How Much Does a Chatbot Cost?
Short answer: for a small or mid-sized organisation, a chatbot costs somewhere between £25 and £200 a month on a flat-rate platform, or $1,000 to $2,000 a month at the same volume on a per-seat, per-resolution platform. Building your own runs to five or six figures once you count the engineering time.
The range is that wide because the pricing models are genuinely different, not because vendors are being cagey. This page explains the three models and shows what each does to a real bill.
Pricing checked 15 August 2026. All figures are taken from each provider’s own published pricing page on that date and are quoted in the currency they publish in. Prices change — check the source before making a decision.
The three pricing models
| Model | How it works | Who uses it | What it does to your bill |
|---|---|---|---|
| Per seat | You pay for every colleague with a login | Intercom, Zendesk, HubSpot, ChatBot.com | Discourages giving access to the people who know the answers |
| Per resolution | You pay each time the AI answers something | Intercom ($0.99), Zendesk (~$1.20–1.50), HubSpot (credits) | Bill grows as the product works better |
| Per conversation | You pay for the chat session, however long | Holp, Tidio (billable conversations) | Follow-up questions are free; budget is predictable |
Most of the confusion about chatbot costs comes from comparing a per-seat headline price against a per-conversation one. They are not the same number and they do not scale the same way.
What each option actually costs
Free and near-free
Several platforms have free tiers — Tidio offers 50 billable conversations a month, HubSpot has a free chatbot with its own branding on it, Chatbase gives 50 message credits. These are genuinely usable for a very small site. The limits arrive quickly and the branding is usually the trade.
Flat-rate AI agents
Typically £25 to £200 a month for a small to mid-sized organisation, priced by conversation volume. Holp runs £25 for 150 conversations, £55 for 500, £95 for 1,000 and £195 for 2,500, with unlimited team members on every plan.
Per-seat platforms with metered AI
This is where the numbers jump. Five people and 1,000 AI-resolved conversations a month:
| Platform | Seats | AI | Monthly total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zendesk Suite Team | 5 × $55 = $275 | 975 overage at ~$1.50 = ~$1,463 | ~$1,738 |
| Intercom Advanced + Fin | 5 × $85 = $425 | 1,000 × $0.99 = $990 | ~$1,415 |
| Holp Core | Unlimited, included | 1,000 included | £95 |
Figures in each vendor’s own currency. And the fair caveat: Zendesk and Intercom are full support platforms. If you need ticketing, routing and phone, you are buying more than an answer engine and the comparison is not like for like.
Building your own
A capable developer can demo something impressive in a weekend. Getting to something you would leave unattended in front of customers takes far longer — guardrails, retrieval tuning, knowing when not to answer, re-crawling content, and the permanent maintenance of re-testing every time the underlying models change. Realistically a five-figure build and an ongoing cost thereafter. We go through this in detail in our wider comparison.
The costs that are not on the pricing page
- Branding removal. Chatbase charges $1,188 a year to take its name off your widget. Tidio charges $16.67 a month on Growth. Worth checking before you compare headline prices.
- Onboarding fees. HubSpot Service Hub Professional carries a one-off $1,500 onboarding fee, Enterprise $3,500.
- Add-ons that are really the product. On Tidio, the Lyro AI agent is a separate add-on from $32.50 a month for 50 conversations, on top of your plan.
- Your own time. The biggest hidden cost on any platform. Writing the knowledge is the work; the software is the easy part.
How to budget properly
- Estimate conversations, not visitors. The ratio varies hugely by site. Start on a plan you are comfortable with, run a month, then look at the real number.
- Multiply out the metered element. If a platform charges per resolution, take your realistic annual volume and multiply. That number, not the seat price, is your decision.
- Count the seats you actually need. Including the people who know the answers, not just the person who bought it.
- Add the extras. Branding, onboarding, AI add-ons.
- Model twelve months, not one. The gap between platforms at zero volume is small and at real volume is enormous.
Is it worth it?
The comparison worth making is not chatbot versus nothing — it is chatbot versus the time you currently spend. The Institute of Customer Service found UK employees spend an average of 4.8 working days a month dealing with customer problems. If a chunk of that is the same questions repeated, the arithmetic tends to answer itself at the lower end of the price range.
Find out what you would actually need
Before pricing anything, it helps to know how much of the job your website already does. Our free Site Answerability Check reads your pages and reports which of the questions visitors typically ask are answered and which are not. A minute, no account needed.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a chatbot cost per month?
£25 to £200 a month for a small or mid-sized organisation on a flat-rate platform. On per-seat platforms with metered AI, the same volume commonly reaches $1,000 to $2,000 a month once seats and resolution overage are included.
Are there free chatbots?
Yes, with limits. Tidio offers 50 billable conversations a month free, HubSpot has a free chatbot carrying its own branding, Chatbase gives 50 message credits. Fine for a very small site; you will outgrow them quickly.
Why is chatbot pricing so hard to compare?
Because vendors bill in different units — seats, resolutions, conversations and message credits. A per-seat headline price and a per-conversation one are not comparable without doing the arithmetic at your own volume.
What is the cheapest way to add a chatbot to a website?
A free tier if your volume is tiny, or a flat-rate AI agent from around £25 a month if it is not. The cheapest option that actually works is usually the one that does not bill per resolution.
Does a more expensive chatbot answer better?
Not reliably. Answer quality depends far more on how good your own content is than on what you paid. A well-fed cheap assistant beats an underfed expensive one.
Should I build my own instead?
Only if the assistant is your product, you have a hard data residency requirement no vendor meets, or you already employ a machine learning team with spare capacity. Otherwise the honest comparison is launching in six months versus launching this week.
Related reading
Sources and pricing checks
We checked the provider-owned sources below on 16 August 2026. Plans, prices and product capabilities can change, so confirm the details that matter to you before buying.