Tidio Alternatives 2026: 5 Free Options
Tidio alternatives: Chatwoot, tawk.to, Crisp, HubSpot Service Hub and 1 more. Prices and licenses checked October 22, 2026.
•3 min read•Customer Support & Help Desk
Verdict:Tidio's free plan gives 50 billable conversations a month, and its Starter plan is $24.17 on monthly billing. If your chat volume is small, the cheapest move is another free chat tool with fewer limits. tawk.to is the usual answer: live chat, ticketing and a help centre cost nothing, and you only pay if you want to remove its branding at $29 a month or add AI. Chatwoot is the better pick when your team handles email and social messages as well as the widget, because it is open source and free to self-host. Its hosted Hacker plan limits you to 500 conversations. Crisp has a free plan, but its jump to $45 a month for Mini is larger than Tidio's. Libredesk is the most hands-on choice, free but self-hosted. What you lose across the board is Tidio's ecommerce focus, with its prebuilt flows for abandoned carts and product suggestions; none of these ship with an equivalent that we could verify. If you run a Shopify or similar store and rely on those flows, stay and check what the paid plan covers. If you mainly want a chat window and a shared inbox for a small team, you can leave without losing anything important.
Quick comparison
| Tool | Price | Platforms | Best for | Tested |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chatwoot | Free (Hacker plan: 2 agents, 500 conversations/month, live chat only, 30 days retention); paid from $19 per agent/month, billed monthly (Startups) | Web browser, Self-hosted | Shared inbox across channels | Docs only |
| tawk.to | Free (Live chat, ticketing and knowledge base free; AI Assist has a free plan for limited chat volume); paid from $29 per month (remove-branding add-on) | Web browser | Unlimited free live chat | Docs only |
| Crisp | Free (2 seats, 100 customer profiles, no AI credits); paid from $45 per workspace/month, billed monthly (Mini, 4 agents) | Web browser | Small teams wanting a polished widget | Docs only |
| HubSpot Service Hub | Free (free for up to 2 users, HubSpot-branded live chat and email); paid from $7 per seat/month (Starter) | Web browser | HubSpot users who need chat | Docs only |
| Libredesk | Free (Self-hosted and free; no paid tiers; needs PostgreSQL and Redis) | Linux, Docker | Teams hosting their own support tool | Docs only |
| Intercom | Paid from $29 per seat/month (Essential; the page also shows $19, which appears to be the annual rate; Advanced $85, Expert $132; Fin AI Agent $0.99 per outcome) | Web browser | Customer Support | Docs only |
| LiveChat | Paid from $25 per user/month, billed monthly (Essential; $19 billed annually) | Web browser | Live Chat | Docs only |
Independent comparison. Paid placements are labelled separately; editorial links earn no affiliate commissions. Learn more.
Good fit if
- You want free live chat with no conversation cap (tawk.to is the pick)
- You want to self-host the whole support stack (Chatwoot is the pick)
- You already use HubSpot for contacts (HubSpot Service Hub is the pick)
- You want a cleaner widget and can pay later (Crisp is the pick)
- You want one self-hosted inbox for chat and email (Libredesk is the pick)
Not ideal if
- You rely on Tidio features or integrations that these tools do not replicate
Tidio today: Free (50 billable conversations per month); paid from $24.17 per month, billed monthly (Starter) (Tidio pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Why people look for Tidio alternatives
Tidio's free plan covers 50 billable conversations a month and keeps Tidio branding, which costs $16.67 a month to remove on lower tiers. Starter is $24.17 a month for 100 conversations and Growth is $49.17 a month from 250, so cost climbs with chat volume. Lyro AI is separate: the first 50 conversations are free once, then it starts at $32.50 a month for 50. Plus starts at $300 a month plus usage.
Chatwoot
Compared with Tidio: Open-source (MIT) with a free Hacker plan of 2 agents and 500 conversations a month, or self-host. You lose Tidio's ready-made chatbot flows, but gain a shared inbox across email and social channels.
Price: Free (Hacker plan: 2 agents, 500 conversations/month, live chat only, 30 days retention); paid from $19 per agent/month, billed monthly (Startups) (Chatwoot pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Platforms and license: Web browser, Self-hosted. MIT (repo also contains an enterprise folder) (open source).
Project activity: 38.4k GitHub stars · latest release v4.19.1 (Oct 24, 2026) · last commit Oct 27, 2026
Best for: Shared inbox across channels.
tawk.to
Compared with Tidio: Live chat, ticketing and a knowledge base are free, with no seat limits stated. Removing the branding costs $29 a month. Tidio's free plan caps at 50 billable conversations; tawk.to has no such cap, but fewer chatbot templates.
Price: Free (Live chat, ticketing and knowledge base free; AI Assist has a free plan for limited chat volume); paid from $29 per month (remove-branding add-on) (tawk.to pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Platforms and license: Web browser. Proprietary SaaS.
Best for: Unlimited free live chat.
Worth knowing: Live answering by hired agents is $1 per hour.
Crisp
Compared with Tidio: Free plan covers 2 seats and 100 customer profiles; Mini is $45 a month per workspace, more than Tidio's $24.17 Starter. Includes a similar chat widget, with no AI credits on the free tier.
Price: Free (2 seats, 100 customer profiles, no AI credits); paid from $45 per workspace/month, billed monthly (Mini, 4 agents) (Crisp pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Platforms and license: Web browser. Proprietary SaaS.
Best for: Small teams wanting a polished widget.
HubSpot Service Hub
Compared with Tidio: Free for up to 2 users with HubSpot-branded live chat and email, and Starter is $7 per seat monthly. Fits if you already use a HubSpot CRM, but is heavier than Tidio for a basic store widget.
Price: Free (free for up to 2 users, HubSpot-branded live chat and email); paid from $7 per seat/month (Starter) (HubSpot Service Hub pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Platforms and license: Web browser. Proprietary SaaS.
Best for: HubSpot users who need chat.
Libredesk
Compared with Tidio: Self-hosted and free with live chat, email and WhatsApp in one inbox. It needs PostgreSQL and Redis and has no hosted option, so it replaces Tidio's agent side but not its templated bots.
Price: Free (Self-hosted and free; no paid tiers; needs PostgreSQL and Redis) (Libredesk pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Platforms and license: Linux, Docker. AGPL-3.0 (open source).
Project activity: 3.1k GitHub stars · latest release v2.9.0 (Oct 22, 2026) · last commit Oct 27, 2026
Best for: Teams hosting their own support tool.
Worth knowing: No hosted version from the project.
Other popular options (paid)
Intercom
Compared with Tidio: Essential is $29 per seat a month, with $19 shown for new customers, and Fin AI Agent is charged at $0.99 per outcome. Priced per seat plus AI usage rather than Tidio's conversation bundles; no free plan, 14-day trial.
Price: Paid from $29 per seat/month (Essential; the page also shows $19, which appears to be the annual rate; Advanced $85, Expert $132; Fin AI Agent $0.99 per outcome) (Intercom pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
LiveChat
Compared with Tidio: Starts at $25 per user a month ($19 billed annually) with no free plan, against Tidio's free 50 conversations. Essential includes 1 AI agent and 10 AI resolutions a month, and is priced per agent rather than by conversation volume.
Price: Paid from $25 per user/month, billed monthly (Essential; $19 billed annually) (LiveChat pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Which one to pick
- You want free live chat with no conversation cap: tawk.to
- You want to self-host the whole support stack: Chatwoot
- You already use HubSpot for contacts: HubSpot Service Hub
- You want a cleaner widget and can pay later: Crisp
- You want one self-hosted inbox for chat and email: Libredesk
Limits of this review
Docs-only for Chatwoot, tawk.to, Crisp, HubSpot Service Hub, Libredesk: we did not install or run them, so feature claims come from vendor pages and we did not test import from Tidio. Vendor prices and free limits change; confirm on the linked pricing page before you buy or migrate.
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Kevin Fan
Kevin Fan is a SaaS founder. He runs Free Instead Of, which tracks free and open-source alternatives to paid software and checks each price and free-plan limit against the vendor's own pages.
Methodology
Based on official pricing and product pages checked 2026-10-22: Tidio, Chatwoot, tawk.to, Crisp, HubSpot Service Hub, Libredesk, Intercom, LiveChat. Prices, free limits and licenses are the figures shown on those pages on those dates. No tool on this page was installed or run. No accounts were created.