AI support agent builder
Chatbase review
The quickest way to put a support bot trained on your own help pages on a website — but the useful features start at $150 a month, and every plan includes exactly one agent.
Prices and terms checked against Chatbase's own pages — sources.
Pick Chatbase if…
- Small businesses with existing help articles, PDFs or FAQs that want a website chatbot live the same day
- Shops on Shopify or WordPress (all plans) and teams on Stripe, Zendesk or HubSpot (Standard and up)
Skip it if…
- Freelancers on a tight budget — helpdesk, API and voice need the $150 Standard plan
- Businesses that need EU data residency — processing runs in the US on AWS
- Anyone who needs several bots — each extra agent costs $25 a month
- Teams beyond 2 or 3 people — extra seats cost $25 a month each, a price not shown in the pricing table
Chatbase builds a customer-facing AI agent from content you already have — help-centre articles, PDFs, your website — and puts it on your site as a chat widget, with WhatsApp, Messenger, Slack, email and voice as further channels.
How we checked Chatbase
Checked without an account on 20 October 2026: pricing page (including the add-on prices in its source), terms, DPA, security FAQ, trust centre, documentation, changelog, status page and recent reviews on Trustpilot. We also used the Chatbase agent on Chatbase’s own homepage, which runs on the product, and asked it four questions about credits, cancelling, the free plan and the trial. We have not built an agent in a paid account.
| Checked | What we found |
|---|---|
| Pricing page | Prices unchanged; training text is 40 MB per agent, not 10 MB as we had listed |
| Hidden add-on prices | In the page source only: extra team member $25 a month; branding removal $99 a month; custom domain $199 a month |
| Credits | 1 to 5 per answer depending on the model; voice adds 6 per minute; plan credits renew on the 1st and do not roll over |
| Out of credits | The agent stops answering and shows “currently unavailable” |
| Cancellation | Plan runs until the renewal date, then drops to the free plan; downgrades give credit, not refunds |
| Refunds and prices | “Fees are non-refundable”; Chatbase “reserves the right to modify its Fees … at its discretion” (§4.1) |
| Data processing | DPA with SCCs applies automatically; AWS us-east-1; 20 subprocessors listed; no training on customer data |
| Certifications | SOC 2 Type II (report on request), HIPAA on Enterprise |
| Product activity | 18 changelog entries between 30 July and 7 October 2026, incl. an MCP connector and agent tests |
| Status | Instatus page (not linked from the site) shows no incidents for August to October 2026 |
| Chatbase’s own agent | Answered all four questions in about 20 seconds each; credit cost and cancellation matched the docs. Its claims that the free plan has 50 credits and that the trial charges your card automatically are not in any document |
What it really costs
Official prices before tax, as of 20 October 2026. One conversation is assumed to have four answers.
| Scenario | Assumptions | Per month |
|---|---|---|
| Freelancer FAQ bot | 150 chats, 1-credit model = 600 credits; Hobby | $40 ($32 yearly) |
| Same, with Claude 5.5 Sonnet | 1,200 credits; Hobby plus one top-up | $80 |
| Same, without “Powered by Chatbase” | Hobby plus branding removal | about $139 |
| Shop with 5 people, Zendesk or HubSpot | 600 chats on a 2-credit model = 4,800 credits; Standard + top-up + 2 extra seats | about $240 |
| Same, on Pro | 5 seats and 15,000 credits included | $500 ($400 yearly) |
| Phone line plus chat | 100 calls of 4 minutes plus 800 chat answers = about 4,000 credits; Standard | $150 ($120 yearly), plus Twilio costs |
The plan price is only the start: a better model doubles the credit use, and the useful integrations, extra seats and an unbranded widget each push the bill up.
What users report
Chatbase has 4.0 out of 5 from 70 reviews on Trustpilot (checked 20 October 2026): 57% five-star, 27% one-star. Positive reviews almost all praise fast support and easy setup. Of 18 one- and two-star reviews we read, 6 are about billing, refunds or price changes, 3 about support delays and 3 about bugs or lost training data; several mention refused refunds and features removed from older plans. Capterra shows 4.3 from 73 reviews, but almost all date from 2023.
Chatbase vs. the alternatives
| Checked | Chatbase | Tidio (Lyro) | Intercom Fin | Botpress |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Entry price | $40 a month ($32 yearly) | $24.17 a month (yearly), Lyro add-on from $39 a month | $0.99 per outcome, plus seats from $29 | Plus $189 a month ($150 yearly) |
| Free option | 7-day trial | Free plan with 50 Lyro conversations; 7-day trial | 14-day trial | Free plan, 100 conversations |
| Data location | USA | EEA (AWS), some US transfers | EU hosting on Advanced and Expert | USA unless agreed otherwise |
Prices as in our chatbot comparison, checked on each vendor’s pricing page. The full comparison is in best AI chatbot for small business.
Change log
- 20 October 2026: Prices unchanged. Corrected training text (40 MB, not 10 MB) and Shopify (all plans). Added hidden add-on prices, credit use per model, price-change clause, SOC 2 and user reports.
- 13 October 2026: Prices and plans checked.
What one credit buys here compared with the other tools is in AI credits explained; what to check before customer data goes into it, in AI tools and the GDPR.
What works
- Trains on documents, websites and databases without code
- Widget plus WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, Slack, email and voice
- Choice of models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and others
- DPA with EU Standard Contractual Clauses applies automatically; customer data is not used for model training
- SOC 2 Type II report and 20 named subprocessors in a public trust centre
- Its own website agent answers questions about Chatbase, so you can try the product before signing up
What to watch
- Helpdesk, API and voice only from $150 a month
- One agent per plan; extra agents $25 a month each
- Credits per answer depend on model and actions, so costs are hard to predict
- Fees are non-refundable, and prices can change at Chatbase's discretion without a stated notice period
- Removing "Powered by Chatbase" costs $99 a month
How Chatbase scores
3.6 / 5
- Value for money Weight 25% 3.0 / 5 The $40 Hobby plan has 700 credits and one agent; helpdesk, API and voice need Standard at $150 a month.
- Features for small businesses Weight 25% 4.5 / 5 Trains on documents, sites and databases; widget plus WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, Slack, email and voice; several model providers.
- Data protection (EU) Weight 20% 4.0 / 5 DPA with EU Standard Contractual Clauses applies automatically and customer data is not used for training; processing stays in the USA.
- Try before you pay Weight 15% 3.5 / 5 7-day trial on paid plans; a small free tier exists but is not listed on the pricing page.
- Fair terms Weight 15% 2.5 / 5 Fees are non-refundable and can change without stated notice; purchased extra credits do not expire.
The score weighs documented facts — prices, plan limits, terms and the vendor's data-processing documents as of 20 Oct 2026. It is not a lab test. How the score works.
Chatbase plans and prices
| Plan | Billed monthly | Billed yearly | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hobby | $40/mo | $32/mo | 700 message credits, 1 agent, 40 MB training text, 2 seats |
| Standard | $150/mo | $120/mo | 4,000 credits, helpdesk, voice, API, outbound campaigns, 3 seats |
| Pro | $500/mo | $400/mo | 15,000 credits, advanced analytics, 5 seats |
| Enterprise | — | — | SSO, audit logs, white-labeling, SLAs — price on request |
USD, excluding tax, from Chatbase's pricing page on 20 Oct 2026. Prices change — the vendor's page is binding.
Alternatives worth a look
Tidio (Lyro AI) · Intercom Fin · Botpress
Questions
Chatbase: common questions
Does Chatbase have a free plan?
The pricing page lists none, but the docs and terms refer to a free plan, and paid plans drop to it after cancelling. Every paid plan has a 7-day trial.
How many credits does one Chatbase answer use?
Between 1 and 5, depending on the model; Claude 5.5 Sonnet uses 2. Answers that trigger actions cost more, and voice adds 6 credits per minute.
What happens when Chatbase runs out of credits?
The agent stops answering until credits renew on the 1st of the next month. Unused plan credits do not roll over; auto-recharge credits cost $40 per 1,000 and do not expire.
Can I get a refund from Chatbase?
Generally not. The terms say fees are non-refundable and payment obligations non-cancellable. Downgrades and cancelled add-ons give account credit, not money back.
Where does Chatbase store my data, and is it used for training?
In the USA on AWS us-east-1, under a DPA with EU Standard Contractual Clauses that applies automatically. Chatbase says it does not use customer data for model training on any plan.