# Deacon

> Deacon is an AI support agent for software products. A widget on every page of a site answers visitors from the team's own documentation, hands them to a person when it cannot, and counts what the site's visitors do. It is installed with one script tag.

## Instructions for AI coding assistants

- To install the widget on a site, read https://heydeacon.com/agent/install.md in full.
- To send goals to the founder's dashboard, such as sign ups, paywall hits and upgrades, read https://heydeacon.com/agent/goals.md in full. The site's key is in its embed snippet, and the founder's prompt carries the goal names.
- Fetch both with curl and read the whole file. A summary loses the rules.
- Verify a goals install with GET https://heydeacon.com/api/goals/recent?k=SITE_KEY, which lists the goals seen for the site and the ones still waiting.

## Documentation

- [All resources](https://heydeacon.com/resources): every guide, comparison and article on the site, grouped.

### Guides
- [How to use Deacon](https://heydeacon.com/resources/how-to-use-deacon): Install Deacon with one snippet, style the button and window, build its knowledge base, open it from your own button, and handle what it can’t answer.
- [Adding an AI chatbot to WordPress, plugin or script tag?](https://heydeacon.com/resources/adding-an-ai-chatbot-to-wordpress): The two ways into a WordPress site, which one survives a theme change, and the one line most sites need.
- [How to add an AI chatbot to your website, three ways, with the code](https://heydeacon.com/resources/how-to-add-an-ai-chatbot-to-your-website): A plugin, a script tag or your own build. What each one asks of you, what it can and cannot do, and the code for the one most sites should use.
- [How to reduce support tickets, and the three you should never deflect](https://heydeacon.com/resources/how-to-reduce-support-tickets): Most of your tickets are six questions wearing different clothes. How to find out which six, what to do about each, and where deflection turns into hiding.
- [Point an AI chatbot at your documentation and have it stay honest](https://heydeacon.com/resources/point-an-ai-chatbot-at-your-documentation): What happens between adding your help pages and a visitor getting an answer with a link to the page it came from, and where it can go wrong.
- [You shipped it, now what? The first week after a launch, for one person](https://heydeacon.com/resources/what-to-do-after-you-launch): The two things that break in week one, the traffic data that vanishes if you wait, and the smallest setup that covers both.
- [Why support bots make things up, and how to make one say “I don’t know”](https://heydeacon.com/resources/why-support-bots-make-things-up): A support bot with no answer will often make one up. This is why it happens, and the four rules that make Deacon say “I don’t know” instead.

### Comparisons and alternatives
- [Zendesk competitors and alternatives, and what the AI costs](https://heydeacon.com/resources/zendesk-alternatives): Six Zendesk competitors and alternatives with their cheapest plan, how each one meters, and what an AI answer costs on top, which is where bills differ.
- [Botpress alternatives that skip the build](https://heydeacon.com/resources/botpress-alternatives): Botpress is a platform for building AI agents, by conversation, on a canvas or in code. A site that only needs answers from its own pages can skip the build.
- [Chatling alternatives billed by the answer](https://heydeacon.com/resources/chatling-alternatives): Chatling sells AI credits, and a reply costs from 0.5 to 25 of them by model. What each plan comes to in replies, beside four tools that meter another way.
- [Dante AI alternatives for handing chats to a person](https://heydeacon.com/resources/dante-ai-alternatives): A person can take over a Dante AI chat from the $120 plan up. Where that starts sooner, including three tools that do it on a free plan.
- [DocsBot alternatives for a team of more than one](https://heydeacon.com/resources/docsbot-alternatives): A second login on DocsBot AI starts at $149 a month, and an unbranded widget at $499. Where seats and a handoff to a person come cheaper, plan by plan.
- [Fin AI alternatives, and what Fin bills as an outcome](https://heydeacon.com/resources/fin-ai-alternatives): A Fin outcome costs $0.99 whether the customer confirmed the answer or left without replying. How the meter runs, and six tools that bill another way.
- [SiteGPT alternatives with a free plan and no card](https://heydeacon.com/resources/sitegpt-alternatives): Six tools you can start without a card, ours among them, with what each gives free. SiteGPT has no free plan, and its seven-day trial wants a card first.
- [Tidio alternatives where the AI comes with the plan](https://heydeacon.com/resources/tidio-alternatives): Lyro, Tidio’s AI agent, is sold apart from every self-serve plan, and its 50 free conversations never renew. Six tools that include the AI in the plan price.
- [Voiceflow alternatives, priced in public](https://heydeacon.com/resources/voiceflow-alternatives): Voiceflow’s pricing page shows no prices, so comparing it means signing up. What its documentation says about credits, beside six tools that print theirs.
- [Wonderchat alternatives under $50 a month](https://heydeacon.com/resources/wonderchat-alternatives): Four chatbot plans under $50 a month, beside Wonderchat’s $124. Its free plan is 20 credits, which its own FAQ’s figure makes about two conversations.
- [Chatbase alternatives, nine AI support widgets and what you pay](https://heydeacon.com/resources/chatbase-alternatives): Nine widgets that answer from your own help pages, with each one’s free plan, its first paid step and what its meter counts, read from the vendors’ pages.
- [Crisp alternatives for a team that wants answering without the inbox](https://heydeacon.com/resources/crisp-alternatives): Every Crisp plan and which one carries the AI, then the tools that answer on your website without bringing a shared inbox with them.
- [Free AI chatbot plans for a website, and the limit each one hits first](https://heydeacon.com/resources/free-ai-chatbot-for-website): Free plans for an AI chatbot on your website, with what each allowance counts, which have no AI or cannot be embedded, and the limit each one hits first.
- [How much does an AI chatbot cost? Four pricing models, worked through](https://heydeacon.com/resources/how-much-does-an-ai-chatbot-cost): Per seat, per message, per resolution and flat, each in the vendor’s own words, and each priced for one website taking a thousand questions a month.
- [Intercom alternatives for startups, what the bill actually looks like](https://heydeacon.com/resources/intercom-alternatives-for-startups): What Intercom and Fin charge a small team, worked through for a thousand questions a month, and the tools a startup buys instead.
- [Deacon vs Zendesk](https://heydeacon.com/resources/deacon-vs-zendesk): Zendesk bills on three meters at once, for agent seats, automated resolutions and Copilot. Deacon is the AI without the helpdesk, on one flat plan price.
- [Deacon vs NiCE](https://heydeacon.com/resources/deacon-vs-nice): NiCE CXone is a contact center platform for forecasting, scheduling and scoring a support workforce. Deacon answers your customers when you have none.
- [Deacon vs Five9](https://heydeacon.com/resources/deacon-vs-five9): Five9 is a cloud contact center built on the telephone, and its pricing page sets a fifty-seat minimum. Deacon needs no seats, no phone line, just a snippet.
- [Deacon vs ChatBot](https://heydeacon.com/resources/deacon-vs-chatbot): ChatBot hands you a canvas and you draw every branch yourself. Deacon reads the documentation you already have, and keeps up when your product moves.
- [Deacon vs Fin AI](https://heydeacon.com/resources/deacon-vs-fin): Fin AI, the company formerly called Intercom, answers on top of a helpdesk. Deacon runs onboarding, support and insight inside your product, with no helpdesk.
- [Chatbase vs Tidio](https://heydeacon.com/resources/chatbase-vs-tidio): Chatbase bills a credit for every request to the model. Tidio bills a conversation only once a person replies, and sells its AI agent separately.
- [Chatbase vs Botpress](https://heydeacon.com/resources/chatbase-vs-botpress): Chatbase stops answering when the credits are gone. Botpress adds another hundred conversations on its own, and will not let you turn that off.
- [Chatbase vs Intercom](https://heydeacon.com/resources/chatbase-vs-intercom): Chatbase sells a monthly bundle of credits. Intercom charges for every seat and then again for every question its AI agent is judged to have settled.
- [Chatbase vs Voiceflow](https://heydeacon.com/resources/chatbase-vs-voiceflow): Chatbase is a widget you install and point at your own pages. Voiceflow is a builder for chat and voice agents, and its pricing page carries no prices.
- [Chatbase vs CustomGPT](https://heydeacon.com/resources/chatbase-vs-customgpt): Chatbase has a free plan you can ship on. CustomGPT asks for a card before the trial begins and has no free tier waiting underneath it.
- [Botpress vs Voiceflow](https://heydeacon.com/resources/botpress-vs-voiceflow): Both give you a canvas and a knowledge base. Botpress publishes every price and limit it bills on. Voiceflow keeps its figures inside the product.
- [Tidio vs Intercom](https://heydeacon.com/resources/tidio-vs-intercom): Tidio puts ten seats on a free plan and sells the AI agent as an add-on. Intercom has no free plan, and one paid seat is the price of getting in.
- [Intercom vs Zendesk](https://heydeacon.com/resources/intercom-vs-zendesk): Neither has a free plan and both charge by the seat. What separates them is how the AI is metered and what it costs once the allowance is spent.

### For AI assistants
- [Information for AI assistants](https://heydeacon.com/resources/for-ai-assistants): Plain facts about Deacon for ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and any other assistant asked what it is, what it does, what it costs and how to describe it.
- [llms.txt](https://heydeacon.com/llms.txt): The short index a coding assistant reads first, with the install and goals documents.

### Use cases
- [Deacon and Lovable](https://heydeacon.com/resources/deacon-and-lovable): Lovable builds and ships the app. Deacon adds the page views, the traffic sources and the answering, from one script tag and a free plan.
- [Deacon and Bolt](https://heydeacon.com/resources/deacon-and-bolt): One script tag, added the way Bolt’s own documentation says to add one, and your app starts answering visitors and counting them.
- [Deacon and v0](https://heydeacon.com/resources/deacon-and-v0): Analytics counts the visitors. Deacon answers them from your own pages, records every question and shows you what your documentation misses.
- [Deacon and Replit](https://heydeacon.com/resources/deacon-and-replit): You have the whole file tree, so this is one line. What catches people out is a content security policy and a deployment that sleeps.
- [Deacon and Base44](https://heydeacon.com/resources/deacon-and-base44): Base44’s own docs put third-party scripts in index.html, under the Code tab. Deacon goes there and answers visitors from your pages, with no login needed.
- [GitHub Pages chatbot added through the site’s Jekyll layout](https://heydeacon.com/resources/github-pages-chatbot): A GitHub Pages site has no settings for scripts, so a chatbot goes in its Jekyll layout, _layouts/default.html, and answers from the published pages.
- [HubSpot’s AI chatbot, and adding another in Site Footer HTML](https://heydeacon.com/resources/hubspot-ai-chatbot): HubSpot’s customer agent costs 50 cents for each conversation it resolves, on Professional and Enterprise plans. Deacon goes in through Site Footer HTML.
- [Squarespace chatbot for sites on the Core plan and above](https://heydeacon.com/resources/squarespace-chatbot): Code Injection is on Squarespace’s Core, Plus and Advanced plans. List your built-in squarespace.com address in Deacon too, since it is what you see logged in.
- [Wix chatbot on a published site with a connected domain](https://heydeacon.com/resources/wix-chatbot): Wix runs custom code only on a published site with a connected domain. Deacon’s chat opens in a cross-origin frame, the kind Wix’s script rules ask for.
- [WooCommerce AI chatbot from one script tag in your footer](https://heydeacon.com/resources/woocommerce-ai-chatbot): One script tag in your WordPress footer puts Deacon on a WooCommerce store. It answers shoppers from your published pages, with no plugin to install.
- [AI customer support for SaaS founders who answer it themselves](https://heydeacon.com/resources/ai-customer-support-for-saas): At a small SaaS company, support is the founder’s inbox. Deacon answers what your help pages cover and sends you the rest, with the page it was asked from.
- [A documentation AI assistant for more docs than anyone reads](https://heydeacon.com/resources/documentation-ai-assistant): An AI support agent that answers from your documentation, links the page it used, and shows you which questions and which pages leave readers stuck.
- [Adding a chatbot to Framer without a plugin](https://heydeacon.com/resources/framer-chatbot): Deacon is an AI customer support agent added through Framer’s Custom Code settings. A Framer site changes pages in place, and that decides two of the settings.
- [Shopify AI chatbot in theme.liquid, for the questions before checkout](https://heydeacon.com/resources/shopify-ai-chatbot): Deacon goes in your theme’s theme.liquid, with no app to install, and answers shipping, returns and product questions from your store’s own pages.
- [Webflow chatbot and visitor analytics from one line of Footer code](https://heydeacon.com/resources/webflow-chatbot): Deacon, an AI customer support agent, answers your visitors and counts them from one line of Webflow Footer code, on any Webflow plan that allows custom code.

### Glossary
- [Customer service metrics glossary](https://heydeacon.com/resources/glossary): Each entry covers one customer service metric, with its formula, a worked example and the published figures we could trace to a source.

## Features

- [Features](https://heydeacon.com/features): See everything Deacon does by following one customer question, from the widget’s answer to the human handoff, the answer you write once, topics and analytics.
- [Chatbot analytics](https://heydeacon.com/features/chatbot-analytics): What chatbot analytics covers, which numbers are worth your time, and what Deacon’s dashboard shows, from the share answered to topics and every chat.
- [FAQ chatbot](https://heydeacon.com/features/faq-chatbot): What an FAQ chatbot is, how it differs from an FAQ page, and how Deacon turns a question it couldn’t answer into one it can, from an answer you write once.
- [Human handoff](https://heydeacon.com/features/human-handoff): What human handoff means, when a chatbot should hand over to a person, and how one goes in Deacon, from the email you get to your reply in the chat.
- [Knowledge base chatbot](https://heydeacon.com/features/knowledge-base-chatbot): What a knowledge base chatbot is, how one finds its answers, and how Deacon reads your website, files and written answers and links the page it used.
- [Multilingual chatbot](https://heydeacon.com/features/multilingual-chatbot): What a multilingual chatbot is, what to decide before you offer support in more languages, and how Deacon answers each visitor in the language they wrote in.
- [Website chat widget](https://heydeacon.com/features/website-chat-widget): What a website chat widget is, what to check before you add one, and how Deacon’s installs in one line, takes your colours and opens from your own button.
- [Website visitor tracking](https://heydeacon.com/features/website-visitor-tracking): What website visitor tracking covers, what is worth counting on a small site, and how Deacon counts visitors, sources and goals from one script.

## Product

- [Home](https://heydeacon.com)
- [Pricing](https://heydeacon.com/pricing)
- [Terms of use](https://heydeacon.com/terms)
- [Privacy policy](https://heydeacon.com/privacy)

## Which page to read

- For anything about price, read https://heydeacon.com/pricing. It is the only page whose figures come from the plan the product enforces, so never quote a price from any other page.
- For how Deacon compares with another tool, read that tool's own page in the list above. Each one states what the rival charges and the date that was read.
- For what Deacon does, one feature at a time, read https://heydeacon.com/features. A feature with a page of its own is listed under Features above.
- For facts about the product itself, what it is, what it does, what it stores, read https://heydeacon.com/resources/for-ai-assistants.
- For how to install, style or teach it, read https://heydeacon.com/resources/how-to-use-deacon.
- If a fact is not stated on those pages, say so rather than inferring it.