How Much Does a Chatbot Cost for a Small Business?

The honest answer: $0 to $150 a month

For most small businesses, a working chatbot costs somewhere between nothing and $150 per month. That range is wide because "chatbot" means different things.

A simple FAQ bot that answers "what are your hours" and "do you ship to Canada" can be free or close to it. A bot that handles orders, books appointments and hands off to a human when it gets confused costs more. So does anything that runs on WhatsApp or Instagram.

Here's the part that surprises people: the tool itself is often the cheap part. The expensive part is what happens after the bot answers. Some vendors charge per conversation. Some charge per "resolution" — meaning they only bill you when the bot actually solves the problem. Some charge per agent seat. A few charge all three.

Tidio is where most small stores start. The paid plan begins at $24.17 per month billed yearly, and there's a free plan covering 50 conversations per month. That free tier is genuinely useful for testing whether chat helps your site at all.

What actually drives your cost up

Four things move your bill more than anything else.

• **Conversation volume.** If you get 20 chats a month, almost any tool is cheap. At 2,000 chats, pricing models start to matter a lot.
• **AI usage.** Many tools include a small AI allowance and charge overage after that. Freshchat's Freddy AI Agent, for example, includes the first 500 sessions free, then costs $49 per 100 sessions.
• **Number of agents.** Crisp charges per workspace (€45/month), which is great for teams. LiveChat charges $19 per agent per month billed yearly, so a five-person team pays five times as much.
• **Channels.** Web chat is usually included. WhatsApp, Instagram and SMS often cost extra or sit on higher tiers.

Picture two businesses on the same Tidio plan, as an example. A bakery getting roughly 40 chats a month never pays more than the base price. A Shopify store selling pet supplies can burn through the same plan's AI credits in a week. Same tool, wildly different bills.

Tidio: best for small e-commerce stores

Tidio is our top pick for small online stores, and it's the easiest of the three to set up. Live chat can be running in under 10 minutes, no developer needed.

The Lyro AI feature answers questions by reading your FAQ and product pages. You get the first 50 AI conversations free, for life, which is a smart way to let you test it. After that, AI credits are what you're really buying.

**What it costs:** From $24.17 per month billed yearly. Free plan with 50 conversations per month.

**Where it hurts:** Lyro AI credits run out fast on the cheaper plans. Advanced analytics are locked to higher tiers. If your store gets a lot of repeat questions, budget for the AI add-on from day one.

**Best for:** Shopify, WordPress and WooCommerce stores that want chat running today.

Crisp: best for budget-conscious teams

Crisp does something unusual. It charges per workspace, not per person. That means a team of eight pays the same as a team of two.

The paid plan starts at €45 per workspace per month. You get a shared inbox, a chatbot, email campaigns and a knowledge base in one place. There's also a free plan with two seats, though it comes with zero AI credits.

Crisp's AI is lighter than Tidio's or Botpress's. If you mainly want a human team answering chats with a simple bot handling after-hours questions, that's fine. If you want the bot doing most of the work, look elsewhere.

**What it costs:** From €45 per workspace per month. Free plan with 2 seats.

**Where it hurts:** Free tier has no AI credits at all. Fewer deep integrations than the bigger players.

**Best for:** Small teams where several people share the inbox.

Freshchat: best for growing support teams

Freshchat is part of the Freshworks family, which matters if you ever plan to add ticketing or a full help desk. It grows with you.

The free plan is unusually generous — up to 10 agents at no cost. That's the best free tier in this comparison for a team. Paid plans start at $19 per agent per month billed yearly.

Freddy AI assists your agents and powers the bot. The catch is that the AI Agent is billed per session as an add-on. The first 500 sessions are free, then it's $49 per 100 sessions. On a busy month, that add-on can cost more than the seats.

**What it costs:** From $19 per agent per month billed yearly. Free plan up to 10 agents.

**Where it hurts:** Best features need higher tiers. Freddy AI Agent is a paid add-on, not included.

**Best for:** Teams that expect to grow and want one vendor for chat and support tickets.

Three cheaper alternatives worth a look

If the three above don't fit your budget, these are the ones we'd check next.

**Zoho SalesIQ** is the cheapest paid entry we've seen in this category, starting at $7 per operator per month billed yearly. The free plan covers 3 operators and 100 chats per month. It's a natural fit if you already use Zoho for invoicing or CRM.

**Smartsupp** starts at €14 per month billed yearly and includes WhatsApp and Messenger even on the free plan. The free tier is tight — 1 operator and 25 conversations per month — but the paid entry is one of the lowest for multichannel chat. Mira AI is a paid add-on from €16 per month.

**Chatwoot** is open source. The self-hosted Community Edition is free if you have someone technical to run it. The cloud free plan gives you 2 agents and 500 conversations per month.

How to estimate your own bill in 10 minutes

Before you sign up for anything, do this quick math. It takes less time than reading a pricing page.

1. Count how many customer questions you get in a typical week. Email, DMs, phone — all of it. 2. Multiply by four to get a monthly number. That's your conversation volume. 3. Decide how many people will answer chats. That's your seat count. 4. Ask one question: do you want the bot to answer alone, or just help your team?

If your volume is under 100 conversations a month and one person handles chat, you can probably stay on a free plan or pay under $30. If you're over 500 and want AI doing the heavy lifting, budget $50 to $150 and watch the AI overage fees closely.

One more tip: almost every vendor here offers a free plan or trial. Test with real customer questions for two weeks before paying. What looks cheap on the pricing page often isn't, once your actual traffic shows up.