A factual side-by-side of ChatNest, Tidio, Tawk.to, Intercom and Chaty — real free-plan limits, real prices and who each one actually suits. Prices checked September 2026.
| What mattersyou | ChatNest | Tidio | Tawk.to | Intercom | Chaty |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes — £0, 1 bot, 100 AI messages per day, refills daily. No card. | Yes — 50 live chats/mo, but the 50 free AI (Lyro) conversations are lifetime, they never refill. | Yes — live chat is free forever; AI Assist free tier: 100 message credits/mo. | No — 14-day trial only. | Yes — free up to 500 visitors/mo; unlimited widgets and channels (WhatsApp, Messenger, 20+). |
| Paid plans from | £15/mo flat (Starter: 3 bots, 500 msgs/day, 100 pages). | $24.17/mo billed annually (platform); real AI (Lyro) from $32.50/mo. | Chat software $0; AI Assist from $29/mo billed annually ($290/yr, $39 monthly). | $29/seat/mo + $0.99 per AI outcome (50-outcome minimum ≈ $49 floor). | $15/mo (Basic, up to 10,000 visitors/mo; ~$12/mo billed yearly). |
| Realistic monthly cost for a small business | £0 – £29 | $0 – $50 | $0 – $29 | $300 – $1,000+ | $0 – $15 |
| AI trained on your content | Yes — crawls your pages, docs and FAQs; answers only from your knowledge base, so it never makes things up about your business. | Yes — Lyro trains on your site and help centre. | Yes — AI Assist uses a knowledge base + crawled pages. | Yes — Fin trains on your help centre content. | No — buttons that open WhatsApp/Messenger; no AI answering. |
| Answers with sources | Yes — every answer shows the source page or FAQ it came from, with a link where available. | No on entry plans | No | Partial — Fin cites help centre articles | N/A — no AI |
| No-code install | One-line script — works on any website. | Widget | Widget | SDK + setup | WordPress plugin |
| WordPress plugin | Yes — free official plugin in the WordPress.org directory. | Yes | Yes | No | Yes — native |
| WooCommerce stores | Yes — dedicated plugin in the WordPress.org directory. | Integrations | Partial | Ecommerce integrations | Widget only |
| Multilingual | Yes — widget UI in 7 languages (EN, FR, DE, ES, IT, NL, PT), auto-matched to the visitor's browser; replies in the customer's language. | Yes | Yes | Yes | N/A |
| Live chat / human handoff | Yes — live inbox, the bot hands over when it should. | Yes | Yes — free | Yes | Via WhatsApp/Messenger |
| Lead capture | Yes — free on all plans; name and email land in your inbox with an alert. | Yes — paid tiers | Partial | Yes | Via channel links |
| Voice chat | Yes — visitors can speak their questions and hear answers read aloud (desktop browsers). | No | No | No | N/A — no AI |
| Pricing model | Flat monthly tiers (messages + pages crawled). No per-conversation meter. | Tiers + AI quota packs | Free core + AI add-on | Per seat + per AI outcome | Yearly licence |
Prices verified from each vendor's public pricing page in September 2026 and can change. The free-plan notes matter most: Tidio's 50 free AI conversations are a one-time lifetime allowance, and Chaty has no AI answering at all — it opens your WhatsApp or Messenger.
You want a bot that answers your customers' questions from your pages, docs and FAQs — with zero code, no per-conversation meter, and a free plan you can genuinely run on: