Crisp and Tidio both bundle live chat, an AI agent, and multichannel messaging into a single subscription, but they are built for slightly different buyers.…
| Crisp | Tidio | |
|---|---|---|
| Primary category | Customer Support | Customer Support |
| Rating | Not documented | Not documented |
| Pricing model | Freemium (per-workspace subscription) | freemium |
| Starting price | Free | Free (paid plans from $24.17/month) |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | Not documented |
| Platforms | Web, iOS, Android | Web |
| Team collaboration | Not documented | Not documented |
| AI features | Yes | Yes |
| Public API | Yes | Not documented |
Free plan structure
Crisp: Crisp's Free plan is a permanent workspace for 2 seats with unlimited conversations, mobile and desktop apps, and API access.
Tidio: Tidio's Free plan caps usage at 50 billable conversations per month, includes 10 seats, and gives only a one-time allotment of 50 Lyro AI conversations.
Crisp's free tier has no conversation cap, so a small team can rely on it indefinitely, while Tidio's free tier is bounded by conversation volume and offers AI only as a one-time trial.
Entry-level paid pricing
Crisp: Crisp's first paid plan, Mini, starts at $45/month for 4 seats with $5 in AI credits included.
Tidio: Tidio's first paid plan, Starter, starts at about $24.17/month for 10 seats but caps usage at 100 billable conversations per month.
Tidio's entry price is lower and includes more seats, but its conversation cap could force an early upgrade for teams with higher chat volume, while Crisp's fewer seats come with unlimited conversations.
Ticketing and help desk access
Crisp: Crisp only adds a dedicated ticketing system on its Plus plan at $295/month, alongside the shared inbox.
Tidio: Tidio documents helpdesk ticketing as a core feature in its base feature set rather than gating it to a top-tier plan.
Teams that need formal ticket tracking without paying for Crisp's top plan may find ticketing more accessible earlier on Tidio's pricing ladder.
Native ecommerce integrations
Crisp: Crisp's documented integrations center on a general developer API and mobile and desktop apps, without named ecommerce platform connectors in the provided facts.
Tidio: Tidio documents native integrations with Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, HubSpot, Klaviyo, Mailchimp, and Google Analytics.
Online stores that want plug-and-play integration with their storefront and marketing stack have named, native connectors documented for Tidio, whereas Crisp's ecommerce-specific integrations are not documented.
AI agent billing model
Crisp: Crisp's Hugo AI agent and MagicReply are metered through AI credits bundled into each plan, ranging from $5 on Mini up to $75 on Plus.
Tidio: Tidio's Lyro AI agent is billed separately from the base plan as a usage-based add-on on top of conversation limits, per its documented cons.
Crisp bundles a fixed AI credit allotment into the plan price, which is more predictable, while Tidio's separate AI billing can make total monthly cost harder to forecast.
Omnichannel messaging coverage
Crisp: Crisp's omnichannel inbox spans WhatsApp, Instagram DMs, SMS, Line, and Viber, available starting on its Essentials plan at $95/month.
Tidio: Tidio's multichannel inbox covers website chat, email, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp.
Crisp documents a wider spread of channels, including Line and Viber, which matters for international audiences, while Tidio documents Facebook Messenger, which Crisp's facts do not list.
Built-in marketing and CRM tools
Crisp: Crisp includes behavior-triggered email Campaigns and a lightweight CRM with customer profiles, notes, and segments as native features.
Tidio: Tidio's documented facts do not describe a built-in email campaign tool or an equivalent lightweight CRM.
Teams wanting to run lifecycle email campaigns and track customer context without a separate CRM tool have that capability documented in Crisp but not in Tidio.
Automation builder focus
Crisp: Crisp offers a drag-and-drop Workflow Automation Builder aimed at triaging FAQs, qualifying leads, and auto-assigning conversations.
Tidio: Tidio offers a no-code Flows Automation Builder for chatbot trees and behavior-triggered automations like cart abandonment prompts and lead capture, with visitor caps tied to plan tier from 100 up to 100,000 Flows visitors per month.
Both provide visual no-code builders, but Tidio explicitly documents cart-recovery automation aimed at ecommerce, while Crisp's builder is framed around support routing; Tidio's Flows also carries plan-based visitor-count limits.
Company origin and headquarters
Crisp: Crisp was founded in 2015 and is headquartered in Nantes, France.
Tidio: Tidio was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California, with additional offices in Warsaw and Szczecin, Poland.
Neither headquarters location restricts who can use the product, but it can matter for teams prioritizing data residency or support timezone alignment with a Europe-based versus US-based vendor.
| Feature | Crisp | Tidio |
|---|---|---|
| Live chat widget | Available | Available |
| Shared team inbox | Available | Available |
| Shared email inbox management | Available | Available |
| Live video calling | Not documented | Available |
| Feature | Crisp | Tidio |
|---|---|---|
| AI customer-facing agent | Available | Available |
| AI credits included in base plan pricing | Available | Limited |
| Internal AI assistant for human agents | Available | Not documented |
| Confidence-threshold AI replies | Available | Not documented |
| Feature | Crisp | Tidio |
|---|---|---|
| Available | Available | |
| Instagram direct messages | Available | Available |
| Facebook Messenger | Not documented | Available |
| SMS, Line, and Viber | Available | Not documented |
| Feature | Crisp | Tidio |
|---|---|---|
| No-code chatbot and workflow builder | Available | Available |
| Lead capture and FAQ triage automation | Available | Available |
| Cart abandonment automation | Not documented | Available |
| Feature | Crisp | Tidio |
|---|---|---|
| Dedicated ticketing system | Limited | Available |
| Self-service knowledge base | Available | Not documented |
| Feature | Crisp | Tidio |
|---|---|---|
| Developer API | Available | Available |
| Native ecommerce platform integrations | Not documented | Available |
| CRM and marketing tool integrations | Not documented | Available |
| White labeling or custom branding | Available | Available |
| Feature | Crisp | Tidio |
|---|---|---|
| Mobile apps | Available | Available |
| Desktop apps | Available | Available |
| Multilingual support | Not documented | Available |
| Feature | Crisp | Tidio |
|---|---|---|
| Email marketing campaigns | Available | Not documented |
| Built-in lightweight CRM | Available | Not documented |
Starting price reflects the lowest paid tier, not the full cost for every team size or usage level.
Pros
Cons
Pros
Cons
Tidio's entry-level paid plan is cheaper on paper at about $24.17/month versus Crisp's Mini plan at $45/month, but Tidio caps that plan at 100 billable conversations per month while Crisp's Mini plan has unlimited conversations, and Tidio bills its Lyro AI usage separately, so actual cost depends heavily on chat volume and AI usage.
Tidio is generally the better fit for ecommerce stores because it documents native integrations with Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce plus cart abandonment automation in its Flows builder, while Crisp's provided facts do not document ecommerce-specific integrations.
Crisp's free plan is a permanent workspace for 2 seats with unlimited conversations and no expiration, while Tidio's free plan caps usage at 50 billable conversations per month and gives only a one-time 50-conversation allotment of its Lyro AI agent, so Crisp's free tier has less ongoing usage friction.
Both are AI customer-facing agents that answer from a company's knowledge base and hand off unresolved conversations to a human, so their core function is comparable, though Crisp additionally documents MagicReply with a configurable confidence threshold and a separate Copilot tool for human agents that Tidio's documented feature set does not include.
Tidio includes helpdesk ticketing as a core documented feature across its plans, while Crisp only adds a dedicated ticketing system on its Plus plan at $295/month, making Tidio the more accessible option for teams that need ticketing without a large budget.
Crisp's permanent free plan and bundled feature set of chat, shared inbox, knowledge base, and campaigns once on a paid plan suit small teams that want one platform to grow into, while Tidio suits small ecommerce-focused teams that want ticketing and store integrations from day one, so the better starting point depends on whether the priority is broad messaging and marketing or ecommerce-specific workflows.