Landbot vs Tidio: Guided Lead Flows or a Shop Help Desk

The short answer: if a team of people answers a shop's chat and you want AI to take the repeat questions, Tidio is the help desk for it: Starter is $29 a month on monthly billing for 100 conversations a person replies to, with 10 seats, and the Lyro AI agent is sold beside it from $39 a month for 50 AI conversations (Tidio pricing). If your site needs a guided conversation that qualifies a lead and sends it to a CRM, Landbot is the builder for it: Professional is $110 a month for 2,500 chats with HubSpot, Salesforce and webhooks (Landbot pricing). Both checked on 26 October 2026.

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What decides it:

1. Split last month's chats by who closed them. For example, 1,000 chats, 800 closed by an automated flow and 200 answered by a person. Tidio bills only the 200 a person replied to, so Growth from $59 for 250, plus Flows from $29 for 2,000 visitors reached: $88. Landbot counts all 1,000, so Starter's 500 plus one 500-chat pack: $45 + $25 = $70 (Tidio pricing, Landbot pricing).
2. Count the people you already have on chat. Tidio includes 10 seats on Starter and Growth. Landbot includes 2 on Starter and 3 on Professional, then $25 a month each, so five agents on Professional is $110 + 2 x $25 = $160 (Landbot pricing).
3. Name the result each one is hired for. For Landbot, qualified leads per 100 chats. For Tidio, the share of conversations closed without a person that a reviewer agrees were answered correctly.

How each one counts a chat

From the Landbot pricing page and its AI chat definitions, and the Tidio pricing page, which says responses from Flows and Lyro are not counted as agent replies.

What separates them

A conversation you design, or a desk you staff

Landbot starts from the bot. You build the path, questions, scoring and conditions, and a person takes over in the shared inbox when the flow says so (pricing FAQ). Tidio starts from the team. Live chat and tickets come first, and automation arrives as two products sold beside it: Flows for rule-based paths and Lyro for AI answers, which Tidio also sells on its own to sit on top of Zendesk, Salesforce or another help desk (Tidio pricing).

Where the money goes as volume grows

Because Tidio bills human replies, a quiet bot with a busy team costs more than a busy bot with a quiet team. Landbot is the opposite: every chat counts, but 2,500 come with Professional and extra chats cost $0.05 each in packs of 500 (Landbot pricing). If automation closes most conversations, Tidio's team plan barely moves while Flows and Lyro bill on their own meters; if people answer most of them, each one lands on Tidio's main meter, while on Landbot it is one more chat in the allowance.

WhatsApp

Tidio's WhatsApp integration is free on every plan, includes 1,000 free WhatsApp messages per number a month, and bills usage above that at the end of the month with no markup on Meta's fees; you can set a spending limit or block paid usage (Tidio WhatsApp article). Landbot connects your own number from Professional WA at $220 a month and adds its own charge to Meta's on marketing, utility and authentication messages (Landbot pricing). The windows and opt-in rules are set out in the DM agent use case.

Monthly prices, 26 October 2026

US dollars, from the Landbot and Tidio pricing pages. Both pages open on annual billing: Tidio's Starter shows $24.17 and Landbot's Starter $36, the monthly equivalents of a year paid upfront, against $29 and $45 month to month, so the first number a buyer compares is the one that commits them for twelve months.

One AI step: Landbot's agent inside a flow

Landbot's AI Agent block adds open conversation to a structured flow on web, WhatsApp and Messenger, on all paid plans (AI Agent guide). Describe the agent in up to 1,000 characters and click Generate under Build it with AI, add your pricing and delivery pages to its Knowledge Base, list the Fields it should collect, such as company size and timeline, and set Outputs that end the AI conversation and return the visitor to your flow.

The guide warns that Build it with AI overwrites the entire agent setup, so draft with it once and edit by hand after that. The human check is the Output you route to a person: any visitor who asks for a human, or whose answers mark a large deal, lands in the shared inbox with the collected Fields, and a salesperson reads the transcript before replying.

Run it free first

Landbot's Free plan gives 100 chats a month on the web with the full builder; Tidio's gives 50 conversations a person replies to, 50 Lyro conversations once and 100 Flows visitors (Landbot pricing, Tidio pricing). Put Landbot on the page where your lead form loses the most people, and Tidio on the product pages where pre-sale questions arrive. After two weeks you will know which job you have more of.

Choose Landbot if your job is

• Qualifying website visitors with questions and scoring, then routing them to a CRM.
• Building conversational landing pages that marketers can change themselves.
• Running a lead flow on WhatsApp with your own number.

Choose Tidio if your job is

• Answering shoppers live with a team of up to 10 on one plan.
• Adding an AI agent to repeat questions, on Tidio or on another help desk.
• Paying Meta's WhatsApp rates with a spending limit you set.

FAQ

Does Tidio charge when Lyro answers?

Not on the team plan: a conversation counts there only once a human agent replies. Lyro is billed on its own meter, from 50 AI conversations a month (Tidio pricing).

Can Landbot hand a chat to a person?

Yes, from Starter, into a shared inbox where each person uses a seat (Landbot pricing FAQ).

How long do click-to-WhatsApp ad conversations stay free?

Tidio's article gives them a 72-hour free entry point (Tidio WhatsApp article), while Meta's own pricing page says the free entry point window may remain open for up to 7 days (Meta pricing). Plan on the shorter figure.