Alternatives
Tidio alternatives
Tidio is competent live chat, and the two things people leave over are structural rather than faults: what happens when you reach the plan limit, and how many separate meters are running at once. This page splits by which of those is your problem, because they lead to different products.
What this page is based on
Tidio's review picture is genuinely split, and that is worth knowing before reading either number. It scores 4.6 across roughly 1,960 reviews on G2 and 3.8 across 224 on Trustpilot. A gap that wide usually means the two audiences are answering different questions, and this page reports both rather than picking the flattering one.
Prices checked: 26 August 2026. Tidio sets its own prices and can change them without telling us.
The cap is the reason most people leave, and it deserves reading twice
A conversation becomes billable when an agent marks it solved, and the plan allowance is a hard stop rather than an overage charge. Tidio's own documentation says that once you reach the limit you cannot reply to incoming messages, and cannot see them, until you upgrade or the month resets.
If the widget is how customers reach you, that is the front door locking itself in your busiest month, and it is invisible until it happens.
Formala has a monthly conversation allowance too and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise. The difference is what happens at the edge. The widget does not go quiet or hide anything: it falls back to the contact form, so the visitor still reaches you and the lead still lands. A paid account can also switch on pay-as-you-go past the plan, with a ceiling in dollars that you set, so the AI keeps answering up to a number you chose rather than stopping at one you did not.
If the stacking is the problem
On Tidio the chat, Lyro and the automation Flows are three purchases with three allowances that run out independently. Flows is also metered on visitors REACHED rather than visitors who engaged, so the meter moves whether or not anybody replied.
Formala is one plan with one number in it. The AI answering is the plan rather than an add-on to it, and there is no flow builder to buy because there is no flow to build.
| Plan | Price | Included |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | $19 /mo | 150 conversations |
| Growth | $39 /mo | 400 conversations |
| Pro | $79 /mo | 1,000 conversations |
| Business | $149 /mo | 2,500 conversations |
One price, and every core feature on it
Starter at $19 /mo for 150 conversations, Growth at $39 /mo for 400 conversations, Pro at $79 /mo for 1,000 conversations, Business at $149 /mo for 2,500 conversations. 2 months free paid annually. Nothing multiplies by the number of people who log in, nothing meters the answers, and there are no credits to convert before you can work out what a month costs.
A real shared inbox
Several people on the same leads from Growth upward, several live chats at once, and presence so you can see who is on the site right now. Step into any conversation and the assistant goes quiet until you hand it back. Search it, filter by priority, export it.
Messages that survive somebody leaving
A visitor can write to a named person rather than into a void, get the reply by email, and pick the thread back up later. No account, no password, no portal to log into.
A help center that answers for you
A help center you write feeds the assistant's answers, so replies come from your own documentation rather than a short FAQ list, and visitors can browse and read those articles themselves in the widget.
Booking into the calendar you already keep
Google Calendar or Outlook directly. Real free times offered inside the chat, and the appointment written back into your own diary. No third scheduling account to open and keep in sync.
Photos the assistant reads, documents you receive
A visitor can send photos and PDFs, up to ten megabytes each, with nothing to build first. The assistant reads the photos and answers about what it can see. A PDF reaches you on the lead, but the assistant does not open it, so it will tell the visitor a file arrived rather than pretend to have read it.
Voice, on any plan
A microphone in the chat, bought as an add-on on top of whichever plan you are on. The visitor talks, hears the answer read back, and can go back to typing. There is one voice, the same for every business using Formala; it is not a choice.
The badge comes off on the cheapest paid plan
Removing "Powered by Formala" is included from $19 a month, billed monthly upward. It is what a free account pays with rather than an add-on to resell.
One line of code on the site you already have. 30 days free, no card.
What Formala does not do
- No ticket status or lifecycle. A conversation is a conversation, not an object that moves through states.
- No SLAs, and nothing measuring a response against one.
- No saved replies or macros.
- No assignment or routing rules. Everyone on the account sees the same inbox.
- No agent performance reporting.
Those matter when several people answer against targets and somebody reports on it. If that is your week, the referrals below are better answers than we are, and the rest of this page will not change that.
If you run a Shopify store
Go to Gorgias, without hedging. The order history and the cart are most of the context in a store conversation, Gorgias is built around exactly that, and Formala cannot see either.
- Gorgias
If Instagram and WhatsApp matter as much as your website
Tidio pulls those into one inbox and that is a real reason to have chosen it. Formala answers on your website and nowhere else, so if most of your messages arrive somewhere else, stay or move sideways rather than to us.
- Chatling
- Chatbase
- Crisp
Side by side
A dot marks a row where Formala is ahead. Rows where Tidio is ahead carry no marker either way.
| What is being compared | Tidio | Formala |
|---|---|---|
| Entry price | $24.17 /moStarter, billed annually as an annualised monthly equivalent, for 100 conversations. The free plan is $0 for 50 billable conversations a month. | $19 /mo$15.83 a month, billed annually. One price for the account, no per-seat multiplication and no charge per answer. |
| The tiers above | $49.17 /moGrowth, from, billed annually. Plus starts at $300 a month, from, plus usage and Premium is contact sales. | $39 /mo$32.50 a month, billed annually. |
| What an answer costs | Add-onLyro is bought separately, $32.50 a month, from, billed as a separate add-on for fifty conversations. Automation Flows are separate again, $24.17 a month, from, billed as a separate add-on for two thousand visitors reached. | IncludedEvery plan includes AI answering. There is no per-answer charge and no credit to convert. |
| At the allowance | Hard stopTidio's documentation says you cannot reply to, or see, incoming messages until you upgrade or the month resets. | Falls backThe widget switches to the contact form so the visitor still reaches you, and a paid account can add pay-as-you-go under a ceiling you set. |
| Removing the vendor badge | $16.67 /moListed on the pricing page as an add-on. | $0Included on every paid plan, Starter included. |
| Booking | NoNo native calendar. Scheduling goes through a third-party connector. | Google, OutlookDirect, with real free times in the chat and the appointment written back. No third account. |
| Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger | One inboxAll three alongside the website chat, which is a genuine reason people chose Tidio. | Website onlyFormala answers on your site and nowhere else. |
There is a fuller side-by-side on Formala vs Tidio, written for somebody still choosing rather than already leaving.
What reviewers say
The divergence is the finding. On G2, at roughly 1,960 reviews, Tidio scores 4.6. On Trustpilot, at 224, it scores 3.8, and the dominant theme there is billing: reviewers report price increases without notice, difficulty cancelling, and annual subscriptions renewing automatically. Cost stacking across the separate products recurs on both, as does Lyro handling multi-step questions poorly. These are reviewer accounts and are reported as such rather than as statements about Tidio's practices.
Sources: G2, about 1,960 reviews; Trustpilot, 224 reviews.
What we could not confirm
- Tidio's true month-to-month rate. The figures on its pricing page are annualised monthly equivalents, so paying month by month costs more than the number shown, by an amount we could not confirm.
Questions
Tidio's own documentation says you cannot respond to, or even see, incoming messages until you upgrade or the month resets. It is a hard stop rather than an overage charge. On Formala, reaching the allowance switches the widget to the contact form so the visitor still reaches you, and a paid account can enable pay-as-you-go up to a dollar ceiling it sets.
Leaving something else
Stop losing the visitors who almost reached out.
Set Formala up in the time it takes to read this page.
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