Introduction
Chatbase pricing looks simple at first glance: a free plan, then paid tiers from $40 to $500 a month. Look closer and the real cost depends on something the headline prices do not show, which is how fast you burn through message credits.
Chatbase is a genuinely capable platform. It trains an AI agent on your own content, runs across chat, email and voice, and now counts large brands among its customers. But it prices usage in credits rather than plain messages, adds several of its most-wanted features as paid extras, and deletes inactive bots on the free plan. If you are budgeting for it, those details matter more than the sticker price.
This guide breaks down every Chatbase plan, explains how message credits actually work, and lists the add-ons and catches that change your monthly bill. All figures were verified on Chatbase’s own pricing page in September 2026. Where a flat-fee approach suits a support team better, we say so, and we make one of the alternatives ourselves, so we have flagged that clearly.
Chatbase Pricing Plans at a Glance
Chatbase sells five tiers. Four have public prices; Enterprise is quote-only. Every paid plan is billed per month, and annual billing takes 20% off.
| Plan | Price/mo | Message credits/mo | Seats | AI agents included | Built for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 50 | 1 | 1 | Trying it out |
| Hobby | $40 | 700 | 2 | 1 | Solo builders, small sites |
| Standard | $150 | 4,000 | 3 | 1 | Growing teams wanting helpdesk and voice |
| Pro | $500 | 15,000 | 5 | 1 | Higher volume and advanced analytics |
| Enterprise | Custom | Higher limits | Custom | Custom | SSO, white-labelling, SLAs, HIPAA |
Chatbase pricing verified September 2026 against Chatbase’s pricing page. Prices are per month on monthly billing. Annual billing is 20% cheaper. Standard adds helpdesk, voice, telephony, outbound campaigns and API access; Pro adds advanced analytics and the ability to use tickets as a training source.
Two things stand out before you even reach the fine print. First, every tier, including the $500 Pro plan, includes just one AI agent by default. If you want a separate bot for, say, sales and support, that is an add-on. Second, the plans are separated mostly by message-credit allowance, so understanding credits is the whole game.
Annual billing changes the sticker prices too. The 20% discount brings Hobby to the equivalent of $32 a month, Standard to $120 and Pro to $400, each billed once a year. That is a real saving if Chatbase is the right fit, but it commits you for twelve months, so it is worth running a month on monthly billing first to see how quickly your credits actually go.
How Chatbase Message Credits Actually Work
This is the part that catches people out. A “message credit” is not the same as a customer message, and the difference can be large.
Here is Chatbase’s own explanation, from the FAQ on its pricing page:
“Each request made to the AI model costs a certain number of message credits depending on your chosen model. If you have any actions enabled, the agent might make multiple requests to the AI model to generate the response… that means a total of 2 requests and 2x the number of credits for the model you are using.”
Two mechanics sit inside that. The cost per reply scales with the model you pick, so an advanced model from OpenAI, Anthropic or Google costs more credits per answer than a basic one. And enabling an action, such as looking up an order or booking a slot, makes the agent send more than one request, which multiplies the credits for that single reply.
So the credit allowance on your plan does not translate cleanly into conversations. Seven hundred credits on the Hobby plan is not 700 conversations, and often not even 700 replies. It is 700 credits, spent at a rate you only know once you have chosen your model and switched your actions on.
It is also worth knowing what a credit costs, because the effective rate falls as you climb the tiers. Hobby works out at roughly $0.057 a credit, Standard at $0.038 and Pro at $0.033, so the same 1,000 credits cost far more on the entry plan than at the top. Auto-recharge credits sit in between at $0.04 each, though unlike your monthly allowance they never expire. If your usage is steady, a higher tier can work out cheaper per credit than repeatedly topping up a smaller one.
The Add-Ons That Change Your Bill
Several of the features teams expect to be included sit outside the plan price. These are billed on top:
- Remove “Powered By Chatbase” branding: $99/mo. The Chatbase badge stays on your deployed agent until you pay for this add-on, on every tier below Enterprise (Enterprise includes white-labelling).
- Extra agents: $25 per agent/mo. Because each plan includes only one agent, a second or third bot is an ongoing monthly charge rather than a one-off.
- Auto-recharge credits: $40 per 1,000. When your balance runs low, Chatbase can top it up automatically. These purchased credits do not expire, unlike your monthly plan allowance.
For a small team that wants two unbranded bots, the extras alone add $124 a month ($99 for branding removal plus $25 for the second agent) on top of the plan price.
Five Things to Check Before You Commit
- Free bots are deleted after 14 days of inactivity. Chatbase states this plainly on the Free plan. If you build a bot to trial and leave it a fortnight, it is gone.
- Every plan includes one agent. More bots cost $25/mo each, so multi-bot setups scale in a way the headline price does not show.
- Credits are a monthly allowance, not messages. As above, your real capacity depends on the model and actions you use. Model that before you pick a tier.
- The paid trial is seven days. Hobby, Standard and Pro each start with a 7-day trial, which is a short window to test an AI agent against real customer questions.
- Annual billing saves 20% but locks you in. The discount is worth having if you are sure Chatbase fits, but commit only once you have modelled your credit burn on a real month of traffic.
What Chatbase Actually Costs: A Worked Example
Say you choose the Hobby plan at $40/mo for its 700 credits, and you want an accurate support bot on an advanced model.
A real support conversation is rarely a single reply; it is usually several back-and-forth messages. And each reply costs more than one credit on an advanced model. As an illustration, if one reply costs four credits, 700 credits covers roughly 175 replies, not 700. Enable a single action, such as an order lookup, and Chatbase’s own documentation says that reply costs twice the credits, which halves your capacity again.
The exact multiplier depends entirely on the model you select, so nobody can give you a firm conversation number from the plan alone. That is the honest takeaway: with Chatbase you cannot read your monthly cost off the pricing page. You have to run a real month, watch the credit meter, and add auto-recharge top-ups at $40 per 1,000 credits when you run short. For a solo developer that is manageable. For a support team that needs a predictable bill, it is friction worth pricing in.
Is Chatbase Worth It?
For the right team, yes. Chatbase is a strong, increasingly enterprise-grade platform. It trains on your content, lets you choose between advanced models from several providers, runs across chat, email, voice and social channels, and supports agentic actions that can actually do things rather than just answer. It is trusted by more than 10,000 businesses, and its Enterprise tier covers SSO, audit logs, SLAs and HIPAA-eligibility.
It suits developers and teams who want a powerful, customisable agent, who are comfortable choosing models and managing a credit budget, and who value channel breadth over billing simplicity.
It suits some teams less well. If you run customer support and want a predictable monthly bill, the credit model works against you. If you need more than one bot, the $25-per-agent charge adds up. And if you want a badge-free bot, the $99 branding add-on is a recurring cost that cheaper-looking plans do not advertise. None of that makes Chatbase a bad product. It makes it a particular kind of product, priced for flexibility rather than predictability.
If you are still weighing options, our guides to the best no-code chatbot builders and the best AI customer service chatbots compare the field side by side, and our buyer’s guide to choosing an AI support chatbot walks through the questions that matter.
A Flat-Fee Alternative for Support Teams
If predictable pricing is what you are after, this is where we come in, so treat the next paragraph as us making our own case.
Resolve247 prices support AI as a flat monthly fee rather than in credits. Plans start at $35/mo and include a monthly message allowance, but a message is a message: there is no per-model multiplier to reason about and no action-doubling to budget for, so you know your bill in advance. Bots are never deleted for sitting idle. The AI answers only from your own knowledge base, backed by an anti-hallucination guarantee and human handover, and it plugs directly into HubSpot, Help Scout, Crisp and Front rather than living as a standalone widget. Setup takes minutes, and the free trial runs for 30 days with no card required.
Chatbase is the better pick if you want maximum model choice and channel breadth and do not mind metering credits. Resolve247 is the better pick if you run support, want a flat and predictable bill, and value a helpdesk-native bot with a hallucination guarantee. If that sounds like your situation, you can start a free 30-day trial, no card required.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does Chatbase cost?
Chatbase has a free plan and four paid tiers billed per month: Hobby at $40, Standard at $150, Pro at $500, and a quote-only Enterprise plan. Annual billing is 20% cheaper. Your real cost also depends on message-credit usage and add-ons such as extra agents and branding removal.
What are Chatbase message credits?
Message credits are Chatbase’s usage currency. Each AI reply costs a number of credits that depends on the model you choose, and enabling an action can make a single reply cost twice the credits. So a plan’s credit allowance does not equal the number of conversations you can have; your real capacity depends on your model and settings.
Does Chatbase have a free plan?
Yes. The free plan includes 50 message credits a month, one member and one agent, with limited model access. Note that on the free plan, AI agents are deleted after 14 days of inactivity, so a bot you build and leave will be removed.
How much does it cost to remove Chatbase branding?
Removing the “Powered By Chatbase” badge costs $99 a month as an add-on, on every tier below Enterprise. Enterprise plans include white-labelling. Extra agents are a separate $25 per agent per month, since each plan includes only one agent.
Is there a cheaper alternative to Chatbase for customer support?
There are several, and the right one depends on your needs. For support teams that want flat, predictable pricing and direct helpdesk integrations, Resolve247 starts at $35/mo with a fixed monthly message allowance and no credit metering. For a side-by-side view of the wider field, see our guides to the best no-code chatbot builders and the best AI customer service chatbots.