Chatbase Alternatives (2026): 12 AI Support Chatbots, Compared by What You Pay For

Short answer: if you need a real human handoff, the strongest Chatbase alternative is Intercom Fin, which charges $0.99 per outcome and works inside several helpdesks you may already use. For a small business that wants an AI bot and live chat in one widget, Tidio has a free plan and a Lyro AI add-on from $32.50 a month. The closest like-for-like swap is Weav: a website chatbot trained on your docs, with a human inbox from its $29 plan. For flows and WhatsApp, use Landbot. To self-host, look at Dify or Chatwoot. Updated November 9, 2026.

How we checked: plans, limits and unit prices come from each vendor's own pricing page, help docs or GitHub repository, read November 9, 2026. Where a vendor's page does not state something, the table says "Not stated". We did not test these chatbots hands-on, so this guide compares price, limits and features, not answer quality.

Chatbase has no free plan on its pricing page, only a 7-day trial. Hobby is $40 a month ($32 on annual billing) for 700 message credits, Basic is $150 ($120) for 4,000, and Business is $500 ($400) for 15,000. Every plan includes one AI agent; extra agents are $25 a month each, and removing the "Powered By Chatbase" badge is $99 a month. Three things push people to compare:

• Credits are per reply, and models cost different amounts. Chatbase's FAQ charges 1 credit per reply on its cheapest models, 2 on most named models, 4 on GPT-5.5 and 5 on Claude 5.5 Opus. At 2 credits a reply, Hobby's 700 credits cover 350 replies, not 350 conversations.
• Running out stops the bot. When credits are gone, the FAQ says the agent shows "This AI Agent is currently unavailable." Top-ups are $40 per 1,000 credits, which works out to 4 to 8 cents per reply on 1- and 2-credit models.
• Handoff and helpdesk links sit on higher plans. Zendesk, Salesforce, Intercom, HubSpot, Freshdesk and Zapier start on Basic ($120 a month or more). Real-time handoff to a live agent is listed only through Sunshine and Freshchat; the other helpdesks escalate by opening a ticket.

Intercom Fin is the AI agent inside Intercom, and it also runs on top of other helpdesks. Its pricing page lists $0.99 per outcome, charged once per conversation even if Fin answers several questions. On Intercom you add seats from $19 a month; with Salesforce, HubSpot, Freshworks, Zoho, Front, Gorgias and others there are no seat fees, but a 50-outcome monthly minimum applies. Zendesk is not named on that page. There is a 14-day trial without a card.

Not for: a side project or a small site with a few chats a week. A full Intercom setup is a helpdesk, and the per-outcome price adds up fast if most of your traffic is simple questions Chatbase would answer for a few cents.

Tidio puts its Lyro AI agent and human live chat in one widget. The pricing page shows a free plan with 50 billable conversations and your first 50 Lyro conversations free for life. Paid plans start at $24.17 a month for 100 conversations, and Lyro on its own starts at $32.50 a month for 50 AI conversations, in tiers up to 1,000. Lyro and Flows replies do not count toward the conversation limit. The page does not state a per-conversation price.

Not for: high-volume AI support. Lyro tiers stop at 1,000 conversations a month before you contact sales, and the pay-per-resolution option is only on the custom Premium plan.

Weav describes itself as AI customer support software with an AI chatbot and a unified inbox. You train it by connecting your website or uploading files, much like Chatbase. Its pricing page lists Lite free (20 AI messages a month), Plus at $29 (500 messages, 2 seats), Pro at $119 (5,000 messages, 3 seats) and Max at $359 (20,000 messages, 5 seats), with 20% off on annual billing. From Plus, the inbox covers chat, email and third-party messages with handoff to a human.

Against Chatbase, Pro's 5,000 messages for $119 compares with Basic's 4,000 credits for $150. Not for: teams with big knowledge bases. Training storage is 1 MB on Plus and 10 MB on Pro, against 40 MB on every Chatbase plan, and the price of extra message bundles is not stated.

Zendesk AI agents are billed per automated resolution, and you pay only when the AI resolves a case without a human. The pricing page lists Suite Team at $69 an agent a month ($55 annual) with 5 automated resolutions per agent, and Suite Professional at $149 ($115) with 10. Extra resolutions cost $1.50 committed or $2.00 pay-as-you-go. Copilot for human agents is $50 an agent a month, annual only.

Not for: a team without Zendesk. Buying a full helpdesk to get a website bot costs far more than Chatbase.

CustomGPT.ai is built for answering from large document sets. Its pricing page lists Standard at $99 a month ($89 annual) with 1,000 queries, 10 agents and 5,000 documents per agent, and Premium at $499 ($449) with 5,000 queries and 25 agents. Both have a 7-day trial. That is ten agents on the entry plan, against one on every Chatbase plan.

Not for: live support. The pricing page does not mention human handoff or live chat, and 1,000 queries for $99 is a higher per-answer price than Chatbase.

Botpress is a builder for bots that do more than answer questions. Its pricing page counts conversations, not messages: any exchange with at least two user messages in a month counts as one. Free gives 100 conversations and 3 bots. Plus is $150 a month on annual billing for 250 conversations and $25 of AI usage, with extra packs of 100 for $65. Team is $750 a month for 1,500.

Not for: someone who wants a bot live in an afternoon. At $0.50 to $0.65 per extra conversation it is also not the cheap option, and handoff is shown as a use case, not a plan feature.

Landbot builds guided chat flows with AI steps, on the web and WhatsApp. Its pricing page is in euros: Free has 100 chats a month and no AI chats, Starter is EUR 32 a month on annual billing for 500 chats and 100 AI chats, and Professional is EUR 80 for 2,500 chats and 300 AI chats. Extra AI chats are EUR 0.10 each. Your own WhatsApp number is a EUR 100-a-month add-on on Professional or included in Professional WA at EUR 160.

Not for: open-ended questions across a large knowledge base. Landbot's AI allowance is small, and its strength is structured flows like lead capture and booking.

Voiceflow is a platform for building chat and voice agents, with a track for agencies that build for clients, including white-labeling. Its pricing page did not show plan prices when we read it; business pricing is by request. The billing docs describe a Free plan with a one-time credit grant, plus Pro, Business and Enterprise plans billed in monthly credits.

Not for: anyone who needs a price before a sales call. Credit and plan prices are not stated on the pages we could read.

Dify is the self-hosted route to a docs chatbot. Its Community Edition is free under a modified Apache 2.0 license that bars running it as a multi-tenant service without a commercial license. The docs show a chat bubble you can embed on any site. Dify Cloud is $590 a year per workspace for 5,000 message credits a month.

Chatwoot is an open-source live chat and support inbox, MIT-licensed outside its enterprise folder. The self-hosted Community Edition is free but does not include Captain, its AI agent. Cloud plans start at $19 an agent a month with 300 Captain credits, and extra credits are $20 per 1,000. Not for: teams without someone to run servers, or anyone wanting AI answers on the free self-hosted edition.

MindStudio is a builder for custom AI agents rather than a support product. The pricing page lists a free plan with one agent and 1,000 runs a month, and Individual at $20 a month ($16 annual) for unlimited agents. Model usage is billed per token, and MindStudio says it does not mark up model costs. Embedding agents on your own website is listed as a feature; the plan that includes it is not stated.

Not for: a support team that needs an inbox, analytics and handoff out of the box. You build those pieces yourself.

Lindy is a different shape. Its Customer Service Rep triages new tickets, drafts replies from your docs and routes the rest, working in Zendesk, Intercom, Freshdesk, Gmail and Slack. Its pricing page lists $50 of free credits for 7 days, then Team at $29.99 a month for 3,000 credits per seat, with top-ups at $10 per 1,000.

Not for: a website chat widget. Lindy's pages do not describe one; it helps the people answering tickets rather than talking to your visitors.

Chipp now presents itself as an AI chief of staff that can also build pages, apps and agents. Every plan is $299 a month with $100 of AI usage, unlimited users and agents, and HIPAA with a signed BAA; a template setup is $2,500 one-time, per its pricing page. Its pages do not describe a website chatbot widget, so we did not rank it here.

• You keep running out of credits: move to a per-conversation or per-outcome tool. Tidio and Botpress count conversations; Intercom Fin and Zendesk AI charge only when the AI resolves the case.
• Customers need a person, fast: pick a tool with a real live inbox: Intercom Fin, Tidio, Weav from Plus, or Chatwoot.
• You like Chatbase and want it cheaper: Weav is the same idea, with 5,000 messages for $119 on Pro, if your training content fits in 10 MB.
• Many documents or many bots: CustomGPT.ai gives 10 agents and 5,000 documents per agent on its entry plan.
• WhatsApp or guided flows: Landbot.
• No vendor bill at all: self-host Dify for a docs chatbot or Chatwoot for live chat, and pay only for hosting and your model API.

Before you switch, count your current volume the way each tool counts it: replies for Chatbase and Weav, conversations for Tidio and Botpress, resolved outcomes for Fin and Zendesk. If you are staying, Chatbase's 1-credit models halve the cost per reply against its 2-credit ones. See Chatbase's own plans on our Chatbase listing.

What is the best alternative to Chatbase?

For support teams that need a human handoff, Intercom Fin at $0.99 per outcome. For a small business, Tidio, with a free plan and Lyro AI from $32.50 a month. For the closest like-for-like swap, Weav, a website chatbot trained on your docs from $29 a month.

Is there a free alternative to Chatbase?

Chatbase itself has only a 7-day trial. Tidio has a free plan with 50 lifetime Lyro AI conversations, Botpress a free plan with 100 conversations a month, and Weav a free Lite plan with 20 AI messages. Dify and Chatwoot can be self-hosted for free.

How much does Chatbase cost per message?

Chatbase charges message credits per AI reply: 1 credit on its cheapest models, 2 on most named models, and up to 5 on Claude 5.5 Opus. Hobby is $40 a month for 700 credits, and top-ups are $40 per 1,000 credits, about 4 to 8 cents a reply.

Which Chatbase alternative has live agent handoff?

Intercom Fin, Zendesk AI, Tidio and Chatwoot are full live chat or helpdesk tools, so a person can take over in the same inbox. Weav includes a human handoff inbox from its $29 Plus plan, and Landbot from its Starter plan.

Is there an open-source Chatbase alternative?

Yes. Dify's Community Edition is free to self-host under a modified Apache 2.0 license and can embed a chat bubble on any website. Chatwoot is an MIT-licensed live chat inbox, though its Captain AI agent is not in the free self-hosted edition.