Chatbase pricing (2026)

Last updated October 2026

Chatbase has established itself as one of the more accessible AI chatbot builders on the market, letting businesses train custom chatbots on their own data and deploy them across websites, Slack, WhatsApp, and more. But accessible does not mean cheap, and the platform's credit-based pricing model can catch new users off guard if they pick the wrong plan or the wrong AI model.

This page breaks down every Chatbase tier in detail, from the free plan through Enterprise, including the add-on costs that never appear on the headline price. If you are comparing platforms, you may also find our Chatbase review, Chatbase vs Botpress, Chatbase vs Intercom, Chatbase vs Tidio, and Chatbase vs Watermelon pages useful alongside this one.

Pricing overview

How the credit system works

Chatbase does not charge per conversation or per seat in the way that traditional live-chat platforms do. Instead, each plan comes with a monthly allocation of message credits. Every response your chatbot sends consumes one or more credits, depending on the underlying AI model you select. A response powered by a standard model costs one credit, while a response using Claude Opus 4.5 or 4.6 costs five. This variable consumption rate makes the effective cost per conversation difficult to predict in advance.

The five tiers at a glance

Chatbase offers five plans: Free, Hobby, Standard, Pro, and Enterprise. Monthly prices run from nothing to $500, with a custom quote for Enterprise. Annual billing reduces the price by 20 per cent across the board, bringing the Hobby plan to $32 per month and the Pro plan to $400 per month. The gap between tiers is significant. Hobby to Standard is a near-fourfold increase in price, and Standard to Pro more than triples the monthly cost. The jumps reflect not just higher credit volumes but the unlocking of features that Chatbase reserves for higher-paying customers, including API access, voice and telephony support, and advanced analytics.

April 2026 price increase

It is worth noting that Chatbase raised the price of its top-tier plan in April 2026, pushing the Pro plan from $384 to $500 per month, a 30 per cent increase. The lower tiers remained unchanged. If you are budgeting for a Pro-level deployment, bear in mind that further price adjustments are possible as the platform matures.

Free plan

What you get for nothing

The Chatbase free plan provides 50 message credits per month, one AI agent, up to 400 KB of training data, and a single team member seat. You are limited to basic AI models, and the plan does not include any integrations, analytics, or help-desk features.

The 14-day inactivity rule

The most important restriction on the free plan is the inactivity deletion policy. If your AI agent goes 14 days without activity, Chatbase will delete it. This makes the free tier unsuitable for seasonal businesses, side projects you revisit occasionally, or any chatbot that does not receive regular traffic. It functions as a trial environment rather than a production-grade offering.

Who the free plan suits

The free plan is best thought of as a sandbox. Fifty credits per month translates to roughly 50 conversations if you use the cheapest model, or as few as 10 if you opt for Claude Opus. It is enough to test whether Chatbase can handle your data, produce sensible responses, and integrate with your site's design. It is not enough to serve real customers.

Hobby plan

Pricing and credits

The Hobby plan costs $40 per month, or $32 per month when billed annually ($384 per year). It includes 500 to 700 message credits per month (the exact number has varied slightly across Chatbase documentation updates), 200 test credits, up to 10 MB of training data, and two team member seats.

Features unlocked at Hobby

Upgrading from Free to Hobby opens access to advanced AI models, including GPT-5.2, Claude Sonnet, and Gemini variants. You also gain basic analytics, chat attachment support, Zapier integration, and the ability to connect your chatbot to multiple channels. The Hobby plan includes a 7-day free trial, so you can test the tier before committing.

What Hobby still lacks

The Hobby plan does not include help-desk functionality, voice or telephony support, outbound campaigns, API access, personalisation features, or auto-resync for training data. If your use case requires any of these, you will need the Standard plan or above. The Hobby plan also limits you to five AI Actions per agent, which constrains how much your chatbot can do beyond answering questions.

Is Hobby enough for a small business?

For a small business receiving 10 to 20 chatbot conversations per day, the Hobby plan's credit allocation will run thin quickly, especially if you use a model that consumes two or three credits per response. A chatbot handling 15 conversations daily on a two-credit model would burn through roughly 900 credits per month, exceeding the Hobby allocation. This is the tier where the gap between headline price and true cost starts to emerge.

Standard plan

Pricing and credits

The Standard plan costs $150 per month, or $120 per month on annual billing ($1,440 per year). It includes 4,000 message credits per month, 500 test credits, up to 20 MB of training data, and three team member seats. Chatbase labels this its "Popular" plan, and it does represent the point where the platform becomes viable for most commercial deployments.

The features that matter

Standard is the first tier that includes API access, which is essential if you want to embed Chatbase responses into your own applications, CRM workflows, or custom dashboards. You also gain help-desk functionality, voice and telephony support, outbound campaign tools, personalisation, and auto-resync for training data. Integrations expand to include Stripe, Zendesk, Shopify, HubSpot, Slack, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram. Eight AI Actions per agent give your chatbot meaningful autonomy in handling tasks like order lookups, appointment scheduling, and data retrieval.

The cost per credit calculation

At $150 per month for 4,000 credits, the Standard plan works out to roughly $0.0375 per credit, or about $37.50 per 1,000 credits. This is slightly cheaper than buying overage credits at $40 per 1,000, which makes the plan more cost-effective than staying on Hobby and topping up regularly. If you consistently exceed your Hobby allocation by more than a few hundred credits, upgrading to Standard is the better financial decision.

Pro plan

Pricing and credits

The Pro plan costs $500 per month, or $400 per month on annual billing ($4,800 per year). It includes 15,000 message credits per month, 1,000 test credits, up to 40 MB of training data, and five team member seats.

Advanced capabilities

The Pro plan adds advanced analytics, source suggestions, and the ability to use past support tickets as a training source. Source suggestions help you identify gaps in your chatbot's knowledge base by flagging questions it could not answer well. Using tickets as training data is particularly valuable for support teams, as it allows your chatbot to learn from real customer interactions rather than relying solely on documentation.

Twelve AI Actions per agent give Pro-tier chatbots considerably more flexibility in handling complex workflows. For e-commerce businesses, this means your chatbot can manage product searches, order tracking, cart updates, and account modifications without handing off to a human agent.

When Pro makes financial sense

The Pro plan's effective cost per credit is roughly $0.033, or about $33 per 1,000 credits. This is the best per-credit rate of any fixed plan. If your chatbot regularly handles more than 100 conversations per day on a two-credit model, Pro is likely the most cost-effective option. The threshold is lower if you use more expensive models.

Enterprise plan

Custom pricing for custom needs

The Chatbase Enterprise plan carries no published price. You will need to contact the sales team for a quote, which will be based on your expected credit volume, number of agents, and feature requirements.

What Enterprise adds

Enterprise is the only tier that includes single sign-on (SSO), white-labelling, custom roles and permissions, audit logs, priority support, a dedicated customer success manager, and service-level agreements (SLAs). For organisations operating in regulated industries, Enterprise also offers HIPAA eligibility with a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) and zero data retention.

Flexible billing models

Unlike the fixed plans, Enterprise offers flexible billing structures. You can commit based on credits, conversations, or resolutions, depending on which metric best aligns with your business model. This flexibility can make Enterprise more cost-effective than Pro for high-volume deployments, even before accounting for the additional features.

Message credits and chatbot limits

How credits are consumed

The number of credits each chatbot response uses depends entirely on the AI model powering it. Chatbase publishes the following credit consumption rates: one credit for standard models, two credits for GPT-5.2 and Gemini variants, three credits for Grok 3 and Claude Sonnet 4.5 and 4.6, four credits for Grok 4, and five credits for Claude Opus 4.5 and 4.6.

This variable rate is the single most important factor in determining whether a plan will meet your needs. A Hobby plan with 700 credits lasts for 700 conversations on a one-credit model, but only 140 conversations on a five-credit model. The difference between choosing GPT-5.2 and Claude Opus can turn a comfortable monthly allocation into a mid-month shortage.

Credit reset and rollover

Credits reset on the first of each calendar month, regardless of when you signed up. Unused credits do not roll over. If you sign up on the 20th, you will still receive your full allocation on the 1st of the following month, but the partial month is not extended or prorated.

AI agent limits and AI Actions

Each plan includes a limited number of AI agents, though Chatbase does not prominently advertise the exact counts for every tier. The Free plan includes one agent. AI Actions, which allow your chatbot to perform tasks rather than simply answer questions, are capped at zero on Free, five per agent on Hobby, eight on Standard, and twelve on Pro.

Feature comparison across tiers

Models and intelligence

The Free plan restricts you to basic models, which limits both the quality and versatility of your chatbot's responses. Every paid plan unlocks advanced models, but the choice of model affects your credit consumption, creating a tension between response quality and cost efficiency. Choosing a mid-range model like GPT-5.2 at two credits per response offers a reasonable balance for most use cases.

Integrations and channels

Integration availability follows a strict tiered structure on Chatbase. The Free plan includes no integrations. Hobby adds Zapier, which opens indirect connections to hundreds of platforms but lacks the depth of native integrations. Standard and above unlock native connections to Stripe, Zendesk, Shopify, HubSpot, Slack, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram. The Shopify integration, available since January 2026, supports product search, order tracking, cart management, and account updates without requiring theme code modifications.

Analytics and reporting

Basic analytics arrive at the Hobby tier, providing insight into conversation volumes, common queries, and resolution rates. Advanced analytics, available only on Pro and Enterprise, add deeper performance metrics, trend analysis, and source suggestions. If data-driven optimisation of your chatbot is a priority, this distinction may justify the jump to Pro.

Help desk and voice

Help-desk functionality, voice support, and telephony are Standard-tier features. These capabilities transform Chatbase from a simple Q&A bot into a more comprehensive customer support tool, allowing chatbots to create and manage support tickets, handle phone-based interactions, and run outbound communication campaigns.

Hidden costs and overage charges

Auto-recharge credits

When your monthly credit allocation runs out, your chatbot stops responding unless you have enabled auto-recharge. Chatbase sells overage credits at $40 per 1,000. These credits do not expire, which is a small mercy, but they are more expensive per credit than the allocation included with Standard or Pro plans. If you find yourself regularly purchasing overage credits, upgrading to the next tier is almost always cheaper.

Extra AI agents

Each AI agent beyond your plan's included allocation costs $25 per month, or $300 per year. For businesses that need separate chatbots for different products, departments, or languages, this cost adds up. Three additional agents on top of a Standard plan would add $75 per month to your bill, bringing the effective monthly cost to $225.

Branding removal

Every Chatbase chatbot displays a "Powered by Chatbase" badge by default. Removing it costs $99 per month, or $1,188 per year. Enterprise plans include white-labelling at no extra charge. For businesses that consider branding consistency important, this add-on is effectively mandatory, and it represents a meaningful percentage of the total cost on Hobby and Standard plans.

Custom domains and other extras

Chatbase does not clearly publish pricing for custom chatbot domains. If hosting your chatbot on a branded subdomain matters to your deployment, confirm the cost with their sales team before committing to a plan.

The true cost of a Standard deployment

Consider a realistic scenario: a business on the Standard plan using a two-credit model, with one extra AI agent and branding removal. The monthly cost would be $150 (plan) plus $25 (extra agent) plus $99 (branding removal), totalling $274 per month. If that business exceeds its 4,000-credit allocation by even 500 credits, the total climbs to $294. The headline price of $150 tells less than half the story.

Chatbase vs competitors on pricing

Chatbase vs Botpress

Botpress uses a fundamentally different pricing model, combining a message allowance with a separate AI credit balance. The free tier includes 500 messages per month, which is ten times Chatbase's 50-credit free allocation. Botpress Plus, at $79 per month on annual billing, includes 5,000 messages, roughly comparable to Chatbase Standard's 4,000 credits but at roughly half the price. Botpress Team, at $445 per month, offers 50,000 messages, which dwarfs Chatbase Pro's 15,000 credits. For high-volume deployments, Botpress tends to be more cost-effective, though its interface demands more technical confidence. See our full Chatbase vs Botpress comparison for a deeper analysis.

Chatbase vs Tidio

Tidio's pricing starts lower, with a Starter plan at $24 per month for 100 conversations. However, Tidio's AI capabilities come as a paid add-on: Lyro AI costs from $39 per month for 50 AI conversations, and chatbot flow automation adds another $29 per month. A fully capable Tidio setup can easily reach $92 per month or more, which is comparable to Chatbase Hobby at $40 but with a more complex billing structure. Tidio's strength lies in its live-chat and human handoff capabilities, which Chatbase handles less natively. Our Chatbase vs Tidio page explores the trade-offs in more detail.

Chatbase vs Intercom

Intercom operates on an entirely different scale of pricing. Its Essential plan starts at $39 per seat per month, which sounds similar to Chatbase Hobby until you factor in per-seat scaling and the cost of Fin AI at $0.99 per resolution. For a five-person support team handling 1,000 AI resolutions per month, the Intercom bill would exceed $1,000 before accounting for add-ons like Copilot ($35 per agent per month) or Proactive Support Plus ($99 per month). Chatbase is substantially cheaper for AI-first deployments where the chatbot handles the majority of interactions without human agents. Intercom is the stronger choice when you need a full-featured support platform with AI as one component among many. Our Chatbase vs Intercom page covers this in full.

Chatbase vs Watermelon

Watermelon, a European-focused chatbot platform, prices in euros and charges by conversations rather than credits. Its Starter plan at €99 per month includes 250 conversations, and its Business plan at €399 per month includes 1,000 conversations. Chatbase's credit-based model makes direct comparison difficult, but on a per-conversation basis, Watermelon tends to be more expensive for high volumes. Watermelon's advantage lies in its European data residency and GDPR-first design, which matters for businesses with strict data sovereignty requirements. Read our Chatbase vs Watermelon comparison for the complete picture.

Who Chatbase is best for

Small and medium e-commerce businesses

Chatbase is particularly well suited to e-commerce businesses that want to automate product enquiries, order tracking, and basic customer support. The Shopify integration, combined with AI Actions for cart management and account updates, creates a capable front-line support bot without requiring custom development. Our guide to the best chatbot for e-commerce covers this use case in detail.

SaaS companies with documentation-heavy support

If your product has extensive documentation and your support tickets cluster around "how do I" questions, Chatbase excels. Training a chatbot on your knowledge base, help articles, and past tickets (on the Pro plan) can deflect a meaningful percentage of support volume. The Standard plan's auto-resync feature ensures the chatbot stays current as your documentation evolves.

Teams that want fast deployment over deep customisation

Chatbase prioritises speed of setup over depth of customisation. If your goal is to have a working AI chatbot embedded on your site within a day, trained on your existing content, and capable of handling common questions, Chatbase delivers on that promise. Teams that need granular control over conversation flows, complex branching logic, or deeply custom UI will find Botpress or a purpose-built solution more suitable.

Solopreneurs and freelancers testing AI support

The Hobby plan at $40 per month offers a reasonable entry point for individuals who want to experiment with AI-powered customer support without committing to enterprise-grade tooling. The credit allocation is tight, but for a low-traffic personal site or portfolio, it can be sufficient.

Is Chatbase worth it?

The value proposition

Chatbase offers a compelling combination of ease of use, model flexibility, and deployment speed. The ability to train a chatbot on your own data and deploy it within minutes is a meaningful advantage over platforms that require extensive configuration. The range of AI models available, from cost-effective standard options to premium Claude Opus, allows you to balance quality against budget.

Where the value breaks down

The credit system is both Chatbase's greatest pricing innovation and its most significant drawback. Variable credit consumption makes cost prediction difficult, and the gap between the headline plan price and the true monthly cost (after adding branding removal, extra agents, and overage credits) can be substantial. The 7-day trial period is short for properly evaluating credit consumption patterns, and the calendar-month reset means a mid-month signup effectively wastes a portion of your first allocation.

The verdict on value

For businesses with moderate chatbot traffic, a clear knowledge base, and a preference for simplicity, Chatbase offers good value at the Standard tier and above. The Hobby plan is harder to recommend for production use due to its tight credit allocation and lack of key features. The Pro plan offers the best per-credit economics but demands a $500 monthly commitment that many small businesses will find difficult to justify. If your needs are modest and your traffic is predictable, Chatbase is a solid choice. If your traffic is spiky or your model requirements are expensive, build your budget around the true cost, not the headline price.

Organising your chatbot's knowledge base with Fabric

Whatever chatbot platform you settle on, the quality of your training data determines the quality of your chatbot's responses. Fabric is a personal cloud and context layer designed to help you organise the documents, notes, research, and reference material that feeds into tools like Chatbase. At $8 per month on the yearly plan (or $10 monthly), with a free tier available, it provides a cloud drive for storing and organising training data alongside an AI assistant that can query your own knowledge base to help you identify gaps before they become gaps in your chatbot's responses.

For teams building and maintaining AI chatbots, having a single, searchable repository of product documentation, support transcripts, and policy documents makes the retraining process considerably smoother. You can learn more about how Fabric handles data on the environment page.

Frequently asked questions

How much does Chatbase cost per month?

Chatbase offers five plans. The Free plan costs nothing, Hobby costs $40 per month, Standard costs $150 per month, Pro costs $500 per month, and Enterprise is custom-priced. Annual billing reduces these by 20 per cent, bringing Hobby to $32 per month, Standard to $120, and Pro to $400.

Does Chatbase have a free plan?

Yes. The Chatbase free plan includes 50 message credits per month, one AI agent, and up to 400 KB of training data. However, agents are deleted after 14 days of inactivity, and the plan does not include integrations, analytics, or advanced AI models.

How do Chatbase message credits work?

Each chatbot response consumes one or more credits depending on the AI model used. Standard models cost one credit per response, while premium models like Claude Opus cost five credits. Your monthly allocation resets on the first of each calendar month, and unused credits do not roll over.

What happens when you run out of Chatbase credits?

Your chatbot stops responding to customer queries unless you have enabled auto-recharge. Auto-recharge purchases additional credits at $40 per 1,000. You can set a threshold to trigger automatic top-ups, and purchased credits do not expire.

Can you remove the Chatbase branding?

Yes, but it costs $99 per month as a paid add-on. Enterprise plans include white-labelling at no additional charge. There is no way to remove the "Powered by Chatbase" badge on the Free or Hobby plans without paying for the add-on.

Does Chatbase offer a free trial?

All paid plans include a 7-day free trial. This gives you access to the full feature set of your chosen tier, but seven days is quite short for evaluating whether the credit allocation will sustain your traffic levels over a full month.

How much do extra Chatbase chatbots cost?

Each additional AI agent beyond your plan's included allocation costs $25 per month, or $300 per year. This applies to all paid plans.

Does Chatbase support Shopify?

Yes. Chatbase launched a Shopify app in January 2026 that supports product search, order tracking, cart management, and account updates. The integration is available on Standard plans and above and does not require modifications to your Shopify theme code.

Is Chatbase HIPAA compliant?

HIPAA compliance is available only on the Enterprise plan. It includes a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) and zero data retention. No other tier offers HIPAA eligibility.

Which AI models does Chatbase support?

Chatbase supports a range of models, including GPT-5.2, Claude Sonnet 4.5 and 4.6, Claude Opus 4.5 and 4.6, Gemini variants, and Grok 3 and 4. The Free plan is limited to basic models, while all paid plans unlock the full selection. Each model consumes a different number of credits per response.

Is Chatbase cheaper than Intercom?

For AI-first deployments where the chatbot handles most interactions, Chatbase is significantly cheaper. A Chatbase Standard plan costs $150 per month regardless of team size, while Intercom charges per seat plus $0.99 per AI resolution. For teams with multiple support agents and high volumes, the Intercom bill can exceed $1,000 per month. See our Chatbase vs Intercom comparison for full details.

How does Chatbase pricing compare to Botpress?

Botpress is generally more generous on message volume at similar price points. Botpress Plus at $79 per month includes 5,000 messages, compared to Chatbase Standard's 4,000 credits at $150 per month. However, Chatbase offers a simpler setup experience and more native integrations. Our Chatbase vs Botpress page covers the comparison in depth.

Does Chatbase offer annual billing discounts?

Yes. Annual billing saves 20 per cent across all paid plans. Hobby drops from $40 to $32 per month, Standard from $150 to $120, and Pro from $500 to $400. The annual commitment is billed upfront.