Some links on this page are affiliate links. If you buy through them, BestStacked may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. It never affects our scores, rankings or verdicts. Full disclosure.
Tidio Review
Reviewed by Carlos Gil · Founder & Editor, The Best Network
Updated 8 min readEditorially reviewed
Quick facts
- Starting price
- Free; Starter $24.17/mo billed annually ($29 monthly)
- Free plan
- Yes
- Best for
- Small businesses and Shopify or WordPress stores that want live chat, a basic help desk and an AI agent without per-seat pricing
- Platforms
- Web app, Windows and Mac desktop apps, iOS and Android apps; website widget; Mobile SDK on Premium
BestStacked Score
Weighted average of 5 categories. Methodology below.
Quick answer
What is Tidio, and is it worth paying for?
Tidio is a customer service platform for small businesses: a live chat widget and shared inbox for chat, email, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp, plus Lyro, an AI agent that answers from your FAQs and website, and Flows, rule-based chat automations. You buy three packages separately: Customer Service (priced by human-handled conversations), Lyro (priced by AI conversations) and Flows (priced by visitors reached). It's worth paying for if you run a small online store or service business and want an AI agent on your site without per-seat fees. The free plan covers 50 human-handled conversations a month and 50 Lyro conversations that never refresh; Starter costs $24.17 a month billed annually ($29 monthly) and Lyro starts at $32.50 a month billed annually ($39 monthly), checked on Tidio's pricing page on October 13, 2026.
- Best for
- Shopify, WooCommerce and WordPress stores and small service businesses with up to 10 agents that want chat, tickets and an AI agent in one inbox.
- Skip it if
- You need more than 10 seats, SSO or an open API without a sales-negotiated Plus or Premium contract, or a full enterprise help desk.
- Strongest capability
- Lyro: an AI agent that learns from your support content, replies in 48 languages, runs API Actions, multi-step Procedures and MCP tools, and hands off to your team.
- Biggest limitation
- Quota-based billing across three packages: the free plan's Lyro quota is one-time, monthly paid plans can upgrade automatically at 95% of a quota, and refunds are at Tidio's discretion.
The Verdict
Tidio gives small businesses a lot for little: live chat, ticketing, email and social messaging in one inbox for up to 10 agents on every self-serve plan, including Free. Lyro, its AI agent, is the main reason to pay. It answers from your FAQs, website and Shopify product data in 48 languages, and 2026 updates added proactive roles (July), multi-step Procedures (August) and MCP server connections (September). Tidio says its customers average a 75% Lyro resolution rate; that's its own figure. The catch is the pricing model. Customer Service, Lyro and Flows are separate quotas, the free Lyro allowance of 50 conversations never refreshes, the free plan hides new messages once its 50-conversation limit is hit, and monthly plans upgrade automatically near their limits unless you switch that off. Permissions start at Growth, the open API and departments at Plus ($300 a month plus usage), and SSO only on Premium. Tidio's terms say refunds are discretionary and capped at three months, and its own pages disagree on several Lyro details. We score Tidio 8.4/10.
Best for
Small online stores and service businesses that want live chat plus an affordable AI agent, with no per-seat fees.
Skip if
You need more than 10 agents, SSO or API access on a self-serve plan, or predictable flat-rate billing.
The Background
What Is Tidio?
Tidio (tidio.com, operated by Tidio LLC of San Francisco under its terms of service, with Tidio Poland as a joint data controller) is a customer service platform built around a website chat widget. Its Customer Service package is a help desk: live chat, ticketing, an email inbox, video calls and Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp in one place, with Copilot suggesting agent replies. Lyro is the AI agent, sold as a separate package or on its own through Lyro Connect for Zendesk, Intercom and Salesforce users. Flows are rule-based automations such as cart-recovery and lead-capture messages, which the homepage now calls Sales Flows. Tidio also links to two separate products, Tidio Agents (custom AI agents built by its team) and Hubi AI (a marketing assistant); this review doesn't cover them. Tidio says 300,000+ businesses use it; that's its own figure.
The Product
Tidio Features: What You Actually Get
Lyro AI Agent
Lyro answers customer questions using only the content you give it: FAQs, scraped website pages, uploaded files, imported Zendesk articles and, for stores, product data. Tidio's help center lists 48 supported languages as of September 30, 2026. Guidance sets tone and escalation rules, Actions call your systems' APIs, Procedures (August 2026) define multi-step processes such as refund requests, proactive roles (July 2026) let Lyro start conversations, and MCP server connections (September 2026) add external tools. Tidio says Lyro runs on Claude from Anthropic plus in-house models.
A skincare store loads its shipping, returns and ingredient FAQs, and Lyro answers order-status and product questions overnight, handing refund disputes to a human.
Shared inbox and ticketing
Every plan, including Free, gets live chat, ticketing, an email inbox, live video calls and Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp channels for up to 10 agents. Growth adds automatic chat assignment, macros, visitor notes, viewed-pages history, satisfaction surveys, advanced analytics and agent permissions. Departments, multiproject setups and ticketing automations start at Plus.
A three-person support team answers website chat, Instagram DMs and support emails from one inbox and turns unresolved chats into tickets.
Shopify and ecommerce tools
With Shopify connected, Growth and higher plans let agents see a shopper's cart and order history and cancel orders, issue refunds or change shipping addresses from the inbox. Lyro can read chosen Shopify metafields and tags to answer product questions, and Lyro product recommendations, which need a paid Lyro quota, work with Shopify, WooCommerce, OpenAPI or an uploaded product feed.
A Shopify merchant lets Lyro recommend products in chat, while agents change a delivery address without leaving Tidio.
Flows automation
Flows are rule-based chat automations built in a visual editor or from 40+ templates, such as cart-recovery nudges, discount offers and lead-capture forms. There's no limit on the number of Flows, but Free covers 100 unique visitors reached a month; the Flows package goes from 2,000 visitors ($29 a month, or $24.17 billed annually) to 100,000 ($299). Lyro Tasks, flows run inside Lyro, don't use either quota.
A furniture store triggers a Flow offering free shipping when a visitor lingers on the cart page, collecting emails from shoppers who leave.
Copilot, analytics and APIs
Copilot drafts suggested replies for agents from the same knowledge base Lyro uses, with a Chrome extension. Basic analytics come with every plan and advanced analytics from Growth. Tidio's developer site documents an OpenAPI, an Analytics API, webhooks and a widget SDK, but the pricing page lists OpenAPI and custom channels only on Plus and Premium, and the Mobile SDK only on Premium.
An agent clicks Copilot on a tricky warranty question, edits the drafted answer and sends it in a few seconds.
Feature recap
- Live chat, ticketing, email inbox and video calls on every plan
- Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp in the same inbox
- Lyro AI agent in 48 languages, with Actions, Procedures and MCP
- Rule-based Flows with 40+ templates
- Copilot reply suggestions for human agents
- Native Shopify order actions from Growth
- Up to 10 agent seats on self-serve plans, including Free
- OpenAPI and departments on Plus; SSO on Premium
The Numbers
Tidio Pricing: Every Plan Explained
Tidio sells three packages that you combine: Customer Service (billed by human-handled conversations), Lyro AI Agent (billed by AI conversations) and Flows (billed by visitors reached). Prices below are from Tidio's pricing page, checked October 13, 2026, in USD. Annual billing is shown as a monthly figure and gives two months free. Quotas refresh every 30 days, except the free Lyro allowance.
| Plan | Monthly | Annual | Included Features | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 | 50 billable conversations a month, 10 seats, 50 lifetime Lyro conversations, 100 Flows visitors a month, live chat, ticketing, email and social channels, basic analytics, email support | Very small sites testing live chat |
| Starter | $29/mo | $24.17/mo | 100 billable conversations a month, 10 seats, live visitors list, operating hours, chat page; Lyro and Flows at free levels unless added | Small sites with light chat volume |
| GrowthBest value | From $59/mo (250 conversations) to $349/mo (2,000) | From $49.17/mo | 250 to 2,000 billable conversations a month, 10 seats, advanced analytics, permissions, automatic assignment, macros, satisfaction surveys, native Shopify actions; No Tidio branding add-on $16.67/mo | Growing stores and support teams |
| Lyro AI Agent add-on | From $39/mo (50 conversations) to $700/mo (1,000) | From $32.50/mo | Monthly Lyro quota of 50 to 1,000 conversations, product recommendations, full Actions access; can also be bought without a paid Customer Service plan | Anyone who wants the AI agent past the free 50 |
| Flows add-on | From $29/mo (2,000 visitors) to $299/mo (100,000) | From $24.17/mo | Higher monthly limit of unique visitors reached by Flows, advanced Flow analytics | Stores running proactive sales Flows |
| Plus and Premium | Plus from $300/mo plus usage; Premium contact sales | Quoted | Plus: custom quotas and seats, departments, multiproject, OpenAPI, live chat and premium support, Success Manager, discounted usage. Premium adds SSO, compliance, super admin, Mobile SDK, Lyro as a managed service, pay-per-resolution billing and a guaranteed 50% Lyro resolution rate | Larger teams and enterprises |
A billable conversation is one that a human agent replies to or starts; unanswered messages, spam and replies from Lyro or Flows don't count, and a whole thread counts once. A store on Growth with 400 conversations ($89 monthly) plus 100 Lyro conversations ($75 monthly) pays $164 a month, or about $137 billed annually (our arithmetic from Tidio's listed prices). Self-serve Lyro works out to $0.70 to $0.78 per conversation on monthly billing. Watch the limits: on Free, Tidio's help center says that once the 50-conversation limit is hit you can't see or answer new messages until it resets. On new projects with a monthly, non-Plus subscription, Tidio alerts you at 80% of a quota and automatically upgrades the package at 95%; you can switch this off in billing settings, and annual and Plus plans are excluded. Plan changes take effect at the next billing cycle. You can cancel anytime and keep paid features until the period ends. Tidio's terms (updated March 12, 2026) say it isn't obligated to refund anything, including partial periods and unused time; any discretionary refund is capped at three months of service. AI add-ons start and renew with the underlying subscription term. The 7-day trial needs no card and drops to Free when it ends.
Privacy
Lyro, AI providers and your data
Tidio's AI supplementary terms (in its terms of service, updated March 12, 2026) say customer data in AI inputs and outputs may pass through third-party AI providers, listed as OpenAI (EU hosting), Anthropic (US) and Google Cloud (EU), none of which may train their own models on it. Tidio says inputs and outputs aren't used to train models exposed to other customers except in irreversibly aggregated form, it may use aggregated, anonymized interaction data to tune performance, and you can opt out of improvement training through support.
You must tell end users they're talking to AI, check Lyro's output before relying on it and take full responsibility for anything a Lyro Action does in your systems. Tidio can throttle AI usage above the 95th percentile of all customers for two consecutive days, after 24 hours' notice, and caps its AI liability at the AI add-on fees paid in the previous 12 months. Tidio says it is not a HIPAA business associate. Its security page reports a completed SOC 2 examination, AWS hosting, encryption in transit and at rest, and GDPR and CCPA compliance; none of this is legal advice.
Read before you buy
Where Tidio's own pages differ
Counting Lyro conversations: the pricing and Lyro pages say a customer who leaves the chat and returns later is still one Lyro conversation, while the help article on the Lyro limit (January 28, 2026) says a thread closes after 15 minutes of inactivity and any new message starts a new, separately counted conversation.
Lyro limits by plan: the pricing table lists 5 pieces of Guidance on Free, Starter and Growth and says the first Action is free; the plan-guide help article (November 4, 2025) says Free allows 1 Guidance and 1 Smart Action and paid Lyro plans up to 3 each, and the trial article (July 14, 2026) limits Free to 1 active Action and 1 active Guidance.
AI models: the Lyro page says Lyro runs on Claude from Anthropic and in-house models and not ChatGPT, while the AI terms' provider list also names OpenAI and Google Cloud as AI sub-processors. Lyro Connect: the Lyro page's FAQ says it's available on Plus and Premium; the same page's integration section says Premium.
Lyro price: the Lyro page says you pay just $0.5 per conversation, but self-serve Lyro tiers on the pricing page cost $0.70 to $0.78 per conversation monthly; the $0.5 figure appears only as a starting rate for sales-quoted Lyro Connect.
AI usage rules: the older AI terms help article (March 29, 2024) bans Tidio AI outright in sectors including healthcare, finance and investment advice, legal advice and news, while the current AI terms allow retail banking FAQs and require Tidio's written consent or human oversight for high-risk and professional-advice uses. Support and ratings: the trial article lists support over live chat as a paid feature, while the pricing table offers it only on Plus and Premium; Tidio's Shopify App Store rating is given as 4.8 on the homepage, 4.7 on the pricing page and 4.6 on the Shopify integration page.
The Tradeoffs
Tidio Pros and Cons
What we love
- Real free plan with 10 seats, ticketing and social channels
- Lyro AI agent is affordable at small volumes and works in 48 languages
- No per-seat pricing on self-serve plans
- Native Shopify order actions and product recommendations
- Unanswered messages, spam and AI replies don't count as billable conversations
- 7-day trial with no card that falls back to Free, not a charge
What could be better
- Three separate quotas make the real monthly cost harder to predict
- Free plan's 50 Lyro conversations never refresh
- Free plan hides new messages once its 50-conversation limit is hit
- Self-serve plans cap at 10 seats; OpenAPI and departments need Plus ($300+/mo)
- SSO only on sales-quoted Premium
- Refunds are discretionary under Tidio's terms, and its pages conflict on Lyro details
The Audience
Who Should Use Tidio?
Best for: small Shopify and WooCommerce stores
Store owners get chat, order actions from the inbox, Lyro answers about shipping and returns, and product recommendations, for well under the per-seat cost of enterprise help desks.
Best for: service businesses adding AI to website chat
Agencies, consultancies and local services can let Lyro answer FAQs and capture leads after hours, with a person taking over when needed.
Skip if: you run a large or regulated support team
Teams needing more than 10 agents, SSO, departments, an open API or HIPAA coverage will end up on quoted Plus or Premium plans, where help desks such as Zendesk or Intercom are worth pricing side by side.
The Methodology
How We Reviewed Tidio
This is an editorial review, not a documented hands-on test. We didn't use a Tidio account for this review. It's based on Tidio's pricing page (including its plan comparison table and FAQ), homepage, Lyro, security and integration pages, developer site, product updates page, terms of service with its AI supplementary terms (March 12, 2026), and help-center articles on plans, the trial, the free version, automatic upgrades, subscriptions, invoices, Lyro limits, languages, Actions, Procedures, proactive roles, MCP, Copilot, security, GDPR and AI fair use, all checked on October 13, 2026. Where Tidio's pages differ, we report both statements. No resolution-rate, response-time or sales results are claimed.
Our editorial evaluation considers product information, official documentation, pricing, features and professional experience. It is not a claim of documented hands-on testing.
Our review methodology →What changed
- : First published. Editorial review based on Tidio's pricing page, homepage, Lyro, security and integration pages, developer site, product updates page, terms of service and AI supplementary terms, and help-center articles on plans, trial, free version, automatic upgrades, subscriptions, Lyro limits, languages, Actions, Procedures, proactive roles, MCP, Copilot, security, GDPR and AI fair use, all checked October 13, 2026. Sub-scores are provisional pending editorial approval.
The Field
Tidio vs The Competition
Tidio competes with social DM automation tools and with help desks that sell AI agents. Prices below were checked on each vendor's pricing page on October 13, 2026.
| Tool | Starting Price | Free plan | Best Feature | BS Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tidio | Free; Starter $24.17/mo billed annually ($29 monthly) | Yes | Lyro AI Agent | 8.4/10 |
| Manychat | Free (25 active contacts); Essential $14/mo billed annually | Yes | Instagram comment and DM automation | 8.8/10 |
| Intercom | Essential $29/seat/mo billed annually ($39 monthly); Fin $0.99 per outcome | No | Fin AI agent inside a full help desk | Not yet reviewed |
| Zendesk | Support Team $19/agent/mo billed annually ($25 monthly) | No | Mature ticketing for growing teams | Not yet reviewed |
| LiveChat | Essential $19/user/mo billed annually ($25 monthly) | No | Dedicated live chat for sales and support | Not yet reviewed |
Manychat: Manychat prices by active contacts and is built for Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp and Messenger automation. Pick Manychat if sales start in social DMs; pick Tidio if they start on your website and you need a support inbox.Read our Manychat review →
Intercom: Intercom charges per seat plus $0.99 per Fin AI outcome, with a 14-day trial. It suits larger support teams; Tidio is cheaper for small ones. BestStacked hasn't reviewed Intercom yet.
Zendesk: Zendesk's plans include 5 to 10 automated AI resolutions per agent a month, then $1.50 to $2.00 each. BestStacked hasn't reviewed Zendesk yet.
LiveChat: LiveChat prices per user with a 14-day trial and no free plan. BestStacked hasn't reviewed LiveChat yet.
In The Wild
How People Actually Use Tidio
A Shopify store with one support person
Start on Free or Starter, add Lyro at 50 to 100 conversations a month ($39 to $75 monthly) for shipping and returns questions, and move to Growth when you need order actions in the inbox.
A local service business capturing leads
Use a lead-capture Flow and Lyro proactive roles to collect contact details after hours. Keep an eye on the Flows quota: Free reaches 100 unique visitors a month.
A team already on Zendesk
Keep Zendesk and use the Zendesk integration to create tickets from chats, or ask sales about Lyro Connect, which adds Lyro to Zendesk on a quoted Plus or Premium contract.
The Ecosystem
Tidio Integrations
Tidio connects natively to the major store builders, messaging channels and a set of CRM and marketing tools, with Zapier and an OpenAPI on higher plans for the rest.
- →Shopify (cart, order history and order actions from Growth)
- →WordPress and WooCommerce (plugin, product cards)
- →Wix, BigCommerce and Adobe Commerce (Magento)
- →Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp and external email inboxes
- →HubSpot, Salesforce and Klaviyo
- →Zendesk (ticket creation; Lyro Connect on quoted plans)
- →Zapier
- →OpenAPI, webhooks, widget SDK (OpenAPI on Plus) and MCP servers in Lyro
Tidio's integrations directory also lists many apps reached through Lyro Actions and the OpenAPI rather than prebuilt connectors, and its Premium plan description says it can integrate with almost any app; check that the specific app you need has a dedicated integration page before you buy.
Common Questions
Tidio FAQ
The Final Word
Should You Use Tidio?
Tidio is one of the cheapest ways for a small business to put live chat and a capable AI agent on its website, with a free plan that includes 10 seats and every main channel. Lyro's growing toolset of Actions, Procedures, proactive roles and MCP makes it more than an FAQ bot. Budget carefully, though: three separate quotas, a one-time free Lyro allowance, automatic upgrades on monthly plans and discretionary refunds mean the real cost needs watching, and anything beyond 10 seats or needing SSO moves into quoted plans. We score Tidio 8.4/10.
Yes, if
You run a small store or service business with up to 10 agents and want live chat, a shared inbox and an AI agent at low cost.
No, if
You need SSO, an open API or more than 10 seats without a sales contract, or strictly predictable billing.
About the reviewer
Carlos Gil
Founder & Editor, The Best Network
Carlos Gil is the bestselling author of The End of Marketing, a LinkedIn Top Voice, and founder of The Best Network. He brings 15+ years in marketing to practical reviews of AI, SaaS, email marketing, creator, and ecommerce software.
Get the best of BestStacked
The AI tools worth knowing. None of the noise.
- New AI tool and software reviews as they publish
- Head-to-head comparisons and stack breakdowns
- The occasional recommendation worth knowing
No fake urgency. No made-up weekly cadence. Unsubscribe anytime.