How much does Chatbase cost per month?
Chatbase bills as a monthly or yearly subscription built around message credits. The entry price is $32/month billed yearly for the Hobby plan, or $40 if you pay month-to-month. Yearly billing takes 20% off across the board.
Every plan includes a set number of message credits per month. If your balance drops below a threshold you choose, auto-recharge adds credits at $40 per 1,000 message credits. Those topped-up credits do not expire.
Voice and API access only appear from the Basic plan upward, so the cheapest plan is chat-first. Prices checked 28 October 2026 against the Chatbase pricing page.
Chatbase plans at a glance
| Plan | Price (with unit) | What's included |
|---|---|---|
| Hobby | $32/month billed yearly ($40 monthly) | 700 message credits/month, 2 members, basic integrations, basic analytics, file attachments in chat |
| Basic | $120/month billed yearly ($150 monthly) | 4,000 message credits/month, 3 members, advanced integrations, Chatbase helpdesk inbox, voice, API access |
| Business | $400/month billed yearly ($500 monthly) | 15,000 message credits/month, 5 members, advanced analytics, sources suggestions, tickets as a source |
| Enterprise | Custom pricing | Custom usage with flexible billing, SSO, HIPAA-eligible, audit logs, white-labeling, SLAs, success manager, priority support |
Two things stand out. First, the Hobby plan is limited to 700 message credits per month and basic integrations, so it suits a low-volume site chat rather than a busy support queue. Second, the jump from Hobby to Basic is steep — $32 to $120 per month billed yearly — but it unlocks voice, the API and the built-in helpdesk inbox where AI and humans work from the same conversation.
Enterprise is quote-only. If you need SSO, audit logs or HIPAA-eligible deployment, budget for a sales conversation rather than a checkout page. See the full feature breakdown on our Chatbase profile.
What does one month of Chatbase cost at three volumes?
These examples use yearly billing rates and the published overage price of $40 per 1,000 message credits. Assumption: one AI reply consumes one message credit. Chatbase does not publish a per-credit consumption table for different action types, so treat these as floor estimates, not quotes.
Low volume: 600 messages/month on Hobby
- Plan: $32/month billed yearly
- Included credits: 700
- Overage: 0
- Total: $32/month
Mid volume: 5,000 messages/month on Basic
- Plan: $120/month billed yearly
- Included credits: 4,000
- Overage: 1,000 credits × $40 per 1,000 = $40
- Total: $160/month
High volume: 20,000 messages/month on Business
- Plan: $400/month billed yearly
- Included credits: 15,000
- Overage: 5,000 credits × $40 per 1,000 = $200
- Total: $600/month
The pattern: once you regularly exceed your plan's credit bundle, the effective rate is $0.04 per message on top of the subscription. At 20,000 messages, a quarter of your spend is overage. If your volume is stable and high, ask whether Enterprise custom billing beats stacking credits on Business — Chatbase does not publish that crossover point.
What charges sit outside the plan price?
Credit-based billing means the subscription is only part of the bill. Chatbase lists these extras:
- Auto-recharge credits: $40 per 1,000 message credits when your balance falls below a threshold you set. These credits do not expire.
- Remove 'Powered By Chatbase' branding: $1,188/year (Chatbase pricing).
- Extra agents: $300 per agent per year.
- Extra storage: $300 per 10 MB per year.
Watch the storage line. $300 per 10 MB per year is unusual pricing for a support tool, and Chatbase does not publish how much storage each plan includes, so ask before uploading a large knowledge base.
Also note the plan gates: voice and API access start at Basic ($120/month billed yearly), and white-labeling sits in Enterprise. If you need an unbranded widget on Hobby or Basic, the $1,188/year branding removal add-on costs more than the Hobby plan itself.
Is there a free way to try Chatbase?
Yes, with limits. Chatbase offers a 7-day trial on the Hobby plan, and the homepage also carries a 'Start free trial' option. There is no permanent free tier in the published plan list.
Seven days is enough to connect a data source, define the agent's role, set guardrails and run real customer questions through the widget — the setup is no-code and Chatbase says it takes minutes. It is not enough time to measure a full billing cycle of credit consumption, so track your message count daily during the trial to estimate which plan you would land on. Our guide on how to test an AI receptionist covers a scorecard approach that works for chat agents too.
Are there cheaper or simpler options than Chatbase?
If credit math feels unpredictable, two alternatives bill differently:
- Tidio Lyro bills per conversation at a published $0.5 per conversation, with multiple AI replies in one conversation counting as one. The standalone Lyro AI Agent plan starts at $32.50/month from 50 conversations, every account gets 50 free Lyro conversations for life, and the 7-day trial needs no credit card. Self-serve quotas cap at 1,000 AI conversations per month, and there is no voice channel.
- Botpress bills flat monthly. The Plus plan is $150/month billed annually with 250 conversations included, and there is a genuine free plan: 100 conversations, 3 seats and 3 AI agents, no credit card required. Overage packs cost $0.65/conversation on Plus, but auto-recharge cannot be turned off and unused pack conversations expire at month end.
For a like-for-like on channels: Chatbase is the only one of the three with voice on a self-serve plan (from Basic upward). If voice matters, compare it against dedicated AI voice agent platforms before committing. If you are still weighing chat against voice for your queue, our voice agent vs chatbot breakdown covers the trade-offs.