HubSpot chatbot, free and AI, and what each costs

HubSpot’s chatbot for your website comes in two kinds. The free one is rule-based, so it asks visitors set questions to qualify a lead, book a meeting or open a ticket, and never writes an answer of its own. The AI one is the customer agent, an AI customer service agent that answers from your content on Professional and Enterprise plans and uses 50 HubSpot Credits, or $0.50, each time it resolves a conversation. We read HubSpot’s plans, prices and help articles below on 23 September 2026.

Deacon is an AI customer support agent that works on a HubSpot site, or any other, from one script tag in your footer. It answers visitors in seconds from your own pages, with no charge per resolution, and shows you what they ask about most. The free plan gives you 50 answers a month, needs no card and has no end date.

HubSpot’s free chatbot and its AI customer agent

HubSpot’s rule-based chatbot comes with every plan, the free tools included. You build it from bot actions in HubSpot’s chatbot builder, and it walks visitors through your questions before a person takes over. It follows the steps you build, and on the free and Starter plans it can’t branch with if/then rules. The templates that share your knowledge base articles need Service Hub Professional or Enterprise.

The customer agent is HubSpot’s AI chatbot. It answers from the content you sync, can carry out actions you set up, such as booking a meeting, and hands the conversation to a person when it isn’t confident. When it doesn’t know, it asks the visitor to rephrase or passes them to your team. HubSpot’s requirements for putting it live start with these three.

• A Professional or Enterprise plan of any HubSpot hub or of Smart CRM.
• A live chat, WhatsApp or Facebook channel connected to your conversations inbox or help desk.
• HubSpot’s tracking code on your pages, if your site isn’t hosted with HubSpot.

Here’s how the two compare with Deacon, as HubSpot’s pages put it on 23 September 2026.

What HubSpot bills as a resolved conversation

The customer agent is paid for in HubSpot Credits, and it uses them only when it resolves a conversation. HubSpot counts one as resolved in either of two cases, its guide says.

• The agent replied with at least one content source, such as a knowledge base article, or carried out an action, and no qualifying handoff to a person followed within 72 hours of the visitor’s last message.
• A lead was marked qualified, partially qualified or not qualified.

Only a handoff the visitor asks for counts, by requesting a person or using a handoff phrase you set up. So a visitor who reads an answer with a linked article and closes the chat is a resolution, whether or not the answer fitted. HubSpot sets the status 72 hours after the visitor’s last message, and negative feedback after that doesn’t change it.

A resolution uses 50 credits, and a credit costs $0.010, sold in packs of 1,000 for $10, or $9 when you pay annually. HubSpot’s product catalogue includes 3,000 credits a month with Smart CRM Professional or most Professional hubs, enough for 60 resolutions if nothing else uses them, and 5,000 with Data Hub Professional or the Professional Customer Platform. Unused credits expire at the end of each month.

When the credits run out, the agent stops taking new conversations until your credits reset or you buy more. Once you’ve bought a credit pack, HubSpot bills you for going over instead, either per credit with Pay-as-You-Go, the default for packs bought since 16 September 2026, or by upgrading your pack for the rest of your term, the default before then. The cheapest plan that includes the agent is Smart CRM Professional, at $45 a month per seat paid annually, or $50 paid monthly, both on a yearly commitment, and first-time users can try the agent free for 14 days. If you’re weighing Service Hub against Zendesk, Zendesk vs HubSpot compares the two, and HubSpot vs Intercom sets it against Intercom and its Fin AI agent.

Where a chatbot’s script tag goes on a HubSpot site

A hosted chatbot goes in the Site Footer HTML of your HubSpot domain, a setting that sits outside your theme. The steps are in HubSpot’s guide to code snippets.

1. Click the settings icon in HubSpot’s top bar, then go to Content › Pages in the left sidebar.
2. Choose your website’s domain from the dropdown.
3. In the Site Footer HTML section, click Override default settings, paste the tag and click Save.

Pick your domain rather than Default settings for all domains, because code in the default settings also appears on your HubSpot quotes, as does code on any domain your quotes use. Overriding a domain stops the default code applying to it, so copy across anything from the default box you still need. You need the Website settings permission for either.

HubSpot’s articles don’t agree on which plans have these boxes. The code snippets guide lists every plan but says the options vary by subscription, while its Google Tag Manager guide limits site-wide code to Content Hub Starter and up or Marketing Hub Professional and up. If you don’t see Site Footer HTML, your plan or your permissions are why.

What survives a change of theme

Everything in Site Footer HTML goes onto your pages through standard_footer_includes, a variable HubSpot’s developer docs say carries that field. HubSpot requires the variable in every template that pages can use, so the tag stays put when you switch themes or rebuild a page.

A site HubSpot doesn’t host

If your site runs on WordPress, Webflow or another builder with HubSpot’s tracking code added, Site Footer HTML doesn’t reach it. Add the chatbot’s tag where that builder takes code, as our guide to adding an AI chatbot to a website explains.

One chat button, not two

HubSpot’s tracking code shows HubSpot’s own chat button on any page where a chatflow is turned on. Put another chatbot on the same pages and visitors see two buttons. Turn the chatflow off under Service › Chatflows, where the Status column has a switch for each, or add your pages to its exclusion rules on the Target tab, as HubSpot’s troubleshooting guide describes. The tracking code itself can stay for your forms and analytics.

What Deacon does on a HubSpot site

If your site and forms run on HubSpot’s free tools or a Starter plan, the only chatbot you have is the rule-based one. Deacon gives your visitors real answers. It reads your pages, and when someone asks how your pricing works or whether you integrate with a tool, it replies in seconds, in their language, from what your pages say, often with a link to the page.

It won’t bluff. When your pages don’t cover a question, Deacon says it doesn’t know and asks for the visitor’s email. You get an email when they leave one or ask for a person, and your reply from Deacon’s dashboard appears in their chat while it’s still open. There’s no chat channel, inbox or help desk to set up first.

What you write back makes Deacon better. Every question your pages didn’t cover sits in your dashboard with an Answer this button. Write the answer, press Save & check, and Deacon asks itself the question again to show you its new reply, and when it now answers, how many other open questions your answer covers. That answer becomes something Deacon knows, so it can answer the next visitor who asks, and it needs you less as you go.

It also tells you what visitors are after. Every conversation is saved and searchable by what the visitor asked. Topics groups the questions, counts the people behind each and labels most groups, such as a feature ask, a pricing question or a bug report, so you see what to build next without waiting for someone to fill in a form. The same script counts visitors, sources, goals and funnels.

You pay for a plan, not for each resolution. Every feature is on every plan, the free one included, nothing is billed past your plan’s answers and no plan upgrades itself. The pricing page has the paid plans.

Adding Deacon to your HubSpot site

Deacon doesn’t need an app from the HubSpot Marketplace. Its snippet looks like this, with your own key in place of the placeholder.

<script src="https://heydeacon.com/widget/v1/loader.js" data-key="pk_your_widget_key" async></script>

Setting it up takes a few minutes.

1. Sign up with your email or Google, and give Deacon your site’s address. The free plan needs no card. Deacon learns from your home page and main pages by itself, starting with the home page.
2. On Deacon’s Install page, check the domain your HubSpot pages are on is listed, and add it if it isn’t. The website you gave when you signed up is already there, with your snippet ready. If your pages are on a HubSpot system domain, such as one ending in hs-sites.com, add that address too, because it isn’t part of your own domain.
3. Paste the snippet into your domain’s Site Footer HTML, as above, and click Save.
4. Turn off any HubSpot chatflow on the same pages.
5. In Knowledge Sources, untick any page Deacon shouldn’t answer from. If your HubSpot knowledge base is on a subdomain, add that address with Add website as well. Deacon lists the pages it reads there for you to choose, and on a paid plan that’s the whole knowledge base, so tick the articles you want and press Retrain agent.
6. Ask it your visitors’ questions in the Playground before anyone else sees it.

What to check after you save

These take a couple of minutes.

1. Open your site in a private window and look for Deacon’s button. If HubSpot’s launcher shows too, a chatflow is still on.
2. Look at the top of Deacon’s Install page. It says whether Deacon is live on your site and when it was last seen, and it keeps checking by itself.
3. Ask one question your pages answer and one they don’t. The first should get an answer, often with a link, and the second an honest “I don’t know” with a box for an email address.
4. If you’ve turned on a Content-Security-Policy header for your domain in HubSpot’s domain security settings, it has to allow heydeacon.com, or the browser blocks the widget. HubSpot’s report-only mode lets you try a policy before you enforce it.

Questions about HubSpot AI chatbots

Does HubSpot have a free AI chatbot?

Not one that writes answers. HubSpot’s free chatbot is rule-based and follows the questions you build. The AI customer agent needs a Professional or Enterprise plan and uses HubSpot Credits for every resolved conversation, though first-time users can try it free for 14 days.

How much does HubSpot’s AI chatbot cost?

The customer agent uses 50 credits, or $0.50, for each resolved conversation, on top of a Professional or Enterprise plan. Smart CRM Professional and most Professional hubs include 3,000 credits a month, and Data Hub Professional and the Professional Customer Platform include 5,000. More cost $10 per 1,000, or $9 when you pay annually. The cheapest plan with the agent is Smart CRM Professional, at $45 a month per seat paid annually, or $50 paid monthly, both on a yearly commitment.

Can HubSpot’s chatbot answer on a site HubSpot doesn’t host?

Yes. The customer agent can run in a chatflow on an outside website once HubSpot’s tracking code is on those pages, and it still needs one of the plans above.

Does Deacon send conversations or contacts to HubSpot?

No. Deacon has no integrations or webhooks, so conversations and the emails visitors leave stay in Deacon’s dashboard, where you read and reply to them. It runs beside HubSpot’s tracking code without touching it.

Can I keep HubSpot’s forms and tracking with Deacon on the page?

Yes. The two scripts are separate, and HubSpot’s forms and analytics carry on as before. The one thing to switch off is HubSpot’s chatflow, so visitors see a single chat button.

What happens when Deacon’s free answers run out?

Deacon still replies, with a short fixed message saying it can’t look into that right now, and asks for the visitor’s email unless they’ve already given it in that chat. Every conversation stays open to you in the dashboard. You aren’t billed for going over, and your plan stays as it is.