Free AI chatbot plans compared: what you really get

TL;DR

• "Free AI chatbot" covers very different offers: a monthly AI allowance, a one-time allowance, a free live-chat widget with paid AI, or a free rule-based bot builder with paid AI agents.
• As of October 21, 2026, the free plans with ongoing AI usage that we checked are capped at 50 to 100 messages, answers or conversations a month. Free plans keep the vendor's branding.
• Use a free plan to test answer quality on your own content. For live use on a B2B site, check what happens when you hit the limit, and whether leads reach a person and your CRM.

All plans below were checked on the vendors' pricing pages on October 21, 2026. Pricing pages change often, and some vendors list prices only with annual billing. Check before you decide. For transparency: ASDK, the publisher of this article, is one of the products compared, and it is in early access.

Four kinds of "free"

Before comparing numbers, sort the offers by what is actually free:

1. A free plan with a monthly AI allowance. The bot answers from your content every month, up to a cap.
2. A free plan with a one-time AI allowance. You get a set number of AI conversations once; after that, AI is a paid add-on.
3. A free chat widget, AI paid. Live chat with your team is free; the AI that answers on its own is not.
4. No free plan, a free trial. Full features for a few days or weeks, then a paid plan.

The type matters more than the headline number. A one-time allowance is a trial in disguise; a free widget without AI is a live-chat tool, not an AI agent.

The plans, vendor by vendor

Tidio

Tidio's Free plan costs $0 and includes live chat, ticketing and 50 billable conversations a month, which Tidio counts when a human agent replies. Its AI agent, Lyro, comes with "your first 50 conversations are free (lifetime)"; to refresh that monthly, you need the Lyro add-on, which starts at $32.50 a month for 50 conversations, with a 7-day trial. "No Tidio branding" is not included on Free (Tidio pricing).

Kind: one-time AI allowance plus a free live-chat plan. See also ASDK vs Tidio.

Elfsight AI Chatbot

Elfsight's Free plan is "Free forever," for one chatbot, with 50 messages a month (messages visitors send to the chatbot) and 200 widget views a month. The pricing page warns that exceeding the monthly views limit "will temporarily deactivate your app." Every plan, including Free, can train the assistant on site content, files and Q&A pairs. White label, which removes Elfsight branding, is listed only on Enterprise tiers (Elfsight pricing).

Kind: monthly AI allowance. Note the view limit: on a site with steady traffic, 200 widget loads a month can run out before the messages do. See ASDK vs Elfsight AI Chatbot.

Botpress

Botpress's Free plan includes three AI agents, three seats and 100 conversations a month, where a conversation is "any exchange with at least two messages from the end user in the billing month." It is "hard-capped with no add-ons" and has "no top-ups or overages." White-labeling the web chat starts on the Plus plan, listed at $150 a month billed annually with 250 conversations (Botpress pricing).

Kind: monthly AI allowance. Botpress is a builder: more flexible, more setup.

Crisp

Crisp's Free plan is free "Forever," with two seats, a website chat widget, a shared inbox and mobile apps, but "No AI credits included." AI usage starts on the Mini plan at $45 a month with $5 of AI credits, which Crisp estimates at about 90 automated conversations (Crisp pricing).

Kind: free chat widget, AI paid.

tawk.to

tawk.to gives its live chat away free; the company says it is "free for life" if you keep the branding, and removing the "Powered by tawk.to" branding costs $29 a month. For its AI Assist bot, the pricing page says it answers chats "from as little as $29/month" and mentions "a forever-free plan for sites with limited chat volume," without stating that plan's limits on the page we checked (tawk.to pricing).

Kind: free chat widget; AI mostly paid, with a small free tier whose limits you should confirm.

HubSpot

HubSpot's chatbot builder "is available for free with no credit card required," and the page describes building bots from templates with if/then branches to qualify leads, book meetings and create tickets (HubSpot). Its AI Customer Agent is different: HubSpot says it is "available to Pro and Enterprise customers," costs $0.50 per resolved conversation paid in HubSpot Credits since April 14, 2026, and comes with a free 28-day trial (HubSpot).

Kind: free rule-based bot builder; the AI agent needs a paid Professional or Enterprise subscription.

ASDK

ASDK's Free plan includes the Chat and Agent-Ready agents, both in early access, with 50 answers a month, up to 100 pages in the knowledge base, one site and one seat. It includes lead capture, a hosted llms.txt file and answers that cite your pages, and it shows a "Powered by ASDK" badge. A 14-day trial of the Business plan's agents with 500 answers needs no card and falls back to the Free plan afterwards. Plans and limits are on the pricing page.

Kind: monthly AI allowance.

No free plan: Chatbase and Intercom

• Chatbase lists no free plan as of October 21, 2026. Paid plans start with Hobby at $32 a month billed yearly for 700 message credits, each with a 7-day trial (Chatbase pricing). See ASDK vs Chatbase.
• Intercom offers a 14-day free trial, with no credit card required, that "includes all features, Fin, and add-ons." After that, seats start at $29 a month and Fin costs $0.99 per outcome (Intercom pricing). See ASDK vs Intercom Fin.

Side by side

The units differ, so the numbers do not compare one to one. A conversation can contain several messages or answers. An answer is one reply. A visitor message is one question.

How far does a free allowance go?

An illustrative calculation, not a benchmark: a B2B site with 2,000 visits a month to its key pages. If 2% of those visitors start a conversation, that is 40 conversations. If each asks three questions, that is 120 messages or answers.

• A 50-answer or 50-message monthly allowance covers about the first 17 conversations.
• A 100-conversation allowance covers the month, if the conversation definition matches yours.
• A one-time 50-conversation allowance covers a little over a month, once.

So for live use, free plans fit small sites or a short pilot. Their real value is the test: you can see how the bot answers on your own content before you pay.

What free plans usually leave out

Beyond the AI limit, check these before you put a free bot in front of buyers:

• Branding. Every free plan we checked keeps the vendor's name on the widget, or does not state that you can remove it.
• Knowledge limits. Page counts, storage caps or file limits decide whether the bot knows your whole site.
• Grounding and citations. Whether answers come from your content and show their sources. On a B2B site, grounding matters more than the allowance size.
• Handoff and lead delivery. Whether a serious buyer can reach a person with the conversation attached, and whether leads go to your CRM or only to an inbox. Weak human handoff wastes the best conversations.
• What happens at the limit. A paused widget, a hard cap and automatic charges are very different experiences for visitors.
• Data terms. A free plan still processes your visitors' messages. Ask for the DPA and subprocessor list as you would for a paid one.

Which free plan for which goal

• You want to test AI answers on your own content: a plan with a monthly AI allowance and citations, so you can run your real questions over a few weeks.
• Your team already answers chats live: a free live-chat widget, such as Tidio, Crisp or tawk.to, with AI added later if volume grows.
• You want to build custom flows: a builder such as Botpress, if you have the time to set it up.
• You run on HubSpot: the free builder covers rule-based flows; the AI agent needs a paid HubSpot tier.
• You need lead qualification, meetings and CRM delivery now: expect a paid plan. Free tiers rarely include them.

Test any free plan in an hour

Our buyer's checklist for B2B chatbots has the full list of what to check, and AI agent pricing models explains the units behind the paid plans. For what a paid agent costs once you count your team's time, read the cost of an AI agent on your website.

Free AI chatbot plans are good for one thing above all: finding out, at no cost, whether a bot can answer your visitors' questions from your own content. Compare them by kind of free, by unit and by what happens at the limit, not by the headline. Then pay for the plan that fits your real volume, or stay free while it still does.