Tidio, Crisp, Intercom, respond.io, Chatling: five AI customer messaging tools compared

Five tools come up in almost every shortlist when a small business wants an AI agent on WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger and its website: Tidio, Crisp, Intercom, respond.io and Chatling. They are not five versions of the same product. Two are chat widgets that grew an AI, one is an enterprise support suite, one is a broadcasting platform, one is a bot builder.

This roundup says what each one is, how it bills, and who it fits, with the figures read on each vendor's own pricing page in September 2026. Prices change; check the vendor's page before you decide. Each section links to a full row-by-row comparison with Magnitude.

Tidio: live chat first, Lyro on top

Tidio started as a website chat widget with visual flows, and added the Lyro agent later. Lyro learns your pages and documents, which makes it good at "what is your return policy" and weak at "do you still have a 42 in black", because stock is not in a document. It bills per conversation: Lyro starts at $32.50 a month for 50 AI conversations on top of the plan, and the plans run from a free tier to Starter at $24.17, Growth from $49.17 and Plus from $300 a month plus usage.

Fits: a site where live chat is the main channel, answers that fit an FAQ, and a team that wants a free plan to start. Magnitude vs Tidio, row by row.

Crisp: a shared inbox with many channels

Crisp is a shared inbox built in France that connects eleven channels, including Telegram, Viber and Line, at a flat price per workspace: free with two seats and no AI credits, then Mini at $45, Essentials at $95 and Plus at $295 a month. AI is a credit meter per plan, around 90 automated conversations on Mini and 450 on Essentials; past the quota you top up.

Fits: a team that needs channels beyond the big five and prefers a fixed monthly price with AI as an add-on. Magnitude vs Crisp, row by row.

Intercom: the enterprise support suite

Intercom equips support teams of dozens with tickets, help centres, campaigns and phone. Seats run from $29 to $132 per person per month on annual billing, and the Fin agent is charged per outcome, from $0.99 per resolved conversation, with a minimum commitment when used on its own. The total tracks both your headcount and your volume.

Fits: a support organisation with a help centre, several teams and a budget per seat. Magnitude vs Intercom, row by row.

respond.io: built for volume and broadcasts

respond.io counts monthly active contacts and sells broadcasts, workflows and a shared inbox across WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, SMS, email and calls. Starter is $79 a month for five users; Growth is $159 for ten users and 1,000 active contacts, and that is where AI usage is included; Advanced is $279. For a brand sending WhatsApp campaigns to thousands of customers, the model is coherent.

Fits: marketing-led teams with a large contact base and campaign volume. Magnitude vs respond.io, row by row.

Chatling: a bot from your documents

Chatling builds an AI chatbot from your pages and PDFs, up to 100 million characters of knowledge, and bills in credits: 200 on Free, 1,750 on Starter at $25 a month, 6,000 on Growth at $75, 35,000 on Scale at $295. It is the bot alone: the inbox, the customer record, teams and a handoff to a person have to come from somewhere else.

Fits: documentation and FAQ answering on a website, with a small budget and no need for a shared inbox. Magnitude vs Chatling, row by row.

How to choose, in eight questions

Every comparison on this site uses the same eight rows, because they are the eight questions that actually decide the purchase.

• Which channels your customers write on, not which ones the tool lists.
• How the AI is priced: per conversation, per outcome, in credits, or included.
• The entry price for a team of two to ten, with the seats it includes.
• Whether the agent reads live data (stock, prices, availability) or only documents.
• What the person taking over sees: the same thread, the record, a note, or a fresh ticket.
• Languages, without configuring one agent per language.
• Whether you can test a version against real past conversations before publishing.
• Who you are: a support organisation, a marketing team, or a shop with two people on the phone.

The cheapest tool is the one whose meter you never have to watch. Per-conversation and credit pricing reward a quiet month and punish a good one.

Where Magnitude sits

Magnitude is an agent wired to your data, sold as one workspace: WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, email and website chat in one thread, a customer record the agent fills in, a named handoff to a person, and a test lab that scores every version before it goes live. It is built for a shop, a hotel, a practice, a small agency: two to ten people whose messages arrive on WhatsApp and Instagram and who sell as much as they answer. The price is agreed on your channels and volume; the 14-day trial asks for no card.