HomeTidio alternative
A Tidio alternative with monthly AI chat on the Free plan
Every Tidio account starts with 50 AI conversations, once; a monthly AI allowance is a separate plan bought on top. Sorraia’s Free plan includes 25 AI conversations a month; Starter includes 200 at $19, then $15 per extra 100 (or part).
Free plan, no card. Paid plans start at $19 a month.
Why people look for a Tidio alternative
The AI is not in the plan. Tidio’s plans buy live-chat conversations; Lyro, its AI agent, is metered and paid for separately — a distinct allowance of AI conversations bought on top of whatever plan you are already on. So “what does an AI chat widget cost on Tidio” has two answers that add up, and the second one moves with your traffic rather than with your decisions. The free tier includes live conversations and a one-off 50 AI conversations for the life of the account, with no monthly AI allowance, and removing Tidio’s branding stays a paid add-on until the top of the ladder. Sorraia’s Free plan includes 25 AI conversations a month, so the agent can answer on a live site before anything is bought, and its $19 plan includes two hundred AI conversations — included, not added — and past them the agent carries on at $15 per hundred, or part of a hundred, against a per-account ceiling on how many packs it will ever buy that defaults to ten. That is one number with a knowable worst case, which is the property that matters when you have to quote a client a figure before the traffic exists.
The differences that are structural, not marketing
Every claim below was read from Tidio’s own pricing or documentation on 3 September 2026, and each one links the page it came from. If one of them has gone stale since, the linked page wins and we would rather you found out there than took our word for it.
Tidio’s pricing page served us euros rather than dollars, which means any figure we printed would be a number for one region presented as if it were yours. So this page compares what is capped, metered and charged extra for — which does not change with currency — and links their pricing page for the amount.
The AI is metered separately from the plan
Lyro, Tidio’s AI agent, is billed as its own allowance of AI conversations on top of the plan you are already paying for, so the monthly total has two moving parts. Sorraia’s AI allowance is part of the plan: 25 conversations a month on Free, 200 on Starter at $19, 1,000 on Growth, 5,000 on Business, 20,000 on Enterprise. A conversation counts once when it starts, not per message, and the counter resets at the start of each UTC month.
Source: tidio.com · checked 3 September 2026
The free tier has no monthly AI allowance
Tidio’s free plan covers live conversations handled by a person. Every account gets 50 conversations with Lyro, its AI agent, once for the life of the account; refreshing that every month needs the paid Lyro plan. Sorraia’s Free plan includes 25 AI conversations a month — small, and enough to see the agent answer from your own content before you decide. Past that, Free simply stops rather than starting to charge: overage is a paid-plan behaviour.
Source: tidio.com · checked 3 September 2026
Tidio’s branding comes off with a paid add-on
Removing Tidio’s branding from the widget is a paid add-on on Tidio’s plans until the highest tier. Sorraia’s chat widget carries no Sorraia badge on any plan, Free included. What every Sorraia chat does carry is the AI disclosure line, and that one is not optional: it names the agent as an AI before the visitor types anything.
Source: tidio.com · checked 3 September 2026
Side by side
The same four questions for both. Every Tidio cell repeats a claim from the section above and links the page it was read from; where we hold no claim from Tidio’s own pages, the cell says so instead of guessing.
| Compared | Sorraia | Tidio |
|---|---|---|
| Styling to your site | A launcher on every page; you set its accent colour in the chat builder. | Removing Tidio’s branding from the widget is a paid add-on until the highest tier.Source: tidio.com · checked 3 September 2026 |
| Client access | A client login is scoped to one site and shows that site’s submissions, bookings and orders, not its chat conversations. No per-seat charge. | Not compared |
| Payments to the client’s own Stripe | Not applicable | |
| Price | Free plan; paid plans from $19 a month | The AI agent, Lyro, is billed as its own allowance on top of the plan; every account starts with 50 one-off AI conversations. Amounts are on their pricing page.Source: tidio.com · checked 3 September 2026 |
See it working
There is a live one on this page already. The chat button in the bottom corner is a Sorraia AI chat agent — ours, answering from this site’s own content. Open it and ask it something; it will tell you it is an AI before you ask.
What you get with Sorraia
- Answers from the pages it has indexed on your site
- Says so when the answer isn’t there
- An AI disclosure line on every chat
- 25 conversations a month on Free
- Live with one copy-paste
Free plan with no time limit, no card.
More detail in the Help Center: The AI chat agent · Plans and limits
When Tidio is the better choice
When you have people to staff the chat. Tidio is a live-chat product first and an AI product second, and its operator side is genuinely deeper than ours: a real agent console, a visitor list showing who is on the site and what they are typing before they send it, canned responses, a shared inbox that pulls in Messenger, Instagram and email, and mobile apps so someone can answer from a phone. Sorraia has human takeover — a person can step into a conversation and the widget says so — but it is a handover, not a support desk. If a human is answering most of the conversations, buy the tool built for humans answering conversations.
Questions
What happens when the AI conversation allowance runs out?
On a paid plan the agent keeps answering and buys another pack: $15 per 100 additional conversations, rounded up, so one conversation past the line is a whole $15 pack — we would rather say that here than let you find it on an invoice. Every account also carries a ceiling on how many packs it will ever buy, defaulting to ten, which is $150 of maximum extra exposure in a month. At the ceiling the widget behaves exactly as it does with overage switched off. On Free there is no overage at all; it stops at 25.
Does the widget tell visitors they are talking to an AI?
Always, and it is not a setting you can turn off. Every conversation opens with a line naming the agent as your business’s AI assistant and noting that a human can take over — the widget will not render without it. When someone from your team does take over, the status changes to say so.
How does the agent learn about my business?
From your own site. You run a crawl from the Knowledge tab of the chat builder; it reads the HTML of pages on the site the agent belongs to and keeps their text as the agent’s knowledge. It does not run JavaScript, so text that only appears after a page’s scripts run can be missed. Re-crawl after you change the site so the answers stay current.
Can the agent book appointments?
Yes, if you attach one of your Sorraia booking calendars on the same site. It looks up real availability, offers a few genuine times, and books the one the visitor picks once it has their name and email. Without a calendar attached it answers questions and captures leads, and its default greeting does not mention booking.
Try it on one site before you move anything
The free plan covers one verified website with no card, and the embed is the same one you would use on a paid plan. Build an AI chat widget, put it live with one copy-paste, and see how it looks on a page you already own.
Tidio is a trademark of its respective owner. Sorraia is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Tidio.