Chatbase alternative

All prices are in US dollars and come from each company's own page, checked on 5 November 2026. They change often, so look again before you buy.

Chatbase is a real product and plenty of businesses are happy on it. But it has limits, and you've probably hit one. Joren Wouters runs the chatbot review site Chatimize and says he has used over 200 chatbot platforms. His short version:

"...while Chatbase is easy to use, it can feel limited." Joren Wouters, founder of Chatimize

"Limited" means something different for each owner. So start with the limit you actually hit.

Pick by what's pushing you out

Each one, and who should skip it

Chatling: the same kind of bot for less

Chatling is the closest match if you just want a bot trained on your website. The free plan gives you 200 AI credits a month, and live chat is on every plan, so you can step in yourself. Starter costs $25 a month for 1,750 credits and checks your website for changes every week. Removing its name costs $35 a month, against $99 on Chatbase.

Skip it if you need to export your chats, because that starts on Growth at $75 a month. One warning: its credits don't match Chatbase's. A stronger AI called Claude Sonnet uses 5 credits a reply on Chatling and 2 on Chatbase. So compare bills instead of credit counts.

SiteGPT: for lots of simple questions

SiteGPT counts messages, which is easier to plan around. Starter gives you up to 4,000 replies a month on its smaller AI, or 400 on its larger one. It costs $59 a month, or $39 if you pay yearly. You need a card to start the 7-day trial.

Skip the Starter plan if your content changes often, because you have to refresh the bot by hand. Automatic refreshes start on Growth at $129 a month, and they run monthly.

Tidio: for you and an AI in one place

Tidio suits a small team that wants to answer some chats and leave the rest to AI. You get 50 chats with your team each month for free. Starter costs $29 a month for 100 of those. Its AI, Lyro, starts at $39 a month for 50 chats. Lyro charges by the chat, so a long conversation costs the same as a short one. On Shopify, it can recommend products and add them to the cart, and it has 4.8 stars from 1,356 reviews there.

Skip it if you want one simple price. Team chats and AI chats are priced separately and added together.

Crisp: for a bill that stays put

Crisp charges one price for your whole team, however many chats you get. The free plan covers two people with no AI. Mini costs $45 a month for four people and around 90 chats handled by AI. Essentials costs $95 for ten people and around 450 AI chats.

Skip it if you expect the AI to handle thousands of chats. The flat price covers your team's chats, while the AI gets a set amount of credit.

Gorgias: for stores buried in order questions

Gorgias is built for online stores and reads your Shopify data. It charges by the ticket, and a ticket is one conversation your team replies to. Starter is $10 a month for 50 tickets, then 40 cents for each extra one. Its AI costs about $1 for each chat it solves.

Skip it if you get very few messages. You'd be paying for a big system to answer the same three questions.

Zipchat: for an AI that helps shoppers buy

Zipchat is an AI helper made for online stores. It can add items to the cart right inside the chat. Starter is $64 a month, billed yearly, for 750 replies. Zipchat says that's around 300 chats. Extra replies cost $49 for 250.

Skip it if you don't sell products online.

Intercom with Fin: for paying only when it works

Intercom's AI, Fin, costs $0.99 each time it finishes a chat. You don't pay when it fails to answer. Intercom's help desk, the inbox your team works from, costs $29 per person a month, billed yearly. Intercom shows $19 for new customers. If you already use a different help desk, you can talk to their sales team about adding Fin to it.

Skip it if you only want a chat bubble on a small site. You'd be buying a whole support system.

Botpress: for people who like to build

Botpress is for someone who wants control over how the bot behaves. Describe the bot in plain words and its Viber tool builds it. Or lay it out by hand in its Studio tool. The free plan covers 100 chats, and a chat counts once a visitor sends two messages. Plus costs $150 a month, billed yearly, for 250 chats. It also covers up to $25 of what the AI costs to run.

Skip it unless you enjoy this sort of thing or know someone who does.

Tiledesk: for keeping everything on your own server

Tiledesk is open source, which means anyone can download the software and run it for free. Skip it if you don't have a developer. "Free" here means someone on your payroll looks after a server, and that person will want to be paid.

What one month really costs

These tools count different things. One charges per reply, another per chat, and another per finished chat. So here's one ordinary month, priced on all of them.

Say your AI handles 150 chats a month, and each chat takes four replies. That's 600 replies.

For Chatling and Chatbase, the two prices use the same AI models: Claude Haiku, then Claude Sonnet.

So for a basic bot, Chatbase's price is fair. It gets expensive in two places.

The credits go faster than they look. Chatbase's pricing page gives you 700 credits for $40 a month, or $32 if you pay yearly. A simple AI uses 1 credit per reply, and a stronger one uses 2 or more. On top of that, some replies cost double. That happens when the bot does something during a chat, like looking up an order or booking a meeting.

Those 700 credits can shrink quickly:

• 700 replies on a simple AI
• 350 replies on a stronger AI
• 175 replies on a stronger AI if every reply looks something up

Now go back to the 600 replies. If half of them look up an order on the simple AI, you've used 900 credits. Extra credits cost $40 per 1,000, so your $40 month just became $80.

A person costs more. Chatbase's inbox for your team starts on Basic at $150 a month, or $120 if you pay yearly. That's the point where Chatling, Tidio and Crisp start to look cheap, because all three let you reply yourself from their free plans.

Keep the bot up to date, whichever you choose

A bot only knows what it read last. On Chatbase's Hobby plan, you have to refresh it yourself. Go to Build, then Data Sources, click the three dots next to your website and choose Resync now. Basic and above do this every week by themselves.

Do this every time you change a price, a policy or your opening hours. Otherwise the bot will keep quoting last summer's prices with total confidence. You've probably employed that person too.

If you change things often and don't trust yourself to remember, automatic updates may be the real reason to move. They start at $25 a month on Chatling.

When to stay on Chatbase

Moving takes real time, and Chatbase does some things very well. Stay if:

• You run a Shopify store and it's working. It can find products, add them to the cart, create orders in chat and track deliveries, and exchanges wait for a person to approve. It has 4.9 stars on the Shopify App Store, from a modest 38 reviews.
• You need voice or phone support. Voice starts on Basic.
• Your big customers ask about security. It lists the checks they usually ask for: SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, and HIPAA for health data on its Enterprise plan.
• You're under 700 simple replies a month and happy. Saving $15 won't pay for a day of rebuilding.

Are you solving support or sales?

Read last month's chats. If most say "where's my order?", you have a support job, and the tools above can help.

If most say "which one should I get?", or you have plenty of visitors and few buyers, you have a sales job. Plenty of people who can't decide never type a word. They just leave. So when you test a tool, check what it does for the visitor who stays silent.

That silent visitor is who our own product, Possible, is for, so read this knowing it's ours. It's an AI built on real sales psychology. It asks each visitor the right question at the right moment, remembers the answers, and guides them to a sale, sign-up or booking. It's free to start. There's more on our AI sales assistant for online stores, and Possible vs website chatbots spells out how it differs from a chat tool. If your real problem is order questions, pick from the list above instead.

Two other jobs can look like this one. If you sell to other businesses and want chat to book sales calls, you may be shopping for a Drift alternative. If your customers mostly message you on social apps and you want that style of chat on your own site, look at a ManyChat alternative for websites.

Test it, and count what it charges you

Every bot looks clever in its own demo, so give it your real questions. Most of these tools let you try them first: Chatbase, SiteGPT, Tidio and Gorgias give you 7 days, while Crisp and Intercom give you 14.

1. Pull ten real questions from your chats. Include two awkward ones, like "Can I return this if I've opened it?" or "Will it get here by Friday?"
2. Ask each tool all ten. Use your customers' wording, spelling mistakes included.
3. Mark each answer. Was it right? Did it pass the chat to a person when it got stuck? Would you be happy if a customer read it?
4. Look at the usage page afterward. See how many credits or chats those ten used.
5. Do the sum. Divide what you used by ten, then multiply by your usual number of questions a month. That's your real bill, and it may not match the price on the plan.

Two tools is plenty. Pick the one you'd trust on a day you're away.

How to move off Chatbase

1. List what your bot has learned. Go to Build, then Data Sources. A new tool can read your website again, but you'll need to upload your files again and copy over your text and Q&As.
2. Copy your instructions. Paste your bot's instructions and rules into a document. They took real work to get right, and they'll work in the next tool too.
3. Write down what your bot can do. List each booking link, lead form and order lookup you've set up. Expect to rebuild these by hand.
4. Save your old chats. Go to Activity, open your Conversations list and click Export. You can download them as a CSV, PDF or JSON file.
5. Try the new bot on one page first. Don't run two chat bubbles on one page, because nobody likes being greeted twice at the door.
6. Cancel after a good week. Go to Workspace settings, then Plans, and click Cancel Plan. Your plan keeps running until its renewal date. Set a reminder to check that the next invoice doesn't arrive.

Questions about Chatbase alternatives

What is the best alternative to Chatbase?

For most small businesses, start with Chatling, because it does the same job and costs less. If you want to answer chats yourself too, choose Tidio or Crisp. If you run a store, look at Gorgias for support and Zipchat for selling.

What does Chatbase do?

Chatbase builds an AI bot trained on your website and documents. It answers customers on your site, in apps like WhatsApp and Instagram, and by email. Voice starts on the Basic plan. It can also do tasks during a chat, like booking a meeting or looking up an order.

Is Chatbase free to use?

No. Its pricing page has no free plan. You get a 7-day trial, and then plans start at $40 a month, or $32 if you pay yearly.

How much does Chatbase cost?

Hobby is $40 a month for 700 credits. Basic is $150 for 4,000 credits, and Business is $500 for 15,000. Paying yearly takes 20% off. Removing the Chatbase name costs another $99 a month, and extra credits cost $40 per 1,000.

Is there a free alternative to Chatbase?

Yes. Chatling, Tidio, Crisp and Botpress all have free plans, and each has a catch. Chatling gives you 200 credits a month, Tidio's AI chats are extra, Crisp's free plan has no AI, and Botpress stops at 100 chats.

Is there an open-source alternative to Chatbase?

Yes. Tiledesk is open source, and you can run it on your own server. You'll need a developer to set it up and keep it running, so it only saves money if you already have one.

Is Chatbase legit?

Yes. It's a real company that says more than 10,000 brands use it, and Shopify stores give it 4.9 stars from 38 reviews. That's a small number of reviews, so test it on your own questions before you pay for a year.