AI chatbot
By Saurav | Founder of saavos | Building in public toward $10k MRR
[!TLDR] Tidio costs $24–$49/month and requires a staffed chat queue to work well. Chatbase Hobby is $32/month on annual billing with a 500-credit/month cap. Intercom Fin is $0.99 per resolved conversation with a 50-outcome minimum — which sounds cheap until a traffic spike hits. For a solo SaaS founder under $1k MRR, none of the three is the right default. saavos at $19/month covers the same job without the live-chat overhead, message-credit math, or per-resolution billing surprises. All pricing confirmed from vendor pages, May 2026.
Three products come up in almost every "which chatbot for my SaaS" thread: Tidio, Chatbase, and Intercom Fin. They're real products with real strengths. But the comparisons that rank on Google almost always describe a buyer who has 5 support agents, a Shopify store, or a steady 2,000-conversation-per-month baseline.
That is not the buyer who asks this question at $0–$1k MRR.
The actual question is: "I get 80–200 visitors a day, I'm answering the same 4 questions over email, and I'd rather not hire or babysit a live-chat queue yet." Here's what each product actually does in that situation.
| Product | Entry paid | Billing | Conversations/messages | Live agent required? | Model |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tidio | $24.17/mo | Annual | 50 Lyro AI (one-time credit) | Yes, for ongoing chat | Undisclosed |
| Chatbase | $32/mo | Annual ($40 month-to-month) | 500 credits/mo | No | GPT-4o, Claude, GPT-5 |
| Intercom Fin | $0.99/resolution | Per-outcome | 50 outcomes/mo minimum | No | Intercom's model |
| saavos | $19/mo | Monthly | 1,000 messages/mo | No | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
Sources: tidio.com/pricing, chatbase.co/pricing, fin.ai/pricing, saavos.com/pricing — all confirmed May 19, 2026.
One thing to flag immediately: "conversations" and "message credits" and "resolutions" are not the same unit. Chatbase's 500 credits don't map to 500 conversations. Tidio's 50 Lyro AI credits are a one-time onboarding allotment, not a monthly recurring limit. I'll unpack each below.
Tidio is live chat first. The AI — Lyro — was built on top. That origin matters.
The Starter plan ($24.17/month annual, or $29/month month-to-month) includes unlimited live chat for one agent seat. The AI part — Lyro — gives you 50 conversations as a one-time credit when you sign up, not as a recurring monthly allotment. To get ongoing AI conversation handling, you add the standalone Lyro product starting at $32.50/month, or you upgrade to Growth ($49.17/month annual), which bundles Lyro in at a higher tier.
So the honest math for a solo founder who wants Tidio doing AI deflection: $49.17/month minimum, not $24.17.
That's before the real cost: Tidio's live-chat model assumes someone is online during business hours. If you're solo and you're building, you're not monitoring a chat queue. When the queue goes unanswered, Tidio sends a "we'll get back to you" message. That's fine — but you're paying for live-chat infrastructure you're not using.
Tidio is the right pick when you actually have a live agent online during business hours and you want a shared inbox that handles email + chat + Instagram + WhatsApp in one place. Also excellent for Shopify stores — the native Shopify app does order lookups, cart recovery, and return triggers that no general-purpose chatbot matches.
For a solo SaaS founder building software and answering support async: Tidio's core value proposition (live chat) is the part you won't use.
Source: tidio.com/pricing, confirmed May 2026.
Chatbase is the AI-first alternative. You train it on your website or Notion docs; it answers visitor questions without a live agent. No staffed queue required.
The Hobby plan ($32/month annual, $40 month-to-month) includes 500 message credits per month. Here's the catch with credits: one visitor exchange — one question, one answer — can consume 1–4 credits depending on response length. A site with 200 monthly support questions might burn through Hobby's monthly credit in 100–150 actual conversations. At 200 monthly conversations, you're flirting with the cap.
Standard tier is $120/month and gives 4,000 credits. There's no middle ground between $32 and $120. That gap is the most-cited frustration on Chatbase's Reddit threads.
Where Chatbase genuinely wins: training source breadth. Notion native integration, Google Docs, YouTube transcripts, RSS feeds, URL crawl, PDF — all live as of May 2026. If your docs live in Notion or you want GPT-5 or model selection per bot, Chatbase is the only sub-$50 option with those features.
What Chatbase doesn't do that the competition does: the permanent free tier deletes bots after 14 days of inactivity. That's a real gotcha during the evaluation phase — set up a test bot, get busy for two weeks, come back to nothing.
For a solo SaaS founder with documentation in Notion and under 100 monthly conversations: Chatbase Hobby is fine. For a founder with basic web content and 200+ monthly conversations: the credit math gets uncomfortable fast.
Source: chatbase.co/pricing, confirmed May 2026.
Fin charges $0.99 per resolved conversation, with a 50-outcome minimum per month ($49.50 minimum). No setup fee or platform fee if you're connecting to a non-Intercom helpdesk.
The per-resolution model sounds appealing: pay only when the bot works. But the math has a trap.
At 200 monthly conversations and 50% deflection (Fin's documented SMB range): 100 resolutions at $0.99 = $99/month. Not $49.50. And that's a normal month. A launch day, a Product Hunt post, a Reddit thread — any traffic spike multiplies your bill by the same factor. You don't control when people ask questions.
Flat-rate tools cap at the plan limit when you hit it. Per-resolution tools send you a surprise invoice.
Fin's actual strengths are real: it uses Intercom's training data and can pull context from your help center, previous tickets, and external tools. The resolution rate in documented SMB cases runs 30–50%. If you're already on Intercom's platform, adding Fin makes operational sense — the integration is tight, and you're adding capability to existing infrastructure rather than running a separate tool.
For a founder who isn't on Intercom yet: the minimum $49.50/month commitment plus the unpredictable overage is a harder sell versus a $19/month flat tool that does the same FAQ deflection job.
Source: fin.ai/pricing, confirmed May 2026.
Pick Tidio if: You have a Shopify store. Or you have at least one person online during business hours who will actually watch the chat queue. For SaaS without live-agent coverage, you're paying for infrastructure that idles.
Pick Chatbase if: Your docs live in Notion or Google Docs and you want native sync. Or you want to switch between GPT-5 and Claude Sonnet per bot. Or you run under 100 monthly conversations and the credit math is comfortable. The $32/month annual tier is defensible in that narrow situation.
Pick Intercom Fin if: You're already paying for Intercom and you want to add AI deflection on top of existing infrastructure. Or your support volume is high enough and predictable enough that per-resolution billing averages cheaper than a flat subscription. Under 500 monthly conversations, that scenario is rare.
Pick saavos if: You need async FAQ deflection from your website without a live-chat queue, you want flat predictable billing, and you don't need multi-channel or Notion sync. $19/month, 1,000 messages/month, Claude Sonnet 4.6, two bots, no per-resolution billing. Setup is a script tag and a URL. Permanent free tier (50 messages/month) to test before committing.
Source: saavos.com/pricing, confirmed May 2026.
At $500/month MRR, a $120/month Chatbase Standard plan is 24% of revenue. At $1k MRR, Intercom's Copilot add-on at $35/user plus Fin's per-resolution costs can push $150–200/month in a busy month — 15–20% of revenue.
That math is fine at $10k MRR. At sub-$1k MRR, the support tool should be boring infrastructure, not a meaningful line item.
The other thing that changes at sub-$1k MRR: you haven't learned what your customers actually ask yet. The Chatbase Standard plan and Intercom's full suite are overkill for the learning phase. A $19/month tool that logs every conversation is the right tool for finding the five questions your docs don't answer well — and for training a better tool later when you know what you actually need.
First: "message credits" are not conversations. Chatbase's 500 credits and Wonderchat's 1,000 credits use different credit math. Ask the vendor: "how many credits does one average question-and-answer exchange use?" If they can't answer, model conservatively.
Second: Tidio's Lyro AI on the Starter plan is a one-time credit. The pricing page leads with AI prominently, but the 50-conversation credit runs out. After that, ongoing AI requires an upgrade or a separate Lyro subscription. Read the pricing page fine print before assuming Lyro is recurring at Starter.
Third: per-resolution billing has no natural ceiling without explicit caps negotiated with the vendor. Fin's $49.50 minimum is the floor, not the ceiling. A high-traffic month can and does produce higher bills. If your revenue is variable, your support bill shouldn't be too.
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At Starter tier, Tidio is $24.17/month (annual) vs Chatbase Hobby at $32/month (annual). But Tidio's AI (Lyro) at Starter is a one-time 50-conversation credit, not recurring. To get recurring AI conversations in Tidio, Growth at $49.17/month is the real comparison. Chatbase Hobby gives 500 monthly credits recurring at $32/month — less total volume but a genuinely recurring allotment. For AI-only async deflection, Chatbase costs less than the comparable Tidio tier. Sources: tidio.com/pricing, chatbase.co/pricing, May 2026.
The minimum is $49.50/month (50 outcomes at $0.99 each). A small SaaS with 300 monthly conversations and 40% deflection generates 120 resolutions — $118.80/month. A traffic spike to 600 conversations doubles the bill without changing anything else about your product. The per-resolution model is attractive for high-volume predictable traffic; it is unpredictable for early-stage founders with variable traffic. Source: fin.ai/pricing, May 2026.
Yes. Chatbase Hobby ($32/month annual) includes 500 message credits per month. One user exchange typically costs 1–4 credits depending on response length. At average exchange length, 500 credits cover roughly 150–400 actual conversations per month. The next tier (Standard) is $120/month for 4,000 credits — there is no mid-tier between $32 and $120. If you are approaching the cap monthly, the $88/month jump to Standard is the only option until Chatbase adds intermediate pricing. Source: chatbase.co/pricing, May 2026.
At under 200 monthly conversations, the tool that minimizes fixed cost and provides useful conversation logs wins. saavos Starter ($19/month) covers 1,000 messages with Claude Sonnet 4.6 and logs every exchange. Chatbase Hobby ($32/month, annual) is viable if your docs are in Notion or you want model selection. Tidio is oversized at this volume — the live-chat infrastructure runs idle. Intercom Fin has a $49.50/month minimum, which is a meaningful overhead at 50–200 monthly conversations. Source: all vendor pricing pages, May 2026.
Yes. There is no proprietary data format to migrate — your conversation history stays with the original tool, but your training sources (URLs, PDFs) are yours. The switch process: retrain from your same source URLs on the new platform (5–10 minutes), update the embed script tag in your site HTML, test the fallback message. For Chatbase, Notion sync needs to be reconnected on the new platform if it does not support Notion natively. The switching cost is time, not data lock-in.
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