The best Chatbase alternatives and what they cost

Founders usually go looking for a Chatbase alternative after one of four surprises. The credits run out faster on a better model. A free agent is deleted after 14 days without use. Handing a chat to a person isn’t on the free plan. And taking “Powered By Chatbase” off your site costs $99 a month.

Below are ten alternatives, with each one’s free plan, its first paid plan, what its meter counts and what it charges to take its badge off your site. Every price was read on the vendor’s own pricing page on 22 September 2026, and each one links there.

Deacon comes first because it’s ours, and because it’s built for founders who answer support themselves. It’s an AI customer support agent that answers your customers from your own docs in seconds, and it shows you what they’re stuck on and what they want next. The free plan needs no card and has no end date.

Ten Chatbase alternatives side by side

Chatbase is in the last row, so you can hold each one up against what you have now.

Where Chatbase’s plans stop

Chatbase is a capable tool, and it reaches past your website, with WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram on its plan table and phone calls from Standard. These are the limits founders run into, read from its pricing page and its FAQ.

The meter counts requests to the model. A reply costs 1 to 6 message credits depending on the model you pick, and an action can double that. So Hobby’s 700 credits at $40 a month can be as few as 116 replies on the priciest models. Chatbase pricing works out what a credit buys on each plan.

The free plan is 50 credits a month, one member, 1 MB of training content and no AI Actions, and Chatbase says “AI agents get deleted after 14 days of inactivity on the free plan.”

Handing a chat to a person is an AI Action, so it isn’t on Free. A live handover runs through Chatbase’s Helpdesk, which the pricing page lists from Standard at $150 a month.

When the credits run out, your agent tells visitors “This AI Agent is currently unavailable. If you are the owner, please check your account.” Auto-recharge avoids that, at $40 for every 1,000 credits.

Taking the “Powered By Chatbase” line off costs $99 a month, and each extra agent costs $25 a month.

Deacon

Deacon is an AI customer support agent for founders who handle support themselves. You add one script tag to your site and point Deacon at your help pages, files or pasted text. From then on it answers your customers in seconds, day or night, in whatever language they write in.

It writes each answer from what your content says, often with a link to the page it came from. When your content doesn’t cover a question, Deacon says it doesn’t know instead of guessing, and asks for the visitor’s email. When they leave one or ask for a person, you get an email. Reply from the dashboard, and if they still have the chat open, your reply appears there under your name.

Every question your docs didn’t cover waits in your dashboard with an Answer this button. What you write becomes part of what Deacon knows, so it can answer the next person who asks. The more you answer, the better it gets and the less it needs you.

It also shows you what your customers need. Every conversation is saved and searchable by what visitors asked. Topics group their questions, count how many people asked and label most of them as a feature ask, a bug report, a how-to and so on, so you can see what to fix and what to build next. The same script runs your website analytics, with visitors, sources, goals and funnels, so there’s no second script to add.

Every feature is on every plan, the free one included, and the plans differ only in answers, knowledge, pages from your website and seats. Free gives you 50 answers a month, 1 seat and room for about 67 pages of docs, with no card, no end date and nothing deleted if you go quiet. Starter is $50 a month, or $40 a month billed yearly, for 1,000 answers a month and 3 seats. Growth is $150 a month, or $120 a month billed yearly, for 4,000 answers a month and 10 seats.

Nothing is billed past your plan’s answers, and no plan upgrades itself. If a month’s answers run out, visitors get a short reply saying Deacon can’t look into it right now, and are asked for their email, if they haven’t left it already, so you can follow up. Every plan answers with the same model, so no credits drain faster on a better one. There’s no “powered by” line to pay to remove, and no flows to build before it answers anything.

Chatling

Chatling is the closest thing to Chatbase on this list, and its first paid plan is the lowest here on monthly billing. It works much like Chatbase, with credits priced by model, and it counts your knowledge in characters.

Free gives you 200 AI credits a month, 1 seat and 500,000 characters of knowledge, and live chat is on every plan, the free one included. Starter is $25 a month, or $21 billed yearly, for 1,750 credits and 2 seats.

Watch the meter. A reply costs 0.5 credits on the lightest models and 25 on the heaviest, so Starter’s 1,750 credits is anywhere from 70 replies to 3,500. Free offers only GPT 5.1, GPT-4.1 and GPT-4o, at 2.5 to 5 credits a reply, so its 200 credits is 40 to 80 replies. Removing “Powered by Chatling” is a $35 a month add-on, or comes included on Scale at $295 a month. There’s more on it in Chatling alternatives.

Tidio

Tidio is live chat and a helpdesk first, with an AI agent called Lyro sold alongside. It suits a team that wants a shared inbox, with channels such as WhatsApp and Instagram, and some AI in front of it.

The free plan gives you 50 conversations with your team a month, and 50 Lyro conversations once, which don’t renew. Starter is $29 a month, or $24.17 billed yearly, for 100 conversations with your team. Lyro is a separate add-on, from $39 a month for 50 AI conversations, or $32.50 billed yearly.

That makes two meters. A billable conversation is any one in which someone on your team replied. A Lyro conversation is any with at least one reply from Lyro, however many follow. The Tidio branding stays on Free and Starter, and removing it is an add-on from Growth, which starts at $59 a month. There’s more in Chatbase vs Tidio.

Botpress

Botpress is a platform for building your own AI agents, and it’s priced for teams who will do the building. Its Plus plan includes WhatsApp and a webchat without Botpress branding, so it fits if you want those channels and have the time to build.

Free gives you 25 conversations and 3 seats, with no top-ups. Plus is $189 a month, or $150 billed yearly, for 250 conversations and $25 of AI usage. Past that, conversations come in packs of 100 for $65, and AI usage past the included $25 is billed on top.

A conversation is any exchange with at least two messages from the visitor in the billing month, which makes it one of the clearest units here. There’s more in Chatbase vs Botpress.

Intercom Fin

Intercom is a full helpdesk, and Fin is its AI agent. It suits a startup that already runs support from a shared inbox, with a team working in it.

There’s no free plan, just a 14-day trial with no card. You pay for seats and for Fin. Essential was $29 a seat a month billed yearly when we read it, though Intercom was showing some visitors $19 in a price test on the same page. Fin costs from $0.99 an outcome on every plan.

An outcome counts when a customer confirms their issue is resolved, when they don’t ask for more help after Fin responds, or when Fin completes a workflow, handoffs included. It’s charged once per conversation. So the bill rises with your traffic, and a customer who simply stops replying can count as one. There’s more in Fin AI alternatives.

Crisp

Crisp is a shared inbox with a chat widget, and Hugo is its AI agent. The free plan gives you the widget and the inbox for 2 seats but no AI credits, so Hugo doesn’t answer on it.

Mini is $45 a month per workspace, with 4 seats and $5 of AI credits, which Crisp puts at around 90 automated conversations. Essentials is $95 a month with $25 of credits, around 450 conversations by Crisp’s count. The “We run on Crisp” watermark comes off on Plus, at $295 a month. It suits a small team that wants the inbox first and the AI second. There’s more in Crisp alternatives.

Dante AI

Dante AI has a generous free plan and one of the simplest meters here. Free costs nothing, needs no card and gives you 100 messages a month, 1 seat and 150,000 characters of knowledge. Starter is $40 a month, or $33 billed yearly, for 2,000 messages and 2 seats. Dante also lists a voice that answers the phone, and renting a number for it starts on Advanced.

A credit is one answer, and every model on the free plan costs one. The catch is further down the page. The inbox where a person takes over mid-chat and captured leads start on Advanced, at $120 a month, which also drops the Dante mark. On Starter, removing the mark is a $50 a month add-on, by Dante’s help centre. There’s more in Dante AI alternatives.

DocsBot AI

DocsBot AI is built around documentation, and its paid plans add cloud and paid source types to the basic ones. Free gives you 1 bot, 50 source pages and 100 AI credits a month, with no card. Personal is $49 a month, or $41 billed yearly, for 5,000 credits and 5,000 source pages. A message starts at one credit, and bigger models and actions cost more.

Check two things before you rely on it. When the credits run out, DocsBot says your bot “stops responding and shows visitors a friendly error message”. And creating an escalation ticket starts on Standard at $149 a month, while a widget without DocsBot branding needs Business at $499. There’s more in DocsBot alternatives.

SiteGPT

SiteGPT has no free plan, and its 7-day trial asks for a card. Starter is $59 a month, or $39 billed yearly, for 1 chatbot, 1,000 pages and 1 member.

Its 4,000 messages a month are counted on its lighter model. Each message on its stronger model costs ten times as much, so the same plan gives 400. SiteGPT’s plans and limits page counts a visitor’s question and the chatbot’s reply as a message each, so one answered question uses 2. More come in packs of 5,000 for $59 a month, and removing SiteGPT branding is an add-on at $39 a month billed yearly. There’s more in SiteGPT pricing and SiteGPT alternatives.

CustomGPT.ai

CustomGPT.ai is priced for large knowledge bases, with 60 million words of storage on its first plan. There’s no free plan, and the 7-day trial needs a card. Standard is $99 a month, or $89 billed yearly, for 10 agents, 1,000 queries a month and 3 team members. Removing “Powered by CustomGPT” starts on Premium at $499 a month. There’s more in Chatbase vs CustomGPT.

Which one fits you

Most of these are built for one kind of team, so start from how you handle support today.

If you like how Chatbase works and want a lower first step, Chatling is the closest match. If you already work from a shared inbox, Tidio, Crisp and Intercom Fin put AI in front of it. If you want to build your own agent and reach WhatsApp, Botpress gives you the most room. If you want an agent that also answers the phone, Dante AI has a voice, with a phone number of its own from Advanced. If you’re choosing for customer service rather than leaving Chatbase, the best AI chatbots for customer service ranks nine by when a person can step in.

If you answer support yourself, Deacon is the one built for you. It answers your customers from your docs in seconds, sends you only the questions that need you, and shows you what customers are stuck on and what they want next. Every feature is on the free plan, and it needs no card.

Questions about Chatbase alternatives

Is there a free Chatbase alternative?

Yes, several. Deacon’s free plan gives you 50 answers a month with every feature, no card and no end date. Chatling gives you 200 AI credits a month, Dante AI 100 messages a month, DocsBot AI 100 AI credits a month and Botpress 25 conversations. Tidio’s free plan has 50 Lyro AI conversations that don’t renew, and Crisp’s free plan has no AI credits at all. SiteGPT, CustomGPT.ai and Intercom offer trials rather than free plans. So does Botsonic, from Writesonic, with a 7-day trial. Chatbase vs Botsonic sets it against Chatbase, and Botsonic alternatives compares eight others and which of them have a free plan.

Is there an open-source Chatbase alternative?

Not as they’re sold today. Botpress comes closest. Its older Botpress v12 is open source under the AGPLv3 licence, you can run it on your own servers, and it has a repository of its own. Botpress also publishes its SDK, command-line tool and integrations on GitHub under the MIT licence. Its current platform runs as Botpress Cloud. Deacon isn’t open source either. It’s a hosted service with a free plan.

Can I move my Chatbase content to Deacon?

Yes, by adding it again. At sign-up, Deacon chooses your home page and up to four main pages, such as pricing and help, to learn from. You can untick any you’d rather it left alone. You can also add a single page by its link, upload PDF, Word (.docx), Markdown, text, CSV or HTML files of up to 10 MB each, or paste text in. Your question and answer pairs go in with Add Q&A. Deacon doesn’t connect to Notion or a helpdesk, so bring those in as files or pasted text. There’s no import straight from Chatbase.

Does Deacon answer on WhatsApp, email or the phone?

No. Deacon answers in a chat widget on your website, and you reply from its dashboard. If you need other channels, Chatbase, Tidio and Botpress list WhatsApp, and Chatbase and Dante AI answer phone calls.

Can Deacon take actions, such as refunds or bookings?

No. Deacon answers questions and hands conversations to you, and it takes no actions in other systems. It won’t issue a refund, book a meeting or look up an order, and it always declines questions about a visitor’s own account.