AI Chatbot Alternatives
Seventeen AI support platforms, sorted by how they actually charge you because the pricing model decides your bill far more than the headline price does.
All vendor pricing read first-party in August 2026.
How do AI chatbot platforms charge?
AI support chatbots use five pricing models: a flat monthly fee with a message or credit quota, a per-seat fee plus a per-resolution charge, per conversation or per ticket, a flat workspace fee with AI credits, or quote-only. Flat-quota vendors are cheapest at high volume because the cost has a ceiling. Per-resolution vendors are cheapest at low volume because you pay nothing when the AI answers nothing.
Last reviewed 10 August 2026 · all vendor pricing checked August 2026
Start with the pricing model, not the price
Most AI chatbot comparisons line up monthly prices in a table. That is close to useless, because the vendors are not selling the same unit. One charges for messages, another for credits that a single message may consume five of, another only when a conversation is resolved, and another per human seat before the AI does anything.
The useful first question is which model you are buying into, because that decides how your bill behaves when your traffic changes. We read all seventeen vendors’ pricing pages in August 2026 and sorted them into five models.
How 17 AI chatbot platforms charge
| Pricing model | How the bill behaves | Vendors using it |
|---|---|---|
| Flat monthly + message or credit quota | Predictable. Fixed ceiling. You pay the same on a quiet month. | Chatbase, SiteGPT, DocsBot, Botsonic, CustomGPT, Wonderchat, Dante AI, WhisperChat |
| Per seat + per resolution | Scales with both team size and AI volume. No ceiling. | Intercom (Fin), Zendesk, Freshdesk, HubSpot |
| Per conversation or per ticket | Scales with traffic, human and AI conversations alike. | Tidio, Gorgias, Kommunicate |
| Flat per workspace + AI credits | Team size does not change the base; AI usage does. | Crisp |
| Quote only | Cannot be estimated without contacting sales. | Ada, Voiceflow |
Four of the seventeen publish too little to budget against
Ada publishes no pricing at all its pricing page offers a consultation booking. Voiceflow’s documentation states that current rates are visible only inside the product. Zendesk publishes Suite seat prices but not the rate for the automated resolutions it bills on. Gorgias documents the mechanism a billable ticket fee plus an outcome fee without stating either rate. This is an observation about disclosure, not a judgement about cost. But if you need to model a budget before a sales call, those four cannot be modelled.
Published AI pricing where a rate exists
| Vendor | Published AI rate | Included allowance |
|---|---|---|
| Intercom (Fin) | $0.99 per outcome | None charged from the first resolution |
| Freshdesk (Freddy) | $0.49 per session beyond the allowance | First 500 sessions, on every plan |
| HubSpot (Customer Agent) | 50 credits per resolution at $0.010 per credit | 500 / 3,000 / 5,000 credits by tier |
| Gorgias | Rate not published in documentation | 90 to 2,500+ automated interactions by tier |
| Zendesk | Rate not published | Not published |
| WhisperChat | No separate AI charge | 150 free, then ~5,000 to ~40,000 questions by plan |
How to read the HubSpot row
HubSpot’s figures are the clearest illustration of why included allowances matter more than headline prices. At 50 credits per resolved conversation, the Starter plan’s 500 included credits cover about 10 resolutions a month. A site handling 500 support questions a month would need roughly 25,000 credits, which at $0.010 each is about $250 on top of seats. Every input there is published by HubSpot; the multiplication is ours.
Choosing between them
Do you need humans answering chats?
Answer this before anything else, because it eliminates most of the list. Tidio, Crisp, Intercom, Zendesk, Freshdesk, Gorgias, Kommunicate, and HubSpot all include a shared inbox where your team replies to customers. Chatbase, SiteGPT, DocsBot, Botsonic, CustomGPT, Wonderchat, Dante AI, and WhisperChat do not they answer automatically and hand off by capturing a contact. If your team works out of an inbox today, the second group is not a replacement at any price.
How many separate chatbots do you need?
Agencies and multi-brand businesses get caught here. SiteGPT allows 1 to 3 chatbots across its published tiers and CustomGPT allows 10 to 25; WhisperChat allows 10 on its $49 plan and 40 on its $399 plan. A vendor that looks cheaper per message can cost more once you need six separate bots.
How large is your content, and how often does it change?
Several vendors publish source limits: SiteGPT at 1,000 to 50,000 pages, DocsBot at 50 to 100,000 source pages, CustomGPT at 60 to 300 million words. WhisperChat publishes no page limit, which cuts both ways no stated ceiling, but no stated guarantee either. If your documentation changes weekly, also check for scheduled re-crawling: SiteGPT, Chatbase, and CustomGPT offer it on paid tiers; WhisperChat currently requires manual retraining.
Does a free plan actually let you evaluate?
Check the expiry terms, not just the quota. Chatbase gives 50 message credits and deletes agents after 14 days of inactivity. DocsBot gives 100 AI credits with a 30-day bot lifetime. Wonderchat gives 20 credits, roughly 10 resolutions. WhisperChat gives 150 questions a month with no expiry. SiteGPT, Botsonic, CustomGPT and Kommunicate have no free plan at all, only trials of 7 to 30 days.
Where WhisperChat fits, and where it does not
WhisperChat is in the flat-quota group: a free plan covering 150 questions a month, then $49 for around 5,000, $149 for around 10,000, and $399 for around 40,000. There is no per-seat charge and no separate AI meter, so the monthly cost is fixed by the plan.
It is a reasonable choice if you want website questions answered automatically at a predictable cost, you need several chatbots, or you are on WordPress or Odoo and want the dedicated integration.
It is the wrong choice if your team answers live chats, if you need ticketing, if you need voice or WhatsApp, or if you have compliance requirements WhisperChat has no shared inbox, no ticketing system, no phone or messaging channels, and no compliance certification. Several products on this page have all of those, and the individual comparisons say so.
Detailed comparisons
Each page below compares one product against WhisperChat on published pricing, plan limits, and capabilities including where the other product is the better choice.
Chatbase alternative
Flat quota pricing on both sides. Chatbase is cheaper below ~1,000 questions a month; WhisperChat is cheaper above ~3,000 and has a free tier that does not delete inactive bots.
Tidio alternative
Tidio bundles live chat with a separately metered AI agent. If nobody on your team answers chats by hand, most of what you pay for goes unused.
Intercom alternative
Fin is $0.99 per resolution on top of $29–$132 per seat. At 1,000 resolutions a month that is roughly $990 in AI charges alone worth checking your actual number.
SiteGPT alternative
The closest product to WhisperChat, and cheaper per message at every paid tier. WhisperChat’s advantages are the free plan and 10–40 chatbots against SiteGPT’s 1–3.
Head-to-head comparisons are also available for WhisperChat vs Chatbase, WhisperChat vs SiteGPT, WhisperChat vs Botsonic, and WhisperChat vs Wonderchat. For a broader view of what these platforms cost, see AI chatbot pricing and free AI chatbots for websites.
Try the flat-quota model free
WhisperChat’s free plan covers 150 customer questions a month with no expiry, so you can judge it on real conversations rather than a 7-day trial.
Start FreeFAQ
Which AI chatbot pricing model is cheapest?
Why do some vendors not publish pricing?
What is the difference between a message, a credit, and a resolution?
Is a free AI chatbot plan enough to evaluate one?
How often does AI chatbot pricing change?
How we researched this comparison
- Written by
- WhisperChat Research
- Competitor pricing checked
- Published
- Last reviewed
Where the numbers come from
Every competitor price, plan limit, and quota on this page was read from that vendor’s own public pricing page or documentation on the date shown above. Where a vendor does not publish a figure, this page says so rather than estimating one.
What we have not done
We have not run a hands-on trial of the competing products, and we do not claim to have. This page compares published capabilities and published pricing. Anything that would require using the product to know — answer quality, support responsiveness, reliability — is outside what we can honestly assess here.
How we decide who wins a row
A row goes to the product whose published information supports it. Where a competitor is stronger than WhisperChat, the page says so. Where a competitor costs less than WhisperChat at a given volume, the page shows both numbers.
What we do about stale prices
AI chatbot pricing changes often. Each page shows the month its competitor pricing was checked. If that date is more than a few months old, check the vendor’s pricing page before making a decision on it.
Sources
Every competitor figure on this page was read from these pages on the dates shown. Prices change — check the source before making a decision on it.
- Chatbase pricingChecked August 2026
- Tidio pricingChecked August 2026
- Intercom pricingChecked August 2026
- SiteGPT pricingChecked August 2026
- DocsBot pricingChecked August 2026
- Botsonic pricingChecked August 2026
- CustomGPT pricingChecked August 2026
- Wonderchat pricingChecked August 2026
- Crisp pricingChecked August 2026
- Kommunicate pricingChecked August 2026
- Zendesk pricingChecked August 2026 — Suite seats published; automated-resolution rate not
- Freshdesk pricingChecked August 2026
- HubSpot Service Hub pricingChecked August 2026
- Gorgias billing documentationChecked August 2026 — billing mechanism only; rates not stated
- Ada pricingChecked August 2026 — no pricing published
- Voiceflow billing documentationChecked August 2026 — defers to in-product rates