AI chatbots for Singapore SMEs: Tidio vs Chatbase vs DIY (2026)

The short answer: if your customers write long, back-and-forth messages (bookings, complaints, "can you check my order"), Tidio's per-conversation pricing is the safer meter. If they ask short, one-shot questions your documents can answer ("what's the price", "do you deliver"), Chatbase's per-reply pricing can be roughly ten times cheaper. And if you get fewer than ~50 enquiries a month, you probably shouldn't pay either — the DIY path at the bottom costs S$0. One more thing nobody selling chatbots mentions: PSG will fund up to 50% of a pre-approved vendor's chatbot — which neither of these tools is.

At a glance (prices checked 15 Jul 2026)

What you're actually buying

Tidio is a customer-service suite that grew an AI: live chat, ticketing, social channels, and Lyro answering inside it. You're buying an inbox your staff will also use. Its meter is generous per interaction — a customer can go away, come back, argue about a refund across twenty messages, and it's still one Lyro conversation at ~US$0.65–0.78 depending on billing term [1].

Chatbase is an AI agent you train on your documents and put on your site (voice and telephony on higher tiers). Its meter charges per model reply — a 500-credit Hobby plan is ~US$0.06–0.08 per simple answer [2][3], brilliant for FAQ traffic, but a single chatty visitor can burn a stack of credits, and premium models (Claude Opus-class at 6 credits [3]) multiply the burn.

The decision-flip, in numbers: 200 short FAQ answers ≈ 200–400 Chatbase credits (inside the Hobby plan) vs 200 Tidio Lyro conversations ≈ US$140+ on the ladder. Flip the shape — 200 long service conversations — and Chatbase's credits evaporate mid-month while Tidio's flat conversations plod on. Count your last month's enquiries and sort them into "one answer" vs "a conversation" before you pick a vendor. That's the whole comparison.

A display note that prevents a false "your numbers are wrong" moment: both vendors' pricing pages default to showing annual-billed rates — the monthly figures in brackets appear when you flip their billing toggle.

Two free-tier traps, verbatim from their own pages: Tidio's free AI allowance is lifetime, not monthly — 50 Lyro conversations once, ever [1]. Chatbase's renews monthly, but a free-plan agent is deleted after 14 days of inactivity [3] — build it, ignore it for a fortnight, and it's gone.

Singapore-specific notes

• There is a PSG grant category for chatbots — "Chatbots for Customer Engagement", up to 50% support for SMEs, via pre-approved vendors on GoBusiness [4]. Tidio and Chatbase are not in it — they're buy-direct tools. So the real Singapore decision is three-way: DIY free, buy-direct at US$29–40/mo, or a PSG-supported vendor build (get the grant-vs-direct math and read the markup check first — a 50% grant on an inflated quote is not a saving).
• Billing is USD on both (+ GST where applicable); no SGD price lists.
• PDPA: customer chats land on these vendors' overseas clouds. State a purpose, link your privacy note, and don't repurpose captured emails into marketing without consent — same rules as our chatbot playbook.

Which one for which business

• Service-heavy (salon, clinic, agency, anything with bookings and back-and-forth): Tidio — the conversation meter matches your traffic, and your staff get an inbox.
• Information-heavy (e-commerce FAQs, price lists, policies, a menu): Chatbase — train it on your documents, pay cents per answer.
• Under ~50 enquiries a month, or WhatsApp-first: DIY below. Don't subscribe to anything yet.
• Determined to have it built and grant-funded: a PSG pre-approved vendor [4] — with the markup check in hand.

You might need neither if…

…your enquiries are few, repetitive, and mostly on WhatsApp. The free WhatsApp Business app answers after-hours and templates your top five replies (20-minute playbook), and a free FAQ flow covers the website widget on Tidio's own free plan. A chatbot subscription earns its keep on volume; below ~50 enquiries a month it's a hobby with a monthly fee.

Your first build, step by step

The honest first step is not buying — it's testing on free tiers, which both vendors allow without a card [1][2]:

1. Sort last month's enquiries: one-shot answers vs conversations (ten minutes with your chat history).
2. Information-shaped? Chatbase free: upload your price list/FAQ doc, test 20 real questions against its 50 monthly credits — and set a weekly reminder so the 14-day deletion doesn't eat your agent [3].
3. Conversation-shaped? Tidio free: build the five-button FAQ flow from our template, then spend the one-off 50 Lyro conversations deliberately in a single busy week to judge the AI [1].
4. Whichever survives contact with real customers, then price its paid tier against the table above.

FAQ

Can either answer on WhatsApp? Meaningfully, that's WhatsApp Business Platform territory with per-message Meta fees on top — a different economics entirely: WhatsApp app vs API.

Will the AI say something wrong to a customer? Sometimes, which is why every branch should end with a human handoff, and why Chatbase's premium-model option (better answers, 3–6 credits each [3]) is a cost decision, not just a quality one.

Is DIY really comparable? For FAQ deflection, honestly, mostly yes — that's why it's in the table. What you give up is polish, analytics, and someone else maintaining it. What you keep is S$0 and your data pathway under your control.

What about the PSG chatbot vendors? Different product class: built-for-you, contract-based, grant-eligible [4]. Right for some — after the 7 questions that expose a grant farmer.

Next step

Do the ten-minute enquiry sort, run the free-tier test that matches your shape, and only then subscribe. If the test tells you "neither", the WhatsApp playbook is your S$0 answer this afternoon.

Sources

1. Tidio pricing: tidio.com/pricing/ — fetched 15 Jul 2026
2. Chatbase pricing: chatbase.co/pricing — fetched 15 Jul 2026
3. Chatbase docs FAQ (credits per model, renewal, deletion, out-of-credits): chatbase.co/docs/faq/faq — fetched 15 Jul 2026
4. GoBusiness — PSG Chatbots for Customer Engagement: gobusiness.gov.sg/browse-all-solutions-chatbots-for-customer-engagement/chatbots-for-customer-engagement — fetched 15 Jul 2026
5. Tidio affiliate program: tidio.com/affiliate-program/ — fetched 15 Jul 2026
6. Chatbase affiliate terms: chatbase.co/affiliates/terms — fetched 15 Jul 2026