What free usually costs you
Most free chatbots cost you in answers, not money
A free chatbot that invents a price, a policy or an opening time costs more than a paid one that doesn't. Small businesses describe exactly this in reviews of the big chat tools: bots confidently giving wrong answers, and customers turned away by them.
So this one answers only from what your website says and the facts you confirm. When a visitor asks something your pages don't cover, it says so and passes the question to you, with their name and number, instead of guessing.
From the reviews: Tidio reviews on the Shopify App Store, Chatbase reviews on Capterra
What's free
What the Free plan includes, and what it doesn't
- Customer messages
- 100 a month, every month, for as long as you stay on Free
- Websites
- One website
- Features
- All of them, including lead alerts, bookings and handoff to you, except removing the badge
- Card
- Not needed to start, and never needed for Free
- The first week
- A 7-day trial of 200 messages, then Free starts on its own
- The badge
- The chat shows "AI Chat Bot". Removing it is a $25 a month add-on
When the month's messages run out
What happens after 100 messages
It keeps answering. Replies get shorter and stick to the facts it has confirmed about your business, and it still takes the visitor's name and number and still offers your booking link. On the 1st, full answers come back.
It never goes offline and never charges you for going over. Your visitors aren't told anything changed. You are: your dashboard warns you at 90%, so you can decide whether a paid plan is worth it before the month is out.
Free plans compared
How free website chatbot plans compare
| Tool | Free AI replies | Worth knowing | Pick it if |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI Chat Bot | 100 customer messages a month | Answers only from your pages. Shorter answers after the limit, never offline. One website. Badge shows. | You want your website answered correctly and every lead sent to your phone |
| Conferbot | 600 conversations a month | A conversation is one chat session, however many messages it has. One chatbot, two team members. | You need the most free volume and you'll build the flows yourself |
| EzyConn | 500 messages a month | Two seats. No card and no expiry. | You want a larger free message allowance for a small team |
| Chatling | 200 AI credits a month | Credits used per reply depend on the AI model. One agent. Badge removal is a paid add-on. | You want a mid-sized free allowance and a choice of models |
| Chatbase | 50 message credits a month | 1 MB of training data. Free agents are deleted after 14 days of inactivity. | You want to try several AI models on a few documents |
| Tidio | 50 AI conversations in total, not per month | Free live chat for 10 seats, with 50 human-handled conversations a month. | Your team mainly wants free live chat, with a little AI |
| HubSpot | Rule-based flows, not AI answers from your site | Free with the HubSpot CRM. Premium bot features are in paid HubSpot hubs. | You already run your contacts in HubSpot |
Checked on each vendor's own pricing page on September 25, 2026. Free plans change often, so follow the links for today's terms.
Free or paid
Who Free suits, and when to pay
A customer message is one visitor question answered, and most conversations run to a few. So 100 a month suits a site that gets a handful of chats a week: a solo tradesperson, a small practice, a new business.
If you're regularly running into the shorter answers, Starter gives you 1,000 messages a month for $29, or $23 a month billed yearly. Questions you ask it yourself while testing never count against any plan.
Compare every plan →Get it on your site
Three steps, and the first needs no account
Paste your website address
It reads your pages and answers as your business in about a minute. No account, no card.
Sign up to keep it
Your assistant, and everything it learned about your business, carries over. Still no card.
Add it to your website
Paste one line of code into your site's footer, or on WordPress install our free plugin and paste one ID.
Questions
Free chatbot questions
Is the Free plan really free for ever?
Yes. There's no end date and no card on file. It's sized so serving it costs us very little; we make our money when a business outgrows it and chooses a paid plan.
Can I try it without signing up?
Yes. Paste your website address on our home page and it answers as your business, from your own pages, with no account. You only sign up if you want to keep it.
Do I need a credit card?
No. Not to try it on your site, not for the 7-day trial, and not for Free. You add a card only when you choose a paid plan.
What counts as a customer message?
One question from a visitor that the assistant answers, in the chat on your site or on your hosted chat page. A conversation is usually a few of them. Questions you ask it yourself while testing never count.
Can I use it on more than one website for free?
Free and Starter cover one website each. Growth and Pro cover more, and the pricing page lists how many each plan allows.
Can I remove the "AI Chat Bot" badge for free?
Not on Free. Removing it is an add-on at $25 a month, on any plan.