Chatbase vs Tidio: Which AI Chatbot Should Your Website Use?

Which should you pick?

• Best free planTidio

  Tidio Free includes 50 billable conversations a month, 10 seats, live chat and 50 lifetime Lyro AI conversations Tidio pricing ↗. Chatbase Free gives 50 message credits a month, one member, no integrations, and deletes agents after 14 days of inactivity Chatbase pricing ↗.

• Lowest paid starting priceTidio

  Tidio Starter is listed at $24.17 a month and Lyro starts at $32.50 a month for 50 AI conversations Tidio pricing ↗. Chatbase Hobby is $40 a month Chatbase pricing ↗.

• Best for AI answering most questionsChatbase

  Chatbase is built around an AI agent trained on files, website crawls, text, Q and A pairs and Notion pages Chatbase docs ↗, with AI actions like looking up orders or booking slots Chatbase features ↗.

• Best for a team answering live chatsTidio

  Tidio's plans center on live chat, ticketing, email, operating hours and automatic chat assignment, with 10 seats from Free through Growth Tidio pricing ↗.

• Best channel reachChatbase

  Chatbase lists website chat, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, Slack, email and voice Chatbase pricing ↗ Chatbase features ↗. Tidio's Lyro runs on Tidio, and connecting it to tools like Zendesk requires Plus or Premium Tidio Lyro ↗.

• Best for Shopify storesTie

  Tidio Growth includes native Shopify actions Tidio pricing ↗. Chatbase lists a Shopify integration from its paid plans Chatbase pricing ↗.

Side by side

From each vendor’s own pages, checked Oct 9, 2026. Prices change often.

Pricing and free plans

Chatbase prices by message credits. The Free plan gives 50 message credits a month, one member and 1 MB of training content, with no integrations or attachments, and agents are deleted after 14 days of inactivity Chatbase pricing ↗. Hobby is $40 a month with 700 credits and two members, Standard is $150 a month with 4,000 credits and three members, and Pro is $500 a month with 15,000 credits and five members Chatbase pricing ↗. Extra credits cost $40 per 1,000, extra agents cost $25 a month each, and removing Chatbase branding costs $99 a month Chatbase pricing ↗. The page says yearly plans are 20% off Chatbase pricing ↗.

Tidio prices by conversations and seats, then sells its AI agent and automations as add ons. Free includes 50 billable conversations a month and 10 seats Tidio pricing ↗. Starter is listed at $24.17 a month for 100 conversations, Growth starts at $49.17 a month, and Plus starts at $300 a month plus usage Tidio pricing ↗. Lyro, the AI agent, starts at $32.50 a month for 50 AI conversations, and Flows automations start at $24.17 a month Tidio pricing ↗. Removing Tidio branding on Growth is $16.67 a month Tidio pricing ↗.

Tidio's pricing page has a yearly toggle with two months free but does not label which billing period its listed prices use Tidio pricing ↗. Its Lyro page says annual billing costs about 17% less than monthly Tidio Lyro ↗. Check the final price at checkout for both tools.

How the AI agents compare

Chatbase is an AI first product. You train an agent on files (PDF, TXT, DOC and DOCX), a website crawl or sitemap, text snippets, custom Q and A pairs and Notion pages, up to 33 MB per agent Chatbase docs ↗. You set the agent's role and guardrails, then publish it to your site and other channels Chatbase features ↗. Chatbase lets you pick from many AI models, with models from Anthropic, Google, OpenAI and others listed on its site Chatbase features ↗. Its agents can take actions such as getting invoices, finding booking slots and retrieving products Chatbase features ↗.

Tidio's Lyro answers only from the content and guidance you give it and can scrape your support content automatically Tidio Lyro ↗. Tidio says its customers average a 75% resolution rate with Lyro Tidio Lyro ↗. That is a vendor figure with no stated method. Lyro can also run actions such as order updates, lead qualification and routing tickets, and Tidio says it now supports MCP Tidio Lyro ↗.

The difference is emphasis. Chatbase is built for the AI to handle the conversation, with a helpdesk for escalations from Standard up Chatbase pricing ↗ Chatbase features ↗. Tidio is built for your team to handle chats, with Lyro taking the first pass and alerting staff when a customer needs a person Tidio Lyro ↗.

Live chat and handoff to people

Every Tidio plan, including Free, includes live chat, ticketing and email management Tidio pricing ↗. Starter adds a live visitors list and operating hours, and Growth adds automatic chat assignment, macros, user permissions and ticketing automations Tidio pricing ↗. When Lyro cannot help, it alerts your team, and you can set escalation rules and step into any conversation Tidio Lyro ↗.

Chatbase added a helpdesk where AI and staff work from the same conversation, with ticket statuses and escalation review Chatbase features ↗. On the pricing page, the helpdesk appears from the $150 Standard plan, along with voice, telephony, outbound campaigns and API access Chatbase pricing ↗. If you want staff to take over chats on a small budget, that is a real gap compared with Tidio.

Integrations and security

Chatbase lists integrations with Stripe, Zendesk, Salesforce, Intercom, HubSpot, Zoho Desk, Freshdesk, Help Scout, Gorgias, Zapier, Twilio, Shopify, Slack, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, Calendly and WordPress Chatbase pricing ↗. Integrations are not available on Free, and API access starts at Standard Chatbase pricing ↗.

Tidio's Growth plan adds native Shopify actions, and Plus adds an OpenAPI, departments and multiple projects Tidio pricing ↗. Lyro Connect can plug Lyro into Zendesk, Intercom, Salesforce and 20+ other platforms, but only on Plus and Premium Tidio Lyro ↗.

On security, Chatbase states GDPR, SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA compliance, says your data is not used to train models, and offers HIPAA eligibility and SSO on Enterprise Chatbase features ↗ Chatbase pricing ↗. Tidio lists SSO and compliance features on its Premium plan Tidio pricing ↗. These are vendor claims, so ask for documents if you handle health or financial data.

Who should pick which

Tidio suits a small shop or service business where a person still answers many chats. The free plan with 10 seats lets a whole team try live chat at no cost, and Lyro can be added when volume grows Tidio pricing ↗. Users on Capterra rate Tidio 4.7 out of 5 from 590 reviews Capterra ↗.

Chatbase suits a business that wants the AI to answer most questions from a large set of documents, or wants the same agent on WhatsApp, Instagram and Slack as well as the website Chatbase pricing ↗ Chatbase docs ↗. Capterra users rate it 4.3 out of 5 from 73 reviews Capterra ↗. Budget for the $150 Standard plan if you need the helpdesk and advanced integrations Chatbase pricing ↗.

• Team answering chats, small budget: Tidio Free or Starter
• Shopify store wanting order actions in chat: Tidio Growth
• AI trained on many documents: Chatbase
• Same agent on WhatsApp, Instagram and website: Chatbase
• Health data and need HIPAA: ask Chatbase about Enterprise

How we compared them

We used Chatbase's and Tidio's pricing pages, product pages and documentation, checked October 9, 2026, plus Capterra user ratings Chatbase pricing ↗ Tidio pricing ↗ Tidio Lyro ↗ Chatbase features ↗ Chatbase docs ↗ Capterra ↗. We have not tested these tools hands on for this comparison yet. Hands on testing is in progress; we'll update this page with results.

Before you buy, load a sample of your real customer questions into each free plan and see how often the AI answers correctly. Check what happens when it does not know: a good chatbot should hand off to a person or collect contact details instead of guessing.

Try them

We may earn a commission when you sign up through links on this page. It never changes our picks. How we pick