COMPARISON

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.

Published 20 September 2026

On 20 September 2026 Chatling’s pricing page gave its free plan 200 AI credits a month. A free account can use three models, and a reply on them costs 2.5 or 5 credits. That comes to 40 to 80 replies a month. The division is ours. On Deacon, which we make, one answer is one reply, and 50 a month are free.

One reply costs between 0.5 and 25 credits

The pricing FAQ gives a credit rate for each of 29 models, in an answer you click to open.

Model	Credits a reply	Replies from Free’s 200	Replies from Starter’s 1,750
Grok 4.1 Fast, DeepSeek V3.2, Mistral Small 4	0.5	not offered on Free	3,500
GPT-4.1	2.5	80	700
GPT-4o, GPT 5.1	5	40	350
Claude Opus 5, GPT-5.6 Sol	25	not offered on Free	70

Grok 4.1 Fast, DeepSeek V3.2, Mistral Small 4

Credits a reply: 0.5
Replies from Free’s 200: not offered on Free
Replies from Starter’s 1,750: 3,500

GPT-4.1

Credits a reply: 2.5
Replies from Free’s 200: 80
Replies from Starter’s 1,750: 700

GPT-4o, GPT 5.1

Credits a reply: 5
Replies from Free’s 200: 40
Replies from Starter’s 1,750: 350

Claude Opus 5, GPT-5.6 Sol

Credits a reply: 25
Replies from Free’s 200: not offered on Free
Replies from Starter’s 1,750: 70

Starter is $25 a month, or $21 a month once you switch the page to annual billing. The two replies columns are our division too.

Visitors get an error once the credits are gone

The widget stays on your site when the credits run out. Chatling’s article on spent credits says visitors can still send messages, and an error is displayed saying “Insufficient AI credits”.

The same article says you must buy more credits or upgrade, and we found no automatic charge. More credits are an add-on at $10 a month for each 1,000, and the allowance resets every month.

Analytics, Slack and WhatsApp start on Starter

Free is one AI agent, meaning one chatbot, with one seat and 500,000 characters of knowledge. Uploaded files are limited to 1 MB each. A seat is a login for one person. Analytics start on Starter, as do Zapier, Slack, WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, Telegram and the API.

A free agent has two AI actions, against four on Starter. Lead forms and human handoff are both actions, and the handoff action ships switched off. Handoff here means passing a chat to a person.

Removing the badge costs more than Starter does

Removing “Powered by Chatling” is an add-on at $35 a month, and Starter itself is $25. The Scale plan includes it, at $295 a month. Exporting chats and leads starts on Growth, at $75 a month. An extra seat is $10 a month, and Free comes with one seat and Starter with two.

What a first paid plan buys in replies

Tool	First paid plan, monthly	Unit and rate	Replies a month, by our division	Source
Chatling	Starter, $25	1,750 AI credits, at 0.5 to 25 a reply	70 to 3,500	Chatling pricing
Chatbase	Hobby, $40	700 message credits, at 1 to 6 a reply	116 to 700	Chatbase pricing
DocsBot AI	Personal, $49	5,000 AI credits, from 1 a reply	up to 5,000	DocsBot pricing
SiteGPT	Starter, $59 once Pay Monthly is clicked	4,000 messages on GPT-4.1 mini, or 400 on GPT-4.1	400 to 4,000	SiteGPT pricing

Chatling

First paid plan, monthly: Starter, $25
Unit and rate: 1,750 AI credits, at 0.5 to 25 a reply
Replies a month, by our division: 70 to 3,500
Source: Chatling pricing

Chatbase

First paid plan, monthly: Hobby, $40
Unit and rate: 700 message credits, at 1 to 6 a reply
Replies a month, by our division: 116 to 700
Source: Chatbase pricing

DocsBot AI

First paid plan, monthly: Personal, $49
Unit and rate: 5,000 AI credits, from 1 a reply
Replies a month, by our division: up to 5,000
Source: DocsBot pricing

SiteGPT

First paid plan, monthly: Starter, $59 once Pay Monthly is clicked
Unit and rate: 4,000 messages on GPT-4.1 mini, or 400 on GPT-4.1
Replies a month, by our division: 400 to 4,000
Source: SiteGPT pricing

Chatbase’s rate of 1 to 6 credits a reply is in Chatbase’s FAQ. A SiteGPT message is a question and its reply counted together. SiteGPT has no free plan. Tidio bills conversations and charges again for its AI agent, and Tidio alternatives adds the two bills together.

Deacon

Deacon has one unit and no model menu, so a plan’s number is the number of replies you get. Free means 50 answers a month on one seat. Deacon’s pricing page lists the paid plans.

Running out of answers does not show your visitors an error. Deacon says it cannot help right now and asks where to email them.

Deacon has no workflows, no WhatsApp or Instagram channel and no Zapier connection, all of which Chatling has from Starter.

Cancelling deletes your content

Chatling’s terms of service say all of your content is scheduled for deletion shortly after the subscription ends. It cannot be recovered. A downgrade starts at the next billing cycle with no refund for the difference. The pricing page’s FAQ, under its refund question, has a seven-day money-back guarantee for the first time you pay.

An email asking to cancel does not count, because the terms say cancellation happens in the account itself.

Try it on your own documentation

Add your help pages, ask it the question you know your docs cannot answer, and watch it say so.

The free plan covers 50 answers a month on one seat, and the paid plans are on the pricing page.

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