nobody answers are not counted, and a thread with many messages bills as one conversation. Replies generated by Flows or by Lyro AI Agent are not treated as agent replies.
Which Tidio alternative has no per-conversation pricing?
Olark sells its AI website agent at a flat $400 a month with unlimited conversations. Chatwoot’s paid tiers from Startups upward include unlimited conversations at a per-agent price, though its AI assistant is metered in credits separately. Shogo prices seats with usage inside fair-use windows. Every one of them still charges for AI in some form; they differ in whether the meter is the conversation.
Can I migrate my chat history from Tidio to another platform?
Usually, though the mechanism varies by vendor and it is worth confirming before you switch. Helpdesk platforms generally offer CSV import of tickets and contacts, and chat products vary on whether transcripts transfer. Ask specifically whether conversation transcripts, tags and contact records come across, and test with a small export first, because a migration that loses history also loses the context an AI agent would use.
Which alternative is cheapest for a five-person support team?
It depends on volume more than headcount. Crisp Mini at $45 per workspace includes 4 seats, so a fifth seat is an add-on. Chatwoot Startups at $19 per agent is $95 for five agents with unlimited conversations. tawk.to is free with branding. Tidio Starter on 100 conversations is $24.17, which remains the lowest entry price in this list, and that is precisely why the list is worth reading past the headline.
Sources
- Tidio, pricing page including the billable conversation definition, plan quotas and Lyro AI Agent pricing
- Crisp, pricing page
- tawk.to, pricing page
- Chatwoot, pricing page
- Gorgias, pricing page
- LiveChat, pricing page
- Freshworks, Freshdesk pricing page and AI add-on rates
- Zendesk, pricing page and Copilot add-on pricing
- Help Scout, pricing page and AI assistant add-on rate
- Olark, pricing page
- Shogo, pricing page and llms.txt
