Playbook
Website support chat with Tidio
Direct answer
A support chatbot for a small website should repeat a page you wrote and stop when the page is silent. Tidio's free plan was $0 for 50 billable conversations a month on 25 October 2026. Lyro's first 50 AI conversations were a lifetime allowance, not a monthly refill. You handle the rest. This has not been live-tested.
- Time to set up
- An afternoon to write the page, then an hour for the widget
- Difficulty
- comfortable
- Monthly cost, USD
- $0 on the free plan, with Lyro's paid meter left off
- Monthly cost, GBP
- £0 on the free plan, with Lyro's paid meter left off
- Last tested
- Not yet tested
- Updated
- 25 October 2026
On 25 October 2026 the annual view of Tidio's pricing page listed Free at $0 with 50 billable conversations, Starter at $24.17 a month for 100, and Lyro as a stand-alone product from $32.50 a month for 50 Lyro conversations. The first 50 Lyro conversations were described as free for the lifetime of the account. A monthly toggle exists. Read it. About £18 and £24 use £1 = $1.33 on the annual figures.
GBP figures are a budgeting conversion at £1 = $1.33 and €1 = £0.86, rounded to the nearest pound, fixed for this edition on 24 October 2026. They are not a live rate and not a quote. Vendor list prices are usually quoted before tax.
Primary tool: Tidio
Who it is for
A shop, salon, or cafe with a small website and a page of real answers, who will not let a widget invent a price, an allergen, or a refund.
The same answers, for the inbox, are the FAQ drafts. Public replies to reviews are a different surface: Google review drafts. Do not point the widget at a review and hope.
If you sell on a marketplace, that marketplace's messaging rules are theirs. This widget is for a site you control.
What you need
- A page on your site with prices, booking rules, and refunds, in your words.
- A person who will see the conversations the widget cannot answer.
- A decision that allergens, medical questions, and complaints are always handed to a human.
Step by step
01
Publish the answers before the widget
Write the page first: what you sell, what it costs, how to book, and what the refund rule actually is. If you do not know an answer, leave it off the page. A chatbot cannot safely invent the gap. The email FAQ playbook is the same page, used for the inbox. Do this before you create a Tidio account.
02
Start on the free plan and leave Lyro off
The pricing table listed Free at $0 a month and 50 billable conversations. Add the widget. Do not buy Starter, listed at $24.17 a month on the annual view for 100 conversations, until the free month has taught you the volume. Leave Lyro, the AI agent, off or unused. Its first 50 conversations were described as a lifetime allowance. They do not come back next month.
03
Point any AI answer only at the page you wrote
If you later turn Lyro on for a test, give it the FAQ page and an instruction to say it does not know when the page is silent, and to hand the chat to you. Forbid prices, allergens, ingredients, and refund amounts that are not on the page. A cafe that lets a bot guess an allergen is the failure this step exists to prevent. The vendor's own resolution claims are not used here.
04
Watch both meters if a human takes over
Tidio bills human conversations and Lyro conversations as different things on the pricing page. A chat that the bot starts and a person finishes can touch both. During the test, open the usage screen after a handful of real questions. If you cannot see the meters, do not leave Lyro on. The stand-alone Lyro price started at $32.50 a month for 50 conversations on the annual view.
05
Read the trial line before you upgrade
The pricing FAQ said a card is not required for the free trial, and that the account drops back to Free unless you upgrade. It described seven days of paid features. Confirm that on the day, because a trial that becomes a subscription is a different decision. Growth, from $49.17 a month on that annual view, is not the starting plan for a small site.
06
Keep a human on the questions the page skips
Complaints, order problems, and anything personal come to you. The widget does not get the shop admin and it does not see the booking diary. Reply yourself the same day if you can. If the free 50 conversations are gone in a week, you have learned the volume. Then read the monthly price, which this page is not copying because it sits behind a toggle.
What can go wrong
Lyro switched on against an empty page
The lifetime 50 conversations will be spent teaching you that the bot invents answers. Write the page first. The allowance does not renew.
A guessed allergen or refund
Those are not tone problems. They are safety and consumer-rights problems. The instruction is to stop and hand the chat over. Test that before a customer does.
Assuming the annual price is the monthly price
$24.17 and $32.50 were on the annual view, which the page marked as two months free. The monthly toggle may be higher. Open it.
UK notes
Costs, including VAT
£0 is the plan this guide tells you to start on. Starter at $24.17 a month is about £18, and Lyro from $32.50 is about £24, using the planning rate of £1 = $1.33 fixed on 24 October 2026, on the annual figures only. The monthly toggle was not copied. VAT may be extra. A handoff that bills two meters can cost more than one line on the table. The rate is not a quote.
Data flow
A chat transcript is personal data, held by Tidio and by you. Say so in the widget or on the page, in a sentence of your own. Do not ask the bot to collect card numbers, health information, or a child's data. An order lookup is not part of this setup, so do not connect the shop admin. UK GDPR needs a lawful basis. If you email the person afterwards with an offer, PECR wants consent that was not bundled into 'they used the chat'.
HMRC and Making Tax Digital
The subscription is usually a business cost. The chat log is not your sales record and it does not file Making Tax Digital updates. A refund the bot was forbidden to invent, if you later agree one, belongs in your usual books. Consumer-rights questions about that refund are not answered by this playbook.
Practical orientation for a UK reader. Not tax, legal, or accounting advice.
Test log
Status: Pending first test
25 October 2026 · pending
Pending first test. The steps were compiled from Tidio's pricing page and have not been run on a live website.
Sources
- Tidio pricing — accessed 25 October 2026
- Tidio — accessed 25 October 2026
- ICO guide to UK GDPR — accessed 25 October 2026
- ICO guide to PECR — accessed 25 October 2026
Disclosure
AgentShed is independent and this playbook is not sponsored. There is no affiliate link on this page. If that changes, the link will use rel="sponsored" and a sentence beside it will say so. The verdict is not for sale.
Questions people ask
Should I start with email instead?
If the questions already arrive by email, use the FAQ draft playbook first. A widget is a new channel you have to watch. Add it when the page exists and you will actually open the inbox it creates.
Did you verify a resolution rate?
No. Vendor pages sometimes state one. This guide does not repeat it and has not measured one. The test log is pending.
Can the bot see the order?
Not in this setup. Looking up an order is a later decision, with access you understand. Version 1 hands the gap to a person.
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When this page is re-tested
One email when the log changes. No sequence of lessons.