Tidio vs LiveChat, and where each one’s AI agent comes from

Tidio is a live chat inbox with a free plan for up to 10 people. It bills for the conversations your team answers and sells its AI agent, Lyro, in monthly packages. LiveChat is live chat priced per person, from Text, Inc., and its plans don’t include an AI agent that answers customers. That comes with a Text plan, billed by the resolution. Here’s what each costs, where each AI comes from and who each one suits. The third column is Deacon, an AI customer support agent for founders who answer support themselves. It has a free plan, and it needs no card.

Prices read on tidio.com/pricing, livechat.com/pricing and text.com/pricing on 23 September 2026

Where the AI comes from on Tidio and LiveChat

On Tidio, the AI is a package you add

Tidio’s plans bill for the conversations your team answers, and its AI agent, Lyro, has a meter of its own. Every account gets 50 Lyro conversations once, for its lifetime. After that you buy a monthly package, from 50 conversations for $39, or $32.50 a month billed yearly, up to 1,000 for $700. A Lyro conversation is any one Lyro replies in at least once, and the package sits beside whichever plan you’re on, the free one included.

On LiveChat, the AI is a different plan

LiveChat’s plans are for people answering chats, priced per person, with AI on the higher plans to help them reply, tag and summarise. The AI Agent that answers customers on its own is, in LiveChat’s words, a Text-only capability. Text is the platform from the same company, Text, Inc., with live chat, tickets and the AI Agent in one inbox. Its Essential plan is $25 a user a month, or $19 billed yearly, with 10 AI resolutions, and Growth is $99, or $79 billed yearly, with 200.

The figures in these cards are from tidio.com/pricing, livechat.com/ai and text.com/pricing, read on 23 September 2026.

Here’s what that means for a founder answering alone, with 150 chats a month, where an AI could settle 90 and pass 60 to you. The sums are our arithmetic on monthly billing.

On LiveChat’s Starter, you pay $25 a month for one person, and all 150 chats are yours to answer, because there’s no AI agent on the plan. On Text’s Essential, it’s $25 a month with 10 resolutions. The other 80 take two packs of 50 at $49.50 each, so the month comes to $124.

On Tidio, Lyro replied in all 150 chats, so you need its 150-conversation package, at $110 a month. The 60 you answered go past the free plan’s 50, so you need Starter as well, and the month comes to $139. Tidio counts every chat Lyro replies in, and Text counts only the ones its AI solves.

Tidio, LiveChat and Deacon, row by row

Free plan

Tidio
Yes, with no end date. Up to 10 seats and 50 billable conversations a month, with live chat, ticketing, email, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Instagram
LiveChat
None. A 14-day trial with no card, and the same for Text
Deacon
50 answers every month on one seat, with every feature and no card. It has no end date and deletes nothing for inactivity

Cheapest paid plan

Tidio
Starter, $29 a month, or $24.17 a month billed yearly, for 100 billable conversations and up to 10 seats
LiveChat
Starter, $25 a month, or $19 billed yearly, for one person. Team, for more of you, is $59 a person, or $49 billed yearly
Deacon
Starter, $50 a month, or $40 a month billed yearly, for 1,000 answers on three seats

What you’re billed for

Tidio
Conversations your team replies in, counted once per thread. Seats cost nothing
LiveChat
Each person on your team. The plans differ in visitors tracked, chat history, reporting and channels
Deacon
Each reply Deacon writes on your live site. Chats in the Playground and on localhost never count

An AI agent that answers customers

Tidio
Lyro, bought beside any plan or on its own, from $39 a month, or $32.50 a month billed yearly, for 50 Lyro conversations
LiveChat
Not on LiveChat plans. Text’s AI Agent comes with a Text plan instead, from $25 a user a month, or $19 billed yearly, with 10 AI resolutions a month
Deacon
Deacon itself, on every plan. Its answers are what the plan sells

What the AI is counted by

Tidio
Any conversation Lyro replies in at least once, solved or not. One it hands over straight away isn’t taken from the quota
LiveChat
A resolution, when the AI’s answer directly solves at least one question. One per conversation, and none when it passes the chat on without answering
Deacon
Each reply Deacon writes on your live site

When the AI’s allowance runs out

Tidio
A spent free Lyro quota never resets, and Lyro stops. A paid package resets monthly, and on a new project billed monthly it moves up a level at 95% unless you switch that off
LiveChat
A pack of 50 resolutions is added for $49.50 so the AI Agent keeps working. Unused ones don’t carry over to the next cycle
Deacon
Nothing more is billed. Visitors get a short reply saying Deacon can’t look into that one right now, and are asked for their email unless they’ve already left it in that conversation

When your team’s allowance runs out

Tidio
At the monthly conversation limit, your team can’t reply to new messages or see their details until the quota resets
LiveChat
Its pricing page lists no conversation limit on any plan. You pay for each person instead
Deacon
You can always read and answer every conversation in the dashboard

Seats

Tidio
Up to 10 on every self-serve plan, at no charge
LiveChat
One on Starter. Team and Business charge for each person, and its FAQ allows up to 400
Deacon
one seat on Free and three seats on Starter, included in the price

Removing their branding

Tidio
Not on Free or Starter. A $20 a month add-on on Growth, or $16.67 a month billed yearly, and included on Plus
LiveChat
On Enterprise, where you ask LiveChat to take the “Powered by LiveChat” line off. Text’s white-label widget is on Enterprise too
Deacon
No plan shows a “powered by” line, so there’s no badge to pay to remove

Handing over to a person

Tidio
By default Lyro passes the chat to your inbox. During your hours it offers Talk to a person, and it can create a ticket instead
LiveChat
Text’s AI Agent hands the chat to your team with its context, and every Text plan includes human takeover
Deacon
It says when it doesn’t know and asks for the visitor’s email. You’re emailed when they leave it or ask for a person, and your reply appears in their chat while it’s open

Tickets and email

Tidio
Ticketing and email on every plan, Free included
LiveChat
Through HelpDesk.com, a separate product, or in Text, which puts chat, tickets and the AI in one inbox
Deacon
No tickets and no email inbox. You reply from Deacon’s own dashboard

Channels

Tidio
Live chat, email, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Instagram, on every plan, Free included
LiveChat
Your website, mobile apps, a chat link and Facebook Messenger on every plan, Apple Messages for Business from Business, and WhatsApp, Instagram and X through marketplace apps
Deacon
The chat widget on your own website

Seeing what customers ask

Tidio
Basic analytics on every plan and advanced analytics from Growth. AI insights are listed with Premium, which is priced through sales
LiveChat
Insights, which finds the most popular questions and topics, from Team, and advanced reporting on Business. On Text, chat topics insights come with Growth
Deacon
Every conversation, searchable by what visitors asked, and Topics that group questions, count who asked and label most of them, on every plan

What the AI learns from

Tidio
Website pages, up to 60 on a priority scan, Q&A pairs, CSV or PDF files, a Zendesk help centre, and Shopify or WooCommerce products
LiveChat
The websites, files and help articles you approve
Deacon
A crawl of your website or single pages, files (PDF, Word, Markdown, text, CSV or HTML), pasted text and the answers you write

Actions in other systems

Tidio
From Growth, your team can cancel a Shopify order, change its shipping address or offer a refund from the chat. Lyro Actions can check an order’s status or change an address, with one Action free
LiveChat
On Text, custom skills run steps you define when the AI Agent spots an intent, 10 on Essential and Growth
Deacon
None. It answers questions, and it declines any about the visitor’s own account, order or data

Tidio’s prices come from tidio.com/pricing, LiveChat’s from livechat.com/pricing and Text’s from text.com/pricing, all read on 23 September 2026. The other pages used are listed at the end.

Choosing between Tidio and LiveChat

Pick Tidio if a few of you share the chat and you’d like to start free. Up to 10 teammates get live chat, ticketing, email, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Instagram on the free plan, and you can add Lyro in packages whenever you want an AI to answer first. It suits a shop too, with Shopify order tools for your team from Growth.

Pick LiveChat if people chatting with visitors in real time is the whole point, and you’d rather pay per person than per conversation. Its plans add AI that helps your agents, with reply suggestions and an Insights view of the most popular questions from Team, and Apple Messages for Business on Business. If you want an AI agent to answer customers as well, look at Text rather than LiveChat, since that’s where the AI Agent is sold, with live chat and tickets in the same inbox.

Both are built around people sitting in a chat inbox. If you’re a founder answering support between building, you want the questions answered before they reach you, and there’s a third option.

Deacon, for founders who can’t sit in a chat inbox

Live chat only works when someone is there to chat. When the someone is you, the same questions interrupt whatever you were building. Deacon answers them first, in seconds, at any hour, from your own docs and in the customer’s own language, with nothing to build before it starts. When your docs don’t cover a question, it says it doesn’t know instead of guessing, and asks for the visitor’s email. You’re emailed when they leave it or ask for a person, and your reply from Deacon’s dashboard appears in their chat under your name while it’s still open. That’s human handoff without watching an inbox all day.

It gets better as you answer. Every question your docs missed gets an Answer this button, and what you write becomes part of what Deacon knows. Save & check asks Deacon the question again, shows you the reply it now gives and tells you how many other open questions your answer covers. The more you answer, the less Deacon needs you.

And it shows you what customers need, from every conversation rather than the few you happened to catch live. Conversations are saved and searchable by what visitors asked. Topics group the questions, count the people behind each and label most of them, as a feature ask, a bug report, a how-to and so on. That’s on every plan, the free one included. The same script runs your website analytics, with visitors, sources, goals and funnels.

The price is one line, too. Every feature is on every plan, and the plans differ only in answers, knowledge, crawled pages and seats, with the seats included. Nothing is billed past a plan’s answers, and no plan adds a pack or moves itself up. There’s no badge to pay to remove, and the free plan gives you 50 answers every month, with no card and no end date.

What people ask about Tidio and LiveChat

Not on its own plans. LiveChat says its AI Agent is a Text-only capability, and that customers on a LiveChat plan need to move to Text to get it. LiveChat’s plans do include AI for your team, such as reply suggestions from Team and chat summaries on Business. Text’s plans start at $25 a user a month, or $19 billed yearly, with 10 AI resolutions a month.

The same company, Text, Inc., whose name is on LiveChat’s pages. LiveChat is its live chat product, priced per person. Text is its customer service platform, with live chat, tickets and the AI Agent in one inbox. ChatBot.com now sells Text’s AI Agent too, and its LiveChat page says one Text trial gives you the AI Agent, live chat and ticketing, with no separate LiveChat signup.

For a team, usually, because Tidio charges nothing for up to 10 seats and LiveChat charges for every person. Two people on LiveChat’s Team plan cost $118 a month, or $98 billed yearly, by our arithmetic, against $29 for Tidio’s Starter. But Tidio’s price rises with the conversations your team answers, 100 a month on Starter, and LiveChat’s doesn’t. For a busy desk with a small team, LiveChat can come out lower.

Text adds a pack of 50 resolutions for $49.50, which is $0.99 each, so the AI Agent keeps answering. Its help centre says a pack applies only to the billing cycle you buy it in, and unused resolutions don’t carry over. A resolution isn’t counted for greetings, tests or spam, or when the AI passes the chat to a person without answering.

On Tidio, from Growth, with an add-on at $20 a month, or $16.67 a month billed yearly, and it’s included on Plus. On LiveChat, white label is an Enterprise feature, where you ask LiveChat to remove its “Powered by LiveChat” line, and Text’s white-label widget is on its Enterprise plan too. Deacon shows no “powered by” line on any plan.

Live chat for a team, mainly. Deacon is an AI agent that answers first and hands you the rest. It has no shared inbox with routing or assignment, no ticketing and no email inbox, and it answers only in the widget on your website, not on WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, SMS or Apple Messages. It takes no actions in other systems, so it won’t cancel an order or issue a refund. If a team of you want to chat with visitors in real time across those channels, Tidio or LiveChat is the better fit.

Where each figure was read

Every figure above was read on 23 September 2026, from these pages.

Try Deacon for free

Deacon answers your customers in seconds from your own docs, says so when it doesn’t know, and shows you what they’re stuck on and what they want next, with no chat inbox to sit in. Start on the free plan, with every feature and no card.

ChatBot.com sells Text’s AI Agent, and Deacon vs ChatBot sets it against Deacon directly. Tidio meets another rival in Tidio vs Intercom, more options are priced in Tidio alternatives and LiveChat alternatives, and Deacon’s plans are on the pricing page.

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