Zoho SalesIQ Pricing Explained: Free Plan Limits & Costs

What Zoho SalesIQ actually is

SalesIQ is Zoho's live chat and visitor tracking tool. It puts a chat widget on your website, lets your team reply from a shared inbox, and adds a no-code bot builder called Zobot. There's also a Zia AI answer bot that can handle common questions on its own.

The big draw is the Zoho connection. If you already use Zoho CRM, Zoho Desk, or Zoho Bookings, SalesIQ plugs straight in. A visitor who starts a chat can become a contact in your CRM without any manual copying. For Zoho users, that's a real time-saver.

If you're not a Zoho customer, SalesIQ still works fine as a standalone chat tool. You just lose the main reason to pick it over something else.

The free plan: what you really get

Here's the headline: the free plan includes 3 operators and 100 chats per month. That's it — it's a standing free tier rather than a timed trial.

For a very small business, that can be genuinely enough. Think of a one-person shop or a small service business that gets a handful of chat conversations a week, mostly questions about opening hours and availability.

The catch is the word "chats." Once you pass 100 in a billing month, you're at the end of the allowance until it resets. There's no soft landing. On a busy site — a product launch, a sale, a seasonal rush — you can burn through 100 chats in a few days.

The visitor and bot session caps also need watching on busy sites. Those limits aren't the same as your chat count, and they can trip you up if you're running bots or tracking a lot of traffic. Check the vendor's site for the current session allowances before you commit.

So the free plan is real, not a teaser. It's just sized for quiet sites, not busy ones.

Where the free plan limits start to hurt

The free tier tends to break down in three situations.

• **You grow past 100 chats a month.** This is the obvious one. A modest uptick in traffic and you're suddenly deciding whether to turn the widget off.
• **You need more than 3 people answering.** Three operators sounds like plenty until someone's on holiday or you add a second shift.
• **You want real AI or smart routing.** The best AI and routing features sit on the Professional tier and up. The free plan gives you the basics, not the clever stuff.

There's also a softer issue: the interface. SalesIQ's dashboard is dense. If you're new to Zoho's way of doing things, it can feel like a lot of buttons. It's not hard once you learn it, but it's not the friendliest first impression either.

Paid plans: what you pay and why

Paid SalesIQ starts at $7 per operator per month, billed yearly. That's the cheapest paid entry of any tool in our comparison list — noticeably below Tidio's $24.17 a month and Crisp's €45 per workspace.

The per-operator model is worth understanding. You pay for each person who answers chats, so your bill tracks headcount: every operator you add carries that per-operator rate. It stays cheap, but it's not a flat fee.

What does paying actually unlock? More operators, higher chat and session allowances, and access to the Professional tier features — the better AI and routing tools. If your site is busy or your team is bigger than three, you'll need a paid plan. The exact allowances shift, so check the vendor's site for current pricing and limits rather than trusting an old blog post.

The honest summary: SalesIQ is the budget option. You get a lot for the money, but you're not getting the polish or the deepest AI of the pricier tools. For a small team that mostly needs chat plus Zoho sync, that trade is often worth it.

How Zoho SalesIQ compares to Tidio and Crisp

Pricing only means something next to the alternatives. Here's how the three stack up for a small business.

**Tidio** starts at $24.17 a month billed yearly, with a free plan capped at 50 conversations a month. That's a smaller free tier than SalesIQ's 100 chats. But Tidio is much easier to set up — its onboarding is designed to get live chat running in under 10 minutes, which is the vendor's own claim — and its Lyro AI answers questions from your FAQ automatically. The first 50 AI conversations are free for life. Tidio is built for small e-commerce stores, with deep Shopify, WordPress, and WooCommerce integrations. Downsides: Lyro credits run out fast on cheaper plans, and advanced analytics are locked to higher tiers.

**Crisp** starts at €45 per workspace per month, with a free plan covering 2 seats and no AI credits. The flat per-workspace pricing is the draw — it's cheap for big teams because you don't pay per person. Chatbot, shared inbox, and campaigns are all included. But the AI is lighter than Tidio's, the free tier has zero AI credits, and there are fewer deep integrations.

So where does that leave SalesIQ? It wins on price and on Zoho integration. It loses on ease of use and AI depth. Tidio is the better pick for an online store that wants AI answers without fuss. Crisp is the better pick for a larger team that wants one flat bill. SalesIQ is the better pick if you're already in the Zoho world or you're squeezing every dollar.

Who should pick which

A quick gut-check to help you decide:

• **Choose Zoho SalesIQ** if you already use Zoho CRM or Desk, you have a small team, and price is the top priority. The free plan is a genuine starting point, and the paid jump is small.
• **Choose Tidio** if you run an online store and want AI answering common questions fast. Its onboarding is the quickest in this comparison, and the e-commerce integrations are strong.
• **Choose Crisp** if you have a bigger team and want predictable flat pricing. Per-workspace billing rewards headcount.

One more piece of advice: start on the free plan of whichever tool you pick. All three have one. Run it for a month on your real traffic and see where the limits actually land. You'll learn more from that than from any pricing page — including this one.