8 Tidio Alternatives for Better Customer Service in 2024

No competition, no progress. We are lucky to live in a time when the market is broad, and there is no problem finding a product perfectly tailored to today’s needs. So if you are dissatisfied with anything, don’t endure; research the options and choose the most suitable solution. This article was written just to help you with this task.

We will discuss Tidio alternatives, the best tools for customer service, and conversational marketing with live chat software. Numerous reasons could have brought you here, but I hope my carefully prepared list of solutions will help you make the right choice.

Let’s get cracking!

What is Tidio?

Tidio is an affordable customer service solution with chatbots. The platform helps businesses provide amazing ecommerce customer support. It has many other features besides the chatbot, like live chat, shared inbox, integration with Shopify, social media support, and whatnot. 

With Tidio, you can integrate your live chat, email inbox, Messenger, and Instagram into one multichannel communicator and manage all customer conversations from one place. That’s basically what customer service tools are built to do.

Here are a few main features of Tidio:

• The live chat widget is supported on all devices. It includes pre-chat surveys, conversation ratings, event tracking, widget customization, and more. 
• Tidio offers 20+ chatbot templates to automate customer service conversations on topics like discounts, shipping, orders, etc. 
• The email inbox function means you can integrate all your email inboxes with the platform and manage them from one place.
• Real-time monitoring is another feature that can help with customer engagement. It lets you see what your website visitors are looking for so you can reach them at the right moment.

The pricing is one more reason to love Tidio. The platform offers a free plan with three agents, 100 unique reachable visitors per month, and unlimited chats. Choose the Chatbots plan if you want unlimited visitors and active chatbots. It will cost you $39/mo per 3 seats.

Even the tool reviews on G2 (4.7) and Capterra (4.8) are excellent! 

Why look for the Tidio alternative, then?

This is a logical question considering all the advantages the software offers. And yet, there is a clear answer to it.

Firstly, Tidio doesn’t provide a knowledge base feature, and it’s a huge drawback, especially nowadays when customer self-service is getting more popular. 

Secondly, some people point out poor widget customization opportunities. 

Last but not least, it doesn’t look like the tool is growing or developing in any way. As one customer review says on G2, “The updates to the functionality are also quite rare, and it seems that they’re not sure where they’re going with the tool – the introduction of the email marketing (which feels more like a redundant leftover than a feature, honestly) kinda confirmed that for me.” 

So here we are. Diving right into the Tidio alternative tools 🙂

8 best Tidio chat alternatives to boost your performance

Numerous customer service tools exist, yet not all match Tidio’s excellence. We’ve curated top-notch alternatives with robust features for elevated client communication.

HelpCrunch – the best all-in-one customer communication platform for SMB

HelpCrunch is an all-in-one customer service platform and the best Tidio alternative for those who require four main tools: live chat, chatbot, knowledge base, and email marketing tools. On top of that, within the platform, you get a popup builder that comes in handy if you are looking to improve your customer engagement. 

Live chat functionality provides all the useful opportunities like auto messages, tags, saved responses, offline and pre-chat forms, etc. It also allows you to monitor user paths, actions, device information, and conversations in the right sidebar. What’s especially cool is that you can easily switch between incoming chats, emails, and private notes right in the shared inbox. By the way, the inbox is powered by AI and allows agents to change the style of messages, shorten, lengthen the text or translate it into other languages.

You probably know everything about the chatbot software benefits. It’s one of the greatest tools for the automation of customer support and decreasing user waiting time. The HelpCrunch chatbot can answer visitors’ inquiries and share helpful articles, links, images, and canned responses to handle repetitive customer queries and provide more personalized experiences. The chatbot is going to be revved up with AI as well, so stay tuned!

On top of that, the feature allows businesses to qualify leads and collect contact information automatically. A visual editor lets you set up and launch the bot quickly and easily without coding skills.

The knowledge base is another legitimate feature of HelpCrunch. It’s a self-service tool that helps customers find the answers they need. There are even more benefits to consider, like an easy-to-use  SEO optimization feature or AI editor, which allows agents to change the style of the text, make it shorter or longer, and translate it into other languages. With HelpCrunch, you can integrate your knowledge base into the live chat widget and easily allow customers to switch between chat and help center.

In turn, email marketing functionality makes it really simple for support agents to launch email campaigns, prepare beautiful newsletters, and send email follow-ups. Sounds tempting, right? 

Price

You can provide great online customer service to your clients using HelpCrunch for just $15/mo per seat.  

What is one reason to choose HelpCrunch over Tidio?

Unlike Tidio, HelpCrunch offers a smooth-running knowledge base tool where you can publish articles and add videos, images, GIFs, etc. Besides, it is the best Intercom alternative if you are searching for one (you know where to look). 

HelpCrunch also allows for metadata optimization of articles to help you boost your performance in Google searches. This feature alone can help you provide more effective support and noticeably decrease the number of repetitive questions. 

Olark – a simple live chat solution with useful add-ons

Olark is a straightforward Tidio chat alternative for your website. Even though it’s not your most feature-packed tool, you will be quite satisfied with the platform if you need live chat.

As the main function, the live chat feature includes some general functionality like customization options, automated messages, forms, and reports. You can also integrate your Olark software with HubSpot, Zendesk, Salesforce, etc. Unfortunately, there’s no way to change widget wallpaper, upload your company logo, or do anything else to make it look like a true part of your brand.

The platform also provides PowerUps – features that must be paid separately. You can find visitor co-browsing, visitor insights, and live chat translation among them. While the rest is clear, visitor insights may bring some questions. What is it about? Well, it gives you access to general data of your customers collected from public social profiles and company websites.

It should be noted that Olark also has a chatbot function, but it’s available only for Pro plan users. 

Price

The pricing plan starts from $29/mo per seat. Visitor co-browsing will cost you $99/mo. The visitor insights feature costs around $59-99/mo, and live chat translation costs $29/month. 

What is one reason to choose Olark over Tidio?

Choose Olark if you need a reliable live chat solution and nothing more. Unlike Tidio, Olark doesn’t have any limits to how many visitors you can reach. You pay $29/mo per seat and get all the basic features. On top of that, you can buy an add-on to get access to live chat translation and visitor co-browsing that are unavailable within Tidio’s offer. 

Zendesk – a solid customer service tool with robust ticketing functionality

Zendesk Suite is a profound Tidio alternative that caters to all types of industries. It has endless features you might never need, like host mapping, phone support software, or audit logs. 

So let’s focus on Zendesk functions that matter the most for online customer service – ticketing system, live chat, knowledge base, email marketing, and chatbot.

The platform provides a smooth ticketing feature that large teams will appreciate. Each email or message that customers submit creates a ticket and enters the queue. After that, a client is notified to confirm that your support team has received their request. On top of that, such tools as time tracking, routing, CSAT ratings, and so on help your agents provide decent, well-oiled, and effective assistance

As for the live chat, it has pretty limited customization options and an outdated interface yet solid functionality. Businesses can greatly benefit from Answer Bot, an AI-powered tool that can answer common questions, suggest knowledge base articles, and connect with an agent when needed. 

The platform provides all possible integrations you can imagine with other tools, including social media platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook.  

Price

It sounds like the perfect feature-rich software that you can apply, and rest assured, everything is under control. But what’s the cost? The most affordable plan that includes live chat will cost you $69/mo per agent. Is it a fair price? It’s up to you to decide.

What is one reason to choose Zendesk over Tidio?

If you have a large team, Zendesk is your best shot, as it offers a mature ticketing system to handle many incoming customer requests. Also, choose the tool if you still provide phone support.

tawk.to – a free live chat solution for any business

tawk.to is a forever free live chat software solution compatible with a website and mobile app. The company sets no limits to the number of agents, chat volumes, or sites you can add widgets to. Their feature pack includes live chat, knowledge base, ticketing, and chat pages.

How can it be for free, you may ask? The company generates revenue by providing Hired Agent services, meaning you can hire tawk.to agents to chat with your customers. But if you prefer to support your customers by yourself, then the platform is free.

The live chat is easy to set up and use. It provides the standard options like canned responses, tags, desktop notifications, and reporting. 

With real-time monitoring, you can see which pages your visitors are on at the moment, how often they visit your site, and view their entire customer journey.

The chat page’s function is quite a unique feature of tawk.to that allows you to turn links into real-time conversations. How come? Let’s say you don’t have a website to place a live chat widget on, yet you want to offer live communication to your clients. Just create a profile page or chat page and add links to it anywhere you want.

Here is a quick example of a chat page to give you a hint.

As for the knowledge base, it has a clean and straightforward user interface. The tool pack includes built-in translation functionality, a block-based text editor, and metadata customization. 

While it sounds like a jackpot platform that offers everything for free, it lacks an email automation feature. It means you won’t be able to send newsletters or launch email campaigns within the tool.

Price

tawk.to live chat app is entirely free. But if you need help with chat support and want to hire agents from tawk.to, it will cost you $1 per hour. 

What is one reason to choose tawk.to over Tidio?

It’s simple. Tidio is free of charge and has no limits in terms of monthly visitors reached. However, its functionality may often seem too limited for robust customer service.

Crisp – a live chat with a free plan to communicate with customers

Crisp is another live chat software offering a free plan but limited functionality. It’s a good Tidio alternative for startups that need a live chat, knowledge base, chatbot, and ticketing system.

The Crisp chat allows you to do many things. Like HelpCrunch, it offers an integrated knowledge base to add to the live chat widget. Also, you can share files, add videos and GIFs, and invite customers to play a CrispyBird game right in the widget while they are waiting for a reply.

Another live chat feature that you might appreciate if you have clients across different countries is real-time chat translation. It means that you can reply to customers in your language, and it will be automatically translated into their native one. Isn’t it cool?

On the other hand, it’s a limited option! Translated characters are limited to 1,000,000 for paid Unlimited plans and 100,000 for trial Unlimited plans (per month). You can learn more about it here. 

Looking for a chatbot solution? The platform offers it as one of its main features. With a chatbot, you can qualify leads, create your scenarios, route conversations, and suggest appropriate knowledge base articles to answer customers’ questions. So, this tool can help you handle a massive number of user inquiries. 

Price

Crisp offers a free plan with essential features like live chat, team inbox, and a contact form. That’s it. The plan includes two operators only. A paid subscription with canned responses, private notes, and emails will cost you $25/mo per website, including four seats. If you want a knowledge base and chatbot with unlimited seats, get ready to pay $95 monthly. 

What is one reason to choose Crisp over Tidio?

If you have an extensive support team looking for a live chat, chatbot, knowledge base, and ticketing, Crisp can be a good deal. Pay just about a hundred dollars per month and get unlimited seats with all the essential features included. 

LiveChat – an old live chat software with a solid live chat tool and separately paid knowledge base and chatbot

LiveChat is one of the oldest live chat solutions, making it a reliable and robust choice. The platform’s primary purpose is the same as described above: to provide a single place where agents can handle all communication with customers. You can provide adequate conversational experiences with features like live chat, detailed reports, and integrations with over 170 other tools.

The live chat is pretty standard and offers the usual functionality such as canned responses, tags, archives, file sharing, and whatnot. You can also create and integrate your knowledge base into the live chat widget but remember that the self-service option comes separately.

If you are in retail, you can leverage video experience and screen-sharing options that are available right in the widget. Start a video call immediately to demonstrate the product to your customers. 

Another tool that many businesses can find helpful is a sales tracker. It lets you calculate the ROI of your chat. So, if a chat leads to a sale, the tracker will add the order value and order ID information to the chat. Later on, you can find this data in the reports.

Price

The cheapest plan costs $20/mo per agent and includes a live chat, ticketing system, 60-day chat history, and basic customization. The Business plan that encompasses practically all proper functionality will cost you $59/mo per seat. 

Such an add-on as the knowledge base is available at $39/mo. The price for a separate chatbot feature starts from $50/mo. 

What is one reason to choose LiveChat over Tidio?

LiveChat is an excellent alternative to Tidio because it has much more credibility as it was launched 21 years ago. The platform proved to be a reliable live chat solution for years. Besides, it offers a smooth-running ticketing system to handle conversations with visitors.  

Help Scout – a one-stop customer service solution with profound workflows

Help Scout is another one-stop customer communication tool that can be a great alternative to Tidio for small and medium-sized businesses. It provides a live chat, knowledge base, and workflows.

Live chat embraces a standard pack of options: canned responses, tags, private team notes, and targeted messages based on visitors’ data. Just like HelpCrunch, it offers a knowledge base integration. This way, you can give your customers an option to use self-service or talk to a real agent.

There is this feature called Beacon, which is basically a live chat widget that can be set up in three different ways – self-service, neutral, and ask first. (I wonder why they gave their widget a particular name). Anyways, just know that Beacon is a live chat window. 

Help Scout’s knowledge base allows customization, SEO optimization, and more. With the tool, you can create multiple knowledge bases for your products and manage them from one login.

The workflow feature is built to automate repetitive tasks. Each workflow allows you to set up a rule: if one event happens, what action should happen next? A simple example is when a user spends 5 seconds on the page, a chat window with a proactive message can pop up. You can also add multiple conditions to a single workflow, which is great, especially when discussing complex processes like payments/refunds, etc. 

Price

The pricing starts from $25/mo per seat. It includes two mailboxes and one help page. 

What is one reason to choose Help Scout over Tidio?

I’d say that the main reason is a knowledge base feature and the opportunity to integrate it into the live chat widget. Next time users visit your page, they can choose how to get help: through personal communication with an agent or a knowledge base. 

Gorgias – excellent customer service software for e-commerce businesses

Gorgias is a customer service software focused on e-commerce stores. The platform offers full integration with Shopify, BigCommerce & WooCommerce. It’s packed with features that can take a considerable workload off your support agents, like live chat, Facebook and Instagram integrations, macros, autoresponder, and intent detection.

The software offers a robust integration with Shopify, which makes it a very good choice for merchants. Once integrated, you can perform Shopify actions such as editing, duplicating, canceling orders, and refunding from one screen. This helps significantly improve the common customer experience and ease agents’ work. What’s also important is that you get complete information on the customer, like order history.

Macros allow you to automate common questions. Create template answers and save them as a macro to reuse them later. This way, users will get instant replies to questions such as “Where is my order?”, “How to cancel the order?” and whatnot.  

Along with that, any saved response you create on the platform can have Shopify data variables: the order number, tracking link, and more. The only downside is that Gorgias is pretty challenging to master; you might need some time to learn its peculiarities.

Price

I won’t hide; Gorgias is extremely expensive. The most affordable plan starts from $60/mo and includes just 300 tickets monthly. The advance plan costs $900/mo with a cap of 5,000 tickets per month.

What is one reason to choose Gorgias over Tidio?

The tool is created specifically for the e-commerce industry and integrates with other e-commerce platforms like no other. Take Shopify, for instance. Thanks to their deep integration, Gorgias allows you to pull customer data into your helpdesk. It will enable editing shipping information, adjusting refund orders and tags, and creating helpful macros.

Wrap up

While Tidio is an excellent solution, other options might better meet your needs. For example, HelpCrunch, Help Scout, or LiveChat are good Tidio alternatives if you are looking for a live chat, knowledge base, and ticketing system. 

Crisp and tawk.to might be of interest to aspiring companies across industries that are looking for free solutions. Olark offers a strong live chat tool with PowerUps. Zendesk has a well-oiled ticketing system for giant teams. Gorgias is built for e-commerce businesses and provides deep integration with other platforms. 

Since you are here, I invite you to try HelpCrunch, an all-in-one customer communication platform. Sign up for a 14-day free trial today to see if it matches your business well—no strings attached.