What is the best AI chatbot platform?

There is no single answer and any page that gives you one is guessing at your situation. The useful question is where your conversations arrive. If they come as Instagram or WhatsApp messages, a website-first tool cannot reach them however good its AI is — that rules out three of the six above. If they arrive on your own site and you mostly need documentation answered, a tool trained on your docs will be running in an afternoon and a social automation tool would be overkill. Decide the channel first, then compare meters.

Why do chatbot prices look so different from each other?

Because they are not measuring the same thing. A $39 plan with 2,500 active contacts, a €29 plan with 100 conversations, a €40 plan with 500 chats and a $40 plan with 700 message credits are four incomparable numbers. Convert them into your own volume before comparing: take last month’s real messages, conversations and unique people, and work out what each tool would have charged. The ranking usually changes once you do.

What happens when I run out of my plan’s allowance?

It differs, and this is the question most worth asking before you pay. Some platforms bill the overage and warn you beforehand, so the automation keeps running. At least one pauses the bot until the billing period resets or you renew early, which means a viral post can take your assistant offline on its busiest day. The answer is rarely on the pricing page — it is usually in a limits or fair-use document, and it is worth finding.

Is a free AI chatbot plan enough to start?

Sometimes, and it depends what the free tier is capped on. A hundred chats a month is a real test of whether people use it. Fifty one-off AI conversations is a demo, not a trial. And one of the platforms above deletes agents after 14 days of inactivity on its free plan, which is fine for experimenting and not fine for a business that gets one enquiry a fortnight. Read what the cap counts before you build anything on it.

Do I need a separate tool for social DMs and website chat?

Not necessarily, but most of these will make you choose. The tools built for social automation start from a comment or a DM; the tools built for website chat start from a widget. A few cover both, and if your enquiries genuinely arrive through both doors that is the thing to check first — otherwise you end up with two subscriptions, two knowledge bases and two places where the same customer gets a different answer.

Why are the prices on this page different from what I see?

Two reasons, and both are worth knowing. Most of these pages open with the annual rate displayed and the monthly rate hidden behind a toggle, so the headline number is a year’s commitment — everything here was read with monthly selected. And several serve prices in your local currency based on where you browse from, so the same plan can appear in euros or dollars. If a figure here does not match what you see, open the page yourself and check the toggle first.

AI chatbots

AI chatbot platforms compared: six tools, six completely different meters (2026)

Every one of these is sold with the same three words — AI, automation, conversations. What actually decides your bill is the unit each one counts, and no two of them count the same thing. Here they are side by side, with the billing switch set to monthly.

Comparing chatbot platforms on features is close to useless. All six of these have a visual builder, all six answer with an AI model, and all six will show you a screenshot of a conversation going well. The feature lists converge because the underlying models are the same handful.

What does not converge is the meter. One charges per person who talks to you in a month. One charges per conversation, and separately per AI conversation. One charges per chat, and separately per AI chat. One charges message credits. One charges per seat and gives every tier the same AI allowance. And one charges a flat fee with unlimited contacts, but pauses the bot when its AI allowance runs out.

The meter is the decision. It determines whether a good month costs you more, whether growing your team costs more, and whether the thing stops working at the worst possible moment. Below is what each one counts, what it costs, and where it can actually answer — because half of these only work on your own website.

Prices were read from each company’s own pricing page on 24 September 2026, with the monthly option selected. Several of them display the annual rate by default, which is why comparison articles routinely quote a number nobody pays.

The four things worth comparing, and features is not one of them

If you read only one part of this page, read this. These four questions separate the six tools far better than any feature table, and you can ask them of any platform not listed here.

What does it count?: Contacts, conversations, chats, credits or seats. A contact meter bills you when a post does well. A seat meter bills you when you hire. A credit meter is the hardest to forecast because one long conversation can cost what thirty short ones do.
What happens when you run out?: Two very different answers. Some bill the overage and warn you first. Others stop the bot until the period resets — which means your busiest day is the day it goes quiet. Ask this before you buy; it is rarely on the pricing page.
Where can it answer?: Three of these six live mainly on your own website. If your questions arrive as Instagram DMs, a website widget cannot reach them, no matter how good the AI is. Match the tool to where people already write to you.
Is the AI included or metered separately?: Several of these sell the chat and the AI as two meters that run at once, so a plan with "100 AI conversations" in a tier of 2,000 conversations means the AI covers five per cent of your traffic and a human covers the rest.

ManyChat
Social DMs
Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp and TikTok automation, billed by active contacts.
AI included from Pro. 14-day trial.
The best known tool for turning Instagram comments into DMs, and the meter is the thing to understand: it counts **active contacts** — anyone who interacted with you in a billing month, however many messages you exchanged. Free covers 25, Essential $17 covers 250, Pro $39 covers 2,500, Business $99 covers 7,500 and Advanced $199 covers 25,000, and past the allowance every extra contact is billed. Going over does not switch the automations off; they bill the overage and warn first. There is a second limit almost nobody mentions: the tier also caps your channels — two on Free and Essential, three on Pro, unlimited only from Business. So the $17 plan is two channels, and Instagram plus WhatsApp plus a website widget does not fit until $99.
Open pricing page
Chatfuel
WhatsApp funnels
WhatsApp-first automation aimed at agencies, flat price with unlimited contacts.
No free plan any more — trial only, no card.
The only one of the six with **no contact or conversation meter at all**: its own limits page states unlimited active contacts and unlimited messages, and keyword replies, button flows and broadcasts never count against anything. That is genuinely unusual and it is in their favour. The catch is on the other side: the single meter is AI processing on a fair-use allowance, and when you exceed it **the bot pauses** until the period resets or you renew early — you can avoid it by handing them your own OpenAI key. The product has narrowed to WhatsApp lead funnels for agencies, so if that is the job it is focused rather than limited. Business is $69 a month list price and there is an Agency tier at $100 for running several client businesses; the entry point is a free trial, not a free plan.
Open pricing page
Tidio
Website + helpdesk
Website live chat and ticketing with the Lyro AI agent, on two meters at once.
AI conversations metered apart from chat. 7-day trial.
Built for support on your own site rather than for social, and it runs **two meters simultaneously**: billable conversations for your team, and Lyro AI conversations for the agent, counted separately. The free plan gives 50 billable conversations and 50 Lyro conversations as a one-off — not per month. Starter is €29 for 100 billable conversations and still only 50 one-off AI conversations; Growth starts at €59 from 250. That structure is worth reading twice, because a support inbox doing 400 conversations a month on a plan with 100 AI conversations means the AI handles a quarter of them. Its inbox does connect Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp, but publishing, scheduling and social analytics are not what it is for.
Open pricing page
Landbot
Web + WhatsApp forms
Conversational forms and flows for web and WhatsApp, billed per chat.
Own WhatsApp number and no branding only from €100.
The one to look at if what you want is a conversation replacing a form — a quote calculator, a qualification flow, a booking path — rather than a support agent. It counts **chats**, and like Tidio it counts **AI chats separately**: Free is €0 for 100 chats a month with no AI chats at all, Starter is €40 for 500 chats plus 100 AI chats with extra chats at €0.05, and Professional is €100 for 2,500. Two practical things live behind the paywall that catch people out: removing Landbot branding and using WhatsApp with your own number both start at Professional, so the €40 tier is for testing rather than for a business you want to look established.
Open pricing page
Chatbase
Trained on your docs
Point it at your site and documents and it answers from them, billed in message credits.
Free-plan agents deleted after 14 days idle.
The simplest of the six to get running: give it your website and your documents and you have an agent that answers from them, embedded on your site. It counts **message credits**, which is the hardest unit of the six to forecast because consumption depends on how much the assistant has to read, not just how many people write. Free is $0 for 50 credits a month, Hobby $40 for 700, Standard $150 for 4,000 and Pro $500 for 15,000. Two things to know before you build on the free tier: it is limited to basic models, and **agents are deleted after 14 days of inactivity**. Helpdesk, voice, telephony, outbound campaigns and API access all start at $150.
Open pricing page
Hootsuite
Social suite
An AI chatbot inside a full social media suite, billed per user.
Published prices are annual-commitment, per user.
The outlier, and the reason it belongs on this list: it is the only one where the chatbot comes attached to scheduling, listening and reporting across a lot of networks. It meters **seats** — $99 Standard, $199 Professional, $399 Advanced per user per month — and every one of those is the annual-commitment rate; their plans page no longer offers a monthly toggle at all, and paying month to month puts Standard at $149, a figure that appears only at the checkout. Two details decide whether it fits: the inbox automation is not in Standard, it starts at Professional, and the AI allowance is **100 credits a month on all three paid tiers**, so paying four times more does not buy more AI.
Open pricing page

What each one counts, at a glance

Prices as published on each company’s pricing page on 24 September 2026, monthly billing selected. Some serve euros or dollars depending on where you browse from.

#	Tool	What it does	Website
1	ManyChat	Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp and TikTok automation, billed by active contacts.	manychat.com/pricing
2	Chatfuel	WhatsApp-first automation aimed at agencies, flat price with unlimited contacts.	chatfuel.com/pricing
3	Tidio	Website live chat and ticketing with the Lyro AI agent, on two meters at once.	tidio.com/pricing
4	Landbot	Conversational forms and flows for web and WhatsApp, billed per chat.	landbot.io/pricing
5	Chatbase	Point it at your site and documents and it answers from them, billed in message credits.	chatbase.co/pricing
6	Hootsuite	An AI chatbot inside a full social media suite, billed per user.	hootsuite.com/plans

Questions people ask when choosing an AI chatbot platform

What is the best AI chatbot platform?: There is no single answer and any page that gives you one is guessing at your situation. The useful question is where your conversations arrive. If they come as Instagram or WhatsApp messages, a website-first tool cannot reach them however good its AI is — that rules out three of the six above. If they arrive on your own site and you mostly need documentation answered, a tool trained on your docs will be running in an afternoon and a social automation tool would be overkill. Decide the channel first, then compare meters.
Why do chatbot prices look so different from each other?: Because they are not measuring the same thing. A $39 plan with 2,500 active contacts, a €29 plan with 100 conversations, a €40 plan with 500 chats and a $40 plan with 700 message credits are four incomparable numbers. Convert them into your own volume before comparing: take last month’s real messages, conversations and unique people, and work out what each tool would have charged. The ranking usually changes once you do.
What happens when I run out of my plan’s allowance?: It differs, and this is the question most worth asking before you pay. Some platforms bill the overage and warn you beforehand, so the automation keeps running. At least one pauses the bot until the billing period resets or you renew early, which means a viral post can take your assistant offline on its busiest day. The answer is rarely on the pricing page — it is usually in a limits or fair-use document, and it is worth finding.
Is a free AI chatbot plan enough to start?: Sometimes, and it depends what the free tier is capped on. A hundred chats a month is a real test of whether people use it. Fifty one-off AI conversations is a demo, not a trial. And one of the platforms above deletes agents after 14 days of inactivity on its free plan, which is fine for experimenting and not fine for a business that gets one enquiry a fortnight. Read what the cap counts before you build anything on it.
Do I need a separate tool for social DMs and website chat?: Not necessarily, but most of these will make you choose. The tools built for social automation start from a comment or a DM; the tools built for website chat start from a widget. A few cover both, and if your enquiries genuinely arrive through both doors that is the thing to check first — otherwise you end up with two subscriptions, two knowledge bases and two places where the same customer gets a different answer.
Why are the prices on this page different from what I see?: Two reasons, and both are worth knowing. Most of these pages open with the annual rate displayed and the monthly rate hidden behind a toggle, so the headline number is a year’s commitment — everything here was read with monthly selected. And several serve prices in your local currency based on where you browse from, so the same plan can appear in euros or dollars. If a figure here does not match what you see, open the page yourself and check the toggle first.

One assistant, and a meter that counts accounts instead of people

We left ourselves out of the list above on purpose. A comparison page that ranks its own author first is worth nothing, and you would have been right to close it.

So here it is separately. Ignix is the one where the meter is the connected social accounts, and nothing else: not contacts, not conversations, not chats, not credits, not seats.

It answers where people actually write

Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp and Telegram DMs, comments across your networks, Facebook and Google reviews, and live chat on your own site — one assistant trained once.

No meter that punishes a good month

Contacts and messages are unlimited from the Blaze plan and AI replies are unlimited under fair use, so a reel that takes off costs exactly what a quiet week costs.

And it does not go quiet when it matters

There is no allowance that pauses the bot on its busiest day. When the assistant does not know something it hands the conversation to you, which is a different thing entirely.

The calendar is in the same tool

Which is why a comment can trigger a DM at all: the automation knows about the post because it published it. Scheduling, analytics and the inbox are not a second subscription.

A team of three is a plan rather than three seats, and connecting a second Instagram profile is an account on the plan rather than a second bill.

From $19/month · AI agent included with Inferno or $29/month on any plan

Start free for 7 days See the AI chatbot

Official APIs only. Prices on this page checked 24 September 2026, monthly billing.

The four things worth comparing, and features is not one of them

ManyChat

Chatfuel

Tidio

Landbot

Chatbase

Hootsuite

What each one counts, at a glance

Questions people ask when choosing an AI chatbot platform

Related reading

One assistant, and a meter that counts accounts instead of people