Everyone wants a free AI chatbot. And technically, several platforms offer one. But "free" in the chatbot world rarely means what you think it means. There's always a catch — forced branding on your site, harsh message limits, crippled AI that can only handle scripted flows, or a free tier that exists purely to upsell you.
I spent weeks testing the free tiers and trials of 7 popular AI chatbot platforms to find out what you actually get without paying. Some are genuinely useful for small sites. Others are glorified demos that push you toward a paid plan within days.
This guide covers what's truly free, what's trial-only, and where the hidden costs are. If you're also comparing paid options, check out our chatbot pricing comparison for 2026 or our AI chatbot overview.
TL;DR: There is no great free AI chatbot in 2026. Chatbase offers the only permanent free AI tier at 20 messages/month, which is barely a demo. Tawk.to is the best truly free live chat (no AI). For actual AI capability, Boei's 7-day trial gives you 2,000 AI messages to test with, then costs €14/month flat — often cheaper than "free" tools once you add their AI and branding-removal add-ons ($29-48/month).
Before we dive into each platform, here's a side-by-side look at what the free tier (or trial) gives you:
| Platform | Free Tier Type | AI Messages | Branding | Seats | Upgrade Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tidio | Free forever | No AI (Lyro costs extra) | Tidio branding | 1 | $29/mo for AI |
| Tawk.to | Free forever | No AI included | Tawk.to branding | Unlimited | $19/mo branding removal, $29/mo AI Assist |
| HubSpot | Free forever | Rule-based only | HubSpot branding | Unlimited | $800/mo for AI features |
| Crisp | Free forever | No AI | Crisp branding | 2 | €95/mo for AI |
| Chatbase | Free forever | 20/month | Chatbase branding | 1 | $19/mo for 2,000 messages |
| Boei | 7-day trial | 2,000 during trial | No branding | Unlimited | €14/mo after trial |
| ChatBot.com | 14-day trial | Limited during trial | No branding during trial | 1 | $52/mo after trial |
Key takeaway: Most "free forever" plans don't include AI at all — you get a basic live chat widget or a rule-based bot. If you want actual AI conversations for free, Chatbase's 20 messages/month is the only permanent free option, and that's barely enough to test with.
Free forever plan with live chat basics, but AI costs extra
Tidio is one of the most popular chat platforms for small businesses, and their free plan is a solid starting point if you just need basic live chat and simple automation. The free tier gives you 50 live chat conversations per month and access to their visual chatbot builder for creating rule-based flows.
What you get for free:
What's NOT free:
The catch: Tidio's free plan is genuinely useful for a small site that gets under 50 support chats a month. But the moment you want AI to handle conversations automatically, you're looking at $29-59/month minimum. The free chatbot builder only supports rule-based flows — think decision trees, not natural language understanding.
My verdict: Good for bootstrapped businesses that want live chat without AI. Once you need AI, the per-conversation pricing through Lyro gets expensive quickly. A site with 200 AI chats/month would pay $59/month just for Lyro, plus $29/month if you want to remove branding. That's $88/month for something other platforms offer at a flat rate.
Best for: Small sites under 50 support conversations/month that don't need AI yet.
Completely free forever with unlimited agents, but AI is a paid add-on
Tawk.to is the elephant in the room when it comes to free chat. It's genuinely, completely free for live chat — no message limits, no seat limits, no conversation caps. The catch? Their business model is selling you add-on services, and the free widget shows tawk.to branding.
What you get for free:
What's NOT free:
The catch: Tawk.to is genuinely free for live chat, and it's a remarkable product for that price. But it is not an AI chatbot — it's a live chat tool. You need a human sitting there answering messages, or you pay $29/month for their AI Assist feature. The branding is also quite visible, and for professional sites, the $19/month to remove it feels almost mandatory.
So "free tawk.to with AI" actually costs $48/month ($19 branding removal + $29 AI Assist). That puts it in the same ballpark as many paid alternatives that include both by default.
My verdict: If you literally just need live chat and don't mind the branding, tawk.to is unbeatable. Zero cost, unlimited everything. But if you came here looking for a free AI chatbot, tawk.to isn't it — the AI functionality starts at $29/month on top of the free plan.
Best for: Budget-conscious businesses that have staff available to manually answer chats in real time.
Free CRM includes basic chatbot builder, but AI requires $800/mo Professional plan
HubSpot's free CRM is legitimately useful, and it comes with a basic chatbot builder. You can create rule-based conversation flows that qualify leads, book meetings, and route visitors to the right team. But calling it a "free AI chatbot" would be misleading.
What you get for free:
What's NOT free:
The catch: HubSpot's free chatbot is a rule-based builder — you create if/then flows manually. It can ask qualifying questions, route conversations, and book meetings, but it cannot understand natural language or generate AI responses. For that, you need the Marketing or Service Hub Professional plan, which starts at $800/month. That's an enormous jump from free.
My verdict: If you already use HubSpot's CRM (or plan to), the free chatbot is a nice bonus. It's competent for lead qualification flows and meeting booking. But it's not an AI chatbot in any modern sense of the word. The gap between "free" and "AI-enabled" is a $800/month chasm that only makes sense for mid-market or enterprise companies.
For small businesses that want AI, HubSpot's free tier is a dead end. You'll outgrow it quickly and face a massive price jump when you do. For a more realistic comparison, see our post on how to build an AI chatbot without enterprise-level budgets.
Best for: Companies already invested in HubSpot's ecosystem that need basic lead qualification bots.
Free plan with 2 seats and basic chat, AI only on €95/mo plan
Crisp is a French-based customer messaging platform that's popular in Europe, partly because of its EU data hosting. Their free plan (called "Basic") gives you a functional live chat widget with a few extras that most competitors lock behind a paywall.
What you get for free:
What's NOT free:
The catch: Crisp's free plan is one of the more limited ones on this list. You get live chat and a shared inbox, but no chatbot builder at all — not even rule-based flows. Their AI feature (MagicReply) requires the Unlimited plan at €95/month, which is a significant jump.
That said, the 2 free seats are genuinely useful. Most competitors only give you 1 seat on free plans. And for European businesses, Crisp's EU hosting is a meaningful advantage for GDPR compliance.
My verdict: Crisp's free plan is best thought of as a basic live chat widget for a small European team of two. If you need chatbot automation or AI in any form, you'll need to pay — and €95/month for AI is on the higher end of the market.
Best for: Small EU-based teams (2 people) that need a simple live chat with GDPR-friendly hosting.
20 free AI messages per month on the permanent free plan
Chatbase is the only platform on this list that gives you actual AI chatbot functionality for free, permanently. You can train a ChatGPT-powered bot on your website content and embed it on your site — without paying anything. The catch is scale: 20 messages per month.
What you get for free:
What's NOT free:
The catch: 20 AI messages per month is barely enough to verify the bot works. If your site gets any traffic at all, you'll burn through 20 messages in a day or two. Once the limit hits, your chatbot stops responding until next month. That's a terrible experience for visitors who see a chat widget that doesn't work.
The jump to 2,000 messages is $19/month (Hobby plan), which is reasonable. But by that point, you're not using a free chatbot anymore.
My verdict: Chatbase is the most honest "free AI chatbot" on this list — you genuinely get AI responses for free. But 20 messages is a demo, not a real deployment. It's useful for testing whether an AI chatbot works for your use case before committing money. For production use, you'll need the $19/month plan at minimum.
If you're evaluating options and want to understand the broader pricing landscape, our chatbot pricing comparison for 2026 puts Chatbase's plans in context alongside 9 other platforms.
Best for: Testing whether an AI chatbot fits your business before committing to a paid plan.
7-day full-feature trial with 2,000 AI messages, then €14/mo
Boei doesn't have a permanent free plan, but its 7-day free trial gives full access to everything — including 2,000 AI messages, no credit card required. That's more AI messages in one free trial than Chatbase gives you in 8 years on their free plan.
What you get in the free trial:
What happens after the trial:
The catch: There's no permanent free plan. After 7 days, you either pay €14/month or the trial ends. For businesses that genuinely cannot afford €14/month, Tawk.to or Tidio's free tiers are better options — but you won't get AI on those either.
My verdict: The 7-day trial with full access is more useful for evaluation than a permanently crippled free plan. You can test the AI with real visitors and see real results before committing. At €14/month after the trial, it's also one of the most affordable paid options. Compare pricing models to decide for yourself.
Best for: Businesses ready to invest in a real AI chatbot that want to test everything before committing.
14-day trial then $52/mo minimum, no permanent free tier
ChatBot.com (by LiveChat, Inc.) offers a 14-day free trial and then requires a paid plan starting at $52/month. There's no free tier whatsoever — once the trial ends, your chatbot stops working unless you upgrade.
What you get in the free trial:
What happens after the trial:
The catch: ChatBot.com is primarily a visual chatbot builder, not a pure AI chatbot. Their platform focuses on creating structured conversation flows with drag-and-drop tools. They've added AI features, but the core product is closer to a sophisticated rule-based builder than a GPT-powered conversational AI.
At $52/month for 1,000 chats, it's also one of the pricier options for small businesses. And the per-chat pricing model means costs scale with traffic in ways that are hard to predict.
My verdict: The 14-day trial is generous enough to properly test the platform. But with no free tier and a $52/month starting price, ChatBot.com is a harder sell when platforms like Boei offer more AI capability at €14/month and Chatbase starts at $19/month. The visual builder is nice, but you're paying a premium for it.
Best for: Teams that want a polished visual chatbot builder and don't mind the per-chat pricing model.
After testing all these platforms, here's my honest framework for deciding whether a free chatbot is enough:
Something most guides won't tell you: free chatbot plans have hidden costs beyond money.
Time cost. Setting up a chatbot, training it, and maintaining it takes hours. If you set up a free tool only to migrate to a paid one 3 months later, you've wasted that setup time. Sometimes paying €14/month from day one and spending your time on your actual business is the smarter move.
Brand cost. A chat widget with "Powered by Tidio" or "Powered by tawk.to" tells visitors you're using the free version of a tool. For some businesses, that's fine. For others, it undermines the professional image you're trying to build.
Experience cost. When Chatbase's 20 messages run out, visitors see a broken chat widget. When Tidio's 50 conversations cap is hit, chats go unanswered. These failed interactions don't just cost you leads — they actively damage trust.
If you want to understand the full range of pricing across the market, our detailed pricing comparison breaks down what you get at every price point.
Chatbase offers a permanent free plan with 20 AI messages per month. That's the only option for truly free, ongoing AI chat functionality. Other platforms like Tidio and Tawk.to offer free live chat (human-powered), but their AI features require paid plans. For most real-world use cases, 20 messages per month is insufficient, and you'll need a paid plan starting at $19-29/month for meaningful AI chatbot capability.
Not directly. ChatGPT is a standalone tool — you can't embed it on your website as a customer-facing chatbot without building custom integration code. Platforms like Chatbase, Boei, and Tidio use ChatGPT's underlying technology (via OpenAI's API) to power website chatbots, but they all charge for production use beyond minimal free tiers. Building your own using the OpenAI API is possible but requires development skills and costs $0.002-0.06 per 1,000 tokens depending on the model. See our guide on how to build an AI chatbot for a walkthrough.
For live chat without AI, tawk.to is the best free option — unlimited conversations, unlimited agents, no cost. For basic automation, Tidio's free plan gives you rule-based chatbot flows and 50 live chats per month. For actual AI responses, Chatbase's free plan gives you 20 messages/month to test. If you're willing to pay a small amount, Boei at €14/month gives you 2,000 AI messages, 50+ channels, and unlimited seats — which is less than what most competitors charge just to remove their branding. Check our best AI chatbot for small business guide for a deeper comparison.
It depends on the specific platform, not whether it's free or paid. Chatbase processes data through US-based servers. Tawk.to stores data in multiple global locations. Crisp and Boei both offer EU-based hosting (France and Amsterdam, respectively). If GDPR compliance is critical for your business, check where each platform stores conversation data and whether they offer a Data Processing Agreement (DPA). The free vs. paid distinction doesn't affect compliance — it's about the company's infrastructure and policies.
Most free chatbot plans include zero AI messages. Here's the breakdown: Chatbase gives you 20 AI messages/month for free. Tidio's free plan includes 0 Lyro AI conversations (AI starts at $29/mo). Tawk.to includes 0 AI messages (AI Assist is $29/mo). HubSpot's free bot is rule-based only — no AI. Boei's 7-day trial includes 2,000 AI messages. In practice, if you want AI to handle conversations, plan to budget $14-29/month minimum.
No. Every free chatbot plan includes the provider's branding ("Powered by X") on the chat widget. Removing branding always requires a paid plan: tawk.to charges $19/month, Tidio charges $29/month (Communicator plan), Crisp requires the Pro plan at €25/month, and Chatbase requires the Hobby plan at $19/month. If a clean, unbranded widget matters for your business, factor this cost into your comparison — it often narrows the price gap between "free with branding removal" and simply paying for a platform like Boei that includes no branding at €14/month.
Yes, most free chatbot plans support common website platforms. Tidio, Tawk.to, Crisp, and Chatbase all provide WordPress plugins and JavaScript embed codes that work on virtually any website. Tidio and Tawk.to also have dedicated Shopify integrations on their free plans. HubSpot's free chatbot works through their embed code on any site. The platform compatibility is generally not gated by pricing — it's the same whether you're on a free or paid plan. For platform-specific guidance, see our best AI chatbot WordPress plugins comparison.
If your business gets meaningful website traffic and you want to capture leads or provide support outside business hours, yes. Free plans are useful for testing but fall short in production. A paid AI chatbot typically pays for itself if it handles even 5-10 conversations per month that would otherwise be lost — that's usually just one or two leads or one fewer support ticket for your team. At €14-29/month, the ROI math works for almost any business that depends on its website for leads or customer support. See our full AI chatbot pricing breakdown to compare value across platforms.
The honest answer is that there's no great free AI chatbot in 2026. There are free live chat tools (tawk.to is excellent), free rule-based bot builders (Tidio and HubSpot), and one barely-functional free AI tier (Chatbase's 20 messages). But a production-ready AI chatbot that can actually handle customer conversations? That costs money.
The good news is it doesn't have to cost much. The real battle isn't free vs. paid — it's finding a paid plan that gives you genuine value without hidden costs that balloon as you grow.
Here's how I'd approach the decision:
Whatever you choose, make sure you understand what "free" actually includes before you invest time setting it up. The cheapest option is rarely the one with the lowest sticker price — it's the one that saves you the most time while doing the job you need.
For a broader look at the AI chatbot market, check our best AI chatbots guide or our detailed pricing comparison across 10 platforms.
Article by
Ruben is the founder of Boei, with 12+ years of experience in conversion optimization. Former IT consultant at Ernst & Young and Accenture, where he helped product teams at Shell, ING, Rabobank, Aegon, NN, and AirFrance/KLM optimize their digital experiences. Now building tools to help businesses convert more website visitors into customers.
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