Quick answer
"Best AI chatbot" means an assistant you use or a chatbot on your website. This page compares 7 website chatbot tools from their pricing pages, read October 7, 2026. No tool is best for every business, in this site's view; it turns on monthly chats, answers from your own site and files, and handoff to a person.
Key takeaways
- This site's view: no website chatbot is best for every business, and this site has not tested any of the seven tools below.
- The seven pages count different things: message credits, chats, queries, outcomes, conversations or a flat workspace price, so free allowances in different units are not comparable.
- Free means different things: a monthly allowance (Chatbase and Landbot), a number with no period printed (Botpress), a one-off allowance (Tidio's 50 Lyro conversations) or a free trial with no free plan stated on the pages we read (CustomGPT.ai, Intercom).
- This site's suggestion: under about 100 chats a month start with a free or flat plan; for answers from your own documents compare knowledge-base limits, not model names; if your help desk includes a bot, turn that on first.
- A gap in the tables reads 'not stated on the pages we read'. It is not a statement that the product lacks the feature.
What does "best AI chatbot" mean for a small business?
"Best AI chatbot" means 2 things: an assistant you use, or a website chatbot for customers. None of the 7 is best for everyone; it turns on monthly chats, answers from your site and files, and handoff to a person. We tested none. If you meant an assistant you use yourself, this page does not compare those; it covers the website chatbot only.
A website chatbot answers customers' questions in a chat window on your site; setup steps are in How to Add an AI Chatbot to Your Website Without Coding.
Which tools are compared, and how were they chosen?
Seven tools are listed because each met one rule on October 7, 2026: its own pricing page prints a free plan, a free trial or a dollar price you can read without contacting sales, and its own pages describe an AI chat widget for a website. The list is not exhaustive and not a ranking; we did not read other tools. Rows are alphabetical.
Every cell is what the vendor's page prints. "Not stated on the pages we read" marks a gap in what we read, not a claim about the product.
What do the free plans and entry prices look like side by side?
The seven pages use seven different billing units, so a price column would mislead; the table prints each vendor's entry price in its own words. Where a page has a Monthly/Annual switch, the cell names the state we read; the other state shows a different price.
| Tool | Free plan or free allowance | Entry price as printed (read October 7, 2026) | What one unit is, in the vendor's words |
|---|---|---|---|
| Botpress | Free: $0, 100 conversations (no "per month" printed beside the Free figure) | Plus: $150/mo billed annually (Annual switch, the state shown on first load on October 7, 2026), 250 conversations/mo included | "Any exchange with at least two messages from the end user in the billing month counts as a conversation." |
| Chatbase | Free: $0 per month, 50 message credits/month | Hobby: $40 per month (Monthly switch, the state shown on first load on October 7, 2026), 700 message credits/month | "Each response from your AI Agent consumes credits based on the AI model used" |
| Crisp | Free, "Forever", with "No AI credits included" | Mini: $45 per month, per workspace; $5 of included AI credits, tooltip "Around 90 automated conversations" | Flat price: "you pay a single, consistent price regardless of the number of conversations you have each month" |
| CustomGPT.ai | Free plan not stated on the pages we read; "Start free 7-day trial" | Standard: $99 per month billed monthly (Monthly switch, the state shown on first load on October 7, 2026), 1,000 queries per month | Unit "queries"; definition not stated on the pages we read |
| Intercom (Fin) | Free plan not stated on the pages we read; "14-day cardless free trial" | "Fin is priced at $0.99 per outcome." The page prices its helpdesk plans "per seat/mo" and, for use with an existing helpdesk, prints "Minimum monthly commitment applies (e.g. 50 outcomes)" | "An outcome is counted when: A customer confirms their issue is resolved, or They don't ask for more help after Fin responds, or Fin completes a workflow (Procedure), including handoffs" |
| Landbot | Free: $0, "free forever", 100 chats/mo, "No AI chats included" | Starter: $36 per month, billed annually (Annual switch, the state shown on first load on October 7, 2026; $45 is printed beside it, the Monthly switch's price), 500 chats/mo and 100 AI chats included | "AI chats are handled fully or partially by AI agents." |
| Tidio | "Your first 50 conversations are free (lifetime)" and "50 Lyro AI Agent conversations (one-off)" | Lyro AI Agent: "Starts at $ 24.17 /mo." from 50 Lyro AI conversations (Annually switch, the state shown on first load on October 7, 2026, with "2 months free" beside it; the Monthly switch shows a higher price) | "A Lyro conversation is a customer interaction initiated through any channel integrated with Tidio that has at least one reply from our AI Agent." |
Tidio's free 50 Lyro conversations are printed as "(lifetime)" and "(one-off)", not monthly.
Intercom is the one entry priced per unit with no plan allowance, so it is the one that needs arithmetic. This site's illustration from the figures Intercom prints, not a quote or an estimate of your cost: "$0.99 per outcome" and, with an existing helpdesk, "Minimum monthly commitment applies (e.g. 50 outcomes)". Arithmetic: 50 × $0.99 = $49.50 a month at that example minimum; the page lists "No seat costs" for this option. An outcome is counted by the rules in the table, not per chat.
Which tools answer from your own site and files, hand off to a person and book appointments?
The pages we read for all seven describe training or grounding on your own content, but only some state the source types, and handoff and booking depend on the plan or product. The cells are each vendor's own wording.
| Tool | Answers from your site and files | Human handoff | Booking |
|---|---|---|---|
| Botpress | "let Botpress discover the other pages on that website"; "You can upload documents and files to your Knowledge Base" | "This feature requires a Botpress Plus plan or higher." (legacy integration); "For new workspaces, Human Handoff has moved to Botpress Desk" (Desk terms not stated on the pages we read) | "Your bot can schedule events via Calendly" |
| Chatbase | "Add files, websites, text, Q&A, Notion pages, and support tickets to train your AI agent" | "The Chatbase Live Chat action lets your AI agent hand a conversation over to a human support agent through the Chatbase Helpdesk"; the pricing page lists "Helpdesk" under Standard | Vendor blog post, last updated Jun 13, 2025: "integrates with Cal.com and Calendly, allowing AI agents to automate call booking" |
| Crisp | "Allows you to crawl your own website"; files in "TXT, CSV & PDF formats" | The AI agent can "escalate to humans" | Not stated on the pages we read |
| CustomGPT.ai | "Train on business websites, helpdesks, knowledge bases and public web content"; "PDF documents" | Not stated on the pages we read | Vendor blog post: "doesn't provide a native calendar or meetings module; booking is handled via tools like Calendly, HubSpot, or your own system" |
| Intercom (Fin) | "You can sync public articles from a website"; "upload a PDF or DOCX file" | "Fin hands off with the full conversation history attached, inside Intercom" | Not stated on the pages we read |
| Landbot | "Answers are grounded in your own knowledge base" | "Handing a chat to a person with full context is included from Starter"; the page's plan table row "Human takeover (shared inbox)" is ticked in all five columns | Menu text on the pricing page, not a product description: "Qualify and book meetings automatically." |
| Tidio | "Lyro automatically scrapes your support content and uses it as its knowledge base"; pricing rows "FAQ upload", "Website scraper" | "Set flexible handoff and escalation rules" | "sharing Calendly links when visitors ask to schedule a call" |
Booking means different things: a shared link (Tidio), a third-party scheduling tool via Zapier or an API (CustomGPT.ai), or a calendar integration inside the bot (Chatbase, Botpress).
How do you choose between them?
This site's suggestion, not a finding: match your monthly chat volume and your answer source to the units above, then check the limits that apply to you.
- You get fewer than about 100 chats a month (this site's rule of thumb, not a finding). About 100 is the size of the free allowances in the first table, which differ: Botpress prints 100 conversations on Free; Landbot prints 100 chats/mo but "No AI chats included", so it is not an AI option at $0; Tidio's 50 are "(one-off)"; Chatbase counts message credits, not chats. Start with a free or flat plan; Crisp's paid price is flat per workspace.
- You want the bot to answer from your own FAQ and documents. Compare knowledge-base limits, not model names. The limits are printed in different units: CustomGPT.ai prints "5,000 documents per agent" on Standard, Chatbase accepts files "up to 20 MB each", and Botpress's storage answer says "Free is hard-capped with no add-ons." Two vendors add a format caveat: Chatbase says "Scanned PDFs with no text layer cannot be trained on", and Fin's help page says of uploaded documents "Only text format is supported".
- You already use a help desk or CRM that includes a bot. Turn that on first. Intercom's page: "Use Fin with an existing helpdesk such as Salesforce, Hubspot, or Freshdesk."
What should you ask a seller before paying?
Ask what one unit counts as, what happens at the cap, and which plan carries the handoff.
- What counts as one chat, query, credit or outcome, and does a visitor who gives up after one message count?
- What happens when I reach the limit? Botpress says "Once you reach 95% of your quota, a pack of 100 conversations is automatically added to your account", and its Free card says "No top-ups or overages". CustomGPT.ai says that at a plan limit the system will "stop responding to queries (for “query” limits)". Landbot prints "$0.05/extra chat" beyond the plan and "$0.10 per AI chat" beyond the AI allowance.
- Is the handoff or booking feature on the plan I am pricing?
How was this page made?
This page was drafted with Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic, and checked against each vendor's published material on October 7, 2026. Anthropic is not one of the seven vendors covered.
Pages were read from outside the United States; prices change, so check each vendor's page before you buy. The decision rule and the 100-chat threshold are this site's rule of thumb.
Next step: count last month's chats, find which vendor unit that converts to, shortlist two, then follow the setup guide and see the AI automation guide.
FAQ
Is there a free AI chatbot for a small business website?
Some vendors print a free plan, with limits. As of October 2026, Botpress prints Free with 100 conversations, Chatbase Free with 50 message credits a month, and Landbot Free with 100 chats a month but no AI chats; Crisp's Free plan has no AI credits.
Which AI chatbot is better than ChatGPT?
That question usually means a chat assistant you use yourself, a different job from a chatbot on your website. This page does not rank either kind and does not compare assistants.
Do I need a developer to add a chatbot to my website?
Not for the basic widget, per this site's setup guide. Connecting a calendar can need an account token: Botpress's Calendly page says you need a Calendly account and a Calendly personal access token.