Chatbase is the established player here — 10,000+ businesses, multi-model selection (GPT-4o, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek), and WhatsApp/Instagram/Messenger support that saavos doesn't have. saavos is the price-accessible alternative: $19/mo flat with no annual commitment, a forever-free tier that doesn't delete your agents, and built-in lead capture that works out of the box. This page covers both honestly, including where Chatbase wins.
| Plan | saavos | Chatbase |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0/mo — forever, no expiry | $0/mo — agents deleted after 14 days inactivity |
| Entry paid (Chatbase annual-only) | $19/mo Starter — no annual commitment | $32/mo Hobby ($384 upfront, annual billing only) |
| Mid tier | $49/mo Pro | $120/mo Standard |
| Top tier | $199/mo Business | $400/mo Pro |
Three things worth calling out explicitly: Chatbase Hobby is $32/mo but requires annual billing — $384 upfront, no month-to-month option currently listed on their pricing page. saavos Starter is $19/mo with no annual commitment, ever. And Chatbase's free tier deletes your agents after 14 days of inactivity; saavos's doesn't.
| Feature | saavos | Chatbase |
|---|---|---|
| Starting paid price | $19/mo Starter — no annual commitment | $32/mo Hobby — annual billing only ($384 upfront) |
| Free tier — does it expire? | No — 50 conversations/mo forever | Yes — deleted after 14 days inactivity |
| Bots / agents at entry paid tier | 2 bots | 1 agent ($300/yr add-on for more) |
| Message credits at entry paid tier | ~1,000 conversations/mo | 500 message credits/mo |
| AI model on entry tier | Claude Sonnet 4.6 — native, no choosing required | Multi-model selection (GPT-4o, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, Meta) |
| API access | REST API on Starter ($19/mo) | Standard+ only ($120/mo) |
| Knowledge sources | URL, PDF, plain text | URL, PDF, Q&A, Notion, YouTube, sitemap |
| Lead capture (built-in) | ✓ — name/email, CSV export, GDPR consent | Via integrations — clunky per Capterra reviews |
| Rich visual responses (Widgets) | No — text answers with source citations | All plans — launched May 11 2026 (product cards, order status, flight info inline in chat) |
| Voice calls | beta (mic input only) | Standard+ only ($120/mo), launched Apr 2026 |
| Multi-channel (WhatsApp / Instagram / Messenger) | No | Yes — Hobby+ |
| Help desk / human handoff | No | Standard+ only ($120/mo), launched May 5 2026 |
| Remove "Powered by" branding | Included on paid plans | $1,188/year add-on |
| Multi-language support | English only (Q3 2026 roadmap) | 80+ languages |
| Annual commitment required | No — $19/mo, cancel any month | Yes — Hobby only available at $32/mo annual ($384 upfront) |
WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, Voice — Chatbase has all of them live on Hobby+. saavos is a website widget. If your support happens on social or phone, Chatbase is the only option in this price range that covers all four channels.
Chatbase gives you GPT-4o, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, Meta Llama, and others on every paid plan. You choose the model per agent. saavos uses Claude Sonnet 4.6 natively — opinionated default, not a menu. If your use case requires a specific model, Chatbase is more flexible.
Chatbase has been around longer, has the deepest template library in the category, and has more community tutorials indexed. “Chatbase [use case]” returns useful results on YouTube and Google. If uncertainty is risk for you and you need documentation breadth, Chatbase is the safer pick.
$19/mo, no annual lock. Chatbase Hobby is $32/mo — but only on annual billing, $384 upfront. Pre-revenue founders shouldn't be betting $384 on infrastructure they haven't validated yet. saavos lets you cancel after any month.
Most indie SaaS founders need a bot on their pricing page or docs site. Not Instagram. Chatbase's multi-channel overhead is a cost if you only need a website widget — you pay for infrastructure you don't use. saavos is purpose-built for the website-widget use case.
Chatbase's lead capture is “clunky” — that's a direct quote from Capterra reviewers, not us. saavos ships built-in name/email collection, CSV export, and GDPR consent on the $19 plan. You don't need a Zapier integration to get email addresses out.
73 Capterra reviews, 4.3/5, verified May 2026. These are the patterns that show up repeatedly — and where saavos is the direct counter.
“The limit on conversations/tokens becomes a roadblock.” Chatbase sells message credits — 500 on Hobby, 4,000 on Standard. A busy month burns through them. saavos messages are messages, not credits. Conversation count is the ceiling, not a token budget that evaporates under heavy queries. No overage surprises.
“The problem with hallucination is quite apparent and the bot WILL generate a totally wrong answer with the greatest of eloquence and confidence.” saavos citation-on-by-default: every answer links back to its source page. If the source doesn't say it, the bot says it doesn't know. That's the correct behavior — and it's on by default, not a configuration.
“Don't expect service or support anytime soon. Be willing to find stuff out yourselves.” saavos is pre-revenue and the founder reads every support email personally. That's a tradeoff — we're a smaller product, but if you email founder@5minbot.com, a person responds.
Switching takes about 10 minutes. Both platforms train on URLs, so you point saavos at the same site Chatbase is already crawling, wait for the ingestion to finish, and run a side-by-side test in two browser tabs. When you're satisfied with the answers, swap the embed tag on your site — one script line. There's no data-hostage risk: Chatbase doesn't lock in your source content, and neither do we. If saavos doesn't work for you, you can go back the same way.
Yes. Chatbase Hobby is $32/mo — annual billing only, $384 upfront. saavos Starter is $19/mo with no annual commitment. That's $13/mo cheaper, and you can cancel after any month. Chatbase's pricing page doesn't currently offer a month-to-month Hobby option.
Yes. Chatbase's pricing page states verbatim: "AI agents get deleted after 14 days of inactivity on the free plan." saavos's free tier — 50 conversations per month — does not delete agents due to inactivity. If you're building in public and don't touch your bot for a few weeks, saavos's free tier survives.
Chatbase Hobby includes multi-model selection: GPT-4o, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, Meta Llama, and others are all available. You choose. saavos uses Claude Sonnet 4.6 natively on every paid plan — no choosing required. The tradeoff: Chatbase gives you more model options; saavos gives you a well-calibrated default without the setup decision.
Yes, in about 10 minutes. Both platforms train on URLs. Point saavos at the same site Chatbase is already trained on, wait for the crawl, and test side-by-side before swapping the embed tag. There's no data-hostage risk on either side — both export or retrain from URL.
Chatbase launched Help Desk on May 5, 2026 — a unified multi-channel workspace that routes conversations needing human involvement. It's available on Standard ($150/mo) and above. saavos does not have built-in live chat. If your team needs a unified inbox with human escalation on the same platform, Chatbase Standard is the answer; for pure website chatbot at $19, you don't need it.
Based on 73 Capterra reviews (4.3/5 as of May 2026): (1) message credits running out unexpectedly mid-month, (2) hallucinations on questions outside the training data, (3) slow customer support response times. The credits issue is structural — Chatbase's credits-based model means a busy month can exhaust your allocation before the billing cycle resets.
Chatbase's pricing page shows Hobby at $32/mo, billed annually ($384 upfront) — there is no monthly Hobby option currently listed. saavos's $19/mo Starter has no annual commitment and no lock-in. If Chatbase re-introduces monthly billing, the monthly price has historically been $40/mo.
Last verified: 2026-05-19. Chatbase pricing from chatbase.co/pricing. Complaint quotes from Capterra (73 reviews, 4.3/5, verified 2026-05-19). Prices change — found something wrong? Email us and we'll fix it.