Comparison
Formala vs Tidio
Tidio is live chat first. The design assumes a person is there, and Lyro, the AI, is bought on top. Formala is the other way round: the AI answers by default and you step into the conversation when you want to. That difference shows up hardest in the pricing, because on Tidio the chat, the AI and the automation flows are three separate purchases that each have their own allowance.
What each one costs
- 34%cheaper to start, comparing annual terms on both sides
- $0extra for the AI, where Lyro is an add-on with its own allowance
- 0messages hidden from you when you reach your allowance
Prices checked: 26 August 2026. Tidio sets its own prices and can change them without telling us, so check theirs before you decide. 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 /moBilled annually, as an annualised monthly equivalent, for 100 conversations. Tidio does not publish a month-to-month rate, so the two columns are compared on annual terms. | $19 /mo34% less $15.83 a month, billed annually. One price for the account. It does not multiply by the number of people who log in, and there is no charge per answer. |
| What an answer costs | Add-onLyro is bought separately, $32.50 a month, from, billed as a separate add-on for fifty conversations. Your base plan's conversation allowance does not cover AI replies. | Included On every plan. The AI answering is the plan. |
| Booking | NoNo native calendar. Scheduling goes through a third-party connector. | Google, Outlook Connects directly, offers real free times inside the chat, and writes the appointment into the calendar you already keep. No third account to open. |
| Visitor uploads | Build it firstOnly if you build a Send a Form action into a flow. Ten files at ten megabytes each, website widget only, and not through Instagram, WhatsApp or Messenger. | Photos and PDFs Up to ten megabytes each, on by default. A visitor can send a quote, an invoice or a picture of the broken thing without anybody building a form first. |
| At the allowance | Hard stopTidio'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. | Falls back The widget switches to the contact form, so the visitor still reaches you and the lead still lands. A paid account can add pay-as-you-go beyond the plan under a monthly ceiling you set. |
| Removing the vendor badge | $16.67 /moListed on Tidio's pricing page as an add-on, on top of whichever plan you are on. | $0 Included on every paid plan, Starter included. It is the line between paying and not paying, not a feature to resell. |
| Automation flows | Add-onSeparate again, $24.17 a month, from, billed as a separate add-on for two thousand visitors. | Included There is no flow builder to buy because there is no flow to build. |
| Free plan | 50 a monthFifty billable conversations a month, indefinitely, and one hundred Flows visitors. The fifty Lyro conversations are a one-time grant rather than a monthly allowance. A real free plan, and better than a trial that ends. | 30 days Everything switched on, no card. Afterwards the widget keeps taking contact form submissions and direct messages for nothing; the mark on the widget is what a free account pays with. |
| The tier above | $49.17 /moBilled annually, from, for 250 conversations. Plus starts at $300 a month, from, plus usage, and Premium is by quote. | $39 /mo $32.50 a month, billed annually. Everything on Starter, and it learns from real chats. |
What happens when you hit the cap
This is the part of Tidio's pricing worth 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.
For a business whose busiest month is the one that pays for the quiet ones, that is a failure at the worst possible moment, 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 the edge. When a Formala account reaches its allowance 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 in your dashboard. A paid account can also switch on pay-as-you-go beyond the plan, with a monthly 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.
Where Tidio is better
Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger in one inbox
The clearest gap on this page. Tidio pulls all three into the same place as your website chat. Formala answers on your website and nowhere else.
Shopify context
Tidio reads the order and the cart, so whoever answers can see what the customer bought and what they abandoned. If you run a store, that context is most of the job and Formala does not have it.
Flows, when you do not want a model improvising
A deterministic path that does the same thing every time is genuinely better for anything with a compliance or a money implication. Formala answers with a model, and for some questions that is the wrong tool.
Live chat is the product, and the free plan is real
Visitor presence, proactive triggers and a person jumping in are what Tidio was built around, with the whole apparatus of a staffed chat behind them. And fifty conversations a month, indefinitely, beats a trial with an end date.
Where Formala is better
The AI is not a separate purchase
On Tidio the chat, Lyro and Flows are three products with three allowances that run out independently, and the arithmetic of what you actually need is something you do after the first month rather than before it. Formala is one plan, the AI answering is the plan, and the automation nobody has to build is included because there is nothing to build.
Running out does not mean going dark
This is the one that should decide it if you are seasonal. A cap that hides incoming messages is a completely different kind of limit from one that falls back to a form and keeps capturing. When a Formala account reaches its allowance the visitor still reaches you and the lead still lands; a paid account can also let the AI keep answering past the plan, up to a dollar ceiling you set yourself. Nothing disappears without you choosing it.
It books the appointment itself
Tidio needs a third-party connector for scheduling, which is another account, another subscription and another thing to keep connected. Formala offers real free times out of your Google or Outlook calendar inside the conversation and writes the appointment back into it. For a business that sells appointments rather than answers, that is the entire difference between a chat widget and a receptionist.
Uploads work on the first day
A visitor can send a photo or a PDF the afternoon you install it. On Tidio somebody has to build a form action into a flow first, and even then it will not work from Instagram or WhatsApp.
The monthly price is a published number
Tidio's headline figures are annualised monthly equivalents, so the price of paying month by month is higher than the number shown, by an amount we could not confirm. Formala publishes both: the monthly price, and the annual price, which is the same allowance with two months off.
Who should pick which
Pick Tidio if
Your customers message you on Instagram and WhatsApp as much as on your site, or you run a Shopify store and the order history is the context that matters, or you want deterministic flows rather than a model deciding, or you want to run on a genuinely free plan.
Pick Formala if
Your website is where people arrive, you want the AI included rather than metered as an add-on, you want appointments booked into Google or Outlook without a connector, and you need the busiest month of the year to be the one where nothing silently stops working.
What reviewers say
Tidio scores 3.8 out of 5 across 224 reviews on Trustpilot. The dominant theme is billing: reviewers report price increases without notice, difficulty cancelling, and annual subscriptions renewing automatically. Cost stacking across the separate products comes up repeatedly, as does Lyro handling multi-step questions poorly.
Source: Trustpilot, 224 reviews.
What we could not confirm
- Tidio's true month-to-month rate. The figures published on its pricing page are annualised monthly equivalents, so the price of paying month by month is higher than the number shown, by an amount we could not confirm. This page compares annual terms on both sides rather than guessing at it.
Questions
No. Lyro is a separate add-on from $32.50 a month, from, billed as a separate add-on for fifty conversations, and the automation Flows are separate again. The conversation allowance on your base plan does not cover AI replies. Formala includes AI answering on every plan.
Pricing
Simple pricing. Every core feature included.
Start with 30 free conversations over 30 days, no card. Every plan has every core feature. Bigger plans add volume, and Growth and up learn from real chats, Pro adds the AI follow-up engine, and Business adds auto-sent replies plus seats for your team. How billing works →
Growth
$39/mo
400 conversations / month
about 10¢ per conversation
- Every core feature
- Learns from real chats
- Team seats
Pro
$79/mo
1,000 conversations / month
about 8¢ per conversation
- Every core feature
- Learns from real chats
- Team seats
- AI follow-up engine
- Send from your own domain
Business
$149/mo
2,500 conversations / month
about 6¢ per conversation
- Every core feature
- Learns from real chats
- Team seats
- AI follow-up engine
- Send from your own domain
- Auto-sent AI replies
And it never switches off
$0 a monthNo card to start. Your first 30 conversations are answered by the AI, over 30 days. After that the AI stops answering and the rest of it keeps working, for nothing, for as long as you like, carrying a small “Powered by Formala” line that any paid plan removes.
- The contact formThe widget falls back to your own form, so a visitor who wants to reach you still can, and the lead still lands in your inbox.
- Direct messagesVisitors can still leave a message for you or for a named person on your team, and reply to yours from the same thread.
- BookingYour booking page keeps taking appointments, with the reminders and the calendar sync that go with them.
Add voice: let visitors talk to it out loud
A microphone in the chat. Visitors speak instead of typing and hear the answer back, and you get the same transcript and the same lead as any other conversation. Works with any plan, on as many forms as you like.
$59/mo200 spoken minutes a month
Not sure what something does? Every feature, explained in plain English →
Every plan starts with a free 30-day trial: no card required, cancel anytime. If Formala catches one job you'd have missed, it's paid for itself.
Priced for small businesses, not enterprises.
You get the qualifying, structuring, and follow-up you'd expect from tools that cost far more, at pennies per conversation.
| Formala | A plain contact form | Chat / chatbot suites | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Turns vague visitors into qualified leads | — | Limited | |
| Clean, structured leads, no transcripts to read | Limited | — | |
| Answers 24/7 and follows up on its own | — | Limited | |
| Live in minutes. One line, no code or setup fees | Limited | — | |
| Your brand, no “powered by” badge (any paid plan) | Limited | — | |
| Typical cost | From $19/mo · ~6–13¢ a chat | Free, but converts like a form | ~$30–130/seat + ~$1 per AI chat |
You pay less at every size
| Chats / mo | A comparable AI form tool | Formala |
|---|---|---|
| 250 | $59/mo | $39/moGrowth · 400 included |
| 500 | $98/mo | $79/moPro · 1,000 included |
| 2,000 | $330/mo | $149/moBusiness · 2,500 included |
Up to ~2.5× cheaper per conversation, and it does more.
Other tools' prices reflect major providers' publicly listed rates (AI form tools by conversation tier; live-chat suites per seat plus a per-AI-answer fee) and may change, so compare current plans before deciding.
Other comparisons
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