LiveChat vs Tidio: Paying Per Seat or Per Conversation

The short answer: at 600 human-answered chats a month, five people cost almost the same on either: five Essential seats on Text, the product LiveChat now sells to new customers, are 5 x $25 = $125, against $129 for Tidio's 600-conversation Growth tier, and from the sixth person Tidio is the cheaper home (monthly billing, checked on 26 October 2026 on the LiveChat pricing page and the Tidio pricing page). Choose Text for a small sales team that watches who is browsing and opens the conversation itself; choose Tidio when many people dip into the inbox, or an AI agent should take most repeat questions at a lower price per conversation.

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Price it on paper first:

1. Find your break-even. Text bills every person who answers, while Tidio bills conversations a person replies to and includes up to 10 seats on its self-serve plans (Tidio pricing FAQ). For example, eight people sharing 600 chats pay 8 x $25 = $200 on Text Essential and $129 on Tidio.
2. Read last month's transcripts. Split them into pre-sale questions, order questions and the rest, and note how many arrived outside staffed hours; that split tells you which meter you will fill. If you already run LiveChat, you keep its plan and login and can trial Text next to it, per the LiveChat pricing FAQ.
3. Decide how you will grade the AI. Each tool reports its own success rate. Plan to read 30 AI-handled chats from each trial and mark the answers you would have signed off.

Side by side

Rows come from the LiveChat pricing page, the Text AI Agents article, the Text MCP page, the Tidio pricing page, Tidio's Lyro limit article and its MCP article.

Where the two part company

Headcount or volume

Text's price follows the org chart: no minimum team, no fixed user cap, and a seat for every person who logs in to answer (LiveChat pricing FAQ). Tidio's price follows the queue: the Growth tiers run from $59 for 250 conversations to $349 for 2,000, whoever answers them, up to 10 agents (Tidio pricing). A support rota where six part-timers each take a few chats belongs on Tidio. Two sellers who take every chat themselves belong on Text.

Paying for answers or for attempts

You are not misreading the two pages: Lyro looks cheaper per unit and can still cost more per solved chat. Text sells extra resolutions in packs of 50 for $49.50, which is $0.99 each, and charges nothing when its agent hands a chat over without answering (Text AI Agents article). Tidio's Lyro costs $39 for 50 conversations, $0.78 each, down to $700 for 1,000, $0.70 each, and counts any thread Lyro has replied in, except an immediate handoff (Tidio pricing, Lyro limit article). For example, if Lyro settles 60 of every 100 threads it answers on the $0.70 package, each solved chat costs $0.70 / 0.6 = $1.17, more than Text's $0.99.

Selling or servicing

Text is built around the sale: it shows who is browsing, what they read and, in shops, what sits in their cart, and opens the chat on behaviour you choose (LiveChat homepage). Tidio is built around the queue: tickets, Lyro on top, and Flows sold separately for proactive messages, with Lyro's product recommendations only on a paid Lyro quota (Tidio pricing).

What a month costs

Monthly billing in US dollars, before tax, checked on 26 October 2026 on the LiveChat and Tidio pricing pages.

Annual billing lowers Text to $19 per Essential seat and $79 per Growth seat (LiveChat pricing FAQ). Growth includes 200 resolutions at $99 per seat, so two people on Growth pay $198 for the same AI allowance as the last row.

One agent job, with a person at the end

Text's MCP server lets Claude or ChatGPT read your chats and tickets under your own Text permissions (Text MCP page). The job: once a month, ask the assistant for every conversation that stalled after a price was quoted, with the visitor's last question and the date. It only reads. A salesperson goes through the list, picks who deserves a follow-up and writes it. Text features do not reach legacy LiveChat plans, per the LiveChat pricing FAQ.

On Tidio the direction is reversed: you connect Lyro to an outside MCP server, choose which of its tools Lyro may use, and run Test Lyro before any visitor sees the result (Lyro MCP article). Either way an AI talks to your customers, so the disclosure duty in Article 50 of the EU AI Act applies; the LiveAgent entry sets it out.

Each vendor also wrote the definition its meter runs on. Tidio counts a Lyro conversation as soon as Lyro has replied once, solved or not, and Text decides by its own rule when an answer directly solves a question, so the number on either invoice is one nobody at the shop has audited.

Test both for nothing first

Tidio's Free plan covers 50 human-answered conversations a month and 50 Lyro conversations once, and its 7-day trial needs no card (Tidio pricing). Text gives 14 days without a card and never charges when the trial ends (LiveChat pricing FAQ). Put the same 20 questions from your transcripts to Text's preview widget and Tidio's Playground, have the person who owns the answers mark each reply, and price the winner with the tables above. For most teams under ten people, that afternoon settles it.

Choose Text (LiveChat) if your job is

• Turning website visitors into qualified leads or orders, with a small team that works the chat like a sales floor.
• Paying for AI only when it solves a question, not when it tries.
• Reading your chat history from Claude or ChatGPT through MCP.

Choose Tidio if your job is

• Clearing a support queue that many people share, where seats would cost more than conversations.
• Letting an AI agent take hundreds of repeat questions a month at the lower unit price.
• Starting on a free plan and adding the AI meter later.

Plans and setup for each: the LiveChat entry and the Tidio entry.

FAQ

Can I still buy a LiveChat plan?

Not by signing up. New trials start on Text, and existing customers keep their LiveChat plan (LiveChat pricing FAQ). The older plans, from $19 per person billed annually, sit on a separate page where every plan button reads Request a call (checked on 26 October 2026).

Which is cheaper for a team of eight?

On the human side it depends on volume. Eight Text Essential seats are 8 x $25 = $200 a month whatever the volume, and Tidio's Growth tier stays under that up to 1,000 conversations, at $179, then rises to $249 at 1,500 (Tidio pricing, LiveChat pricing, checked on 26 October 2026). Under about 1,000 human-answered chats, Tidio; above it, Text.

Do both answer WhatsApp with the AI?

Yes. Text's AI Agent answers WhatsApp the same way as website chats on every plan (LiveChat pricing). Tidio's WhatsApp integration is free, Lyro's channel settings decide where it replies, and sending WhatsApp templates needs Growth or above (WhatsApp templates article).