A Tidio alternativefor WooCommerceand Shopify storesthat only needproduct answers
Tidio is a customer service suite: live chat with human agents, tickets, email and social channels, plus the Lyro AI agent as a paid add-on. ARLing Shopping Assistant does one narrower job: it answers shopper questions from your product feed, links the matching products, and stores nothing about the conversation.
- 0 conversations stored
- 100 conversations/month free
- one script tag, or the WooCommerce plugin (in review at wordpress.org)
- runs on Cloudflare Workers
01
What each one does
Both put a chat bubble on your store. What happens behind it differs. Tidio facts are from tidio.com, wordpress.org and the Shopify App Store, read on 5 September 2026.
| Tidio | ARLing Shopping Assistant | |
|---|---|---|
| Live chat with human agents | Yes, the core product. Plans count "billable conversations", meaning conversations with a message from a human agent. | No. No agent seat, no inbox. If it cannot answer, it points to your contact email. |
| Tickets and email | Yes. | No. |
| Channels | Live chat, tickets, email, social media. | Website widget only. |
| AI answers | Lyro AI Agent, a paid add-on. | Included in every plan, the free one too. |
| Source of answers | Depends on your Lyro setup; see tidio.com. | Your product feed and contact details, nothing else. Product text is data, never instructions. |
| Conversation storage | Agents work from a shared inbox, so conversations are kept there. | None. Daily counters only (conversations, product clicks). |
| Free tier | $0: 50 billable conversations a month, 10 seats. | 0 EUR: 100 conversations a month, no card, no time limit. |
| First paid plan | Starter: $290 a year ($24.17 a month) on tidio.com; the equivalent Customer Service plan on the Shopify App Store is $29 a month or $290 a year. | Starter: 19 EUR a month, up to 1,000 conversations. |
| WooCommerce and Shopify | WordPress plugin, 70,000+ active installations, WooCommerce integration; Shopify App Store app, 1,337 reviews. | One script tag on any shop; WooCommerce plugin in review at wordpress.org; Shopify app in preparation. |
Nothing in the Tidio column is our measurement; it is what Tidio publishes.
02
Prices, as of 5 September 2026
Tidio prices as read on 5 September 2026 from tidio.com/pricing and Tidio's Shopify App Store listing, in US dollars; the two pages differ because one shows the yearly price divided by twelve. ARLing prices include VAT. Check the linked pages before deciding.
Tidio
Source: tidio.com/pricing a apps.shopify.com/tidio-chat, 5 September 2026, USD.
- Free: $0. 50 billable conversations a month, 10 seats, 100 visitors via Flows.
- Starter: $290 a year ($24.17 a month) on tidio.com; the equivalent Customer Service plan on the App Store is $29 a month or $290 a year. 100 billable conversations, 50 Lyro conversations one-off.
- Growth: from $49.17 a month, from 250 billable conversations.
- Plus: from $300 a month plus usage. Premium: contact Tidio.
- Lyro AI Agent add-on: from $32.50 a month for 50 conversations on tidio.com; $39 a month for up to 200 on the App Store.
ARLing Shopping Assistant
Prices in EUR, VAT included, monthly billing only, card payment through Stripe.
- Free: 0 EUR, up to 100 conversations a month, no card, no time limit.
- Starter: 19 EUR a month, up to 1,000 conversations.
- Pro: 39 EUR a month, up to 3,000 conversations.
- Upgrade from your own account page once the free trial is created; cancel any time; Stripe sends the invoice. No annual plan yet.
Like for like: 100 AI conversations a month cost 0 EUR here. At Tidio the AI is the Lyro add-on, priced on top of the human-agent plan.
03
Who should stay with Tidio
Stay with Tidio if people answer your customers. A shared inbox, tickets, email and social messages in one place, Tidio Flows: ARLing Shopping Assistant replaces none of that. It has no inbox, no agents and no tickets, and we do not plan to add them.
Stay as well if the AI should answer from more than the catalogue, such as shipping or return rules in a knowledge base. ARLing Shopping Assistant answers only from the feed and your contact details; anything else gets an honest "I do not know, write to the shop".
Consider ARLing Shopping Assistant if most questions are "do you have X", "which fits Y" and "how much is Z", nobody sits in an inbox, and you do not want a third party keeping your customers' conversations. The trial form builds an assistant from your feed in minutes.
04
FAQ
Can ARLing Shopping Assistant replace Tidio's live chat?
No. There is no human behind it and no inbox. It covers only the part of Tidio that answers product questions automatically, and only what the feed can answer.
Can I run it next to Tidio?
Technically yes, both are script tags; put the ARLing widget in the other corner with the data-position attribute. Most stores pick one.
Is there anything to migrate?
No. It builds itself from your product feed (Heureka XML, Google Shopping XML, Shopify /products.json, WooCommerce Store API, generic XML) and refreshes it daily.
Where do the Tidio prices come from?
From tidio.com/pricing and Tidio's Shopify App Store listing, read on 5 September 2026, in USD as shown there. We do not convert to EUR or track changes; check their page before you decide.
Paste your feed URL and email on the main page. Free up to 100 conversations a month, no card.
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