A free chatbot that answers your website's FAQs (and knows when to fetch you)

What you'll have in half an hour: a friendly chat bubble on your website (and on Instagram or Messenger, if you like) that answers your most-asked questions on the spot. Opening hours, prices, delivery, where you are. Anything it can't handle, it quietly passes to you. It works while you sleep, and while you're serving the customer standing in front of you.

Repetitive questions are the tax on being reachable. Ask any shop owner: it's the same handful, over and over. A chatbot that fields the easy ones frees you up for the ones that actually need a person. This is the website-and-social twin of the free WhatsApp playbook. Pick whichever channel your customers actually use.

Is this for you?

Build it if you have a website (or an active Instagram or Facebook) and the same questions keep coming in. Skip it, and use the free WhatsApp app instead, if most of your customers reach you on WhatsApp, or if you get so many web chats that you'd blow through the free tier in days (see the ceiling below). No website yet? Then this isn't your first playbook. Start with receipts or WhatsApp.

What it costs

S$0 up to 50 conversations a month. After that it's paid, or it pauses. Tidio's free plan includes 50 conversations/month, up to 10 operators, chatbot flows, and its Lyro AI for a limited number of messages, with no credit card to start (Tidio pricing, 13 Jul 2026). Take that number seriously. A quiet website sits comfortably under 50. A busy one hits it in days, and then you either pay or the bot goes quiet. If you're high-volume, the free WhatsApp app has no such cap. Better you hear that now than after you've built it.

Before you start (5 minutes)

Sign up free at tidio.com. No card. Have your website login handy if you want the bubble on your site: you'll paste a small snippet, or install a plugin if you're on Shopify or WordPress.

Build it, step by step

Step 1 — Add the chat bubble (10 minutes)

In Tidio, go to Settings → Installation. Either copy the snippet it gives you and paste it into your website (your web person or site builder has a "custom code / header" box for exactly this), or install the Tidio plugin or app for your platform. Rather skip the website? Connect Instagram or Messenger from the Channels menu instead.

Step 2 — Build a simple FAQ flow (15 minutes)

In Chatbots / Flows, start from a template or a blank flow. Build a small tree: a greeting, then buttons for your top questions (Opening hours, Prices, Delivery, Where are you?), each leading to a short canned answer you write yourself. End every branch with a "Talk to a person" option that collects the visitor's name and message, or shows your WhatsApp, so nobody hits a dead end. Keep it to five buttons. More than that and people stop reading.

Step 3 (optional) — Let AI answer in sentences

Tidio's Lyro AI can answer in natural language from information you give it, within the free message allowance (Tidio). Feed it your FAQ text and it handles the phrasings you didn't script. Treat those free AI messages as limited, though. The button flow is your reliable backbone. AI is the bonus.

Step 4 — Publish

Turn the flow on / publish it. The bubble goes live.

Test it works (2 minutes)

Open your website in a private browser window (or your Instagram from another account). The chat bubble should appear. Click a FAQ button and check the right answer comes back. Then try "talk to a person" and make sure the hand-off works and you get notified.

When it doesn't

• No bubble on the site. The snippet is in the wrong place, or the plugin isn't activated. Re-check Settings → Installation. On WordPress or Shopify, the plugin route saves you fiddling with code.
• The flow doesn't run. It's saved but not published. Publish it, and make sure it's set as the active/default flow.
• The bot's gone silent for everyone. Check your conversation count in the dashboard. You may have hit the free 50/month. That's the ceiling, not a fault. Decide whether to pay, or move this job to WhatsApp.

Your data

Visitors type names, emails and questions into the chat. That's personal data, and it lives on Tidio's servers, overseas. Under the PDPA, collect it for the stated purpose (helping them), link your privacy page from the site, and don't recycle captured emails into marketing without consent. Only ask for what you need. A name and the question is usually enough.

Switch it off

Remove the snippet or deactivate the plugin and the bubble vanishes. Delete the Tidio account to remove the data. It's free, so there's no billing to stop. Just don't upgrade unless the volume is really worth it.

What's next

Grab the FAQ flow starter: a ready-made tree of the five questions most Singapore shops get, so you fill in answers instead of building from scratch. If your real crowd is on WhatsApp rather than your website, the WhatsApp auto-reply playbook does the same job with no monthly ceiling.

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