A Tidio alternative that bills per message
Tidio is a live chat and help desk suite. Its Lyro AI agent is an add-on sold in monthly packs of AI conversations, from $39 for 50. Yoonoo is only the AI chatbot, billed per message at $2 per 1,000.
Prices from tidio.com/pricing, checked October 2026
- your traffic is low or uneven, and you'd rather pay per message than per month
- you want answers inline inside your docs as well as in a bubble
- you'd rather not pay for seats, feature tiers or a yearly contract
- you want human live chat and ticketing next to the AI, with 10 seats even on the Free plan
- you need Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp and email in the same inbox
- you sell on Shopify and want order actions inside the chat (Growth plan and up)
What it costs at your traffic
| Monthly usage | Yoonoo | Tidio |
|---|---|---|
| 500 messages, 50 pages | $6 / mo$1 messages + $5 page plan | $210 / moFree plan + Lyro 300 conversations (250 needed) |
| 3,000 messages, 300 pages | $26 / mo$6 messages + $20 page plan | Custom pricingAbout 1,500 AI conversations: Plus, $300/mo + usage, via sales |
| 20,000 messages, 1,000 pages | $70 / mo$40 messages + $30 page plan | Custom pricingAbout 10,000 AI conversations: Plus or Premium, via sales |
Tidio: Free plan ($0) plus the smallest monthly Lyro AI plan that covers the volume (50 for $39 up to 1,000 for $700), counting 2 visitor questions per conversation; Tidio bills a Lyro conversation once, however many replies it takes. Self-serve Lyro plans stop at 1,000 conversations a month, so higher volumes need a sales quote. Tidio does not publish website scraper page limits on the pages checked. Yoonoo: messages at $0.002 each, averaged per month (packs start at 5,000 messages for $10 and never expire), plus the page plan that fits. All prices are for monthly billing.
Feature by feature
| Feature | Yoonoo | Tidio |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | $0.002 per message, packs from 5,000 messages for $10 | Help desk from $0; Lyro AI from $39/mo for 50 conversations |
| Team seats | One login per account, no seat pricing | 10 on Free, Starter and Growth; custom on Plus |
| Free start | Setup and 10 pages free | Free plan with 50 lifetime Lyro conversations; 7-day trial |
| Train on a website crawl | Yes | Yes, website scraper on every plan |
| PDF and TXT upload | Yes, up to 10 MB per file | PDF files can be a Lyro data source |
| Inline embed in a page | Yes, with suggested questions | No inline mode in Tidio's widget docs |
| Unused credits | Never expire | Monthly Lyro quota, refreshed every 30 days |
| API access | Yes | OpenAPI on Plus and Premium only |
| Channels beyond the website | API only | Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, email |
| Human live chat inbox | No | Yes, on every plan |
| Ticketing and help desk | No | Yes, ticketing on every plan |
Switching questions
Does Tidio have a free plan?
Yes. Tidio Free costs $0 and covers 50 human-answered conversations a month, but only 50 Lyro AI conversations for the lifetime of the account. To keep the AI answering every month you buy a Lyro plan, from $39/mo for 50 conversations.
Which one is cheaper?
At every volume in the table, yoonoo. For 500 messages a month (about 250 conversations), Tidio Free plus the 300-conversation Lyro plan costs $210, against $6. Above 1,000 AI conversations a month Tidio quotes Plus ($300/mo plus usage) through sales, while yoonoo is $26 for 3,000 messages and $70 for 20,000. Tidio includes live chat, ticketing and 10 seats.
Can I move my Tidio content over?
Point yoonoo at the same website and upload the same PDFs. There is no one-click import from Tidio.
Sources: tidio.com/pricing, tidio.com/ai-agent (Lyro FAQ), Tidio OpenAPI: availability by plan, Tidio API: Lyro data sources, Tidio Widget SDK