FastBots compared 8 chatbot vendors in 2026 and left out the one cheaper than them

By Saurav · saavos

[!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 Solo is $9/month. FastBots includes 2 bots; saavos Solo includes 1 bot. 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 $9/month for.

So here's the same 8 vendors, re-priced as of May 2026, with saavos added.

The original 8 vendors (repriced, May 2026)

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.

FastBots — $39/month Essential

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

Chatbase — $40/month Hobby (or $32/month annual)

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

Tidio — $39/month Lyro AI Starter

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

Freshchat — $19/agent/month (billed annually)

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 — €95/month Chatbot Plus (approximately $103/month)

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 — $0/month + metered AI spend

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 — $0.75/resolution

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 — $29/seat + $0.99 per resolution (Fin)

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

The vendor FastBots left off

saavos - $9/month Solo

1 bot, 1,000 messages/month, frontier Claude on every paid conversation, embed via one script tag. Flat subscription — no per-resolution fees, no metered overages on any tier. Builder is $24/month (2 bots, 3,500 messages) and is the top tier; above its cap the bot pauses rather than billing you for overage.

Free tier: 1 site, 3 sources, 100 messages/month, a faster Claude model. 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 $9 that FastBots does not at $39: frontier Claude 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

The actual comparison table

All prices monthly, not annual. Annual pricing typically saves 15–20%.

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).

What the FastBots article got right

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.

What the FastBots article got wrong (or just didn't say)

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 $9 gives 1 bot and 1,000 messages. For buyers choosing between them, the trade is: $30 more per month gets you 1,000 additional messages and WhatsApp/Instagram/Messenger integrations. If you need those channels, the $30 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.

How to pick

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 $9, 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.

Preview to test before deciding: preview at saavos.com. dashboard preview with a faster Claude model, no card. FastBots and Chatbase both have no-card previews 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).

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