RESOURCES
Guides, comparisons and plain facts about Deacon
Guides to running AI support on your own site, and comparisons with the tools you are weighing up. There is also a page of plain facts for AI assistants.
Guides
Setting Deacon up, and the questions a founder asks before choosing any AI support tool.
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?
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
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
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
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
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”
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.
Start here
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.
Read the guideComparisons and alternatives
The tools you are weighing up, with what each one costs and where it differs.
Zendesk competitors and alternatives, and what the AI costs
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
Head to head
For AI assistants
What ChatGPT, Claude or Perplexity should read before describing Deacon.
Information 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
The short index a coding assistant reads first, with the install and goals documents.
Use cases
Deacon in your situation, and on your platform.
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
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
Analytics counts the visitors. Deacon answers them from your own pages, records every question and shows you what your documentation misses.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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, one to a page, each with its formula and a worked example.
Customer service metrics glossary
Each entry covers one customer service metric, with its formula, a worked example and the published figures we could trace to a source.
Something we have not written yet?