Chatbase vs Botpress

One is a widget you point at your documentation. The other is a platform you build an agent on and then deploy. The prices are closer than the products, and they behave in opposite ways on the day you run out.

Prices read 18 September 2026

Side by side

Chatbase, Botpress and Deacon, feature by feature
Feature	Chatbase	Botpress	Deacon
Free plan	50 message credits a month, one member, one agent, 1 MB of training content. An agent is deleted after 14 days of inactivity	25 conversations as a one-time allotment rather than a monthly one, on three seats and three agents, hard-capped with no top-ups. No card is asked for	50 answers a month on one seat, and no card is asked for
Cheapest paid plan	Hobby, $40 a month, for 700 credits. The $32 a month billed annually is in the page’s own payload rather than its printed text	Plus, $189 a month, or $150 a month billed annually, for 250 conversations	Starter, $50 a month, or $40 a month billed yearly, for 1,000 answers
What the meter counts	A request to the model. Every model Chatbase names costs two to six credits a reply, and one credit is the unnamed rest	Any exchange with at least two messages from the visitor in the month. Three minutes of a voice call is one; a conversation spanning two months counts in both	An answer. One question, one reply, one unit
Model costs	Bundled into the credit, which is why the credit price varies by model	A separate meter with its own allowance. Plus includes $25 of AI usage, and every conversation carries $0.10 of it	Ours. The plan price is the price
When the allowance runs out	The agent stops and shows the visitor "This AI Agent is currently unavailable. If you are the owner, please check your account." The free plan has no way past it	Nothing stops. At 95% of the quota a pack of 100 conversations is added automatically, and on the free plan the cap is hard with no add-ons	Nothing is bought on your behalf. The widget says it cannot look into that one and takes an email address so you can follow up
Can you switch the top-up off	It is off unless you switch it on. Auto recharge is an opt-in add-on at $40 per 1,000 credits	No. Botpress answers the question on its own pricing page with the word "No", and packs cost $65 per 100 on Plus	There is nothing to switch off. Moving plan is a decision you make
Building the thing	Point it at your material and deploy. No flow to draw	Build and publish an agent first, on a drag-and-drop canvas, through conversation, or in TypeScript	Point it at your material and deploy
Getting it on your site	Copy the embed script from the dashboard and paste it in the head, or before the closing body tag	Two script tags in the head, copied from Webchat, Deploy Settings, once a bot is published	One script tag before the closing body tag
What it can read	Files up to 20 MB, a site by crawl or sitemap, single links, text snippets, question and answer pairs, Notion pages, and closed Salesforce or Zendesk tickets	Websites with scheduled re-crawling, documents up to 50 MB, tables you can ask questions of, rich text, integrations, and live web search	Your documentation, pages to crawl, uploaded files, and answers you write by hand
Channels	Sixteen, including a hosted help page, email, inbound phone, Slack, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram and Shopify	Webchat, email, WhatsApp, Slack, Discord, Telegram, Instagram, Facebook Messenger and voice	One. The widget on your own site
Seats	One on Free, two on Hobby, and $25 a month for an extra member, a figure in the page’s payload rather than its printed text — the printed $25 card next to it buys an extra agent, not a person	Three on Free and three on Plus on the visible card, though the same page’s structured data and its pricing script both say one on Free. Botpress heads the page "priced for the work it does, not the seats it fills"	one seat free, three seats on Starter

Free plan

Chatbase: 50 message credits a month, one member, one agent, 1 MB of training content. An agent is deleted after 14 days of inactivity
Botpress: 25 conversations as a one-time allotment rather than a monthly one, on three seats and three agents, hard-capped with no top-ups. No card is asked for
Deacon: 50 answers a month on one seat, and no card is asked for

Cheapest paid plan

Chatbase: Hobby, $40 a month, for 700 credits. The $32 a month billed annually is in the page’s own payload rather than its printed text
Botpress: Plus, $189 a month, or $150 a month billed annually, for 250 conversations
Deacon: Starter, $50 a month, or $40 a month billed yearly, for 1,000 answers

What the meter counts

Chatbase: A request to the model. Every model Chatbase names costs two to six credits a reply, and one credit is the unnamed rest
Botpress: Any exchange with at least two messages from the visitor in the month. Three minutes of a voice call is one; a conversation spanning two months counts in both
Deacon: An answer. One question, one reply, one unit

Model costs

Chatbase: Bundled into the credit, which is why the credit price varies by model
Botpress: A separate meter with its own allowance. Plus includes $25 of AI usage, and every conversation carries $0.10 of it
Deacon: Ours. The plan price is the price

When the allowance runs out

Chatbase: The agent stops and shows the visitor "This AI Agent is currently unavailable. If you are the owner, please check your account." The free plan has no way past it
Botpress: Nothing stops. At 95% of the quota a pack of 100 conversations is added automatically, and on the free plan the cap is hard with no add-ons
Deacon: Nothing is bought on your behalf. The widget says it cannot look into that one and takes an email address so you can follow up

Can you switch the top-up off

Chatbase: It is off unless you switch it on. Auto recharge is an opt-in add-on at $40 per 1,000 credits
Botpress: No. Botpress answers the question on its own pricing page with the word "No", and packs cost $65 per 100 on Plus
Deacon: There is nothing to switch off. Moving plan is a decision you make

Building the thing

Chatbase: Point it at your material and deploy. No flow to draw
Botpress: Build and publish an agent first, on a drag-and-drop canvas, through conversation, or in TypeScript
Deacon: Point it at your material and deploy

Getting it on your site

Chatbase: Copy the embed script from the dashboard and paste it in the head, or before the closing body tag
Botpress: Two script tags in the head, copied from Webchat, Deploy Settings, once a bot is published
Deacon: One script tag before the closing body tag

What it can read

Chatbase: Files up to 20 MB, a site by crawl or sitemap, single links, text snippets, question and answer pairs, Notion pages, and closed Salesforce or Zendesk tickets
Botpress: Websites with scheduled re-crawling, documents up to 50 MB, tables you can ask questions of, rich text, integrations, and live web search
Deacon: Your documentation, pages to crawl, uploaded files, and answers you write by hand

Channels

Chatbase: Sixteen, including a hosted help page, email, inbound phone, Slack, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram and Shopify
Botpress: Webchat, email, WhatsApp, Slack, Discord, Telegram, Instagram, Facebook Messenger and voice
Deacon: One. The widget on your own site

Seats

Chatbase: One on Free, two on Hobby, and $25 a month for an extra member, a figure in the page’s payload rather than its printed text — the printed $25 card next to it buys an extra agent, not a person
Botpress: Three on Free and three on Plus on the visible card, though the same page’s structured data and its pricing script both say one on Free. Botpress heads the page "priced for the work it does, not the seats it fills"
Deacon: one seat free, three seats on Starter

What happens when you run out

Chatbase shows your visitors the fault

When the credits are gone the agent stops answering and puts a notice in the chat window: this AI agent is currently unavailable, if you are the owner please check your account. Your customer reads that, not you. Buying your way past it has to be arranged in advance, because auto recharge is an add-on you switch on at $40 per 1,000 credits. On the free plan there is no add-on at all.

Botpress spends your money instead

Cross 95% of the quota on a paid plan and Botpress adds a pack of 100 conversations to the account by itself, at $65 on Plus. Its own pricing page is asked whether you can turn that off and answers with a single word: no. The reasoning it gives is that pausing conversations means pausing the product. You get warnings at 75% and 100%, and the free plan is hard-capped with no packs, so this only bites once you are paying.

Neither is hidden and neither is wrong. They are two answers to the same question, and which one you want depends on whether an unexpected charge or an unanswered customer is the thing you would rather not explain.

When each of them is the right call

Botpress is the one to buy if the agent has to do more than answer. You get three ways to build it — a canvas, a conversation, or a TypeScript library — tables it can query, scheduled re-crawling, and live web search when your own material falls short. Its conversation meter is also the easiest of the three to forecast, because it does not move with which model you picked, and the top-ups it buys when the included AI spend runs out are sold at cost.

Chatbase is the one to buy if you want to be live this afternoon. There is no agent to build and no publish step; you add your sources and deploy. It is also a quarter of the price at the first paid tier, and it reaches further — sixteen channels against nine, including inbound phone calls and actions that write into Stripe, Shopify and a row of help desks.

Neither of those is much comfort if what you wanted was to stop thinking about it. Between the canvas on one side and the credit arithmetic on the other, there is a third position, which is Deacon: the unit is an answer, the price is the plan, and a spent month leaves the widget carrying on and taking an email address rather than showing a stranger an error.

Where these figures came from

Every figure above was read on 18 September 2026, from these pages.

Try Deacon for free

No canvas, no publish step, no credit arithmetic. Point Deacon at your help pages, add one script tag, and read what it answers.

Both of these priced against seven others in the Chatbase alternatives rundown. If the canvas is the part putting you off, the Deacon and ChatBot comparison is about exactly that, and our own figures are on the pricing page.