Tidio alternatives: 5 options for online stores and small support teams

Tidio alternatives: the short list

The Tidio alternatives that charge per person instead of per conversation are LiveChat, LiveAgent and Help Scout, while tawk.to's core chat is free and HubSpot says its live chat starts free. Tidio Starter is $29 a month, billed monthly, for 100 billable conversations, or $24.17 a month billed annually, as read on 7 October 2026.

LiveChat's pricing page says new trials now start on Text plans, "the next product from the team behind LiveChat". Essential is $25 per user a month, billed monthly, or $19 billed annually. It includes one AI Agent, which is software that answers chats on its own from the knowledge you give it, and 10 AI resolutions a month, where a resolution is a conversation in which the AI Agent directly solves at least one customer question.

What Tidio counts and charges

Tidio counts billable conversations: a live chat, ticket, email or social conversation counts once it includes a message from a human agent. Starter covers 100 of them and the Free plan covers 50. Free, Starter and Growth each include 10 seats, so the price follows conversations, not people.

Lyro, Tidio's AI agent, is counted apart from plan conversations, with the first 50 free for life; sold alone it starts at $32.50 a month for 50 on the annual view. Removing Tidio branding is a paid add-on.

Take a small online store with two people answering chats. Tidio Starter is $29 a month, billed monthly, for up to 100 billable conversations. LiveChat Essential for the same two people is $50 a month, billed monthly, or $38 a month billed annually. The seat bill grows with staff and the Tidio bill grows with conversations. LiveChat vs Tidio sets the two side by side.

Free options: tawk.to and HubSpot

tawk.to's core chat is free, with no limit on the agents you add to a property. It charges for four add-ons: AI Assist at $29 a month, Whitelabel at $29 a month to remove the tawk.to badge, Voice Agents from $49 a month plus usage and Data Enrichment from $59 a month.

HubSpot says its live chat and chatbot builder start free with no credit card, and its catalog says the free live chat includes HubSpot branding. Paid seats start at Service Hub Starter, $20 per seat a month at HubSpot's list price.

Pick tawk.to to keep chat free for any number of agents. Pick HubSpot when your contacts already live in HubSpot's CRM.

Per seat: LiveChat, LiveAgent and Help Scout

These three price people, not conversations, so compare them by how many people answer chats.

• LiveChat Essential is $25 per user a month, billed monthly, or $19 billed annually. Every user who logs in to answer needs a seat.
• LiveAgent Small is $19 per agent a month, billed monthly, or $15 billed annually, with ticketing and live chat.
• Help Scout Standard is $30 per user a month, billed monthly, or $25 billed annually, and lists live chat and SMS.

LiveChat has no free plan like Tidio's: after its trial, every user who answers chats needs a paid seat. Unlike Tidio's 7-day trial, LiveChat's runs 14 days and, per its pricing page, never charges automatically when it ends. LiveAgent has the lowest per-agent price of the three on both billing bases. LiveChat alternatives covers the wider field.

For Shopify and WordPress stores

Pick LiveChat Essential for a Shopify store that wants an AI Agent reading its catalog. LiveChat says its AI Agent sees the live Shopify catalog on every plan and agents see the cart inside the chat, while chat on Shopify's Checkout page needs Shopify Plus. Tidio's Shopify listing says its team sees the orders and live cart. Best live chat app for Shopify compares the apps.

On WordPress, LiveChat's plugin is AI Chatbot by Text, which needs WordPress 6.0 and PHP 7.4. With WooCommerce installed it adds ecommerce data to chat; without WooCommerce the widget still works.