ChatbotGen vs Tidio
Tidio is a live-chat inbox that grew an AI agent. ChatbotGen is an AI agent that never needed an inbox. Which one you want depends on whether humans are answering too.
Tidio pricing and docs checked in August 2026.
The short answer
ChatbotGen is the better tool if you want the bot to be the answer rather than the triage. We train directly on PDFs and DOCX, which Tidio does not accept at all. We add Telegram. We connect WhatsApp by QR in about 90 seconds instead of the Meta Cloud API. And one flat price covers your messages instead of three meters that each move on their own — which is why pricing transparency is Tidio's most repeated complaint and is not one of ours.
Tidio makes sense in one specific case: you already employ a team that answers chats by hand and you want AI to take the easy half. The shared inbox is the real product there, and the ten included seats are worth money if you need ten people. The cost of that shape is that the AI is an add-on — it will not read a PDF, it is metered separately, and it stops when its own allowance runs out.
ChatbotGen
Best for any business that wants the AI to actually answer, on WhatsApp, from its own documents
Your knowledge lives in PDFs and on your website, WhatsApp is your main channel, and you want one predictable number on the invoice instead of three meters.
Tidio
Best for Shopify stores already staffing a shared inbox with several agents
You are paying people to answer chats today, the AI is only meant to skim the repetitive half, and none of your knowledge lives in documents the AI would need to read.
ChatbotGen vs Tidio, feature by feature
Every cell comes from each product's own documentation or pricing page.
| Feature | ChatbotGen | Tidio |
|---|---|---|
| Web widget | Yes. One <script> line on any site. | Yes. Live chat with human agents, with Lyro (the AI) layered on top. |
| Yes, by scanning a QR code from the dashboard. Live in about 90 seconds, with no Meta Business profile, no BSP in the middle and no approved templates. | Official Meta WhatsApp Cloud API: a company-owned number and verification inside a Facebook integration flow. No QR path. | |
| Telegram | Yes, by pasting a bot token. About a minute. | Not listed among the channels on its integrations page. |
| Other channels | Nothing else to configure: web, WhatsApp and Telegram already cover where your customers are. No Instagram, Messenger, SMS or voice yet. | Email with a shared inbox, Instagram and Facebook Messenger. Plus Shopify, WooCommerce, Zendesk, HubSpot, Salesforce and Zapier. |
| Training sources | Website crawl, PDF/DOCX/TXT files, question-and-answer pairs and free text. Paste the URL and it trains itself — nothing to prepare by hand. | URL scraping (capped at 500 URLs), CSV of Q&A pairs (500 rows per file), manual Q&A, and a Zendesk help-center import. No direct PDF or DOCX upload. |
| Languages | Replies in the visitor's language. Product, documentation and support in English and Spanish. | Lyro answers in 48 languages, natively rather than translating through English. |
| AI model choice | Model-agnostic via OpenRouter: Gemini by default, with Claude and GPT available. | No choice: Lyro runs on Claude. |
| AI tools / actions | The ones that move revenue, included: lead capture, human handoff, appointment booking, and live property search against the Wasi CRM. Each is a switch, not a project. | Lyro Smart Actions (order status, lead qualification, product recommendations), a visual Flows builder, and Zapier. |
| Free tier | Yes. Build and train a chatbot free, no card, with a demo message allowance. | Yes, with a catch: $0 with 50 billable conversations a month and 10 seats, but only 50 Lyro conversations in total, not per month. Once those are gone the AI stops replying. |
| Trial | 7 days free on the Starter plan, card required. | 7 days of paid features, no card required. |
| List price | $29 / $79 / $199 per month (USD). | Starter $29 a month, Growth from $59 a month; Plus quoted from $300 a month plus usage. |
| Billing model | Flat monthly subscription with a message allowance. No per-seat charge and no per-resolution charge. | Three independent meters stacked on the base plan: human conversations, Lyro conversations and Flows visitors. Lyro conversations are quoted at $0.5 each. |
Tidio figures read from its official site in August 2026. Prices change; verify before you decide. ChatbotGen prices are those on our own pricing page as of August 2026.
Pros and cons, both ways
ChatbotGen
Pros
- WhatsApp by QR in about 90 seconds: no Meta Business profile, no BSP in the middle, no approved templates.
- Native Spanish: interface, documentation and support written in Spanish, not half-translated.
- Flat, predictable pricing: $29, $79 or $199 a month, with the message allowance printed on the plan.
- No per-seat and no per-resolution charge: the bill does not move when the team or the traffic grows.
- Live the same day: paste a URL or upload PDFs and it is answering. Nothing to design, nothing to code.
- One bot across three channels: web, WhatsApp and Telegram share the same training.
- Lead capture, human handoff and appointment booking included, not sold as add-ons.
Cons
- Web, WhatsApp and Telegram only: no Instagram, Messenger, SMS or voice today.
- Not a visual flow builder: you train the bot instead of drawing decision trees.
- Not a help desk suite: no tickets, no SLAs, no shared email inbox.
- The message allowance is monthly: very high support volume is quoted separately.
Tidio
Pros
- 10 seats included even on the free plan and on Starter, useful if you already have ten people answering chats.
- An omnichannel inbox: web, email, Instagram and Messenger in one place, one connector per channel.
- Lyro answers in 48 languages, though the product and support themselves are English-only.
- A visual Flows builder for deterministic automation, if you are willing to draw the flows.
- Quick to set up for what it is, though the AI half is capped by the sources it accepts.
- Shopify and e-commerce stack integration, which is worth something only if you sell there.
Cons
- Pricing transparency is its number-one complaint: three stacked meters make the real bill well exceed the advertised base.
- The free plan's 50 Lyro conversations are lifetime, not monthly; many sites exhaust them in the first week.
- No PDF or DOCX upload: knowledge goes in by URL scraping or CSV.
- No model choice.
- A large gap between Growth and Plus, with little in between.
- Annual contracts cannot be downgraded or refunded mid-term.
Three differences that actually decide it
Tidio will not read your PDFs
This surprises people. Lyro's knowledge base takes scraped URLs (capped at 500), CSV files of question-and-answer pairs at 500 rows each, manually typed pairs, and a Zendesk help-center import. Tidio's own help docs state you cannot point it at a PDF. If your product knowledge lives in manuals, price lists or policy documents, you will be converting them by hand. ChatbotGen ingests PDF, DOCX and TXT directly alongside the website crawl.
One meter versus three
Tidio's 2026 structure stacks three independently metered sliders on the base plan: billable human conversations, Lyro AI conversations, and Flows visitors. Each has its own allowance and its own overage, and Lyro conversations are quoted at $0.5 apiece. That is why pricing transparency is the most repeated complaint in its reviews — reviewers describe a $29 base becoming several hundred in practice. ChatbotGen has one meter: messages per month, on a $29, $79 or $199 plan, and that is the whole invoice. Tidio does include ten agent seats even on Starter, which is worth money if you need ten humans; ChatbotGen charges nothing per seat either, and it is built so that you need fewer of them.
The free plans are not comparable
Tidio's free plan looks generous at 50 billable conversations a month and 10 seats, but its 50 Lyro AI conversations are a lifetime allowance rather than a monthly one — once they are gone the AI stops replying, which is the single most repeated deal-breaker in its reviews. ChatbotGen's free plan is demo-scoped too, and we say so plainly: it is for building and training a real bot and testing its answers, not for running one in production. The difference is that it never pretends otherwise, and going live is a 7-day Starter trial away rather than an allowance you discover is empty mid-conversation.
What people ask when comparing these two
Is Tidio's free plan really free?
The plan is, but the AI on it is not really usable long-term: the 50 Lyro conversations are a one-off lifetime allowance, not a monthly refill. After that the AI stops answering while the live-chat part keeps working. Checked in August 2026.
Can Tidio train on a PDF?
No. Lyro's sources are scraped URLs, CSV question-and-answer files, manual pairs and a Zendesk import; Tidio's help documentation says a URL pointing at a PDF will not work. ChatbotGen accepts PDF, DOCX and TXT uploads directly.
Does Tidio support Telegram?
Telegram is not listed among the channels on Tidio's integrations page, which shows the web widget, email, WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger. ChatbotGen supports Telegram by pasting a bot token.
Which is cheaper, ChatbotGen or Tidio?
The advertised entry prices are the same at $29 a month. The difference is what happens next: Tidio meters human conversations, Lyro conversations and Flows visitors separately, so the real bill depends on three numbers. ChatbotGen's $29 covers 2,000 messages, full stop. Prices checked in August 2026.
How does each one connect to WhatsApp?
Tidio uses Meta's official WhatsApp Cloud API: you supply a company-owned number and complete Meta's verification inside a Facebook integration window. ChatbotGen connects by scanning a QR code from the dashboard, in about 90 seconds, using the number your customers already write to. The official API adds outbound template campaigns, which matters for marketing blasts; if you want to answer incoming messages today, the QR route wins outright.
Which is better for a support team with several agents?
If your plan is to keep paying several people to answer chats, Tidio's shared inbox is the core product and it includes ten seats on the entry plan. ChatbotGen has a conversation inbox with human takeover on every plan, and no per-seat charge at all — it is built so the bot resolves the question and a person only steps in when it matters. Most small teams find they need fewer agents, not a bigger rota.
The real comparison takes five minutes
Paste your website URL, let it train, and ask it the same questions you would ask Tidio. Building and training is free, no card required.