Tidio vs Chatbase: Features, Pricing and Verdict
Tidio is live chat with an AI agent for stores from $29 a month; Chatbase trains a bot on your content from $40. Features, pricing, and the verdict.
By Galactic News Editorial · Published 2026-11-12T16:28:49+00:00 · Updated 2026-11-12T16:28:49+00:00
Tidio and Chatbase both put an AI chatbot on your website, but they come from different directions. Tidio is a live chat platform with an AI agent called Lyro built on top. Chatbase is a chatbot builder that trains a bot on your own content. This comparison covers features, pricing, and the verdict.
Tidio vs Chatbase at a glance
| Attribute | Tidio | Chatbase |
|---|---|---|
| Core job | Live chat, ticketing, and AI agent for stores | Chatbot trained on your docs, site, or files |
| Free plan | $0, 50 billable conversations a month | $0, 50 message credits a month, one chatbot |
| Entry paid plan | Starter, $29 a month or $24.17 billed annually | Hobby, $40 a month |
| Mid plan | Growth, from $59 a month | Standard, $150 a month |
| Top plan | Plus, from $300 a month plus usage | Pro, $500 a month |
| AI pricing | Lyro add-on from $39 a month for 50 conversations | Message credits, auto-recharge $40 per 1,000 |
What Tidio does
Tidio is a customer service platform for online stores. It combines live chat, email, Messenger, and ticketing in one inbox. It is built for Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce sellers who want chat on their store without a large support team. The AI agent, Lyro, answers routine questions on its own and hands harder ones to a human.
Tidio bills three separate meters, and this is the part most buyers miss. Billable conversations are chats a human agent replies to or starts. Lyro AI conversations are chats the AI handles. Flows visitors are the unique visitors who trigger an automated Flow in a month. Each meter has its own limit, and each one can push you to a higher plan.
The free plan gives you 50 billable conversations a month, 10 seats, and 100 Flows visitors. Its 50 Lyro conversations are a one-off lifetime allowance, not a monthly one. Once you use them, Lyro stops replying until you buy a Lyro package. Starter costs $29 a month, or $24.17 billed annually, and covers 100 billable conversations a month. Growth starts at $59 a month, or $49.17 billed annually, and scales from 250 to 2,000 billable conversations. Plus starts at $300 a month plus usage, with custom volumes and a dedicated success manager. Premium is priced by sales.
Lyro AI Agent packages start at $39 a month for 50 conversations, rising to $700 for 1,000 conversations on self-serve plans. Annual billing lowers those figures. Paid plans come with a 7-day free trial. Self-serve plans stop at 2,000 billable conversations, 1,000 Lyro conversations, or 100,000 Flows visitors a month. Beyond that, you need Plus or Premium.
What Chatbase does
Chatbase is a no-code chatbot builder. You train a chatbot on your own content by uploading PDFs, pointing it at your website, connecting Notion pages, or pasting raw text. The bot then answers visitor questions from that material. You deploy it as a website widget, in Slack, or on WhatsApp. There is no live chat inbox and no human-agent workflow. It is a bot, not a helpdesk.
Chatbase charges by message credits. One reply can consume several credits, depending on the model used. The free plan gives you 50 message credits a month and one chatbot. Free bots are deleted after a period of inactivity, so the free tier suits prototyping, not a live production bot.
Hobby costs $40 a month for 700 message credits. Standard costs $150 a month for 4,000 credits. Pro costs $500 a month for 15,000 credits. When credits run out, the bot stops answering unless auto-recharge is on, which costs $40 per 1,000 credits. Paid plans add model choice, including GPT-4o, Claude, Grok, and Llama, plus API access and integrations such as Zapier, Slack, WordPress, and WhatsApp.
Chatbase has repriced several times in 2026. Older guides list Hobby at $19, Standard at $99, and an Unlimited plan at $399, with far larger credit allowances. Those figures are out of date. The current published plans, captured from Chatbase's own pages in October 2026, are Free, Hobby at $40, Standard at $150, and Pro at $500. Check the pricing page before you subscribe, because this vendor changes prices often.
Tidio vs Chatbase pricing compared
At the entry level, Tidio Starter at $29 a month is cheaper than Chatbase Hobby at $40 a month. But the two prices measure different things. Tidio's $29 buys 100 human-answered conversations, and its AI costs extra. Chatbase's $40 buys 700 message credits for the bot, with no human inbox at all.
Volume changes the winner. A store with 500 customer chats a month fits Tidio Growth, which starts at $59 a month for 250 billable conversations and scales up. The same volume on Chatbase Standard costs $150 a month for 4,000 credits, and a busy week can burn through credits fast. Chatbase's hard stop at exhaustion is a real risk: without auto-recharge, the bot goes silent mid-month.
Hidden costs sit on both sides. Tidio's three meters mean the advertised plan price never covers the full bill once Lyro and Flows grow. Chatbase's credit model means traffic spikes cost real money, and add-ons such as custom domains and branding removal stack up on top of the plan price. Budget for the meters, not the sticker.
Which one fits your work
Choose Tidio if you run an online store and want humans plus AI in one inbox. It fits Shopify and WooCommerce sellers who answer pre-sale questions, handle order issues, and want the AI to clear the routine chats first. Start on the free plan, and move to Starter when you pass 50 conversations a month.
Choose Chatbase if you need a bot that answers from your own documents. Support teams with a knowledge base, documentation sites, and course creators get the most from it. You train it once, embed the widget, and it answers from your material around the clock. Start on the free plan to test the answers, and move to Hobby when the bot goes live.
Do not pick Chatbase if you need human agents. It has no live chat inbox, so a customer who wants a person has nowhere to go. Do not pick Tidio if your main need is a documentation bot. Its Lyro agent answers from your help content, but it is built around the chat inbox, not around a knowledge base.
Setup time also differs. Tidio installs as a chat widget with a short script, and Lyro learns from your help centre and past chats. Most stores get it running in an afternoon. Chatbase needs training data first. The quality of its answers depends on the quality of the documents you feed it, so a thin help centre produces thin answers. Budget an hour to prepare and test your training material before launch.
Bottom line
Tidio vs Chatbase is a choice between a support inbox and a trained bot. Tidio wins for stores: Starter at $29 a month gives you live chat, ticketing, and a path to Lyro AI, with human agents in the loop. Chatbase wins for knowledge-base bots: Hobby at $40 a month trains on your content and answers without a human, but the credit caps are tight and the prices have moved often. Pick Tidio to talk to customers. Pick Chatbase to let your documents do the talking.