AI chatbot
By Saurav | Founder of saavos | Building in public toward $10k MRR
[!TLDR] FastBots published a pricing comparison of 8 chatbot vendors in April 2026 and left out the one product cheaper than their own entry tier. Here is the same comparison with saavos included. Short version: FastBots Essential is $39/month. saavos Starter is $19/month. Same entry-tier bot count (2), similar message volume. Pricing for all 9 vendors confirmed from vendor pages, May 2026.
FastBots runs a blog. In April 2026 they published "AI Chatbot Pricing Comparison: What Businesses Actually Pay in 2026" — a comparison of 8 vendors, with FastBots at the top of the recommendation.
They compared: FastBots, Chatbase, Tidio, Freshchat, Crisp, Botpress, Help Scout, and Intercom.
I'm not on the list.
That's not surprising. Vendor-written comparison posts don't usually include competitors who are cheaper than them. But the post is getting citations. It shows in search results for chatbot pricing queries. And it's framing FastBots' $39/month Essential tier as the entry point for buyers who want "predictable costs" — which is the same thing I charge $19/month for.
So here's the same 8 vendors, re-priced as of May 2026, with saavos added.
FastBots quoted prices that were accurate as of April 2026. A few have shifted since. All prices below are from vendor pages, confirmed May 2026.
2 chatbots, 2,000 messages/month, WhatsApp + Instagram + Messenger + Slack integrations included, all major LLMs configurable, live agent takeover. Business tier at $89/month (5 bots, 5k messages, live chat).
FastBots' model is subscription-flat — same structure as saavos. Their entry tier is the one I compare against most directly: $39 for 2 bots and 2k messages, GPT-4o family as the default model.
Source: fastbots.ai/pricing, confirmed May 2026
2 bots, 500 message credits (one credit = one exchange), model selection across GPT-4o, Claude Sonnet, GPT-5 variants, and others. WhatsApp and Instagram live. Analytics mature. The entry price went up recently from $32 to $40 on monthly billing; annual billing is $32.
Source: chatbase.co/pricing, confirmed May 2026
Here's where the FastBots comparison gets misleading. Tidio's $39 Lyro Starter gives you 100 AI conversations per month. Not 1,000. Not unlimited. One hundred. To get 1,000 AI conversations you're at the Growth tier, which runs $79-99/month. The $39 price the FastBots article quotes is real — but the volume it buys is a tenth of what most buyers expect.
If you sell physical goods and need Shopify lookups plus abandoned-cart triggers, Tidio earns its price at any tier. If you're running a SaaS, you're paying for ecom features you'll never use.
Source: tidio.com/pricing, confirmed May 2026
Seat-based, not bot-subscription. Freshchat is a live-chat platform with AI add-ons, not a standalone chatbot tool. A solo founder pays $19/month for one agent seat, but the AI features (Freddy AI) add cost on top. This isn't a like-for-like comparison with bot-subscription tools — it's a different product category. FastBots included it in their comparison; I'm flagging why the $19 number is misleading.
Source: freshworks.com/freshchat/pricing, confirmed May 2026
Crisp is a live-chat platform with a bot bolted on. Their flow-builder is genuinely good. The GPT add-on for AI responses is more basic than purpose-built RAG tools. If you need a multi-channel inbox (chat + WhatsApp + Messenger + email) and want a bot as a secondary feature, Crisp makes sense. If you want a bot that grounds answers in your specific content — your pricing page, your docs — there are better options at lower prices.
Source: crisp.chat/en/pricing, confirmed May 2026. EUR pricing, current at approximately $103/month at May 2026 exchange.
Botpress is a developer platform. The "free" tier is real — 1,000 AI messages/month. Past that, you're metered at roughly $0.075 per AI message (approximately $75 per additional 1,000). The Plus plan is $89/month; Team is $495/month. These include hosted compute and channel integrations.
The gotcha: you build the bot on Botpress. It does not train on your URL and hand you a widget. It's a flow-builder + AI layer. Time-to-deploy is hours to days, not minutes. If your team has an engineer and wants maximum channel flexibility (WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, Teams), Botpress is genuinely powerful. For a solo founder who wants a bot live today, it's the wrong tool.
Source: botpress.com/pricing, confirmed May 2026
Help Scout is a customer support inbox that added an AI resolution feature. This is outcome-based pricing: they charge $0.75 for each conversation their AI resolves without human intervention. For a team already paying for Help Scout's ticketing platform, this makes sense — you're paying for AI on top of infrastructure you already bought. For a solo founder evaluating standalone chatbots, comparing $0.75/resolution to $19/month subscription is comparing different math entirely. Buying Help Scout to get the AI bot is paying for a car because you needed a tire.
Source: helpscout.com/pricing, confirmed May 2026
Intercom's pricing has two layers. The platform itself (Essential) starts at $29/seat/month. The AI bot (Fin) adds $0.99 per resolved conversation on top. A solo founder gets $29 + however many Fin resolutions they log. A good month with 200 Fin resolutions is $29 + $198 = $227. A great month is worse.
Intercom makes sense if you're already paying for Intercom's CRM platform and have a support team routing tickets. If you're evaluating chatbots standalone, the per-resolution model is unpredictable by design — it's meant to align cost with value for enterprise buyers, not to give indie founders a predictable budget.
Source: intercom.com/pricing, confirmed May 2026
2 bots, 1,000 messages/month, Claude Sonnet 4.6 on every paid conversation, embed via one script tag. Flat subscription — no per-resolution fees, no metered overages on Starter or Pro. Pro is $49/month (5 bots, 3,500 messages). Business is $199/month (25 bots, 15,000 messages, overage at $0.02/message capped at $200).
Free tier: 1 bot, 50 messages/month, Claude Haiku. Permanent, no card required.
What saavos does not include: live agent takeover, WhatsApp, social channel integrations, or multi-channel inbox. Website widget only. If those are requirements, FastBots or Chatbase cover them.
What saavos does include at $19 that FastBots does not at $39: Claude Sonnet as the default model. FastBots runs GPT-4o family. That's a real difference on nuanced support queries — not on simple FAQ retrieval, but on the multi-turn questions where context matters.
Source: saavos.com/pricing and src/lib/plans.ts (canonical), confirmed May 2026
All prices monthly, not annual. Annual pricing typically saves 15–20%.
| Vendor | Entry paid tier | Price/month | Bots | Messages | Model | Billing model |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| saavos | Starter | $19 | 2 | 1,000 | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Flat subscription |
| FastBots | Essential | $39 | 2 | 2,000 | GPT-4o family | Flat subscription |
| Chatbase | Hobby | $40 (monthly) / $32 (annual) | 2 | 500 credits | Multi-model (GPT-4o default) | Flat subscription |
| Tidio | Lyro Starter | $39 | N/A | 100 | Lyro proprietary | Live chat bundle + AI tier |
| Freshchat | Growth | $19/seat | Per seat | Varies | Freddy AI | Seat-based |
| Crisp | Chatbot Plus | ~$103 | N/A | Varies | GPT add-on | Live chat + upcharge |
| Botpress | Free / Plus | $0 + metered / $89 | Unlimited | 1,000 free then metered | Configurable | Usage-based |
| Help Scout | AI add-on | $0.75/resolution | N/A | Per resolution | Undisclosed | Per-resolution |
| Intercom | Essential + Fin | $29/seat + $0.99/resolution | N/A | Per resolution | OpenAI | Seat + per-resolution |
A few honest notes about this table:
Freshchat, Help Scout, and Intercom are support platforms with AI features, not standalone chatbot tools. Including them in a "chatbot pricing comparison" inflates the field. FastBots did it. I did too, because that's the list they made. But if you're buying a chatbot for your SaaS site, the realistic set is: saavos, FastBots, Chatbase, Botpress, and Tidio (if you sell physical goods).
Their framing was useful. Subscription-flat pricing (FastBots, Chatbase, saavos) is genuinely easier to budget than per-resolution pricing (Intercom Fin, Help Scout) or seat-based pricing (Freshchat). If you're a founder who hates opening your AWS bill each month and seeing a surprise, flat subscription is the right model.
They also correctly called out that per-resolution pricing sounds cheap until your bot has a good month. The math I did above for Intercom ($29 + $198 at 200 resolutions) is the same math FastBots did. It holds.
Where the article undersells: the Tidio $39 = 100 conversations issue is buried. Most readers will see "$39/month" and mentally compare it to a $39/month tool that gives 1,000+ conversations. They're not equivalent.
One thing. They're the more expensive subscription-flat option, and they wrote the comparison.
FastBots at $39 gives 2 bots and 2,000 messages. saavos at $19 gives 2 bots and 1,000 messages. For buyers choosing between them, the trade is: $20 more per month gets you 1,000 additional messages and WhatsApp/Instagram/Messenger integrations. If you need those channels, the $20 is worth it. If you don't, it isn't.
The FastBots article couldn't say this because saavos wasn't in it. Now it is.
If you need multi-channel (WhatsApp, Instagram): FastBots Essential ($39) or Chatbase Standard ($120, annual) are the options with live social channels.
If you need a developer platform for complex flows: Botpress. Not because it's cheap but because nothing else matches it on flexibility.
If you already pay for Intercom: evaluate Fin inside what you already pay. Don't buy another platform.
If you need a website chatbot trained on your docs and want the lowest predictable bill: saavos at $19, or FastBots at $39 if you need the extra messages or will use the WhatsApp integrations.
If you need 100 AI conversations per month and want live chat bundled: Tidio at $39. For more than 100 AI conversations, look elsewhere at that price.
Free tier to test before deciding: start free at saavos.com. 50 messages/month, Claude Haiku, no card. FastBots and Chatbase both have free tiers at similar caps.
Pricing confirmed from vendor pages, May 2026. FastBots pricing from fastbots.ai/pricing; Chatbase from chatbase.co/pricing; Tidio from tidio.com/pricing. The FastBots article referenced here: blog.fastbots.ai/ai-chatbot-pricing-comparison-what-businesses-actually-pay-in-2026/ (published April 16, 2026).
Related: AI chatbot pricing comparison 2026 · saavos vs Chatbase vs FastBots: a direct comparison · 12 questions to ask AI chatbot vendors before committing
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saavos Starter is $19/month for 2 bots and 1,000 messages, running Claude Sonnet 4.6 by default. FastBots Essential is $39/month for 2 bots and 2,000 messages, running GPT-4o family. The $20 difference buys you 1,000 extra messages and WhatsApp/Instagram/Messenger integrations on FastBots. If you need those channels, FastBots is worth the premium. If you only need a website chatbot trained on your docs, saavos is cheaper. Pricing confirmed from vendor pages, May 2026.
FastBots compared eight vendors in their April 2026 pricing article: FastBots, Chatbase, Tidio, Freshchat, Crisp, Botpress, Help Scout, and Intercom. The article excluded saavos, which at $19/month is cheaper than FastBots Essential at $39/month. Three of the eight (Freshchat, Help Scout, Intercom) are support platforms with AI features, not standalone chatbot tools — a distinction the article did not make clearly. Source: blog.fastbots.ai, April 16, 2026.
saavos Starter ($19/month) is cheaper than FastBots Essential ($39/month) at the entry paid tier. Both offer 2 bots. FastBots gives 2,000 messages/month; saavos gives 1,000 messages/month. FastBots includes WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, and Slack integrations from the entry tier; saavos is website-widget only. saavos uses Claude Sonnet 4.6 by default; FastBots uses GPT-4o family. Pricing confirmed from vendor pages, May 2026.
Yes. Tidio's Lyro AI Starter is $39/month for 100 AI conversations — not 1,000. To get 1,000 AI conversations per month on Tidio you need the Growth tier, which starts at $79–$99/month. The $39 price is real; the volume it buys is a tenth of what most buyers expect when comparing against $39 flat-rate alternatives. Tidio's ecommerce features (Shopify product lookups, abandoned-cart triggers) justify the price for physical-goods sellers. For SaaS, it rarely does. Pricing confirmed from tidio.com/pricing, May 2026.
saavos Starter at $19/month is the cheapest flat-rate chatbot subscription in this comparison as of May 2026. FastBots Essential is $39/month. Chatbase Hobby is $40/month billed monthly or $32/month on annual billing. All three charge a fixed monthly fee with no per-conversation or per-resolution billing. saavos and FastBots both include a permanent free tier. Pricing confirmed from vendor pages, May 2026.
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