Crisp alternatives, with real prices

The short list

What three people on one website pay

Month-to-month prices, for a small team answering chat on one site:

• Crisp: $45 on Mini.
• Pidge: $10.
• tawk.to: $0, or $39 to remove the "Powered by tawk.to" badge.
• Tidio: $0 up to 50 conversations a month, $29 up to 100, $59 up to 250.
• Chatwoot Cloud: $57 on Startups, 3 × $19. The free plan stops at 2 agents. Self-hosted, it's free plus the cost of a server.
• LiveChat: $75 on Essential, 3 × $25.
• Intercom: $117 on Essential, 3 × $39, plus $0.99 per Fin outcome if you turn on its AI agent.

Ad blockers

AdGuard's widget filter blocks chat widgets loaded from their vendor's domain. On 16 October 2026 we ran each tool's standard script URL through the same 14 filter lists we test Pidge against. These were blocked, all by the AdGuard widget filter:

• Crisp: ||client.crisp.chat^$3p
• tawk.to: ||embed.tawk.to^$3p, except on two named sites
• Tidio: ||code.tidio.co^$3p

The scripts of Intercom (widget.intercom.io), LiveChat (cdn.livechatinc.com) and Chatwoot Cloud (app.chatwoot.com) weren't blocked by any of the 14 lists. Pidge loads from your own subdomain and wasn't blocked either. We checked the script addresses only, not rules that hide page elements.

Pidge

Our own. A chat widget, a shared inbox and an inbox for your phone. It takes Crisp's $crisp.push calls, its main REST paths and its webhook format, so code written for Crisp keeps working when you change the URL. The script on every page is 4.2 KB.

Good at

• Moving off Crisp without rewriting your integration.
• Staying light: the rest of the chat loads only when someone opens it.
• One price per website, with no limit on people or chats.
• Translation both ways and replies by email are included.

Worth knowing

• It isn't open to everyone yet. We add websites from the waitlist a few at a time.
• Website chat only: no WhatsApp, Instagram or email inbox, and no knowledge base.
• No AI agent of its own. Your bot can answer through the API.
• The phone inbox installs from the browser. There's no app store app.
• The widget shows a small "Chat by Pidge" link that can't be turned off yet.

Pidge and Crisp, side by side

tawk.to

Free live chat with no limit on agents, chats or websites. It makes money from add-ons, priced per website: removing the branding, an AI assistant, video and voice, and hired agents at $1 an hour.

Good at

• It costs nothing, even for a large team.
• Ticketing, a knowledge base and a CRM are part of the free product.
• Native apps for iOS, Android, Mac and Windows.

Worth knowing

• Removing "Powered by tawk.to" is $39 a month, or $348 a year.
• AI Assist is a separate subscription, from $29 a month for 1,000 credits. A reply uses 3 credits on the default setting.
• Data is stored in Google data centres in the United States.
• The REST API is available on request.

Pidge and tawk.to, side by side

Tidio

Live chat with a strong AI agent, Lyro, and a flow builder for automations. Plans are priced by billable conversations, meaning conversations a person on your team replies to.

Good at

• Lyro answers questions on its own, and the first 50 Lyro conversations are free.
• Shopify stores: it has native Shopify actions.
• Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp and email connect to the same inbox.
• Data is stored in the EU, on AWS.

Worth knowing

• Self-serve plans stop at 10 seats.
• Lyro is billed on top: $39 a month for 50 AI conversations, month to month.
• The API and webhooks are on Plus and Premium only. Plus starts at $300 a month.
• Free and Starter show Tidio branding. Removing it is an add-on on Growth.

Chatwoot

An open-source support inbox. You can use their cloud or run it on your own server. The code is MIT-licensed, apart from an enterprise folder.

Good at

• Self-hosting, so your data stays wherever you put it.
• Many channels: website, email, WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger.
• A full REST API and webhooks.
• Mobile apps that also work with a self-hosted install.

Worth knowing

• The cloud is priced per agent: $19, $39 or $99 a month each.
• The free cloud plan has 2 agents, 500 conversations a month and 30 days of history.
• Chatwoot Cloud runs on servers in the United States.
• Self-hosting means you look after updates and backups.

Intercom

A full customer service platform: chat, email, phone, a help centre, ticketing and Fin, its AI agent. Priced per seat, plus a fee each time Fin resolves a conversation.

Good at

• Fin, its AI agent, and Copilot, which drafts answers for your team.
• Ticketing, workflows and SLAs for bigger support teams.
• Product tours and surveys, as a paid add-on.

Worth knowing

• No free plan. Essential is $39 per seat a month, or $29 billed yearly.
• Fin costs $0.99 per outcome, on every plan.
• EU or Australian data hosting is for new workspaces on Advanced and Expert, on a contract.

LiveChat

One of the oldest live chat tools. New customers now get its plans under a new name, Text. Existing LiveChat customers keep their plans.

Good at

• Website chat, WhatsApp, Messenger, SMS and email in one inbox.
• Over 200 integrations.
• Apps for iOS, Android and desktop.

Worth knowing

• Priced per user: Essential is $25 a month, or $19 billed yearly. Growth is $99, or $79 yearly.
• Essential keeps 60 days of chat history and includes 10 AI resolutions a month.
• API calls are metered: 10,000 a month on Essential.

Sources

• Crisp: crisp.chat/en/pricing and Crisp EU GDPR compliance status
• tawk.to: FAQs, add-on pricing, AI Assist billing, where data is hosted, REST API
• Tidio: pricing, FAQ, API availability, webhooks
• Chatwoot: cloud pricing, self-hosted plans, mobile apps, licence
• Intercom: pricing, pricing FAQs, regional data hosting
• LiveChat: pricing, data centre in Europe
• Ad blockers: the AdGuard widget filter, and 13 more lists from uBlock Origin, AdGuard, EasyList, Brave and Peter Lowe, run through the Ghostery blocking engine on 16 October 2026

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