Support and chat
Crisp vs Tidio
Crisp if several people will answer chats and you want a flat bill with a help centre included. Tidio if you run an online store, want a free plan to start, and its AI agent handling order questions would save you time.
- No affiliate links
- Public pricing only
- Updated by hand
Both are the affordable alternatives to Intercom, and both do the fundamentals well: a widget, a shared inbox, canned replies and simple bots.
The split is who they're built for. Crisp leans towards SaaS and service businesses with its help centre and multi-channel inbox. Tidio leans ecommerce, with Shopify integration and product-aware AI replies.
Side by side
Crisp and Tidio in short.
Crisp
Multi-channel shared inbox and live chat with unlimited seats per workspace.
- Free
- Free plan with basic chat for two seats.
- Paid from
- From roughly $45 per workspace per month
Good at
- Unlimited teammates on paid plans
- Help centre, chatbot and CRM view included
- WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram and email in one inbox
Weak at
- AI is basic compared with dedicated agents
- Ecommerce integrations are lighter than Tidio's
Tidio
Live chat and AI support agent aimed at ecommerce, with strong Shopify support.
- Free
- Free plan with a monthly conversation limit.
- Paid from
- Paid plans from roughly $29/month
Good at
- Genuine free plan you can run a small store on
- Lyro AI agent answers common product and order questions
- Shopify integration surfaces order data in the chat
Weak at
- Conversation-based limits mean costs jump with traffic
- Seats are limited on lower tiers
The differences
Where they actually diverge.
Pick one
Which one fits you.
Choose Crisp if
- A whole team answers messages
- You want a knowledge base in the same tool
- Social channels need to land in one inbox
Choose Tidio if
- You run a store and get repetitive order questions
- You want to start free
- AI handling tier-one questions is the goal
When neither is the answer
If chats mostly ask questions your product page should answer, fix the page. Every chat you prevent is cheaper than every chat you answer.
Questions
Common questions.
How fast do people expect a reply?
Within a couple of minutes while the widget shows you as online. If you can't hold that, set the widget to away mode and collect email instead — a slow chat is worse than no chat.
Can I move between them?
Conversation history rarely transfers cleanly. Help centre articles export as text, and widget installation is a script swap. Plan to lose historical transcripts.
Prices are list prices published by each vendor and change often — check the linked pricing pages before you buy. We take no affiliate commission and nobody pays to appear here.
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