Chatbase is an AI agent builder that turns your help pages, files and FAQs into a support chatbot for a website or WhatsApp, and it is best for small online businesses that answer the same customer questions every day. Plans start at $40 a month, or $32 a month billed yearly (checked 29 October 2026), and I score it 6.5 out of 10. What interested me is how far the real bill can drift from that $40: the free plan has vanished from the pricing page, a reply on a better model costs twice as much as one on the default, and removing the Chatbase badge costs about three times the yearly plan.
Disclosure: I don’t earn anything from Chatbase. It runs an affiliate program and an agency program, but I haven’t joined either, and every Chatbase link on this page is a plain link.
At a glance
Chatbase in five lines
| Line | How it looks |
|---|---|
| Time | Chatbase says a first agent trains in 2 to 5 minutes; cleaning up the source pages so it answers correctly takes far longer |
| Cost | Hobby $40 a month ($32 billed yearly) for 700 message credits; Basic $150 ($120); Business $500 ($400) |
| Output | A chat bubble for your site plus WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger and Slack, with up to 5 AI Actions per agent on Hobby |
| Real earning path | Setting up and maintaining support bots for small businesses on their own Chatbase accounts |
| Overall | 6.5/10 |
Sign up or skip?
Sign up if you run a shop, booking business or SaaS product where a few hundred visitors a month ask questions your website already answers, and you’re happy to pay $40 a month to answer them at night. On the default 1-credit models, Hobby works out at under 6 cents a reply.
Skip it if you need a free tier to experiment for months, want the bot under your own brand on a small budget, or expect it to handle refunds and account changes without a human. Branding removal alone is $1,188 a year, and Botpress includes white-label chat on its Plus plan.
How I checked Chatbase, and the four scores behind 6.5
I haven’t used Chatbase for paid client work, so this is a research review rather than a hands-on test. On 29 October 2026 I read Chatbase’s pricing page, its Terms of Service, security page, documentation and agency and affiliate pages, then Trustpilot, G2 and Capterra, competitor pricing pages and a few independent pricing write-ups. The cost maths is mine.
| Area | Score | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Ease of use | 8/10 | Upload files or crawl a site, test, paste one script; Capterra users rate ease of use 4.6 out of 5 |
| Output quality | 6/10 | Answers are only as good as your sources, and reviewers report invented URLs and confident wrong answers |
| Value for money | 5/10 | No advertised free plan, about $57 per 1,000 credits on monthly Hobby and a $1,188 branding add-on |
| Trust and support | 7/10 | SOC 2 Type II, 4.0 on Trustpilot with replies to 60% of negative reviews, but non-refundable fees |
| Overall | 6.5/10 | Average of the four |
If something here is out of date, send me a note through the contact page and I’ll correct it.
Chatbase Inc. is a San Francisco company founded by Yasser Elsaid. A June 2026 press release says it passed $10 million in annual recurring revenue without outside investment, with 26 staff and more than 10,000 business customers; those are the company’s own figures.
Is Chatbase still free?
Not in any way you can sign up for. The pricing page I read on 29 October lists Hobby, Basic, Business and Enterprise, never the word “Free”, and offers a 7-day trial instead. Chatbase’s Terms still say a cancelled paid plan drops to a free version “with reduced features”, and price trackers listed a 50-credit free plan (agents deleted after 14 days of inactivity) as recently as early October. Older reviews calling Chatbase free describe something new users can no longer pick.
How much does Chatbase cost per month?
Between $32 and $500 a month for the self-serve plans, depending on billing. Yearly billing is 20% cheaper.
| Plan | Monthly billing | Billed yearly (per month) | Message credits a month | Seats | AI Actions per agent | Voice |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hobby | $40 | $32 | 700 | 2 | 5 | No |
| Basic | $150 | $120 | 4,000 | 3 | 8 | Yes, 10 concurrent calls |
| Business | $500 | $400 | 15,000 | 5 | 12 | Yes, 20 concurrent calls |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Custom | Custom | Not listed | Not listed |
Add-ons: extra credits are $40 per 1,000 and don’t expire, and each extra agent or 10 MB of storage is $300 a year. Credits also renew on the 1st of every month “regardless of when you subscribed”, and the docs don’t say whether a first month is prorated, so ask support before subscribing late in a month.
What does one chatbot reply really cost?
About 3 to 6 cents on the default models, and up to 29 cents on the most expensive one. Chatbase charges per reply, and its FAQ lists 1 credit for most models, 2 credits for models such as GPT-6.1 Sol, Claude 5.5 Sonnet and Gemini 3.8 Flash, 4 for GPT-5.5 and 5 for Claude 5.5 Opus. Dividing each plan’s price by its credits gives this:
| Plan and billing | Per 1,000 credits | 1-credit reply | 2-credit reply | 5-credit reply |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hobby, monthly | $57.14 | $0.057 | $0.114 | $0.286 |
| Hobby, yearly | $45.71 | $0.046 | $0.091 | $0.229 |
| Basic, monthly | $37.50 | $0.038 | $0.075 | $0.188 |
| Business, monthly | $33.33 | $0.033 | $0.067 | $0.167 |
| Extra credits (add-on) | $40.00 | $0.040 | $0.080 | $0.200 |
Picking a 2-credit model halves your replies, so Hobby’s 700 credits become 350 answers. And on Hobby, top-ups at $40 per 1,000 are cheaper per credit than the plan itself, so running slightly over is better handled with auto-recharge than a jump to Basic at $150. With no recharge set, the bot just tells visitors it is “currently unavailable”.
Why does removing the Chatbase badge cost more than the plan?
Because Chatbase sells it as a separate $1,188-a-year add-on ($99 a month) and no self-serve plan includes it. Yearly Hobby plus the add-on is $1,572 a year, more than Basic’s $1,440 with the badge still on. If a client wants the bot to look like their own, this is the number to check first. Enterprise lists “White-labeling” and the agency program promises white-label bots, but neither shows a price.
What can a Chatbase agent actually do?
It answers questions from content you give it and can take a few set actions. You train it on files, pasted text, a website crawl, Q&A pairs or Notion pages, test answers against different models, then paste one script into your site. AI Actions let it do things such as book a slot through Calendly or Cal.com, look up a Stripe payment or hand a chat to Zendesk, Freshdesk, Intercom or Help Scout. Chatbase also lists WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, Slack, HubSpot, Salesforce, Shopify, WordPress, Zapier and Make, and Basic adds voice calls through Twilio.
Capterra reviewers also mention weak handling of spreadsheets and answers that invent pages on the owner’s own domain, so treat it as a first line for repeat questions, not a replacement for whoever handles refunds.
Can you build Chatbase bots for clients?
Yes, but the standard Terms don’t make that easy, so read them before you sell anything. Section 1.2 gives you access “solely for Customer’s own internal business purposes, not for the benefit of any third party”, and section 2.2 bars you from selling or otherwise commercially exploiting the service. Chatbase’s agency page, on the other hand, invites agencies to “Add your branding and sell support as your product” and pays 30% recurring commission. The simple way to stay on the right side of both is to build each bot inside the client’s own Chatbase account, or apply to the agency program and get its terms in writing. My Chatbase earning guide works through both routes.
Is Chatbase safe for customer data?
It has the paperwork most small businesses look for. The security page claims SOC 2 Type II, encryption in transit and at rest, GDPR support, HIPAA support only on eligible Enterprise workspaces, and says connected data “isn’t used to train models”. It doesn’t say where servers sit or what the model providers keep; check the subprocessor list in its Trust Center.
Can you get a refund from Chatbase?
Usually not. The Terms say fees are non-refundable “except as explicitly stated in this Agreement”, plans renew automatically, and you stop renewal with the Cancel Plan button or by emailing billing@chatbase.co. Downgrades take effect at once with a prorated credit, according to the help docs. A September 2026 Trustpilot reviewer reports three $42 charges after asking to close the account and a refused refund, which is one person’s account but matches the Terms.
What do Chatbase users complain about?
Price and wrong answers, mostly. On 29 October 2026 Chatbase had 4.0 out of 5 on Trustpilot from 71 reviews (56 in the past year), 57% five-star and 27% one-star, with replies to 60% of negative reviews. Recent praise is for quick support; complaints cover billing after cancellation, an agent deleted without a clear cause and pricing changes for older customers. G2 shows 4.8 from 42 reviews, with “expensive” among the cons, and Capterra UK 4.3 from 73 (support 3.8), though its newest reviews are mostly from 2023.
The good and the irritating
Good
- A working site bot in an afternoon, not a week
- Under 6 cents a reply on monthly Hobby with default models
- Long list of helpdesk, CRM and messaging integrations
- Top-up credits don’t expire
- SOC 2 Type II and no training on your data
Irritating
- No free plan on the pricing page any more
- $1,188 a year to remove the badge
- Better models halve or cut your reply count
- Standard Terms limit use to your own business
- Fees are non-refundable
Which Chatbase alternative costs less?
Tidio is cheaper for a small shop that wants live chat too, Botpress suits builders who need white-label chat included, and Intercom Fin suits teams already on Intercom.
| Tool | Price (checked 29 October 2026) | How you pay for AI | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chatbase Hobby | $40/mo or $32/mo yearly | 700 credits; 1 to 5 per reply | Small sites with repeat questions |
| Tidio | Free plan; Starter $24.17/mo; Lyro from $32.50/mo | 50 free lifetime Lyro conversations, then Lyro plans | Shops wanting live chat plus AI |
| Botpress | Free; Plus $150/mo yearly | 100 free conversations; Plus 250 plus $25 AI spend | Builders who need white-label chat |
| SiteGPT | Starter $59/mo or $39/mo yearly | 4,000 mini or 400 GPT-4.1 messages; badge removal $39/mo | A cheaper badge-free website bot |
| Intercom Fin | From $0.99 per Fin outcome; seats from $29/mo | Per resolved outcome | Support teams already on Intercom |
If you mostly want automated replies in Instagram DMs, my Manychat review is the closer fit. For wiring a bot into other apps yourself, see the n8n review and the Make.com review.
So, is Chatbase worth paying for?
For a small business with a decent help centre and a few hundred questions a month, yes, on monthly Hobby with a 1-credit model and auto-recharge switched on. It is quick to set up and cheap per answer. It gets poor value once you want your own branding, several agents or the better models, and at that point Botpress or SiteGPT deserve a trial first. Start on monthly billing; nothing is refundable.
Can Chatbase earn you money?
It can, through setup and upkeep work for small businesses. My earning guide covers what that work pays on Fiverr, why the bot should sit in the client’s account, a worked month in numbers and the chatbot rules to explain to clients.
Chatbase questions people ask
Is Chatbase free?
No, not as a plan you can choose today. The pricing page I checked on 29 October 2026 starts at Hobby, $40 a month or $32 a month billed yearly, with a 7-day trial; Chatbase’s help pages still describe a free plan that cancelled accounts drop down to.
How much does Chatbase cost per month?
$40 for Hobby, $150 for Basic and $500 for Business on monthly billing. Billed yearly they work out at $32, $120 and $400 a month, and Enterprise is priced on request.
How many messages do you get on Chatbase Hobby?
700 message credits a month. That is 700 replies on the cheapest models, 350 on 2-credit models such as Claude 5.5 Sonnet and 140 on Claude 5.5 Opus, which costs 5 credits a reply.
Does Chatbase use my data to train AI?
No, according to its security page, which says connected data “isn’t used to train models”. The same page doesn’t answer whether the model providers it sends data to keep it, so check the subprocessor list in its Trust Center.
Can I remove the Powered by Chatbase branding?
Yes, with an add-on listed at $1,188 a year. No self-serve plan includes it, and that add-on costs about three times a year of Hobby.
Does Chatbase work with WordPress and Shopify?
Yes. Chatbase lists WordPress, Shopify, Wix, Webflow and other site builders, plus WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, Slack, Zendesk, HubSpot, Stripe and Calendly.
Can I get a refund from Chatbase?
Usually not. Its Terms say fees are non-refundable except where the agreement says otherwise, so cancel auto-renewal in your workspace settings before the next billing date.
Update log: 29 October 2026: first published, with prices checked that day.
Sources
- Chatbase pricing
- Chatbase FAQ: message credits by model
- Chatbase docs: workspace settings and billing
- Chatbase docs: your first agent
- Chatbase Terms of Service
- Chatbase security
- Chatbase integrations
- Chatbase agency program
- Chatbase affiliate program terms
- Press release: Chatbase reaches $10M ARR (16 June 2026)
- My AskAI: Chatbase pricing explained (updated 17 September 2026, competitor)
- Costbench: Chatbase free plan (verified 11 October 2026)
- Activepieces: Chatbase pricing 2026 (23 October 2026, competitor)
- Trustpilot: Chatbase reviews
- G2: Chatbase reviews
- Capterra UK: Chatbase
- Tidio pricing
- Botpress pricing
- SiteGPT pricing
- Intercom pricing
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