AI Chatbot Pricing Compared: Boei vs Tidio vs Intercom vs Chatbase vs Chatbot.com

The real numbers, not the marketing pages. Cheapest plan, mid plan, per-conversation cost, seat count, and what happens when you actually scale. All five vendor prices verified on 2026-07-15.

Boei from $19/mo, flat

Vendor pricing verified July 2026

See total cost at 3,000 conversations

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AI Chatbot Pricing at a Glance

$19

Boei Starter (annual, per month)

$24

Tidio Starter (annual, per month)

$39

Intercom Essential (per seat, per month)

$32

Chatbase Hobby (per month)

How AI Chatbot Vendors Actually Price

How much does an AI chatbot cost? Anywhere from $0 to several thousand dollars a month. The spread is huge because vendors use four completely different pricing models, and the sticker price on the homepage rarely matches what you actually pay after 60 days of real traffic.

Flat monthly rate (Boei): One price, no matter how many conversations. from $19/mo annual on Starter.
Per-conversation or per-resolution (Intercom Fin, Chatbot.com, Tidio Lyro): A base fee plus a charge for every AI-handled conversation. Ranges from $0.99 to $1.50 per outcome. Cheap at 50 conversations, expensive at 3,000.
Per-credit (Chatbase): You pre-buy message credits. Runs out mid-month and it auto-recharges at $40 per 1,000 credits.
Per-seat (Intercom, Chatbot.com): Every human on the team is a separate paid seat, on top of the base plan and AI usage fees.

The rest of this page compares the five most-searched platforms head-to-head using their own published pricing pages as of 2026-07-15.

Cheapest Plan, Mid Plan, Per-Conversation Cost, Seat Count

All prices below are the vendor's own published rates as of 2026-07-15. Annual billing where available, otherwise monthly. Currency: USD.

Vendor	Cheapest paid plan	Mid plan	AI cost per conversation	Seats included on cheapest paid
Boei	$19/mo (Starter annual)	$49/mo (Growth annual)	$0 (2,000 messages included)	1 agent + AI
Tidio	$24.17/mo (Starter annual)	Growth (custom quote)	Lyro AI billed separately, per-conversation	Up to 3 operators
Intercom	$39/seat/mo (Essential)	$99/seat/mo (Advanced)	$0.99 per Fin AI outcome (min 50/mo)	1 seat (add more at same rate)
Chatbase	$32/mo (Hobby)	$120/mo (Standard)	Credit-based, auto-recharges $40/1,000 credits	2 members
Chatbot.com	$19/user/mo (Essential annual)	$79/user/mo (Growth annual)	10 AI resolutions included, then $49.50/50-pack	1 user

The number that matters: Boei is the only vendor in this table where the sticker price is the price you pay at any conversation volume. Every other vendor adds AI usage fees, extra seats, or credit top-ups once you leave the free-tier volumes on the pricing page.

ROI: What You Actually Pay at 500, 1,500, and 3,000 Conversations

Sticker prices are a distraction. The real number is your monthly bill at your actual conversation volume. Here's what each vendor charges when a real SMB runs the meter, using each vendor's cheapest paid plan and their own published AI-usage rates:

Vendor	500 conversations/mo	1,500 conversations/mo	3,000 conversations/mo
Boei (Starter, $19)	$19	$49 (Growth needed for volume)	$49
Tidio Starter + Lyro	$24 + Lyro per-conversation	$24 + Lyro per-conversation	$24 + Lyro per-conversation
Intercom Essential + Fin	$39 + $495 = $534	$39 + $1,485 = $1,524	$39 + $2,970 = $3,009
Chatbase Hobby + top-ups	$32 (fits in 500 credits)	$32 + $40 = $72	$32 + $120 = $152
Chatbot.com Essential	$19 + $485 = $504	$19 + $1,475 = $1,494	$19 + $2,960 = $2,979

Boei vs Intercom at 3,000 conversations/mo: $49 vs $3,009. That's a $2,960/mo delta, or roughly $35,000 a year, for the same job: 3,000 AI-handled conversations plus a shared inbox for your team.

Boei vs Chatbot.com at 3,000 conversations/mo: $49 vs $2,979. The Essential plan headline of $19 is real, but only for the first 10 AI resolutions each month. Everything after that is $49.50 per 50-pack.

Boei vs Chatbase at 3,000 conversations/mo: $49 vs $152. Chatbase is the closest on absolute price, but it caps the team at 2 members on Hobby and doesn't include WhatsApp, email, or SMS channels.

What Each Vendor Actually Charges For

The gotchas that don't show up on the pricing page hero.

Intercom: $0.99 per Fin outcome

The Essential plan looks like $39/seat, but that only buys you the human inbox. Every AI-handled conversation is billed at $0.99 per resolved outcome, with a minimum of 50 outcomes per month. Copilot for agents is another $29/agent. Pro analytics is $99/mo on top.

Essential $39/seat/mo
Advanced $99/seat/mo
Fin AI $0.99 per outcome, 50/mo minimum
Every teammate is a full paid seat

Chatbase: credits, not conversations

Chatbase prices in message credits, not conversations. Hobby includes 500 credits/mo. When you run out, auto-recharge kicks in at $40 per 1,000 credits. Extra team members are $300/year each. Removing Chatbase branding is $1,188/year.

Hobby $32/mo, 500 credits
Standard $120/mo, 4,000 credits
Auto-recharge $40 per 1,000 credits
Extra member $300/year

Chatbot.com: per-user, per-resolution

Essential is $19/user/mo annual, but includes only 10 AI resolutions per month. Growth is $79/user/mo annual with 200 resolutions. Beyond that, extra AI resolutions are $49.50 per 50-pack. Every human agent is a separate paid user.

Essential $19/user/mo annual
Growth $79/user/mo annual
10-200 AI resolutions included
Extra resolutions $49.50/50-pack

Tidio: base plan + Lyro AI separately

Starter is $24.17/mo annual with up to 100 conversations/mo. Higher plans get Growth, Plus, and Premium tiers with custom pricing. Lyro (Tidio's AI agent) is billed as a separate per-conversation add-on, not included in the base plan.

Free tier: 100 visitors/mo
Starter $24.17/mo annual
Lyro AI billed per-conversation on top
Enterprise-only compliance features

Boei: flat, everything included

Starter is $19/mo annual and includes 2,000 AI messages, 50+ channels, WhatsApp, email, SMS, contact forms, deal pipeline, and the shared inbox. No per-conversation fees, no per-seat gotchas, no credit top-ups. Growth is $49/mo, Business $129/mo, Scale $229/mo.

$19/mo Starter, 2,000 AI messages included
$49/mo Growth, 3 chatbots, 7,000 messages
WhatsApp, email, SMS all included
No per-conversation or per-resolution fees

EU compliance, without an enterprise contract

Boei's DPA is self-service and free on every plan. Data lives in Amsterdam. Most competitors gate the DPA to Business or Enterprise tiers, which is a real cost when your buyer needs it before signing.

Free DPA on every plan
EU-based servers (Amsterdam)
GDPR compliant by default
99.5% uptime SLA on Scale

Why Is Intercom So Expensive?

Why is Intercom so expensive compared to Boei or Chatbase? Intercom isn't sold as a chatbot; it's sold as a customer-support platform for teams that already have a support budget. Three things stack up:

Every seat is paid, even the read-only ones. A support team of 5 people on Advanced is $99 x 5 = $495/mo before AI usage. Boei's Growth plan includes 3 agents on the base $49/mo.
Fin AI is billed per outcome. $0.99 per resolved conversation, minimum 50/mo. A store running 3,000 AI-handled conversations pays $2,970 in Fin fees alone.
Analytics, Copilot, and integrations are separately priced. Copilot is $29/agent/mo. Pro analytics is $99/mo. Add-ons stack quickly.

Intercom's pricing model works for teams whose primary bottleneck is agent throughput, not chatbot deployment. For SMBs that mostly need automated first-line answers and lead capture, per-conversation platforms are almost always cheaper to run.

Cheapest AI Chatbot for Shopify

What's the cheapest AI chatbot for a Shopify store? If you have a real store doing actual conversation volume, the ranking looks like this in July 2026:

Boei Starter: $19/mo annual. Flat rate, 2,000 AI messages, WhatsApp included, works with any Shopify theme. Cart abandonment, order lookup, product Q&A all handled inside the same $19.
Chatbase Hobby: $32/mo if you can live with 500 credits and 2 team members. No native Shopify features; you connect via webhook.
Tidio Free: $0 up to 100 visitors/mo. Fine for a brand-new store, useless once traffic picks up.
Chatbot.com Essential: $19/mo annual but only 10 AI resolutions included, then $49.50 per 50-pack. Expensive at real Shopify traffic.
Gorgias: not in this comparison because it's ticket-based, but worth naming. Starts at $10/mo but charges $0.36-0.40 per ticket, so a busy Shopify store often runs several hundred a month.

See our full Shopify chatbot page for install steps.

AI Chatbot Pricing FAQ

How much does an AI chatbot cost in 2026?

AI chatbots for SMBs cost between $19 and $150 per month for flat-rate vendors, and $500 to $3,000+ per month for per-conversation vendors like Intercom or Chatbot.com once you handle real traffic. The cheapest fully-featured plan in this comparison is Boei Starter at $19/mo annual, which includes 2,000 AI messages, WhatsApp, email, SMS, and a shared inbox. Enterprise chatbots (Drift, Salesforce Einstein) start at $2,500/mo and up.

Why is Intercom so expensive?

Intercom prices for support teams that already have budget, not for SMBs adding a chatbot. Three stacking costs: every teammate is a full paid seat ($39-$139/seat/mo), Fin AI is billed per resolved outcome ($0.99 each, 50/mo minimum), and Copilot plus Pro analytics are separate add-ons ($29 and $99/mo). A 5-person team handling 3,000 conversations lands at $3,000-$5,000/mo, versus $49/mo on Boei Growth.

What's the cheapest AI chatbot for Shopify?

For a Shopify store with real traffic, Boei Starter at $19/mo annual is the cheapest fully-featured option: flat rate, 2,000 AI messages, WhatsApp included, and no per-conversation fees. Tidio's free tier works for stores under 100 visitors/mo. Chatbot.com Essential looks cheaper at $19/user/mo but caps at 10 AI resolutions before charging $49.50 per 50-pack. Gorgias is ticket-priced ($0.36-$0.40/ticket), which usually beats Intercom but loses to Boei above 50 tickets/mo.

Which AI chatbot has no per-conversation fees?

Of the five vendors in this comparison, only Boei has no per-conversation, per-resolution, or per-credit fees on the base plan. Every message inside your monthly message quota is included at the flat rate. Tidio's Lyro AI, Intercom's Fin, Chatbot.com's AI resolutions, and Chatbase's credits are all billed on top of the base plan.

Are per-conversation prices ever cheaper than flat rate?

Only at very low volume. If you handle fewer than about 40 conversations per month, per-conversation pricing (Intercom Fin at $0.99 x 40 = $39.60 + $39 seat = ~$79) can beat a flat rate plan. Above 100 conversations/mo, flat-rate vendors like Boei ($19-$49/mo) are cheaper by a wide margin, and the gap grows with volume.

Do these prices include WhatsApp and email?

Boei includes WhatsApp Business, email, SMS, and 50+ channels on every paid plan starting at $19/mo. Tidio charges $59+/mo extra for WhatsApp on most plans. Intercom offers WhatsApp as an add-on. Chatbase and Chatbot.com are primarily web-widget products; WhatsApp requires third-party integration.