Tidio pricing explained: what the free plan actually includes

Tidio is one of the most-searched live chat tools precisely because the entry price looks so low. A free plan with real features, a paid base tier under $30, and an AI agent that starts for free. The picture gets more complicated when you read the pricing page carefully, because the base plan, the AI agent, and the automation builder are three separate products with three separate meters. This post breaks down exactly what each tier includes, where the costs stack, and when that stack is worth it.

How does Tidio pricing work?

Tidio prices along three independent axes: the base plan (which covers seats and basic conversations), the Lyro AI add-on (which handles automated AI conversations), and the Flows add-on (which covers rule-based automation). You choose a base tier, then decide whether to add Lyro and whether to add Flows. Each line has its own meter.

The free plan gives you up to 10 seats and 50 billable conversations per month with a chat widget, email, and basic automation. The first 50 Lyro AI conversations are free forever on any Tidio account. Once you exceed those limits, you start paying for the base plan, for Lyro, and potentially for Flows independently.

What does the Tidio free plan include?

The Tidio free plan is a genuine free plan: 10 seats, 50 monthly conversations across chat and email, basic automation, and 50 Lyro AI conversations free for the life of the account. It is one of the more generous free tiers in the live chat category, which explains the install base.

The limits are real though. Fifty conversations a month is a slow support week for most businesses. Once customer volume crosses that line, the choice is to pay for a base plan, slow down on the widget, or redirect customers elsewhere. It is a trial with a generous permanent cap, not a production-ready plan for growing teams.

What does the Tidio Starter plan cost?

The Tidio Starter plan costs $24.17 per month billed annually (the monthly-billing price is higher). It includes 100 billable conversations and 3 operators. This base plan does not include AI conversations beyond the universal 50 free Lyro messages; those require the Lyro add-on.

What counts as a billable conversation?

Tidio counts billable conversations per engagement window, not per message. A customer opening the widget and exchanging several messages in one session counts as one conversation. This is fairly standard across the category and means the meter relates to customer sessions, not the length of those sessions.

How much does Lyro AI cost?

Lyro, Tidio's AI agent, is an add-on that starts at $32.50 per month billed annually for 50 AI conversations, on top of the base plan. The first 50 Lyro conversations are free on every account. Lyro tier prices above 50 conversations are not published on the Tidio pricing page; you would need to contact sales to price higher volumes.

The real-world math for a small team: Starter at $24.17 plus Lyro at $32.50 totals $56.67 per month billed annually for 100 base conversations and 50 AI conversations. That is a workable amount for a very light AI use case, and the free 50 Lyro conversations make the trial genuinely free.

What is the Tidio Flows add-on?

Flows is Tidio's rule-based automation builder: chatbot trees, product recommendation flows, and similar scripted interactions that do not use AI. It is an add-on starting from $24.17 per month billed annually. If your team wants Lyro AI and Flows automation, both add-ons stack on the base plan price.

Many teams start without Flows, because Lyro handles the conversational side and the base plan covers simple routing. Add it when you have a specific scripted-interaction use case, like a lead qualification tree or a product finder, that rule-based logic handles better than open AI conversation.

What is the Growth tier?

Above Starter, Tidio offers Growth and higher tiers aimed at larger teams and higher conversation volumes. These tiers include more seats and higher conversation caps. Exact pricing varies; the Tidio pricing page is the authoritative source, and annual billing consistently shows lower monthly rates than month-to-month.

When does Tidio pricing make sense?

Tidio is a strong choice in two specific situations. First: a very small team or solo founder that needs a functioning chat widget and wants to test AI support for free. The 50 free Lyro conversations let you genuinely try AI support without a credit card. Second: an ecommerce team using Shopify, where Tidio has the deepest native integration and product-specific automations competitors do not replicate.

Where the model strains is growing AI volume. Because AI conversations are a separate metered add-on with unpublished higher tiers, a team that wants the AI to carry 500 or 1,000 conversations a month cannot fully model the cost from the pricing page. That uncertainty is a planning problem even if the actual rate turns out to be reasonable.

How does Tidio compare to an AI-included alternative?

The structural difference is whether AI is inside the seat price or attached as a meter. On HelpYap, the AI agentis included in every seat: Starter at $19 per seat includes 300 AI conversations, Pro at $49 includes 1,000 conversations per seat. A single seat at the Starter tier covers six times the AI volume of Tidio's published Lyro entry tier, in one price with no add-on math.

The tradeoff is real. Tidio's free plan is free where HelpYap has a 7-day trial, and Tidio's Shopify integration depth is deeper than anything we currently offer. If you run a Shopify store at light AI volume, Tidio is the natural choice. If you expect the AI to handle real ticket volume and want the cost to be predictable, compare the full stack prices including Lyro against a single-line seat price, and look at the HelpYap vs Tidio comparison for the exact math.

The full stack the team inbox gives you on HelpYap, including SLA tracking, canned responses, AI Copilot drafts, and channel routing, is included in the seat price. The knowledge base that powers the AI agent and a public help center is also included. None of those are separate line items.

What does Tidio have that other platforms do not?

Tidio's permanent free plan is genuinely unique at 10 seats. Its Shopify integration, including product cards in chat, abandoned cart recovery, and visitor behavior triggers, is the deepest ecommerce-specific feature set in this price range. And the first 50 Lyro AI conversations being free forever makes the cost of testing genuinely zero. If those features match your use case, they are real and worth factoring in.

The bottom line

Tidio's published entry cost is $24.17 per month for the Starter base plan, plus $32.50 for the Lyro AI add-on (50 conversations), for a total of $56.67 per month billed annually for a working AI support setup. The free plan with 50 free Lyro conversations is real and useful for testing. Higher Lyro volumes are not published, so contact sales before budgeting AI at scale. If you need a free starting point or deep Shopify integration, Tidio earns its position. If you want AI volume you can count in a single published price, see the pricing page for what an AI-included seat looks like, or read AI customer support for small teams for a framework on what matters at your scale.