Bottom line: Tidio’s free plan is a real help desk at $0: 50 billable conversations a month, up to 10 seats, and live chat, ticketing, email, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp in one inbox. The catch almost every roundup gets wrong: the 50 Lyro AI conversations included on Free are a one-time lifetime allowance, not 50 a month. Once they are gone, the AI agent stops until you buy a Lyro package starting at $39 a month.
What is Tidio?
Tidio is a customer-service platform for small businesses and online stores. It bundles website live chat, a shared ticketing inbox, a no-code automation builder called Flows, and Lyro, an AI agent that answers customer questions from your site content and FAQs. Where the tool in our Botpress free plan review is a builder you assemble yourself, Tidio is a ready-made support desk you switch on.
What is actually free on Tidio?
Per Tidio’s pricing page and help centre (figures checked November 2026), the Free plan includes:
- 50 billable conversations per month — a billable conversation is one a human agent replies to or starts; this allowance resets monthly.
- Up to 10 seats, which is unusually generous — most rivals charge per seat.
- Live chat, ticketing, and email, plus Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp channels in one inbox.
- Flows automation reaching 100 unique visitors a month.
- 50 Lyro AI conversations — once, for the life of the account (see below).
For a pre-launch store or a low-traffic site, that is enough to run genuine support for free. It is a different shape from the 100 message credits in our Chatbase free plan review: Tidio gives you human support tools first and a taste of AI second.
What the pricing page doesn’t make obvious
The headline numbers hide three separate meters, and they do not reset the same way. Your 50 human conversations and 100 Flows visitors reset every month, but the 50 Lyro conversations never refill — multiple pricing breakdowns drawn from Tidio’s own pricing page and help centre confirm the Lyro allowance is marked lifetime / one-off, and even the paid Starter plan includes the same 50 Lyro conversations only once. Only a separate Lyro package — from $39 a month for 50 conversations on monthly billing, $32.50 billed annually — refreshes the AI quota monthly.
Second, Tidio is three products priced separately: the customer-service plan, the Lyro AI agent, and Flows are each metered on their own ladder, and removing Tidio branding is an extra charge. A store that wants the full advertised experience — Starter plus Lyro plus Flows — is realistically around $80 a month, not the $29 headline. Third, when you hit 100% of your monthly human conversation cap on Free, new conversation details are hidden and agents cannot reply until the cycle resets or you upgrade.
Free vs paid: what do you actually gain by upgrading?
| Plan | Price | Billable conversations | What changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 50 / month | 10 seats, live chat and ticketing, 100 Flows visitors/month, 50 Lyro conversations once |
| Starter | $29/month ($24.17 annual) | 100 / month | More conversations; Lyro still only 50 once unless you add a Lyro package |
| Growth | From $59/month ($49.17 annual) | 250 to 2,000 / month | Conversation volume scales on a slider |
| Lyro AI add-on | From $39/month ($32.50 annual) | 50 to 1,000 AI conversations | A monthly AI quota that actually refills |
| Plus | From $300/month plus usage | Custom | Departments, API, dedicated support |
Our pick per use case: stay on Free if your team answers most chats itself and traffic is light. Budget for Lyro as a separate line item from day one if AI answering is the reason you came.
Pros and cons
Pros
- A real help desk — chat, tickets, email, and social channels — on a permanent free plan.
- 10 seats included free; you pay for conversations, not per agent.
- Lyro is included to test, so you can see AI resolution quality before paying.
- Flows automation templates are included on free.
Cons
- The 50 free Lyro conversations are lifetime, not monthly — easy to burn through in a week.
- Three separate meters make the true monthly cost hard to predict.
- 50 conversations a month disappears in days on a busy store, and automated greetings can count toward limits.
- Branding removal costs extra.
Who is Tidio best for?
Tidio’s free plan is best for small e-commerce stores and service businesses that want human live chat and ticketing in one place, with AI as a trial on the side. If you mainly want an AI bot trained on your documents, compare it with the website-and-WhatsApp approach in our Landbot review before committing.
Verdict
As a free human support desk, Tidio is one of the best deals in this category — 10 seats and every channel at $0. As a free AI agent, it is a 50-conversation test drive. Go in knowing which of those two things you are actually getting, and it will not disappoint you.
FAQ
Is Tidio really free?
Yes. The Free plan is permanent at $0 with 50 billable conversations a month and up to 10 seats. New accounts also get a 7-day trial of paid features with no credit card, then drop back to Free.
Do Tidio’s free Lyro conversations refill each month?
No. The 50 Lyro conversations on Free (and on Starter) are a one-time lifetime allowance. A paid Lyro package, from $39 a month, is what gives you a monthly AI quota.
What is a billable conversation on Tidio?
A chat, ticket, email, or social conversation that a human agent replies to or starts. Lyro AI conversations and Flows visitors are metered separately.
How much does Tidio cost if I need AI answering every month?
Budget the base plan plus Lyro: for example Starter at $29 a month plus Lyro from $39 a month on monthly billing, before any Flows add-on.