AI Chatbot Pricing: How Much Does a Chatbot Cost & Comparison
- November 12, 2021
- 14 mins read
- Listen
Table of Content
If you are reading this, you are already informed about what a chatbot is, its benefits, and how it can revolutionize your business. At this point, what you really want to know is how much a chatbot costs.
Chatbot pricing is not as simple as getting any chatbot you can find and just inserting it into your website. There is a matter of what sort of chatbot you need, how much it would cost, and doing a cost-benefit analysis for your business.
Hence, let’s take a look at chatbot pricing, what factors can affect the cost, and how you can make the right decision when investing in a chatbot.
What Factors Affect Chatbot Pricing?
Before we jump into the cost of a chatbot, we have to understand the factors that affect the price, and there’s a lot of them. Ranging from features to scalability, every small aspect affects how expensive a chatbot can be. Not to mention, there can be some hidden costs when it comes to using a chatbot.
Hence, let’s take a look at the factors and hidden costs of implementing and using a chatbot.
Type of Chatbot
The first and most important factor in chatbot pricing is the type of chatbot you need. There are different types and here are the main ones:
- Rule-Based Chatbots: These are the simplest types that follow predefined rules to execute tasks. Great for FAQs and common query handling.
- AI Chatbots: Using the capabilities of NLP, these chatbots can understand any language and converse like a human.
- Generative AI Chatbots: With the power of the LLM, these chatbots are dynamic and adapt to situations in order to provide personalized responses.
- Hybrid Chatbots: These combine the positives of both AI and Rule-Based chatbots to create a solution that can solve queries of any complexity.
Because of how the chatbots are configured, each type is priced differently. Rule-based chatbots are the cheapest while hybrid chatbots cost more. This comes down to the features inside each type of chatbot as well as how difficult it is to develop and implement them.
Features Inside A Chatbot
Another important factor that changes the cost of a chatbot is the features you want to implement in one. While the types we laid out above have a ranging list of features, it is ultimately up to you and your business to understand which features you need.
Hence, depending on the features, a chatbot’s price can rise substantially. If you only need a chatbot with basic features like scripting, buttons, FAQs, etc, then it will be fairly cheap. Meanwhile, more advanced solution like NLP and LLM chatbots will cost a pretty penny.
Thus, it’s necessary to keep that in mind when choosing a chatbot and what features you really need for your company.
Method of Development
For chatbots, how you choose to acquire your chatbot matters a lot. When you are choosing how to get a chatbot, you can either build your own, hire an agency to create it for you, or just buy a subscription from any business offering chatbots.
Even in those general categories, the price varies. Building your own chatbot can range from being cheap by using DIY platforms like Chatfuel or expensive because you are developing it from scratch.
Hiring an agency can reduce a custom build by a fair margin, but it is still a considerable amount of cost. Alternatively, buying a subscription from a platform like REVE Chat is a more cost-effective option compared to the other methods as you get more features at a lower price.
So, how you choose to acquire or create your chatbot can make a massive difference in chatbot pricing.
Deployment and Integration Options
There is a pretty big difference between deploying and integrating a chatbot in one platform vs ten platforms and the price reflects that. When it comes to deployment, the method and which platforms the chatbot will be deployed on changes the cost.
Cloud deployments are generally cheaper while on-site ones have more overhead cost. Also, deploying a chatbot in just your website is fairly inexpensive, while the more platforms you add like social media channels or internal systems like your CRM requires more funding.
Also, you may need the chatbot to integrate with third-party platforms through APIs, and that increases the cost for each API you need.
So, your deployment method of choice and the number of integrations you may need can cost you more for a chatbot.
Scalability and Usage
The scale of the chatbot will matter as the higher the usage, the more costly a chatbot is. If you run a small-scale business, the cost will be much less compared to operating chatbots for an enterprise-level company.
So, when you are getting your chatbot, your usage and the scale of chatbot(s) required is something to keep in mind.
Maintenance Costs
After deploying a chatbot, you will need to maintain it and update it for better use. In-house chatbots have lower maintenance costs while third-party or SaaS solutions require some maintenance fees. It is not a significant cost but definitely worth keeping a note of.
Security Options
The higher the security compliance a chatbot has, the more expensive it is. Basic encryptions are the norm for most if not all chatbots in current times. However, a chatbot will cost more if you want industry-compliant solutions that have certification for GDPR, HIPAA, SOC 2, etc.
More security means higher cost, but it is an expense that is worth your while as it protects your company and your customers.
How Much Does A Chatbot Cost?
Now that we have covered the factors of a chatbot’s price, let’s talk about how much a chatbot actually costs. Well, that depends on the pricing model and method of development you choose for a chatbot. A brief overview can be found in the table below
| Estimated Cost | |
| Standard Subscription Plan | $45 – $100 per month |
| Advanced Subscription Plan | $149 – $1000 per month |
| Enterprise Subscription Plan | $399 – $5000 per month |
| Pay-As-You-Go Plan | $0.1 – $1 per conversation |
| In-House Development | $5,000 – $30,000 per month |
| Hiring an Agency For Chatbot Developments | $2,000 – $35,000 per month |
| DIY Builds | $10 – $500 per month |
So, it’s essentially how you decide to get your chatbot and what you need is what determines the price. In that regard, there are many ways to develop and acquire a chatbot and here they are.
1. Custom Developments
When you decide to get a chatbot, you can choose to build one yourself. Nothing wrong with that choice as it allows a lot more control organizationally. However, that comes with a steep price.
Even that price depends on how you get your custom solution. You can hire your own team to develop a chatbot for you or hire an agency to make it. Here is a breakdown of costs for either type.
In-House Development
While allowing a lot of flexibility, in-house chatbots cost the most in general. It does have its benefits of low maintenance costs, more security due to being in-house, and more.
So, while the option is expensive, the benefits can be great for certain enterprise-level businesses. The cost for building an in-house chatbot is divided not just by the type of chatbot but also the size of your development team.
Each developer, engineer, or specialist will require about $80,000 to $200,000 yearly salary. In addition to that, here are the potential costs for a chatbot to be built in-house, including development staff, maintenance cost, and such.
| Type of Chatbot | Estimated Monthly Cost | Estimated Development Time |
| Rule-Based Chatbots | $5,000 – $15,000 | 1 – 3 Months |
| AI Chatbots | $10,000 – $25,000 | 3 – 6 Months |
| Hybrid Chatbots | $15,000 – $30,000 | 4 – 9 Months |
| Generative AI Chatbots | $30,000 – $50,000 | 6 – 12 Months |
This is also in conjunction with the total yearly salary. So, you could be looking at millions to implement a Generative AI chatbot or close to a million for a rule-based chatbot.
Hiring an Agency
As opposed to in-house development, you can also hire an agency to make it for you. This will cost you less as you do not have to fund a technical team and the development time will also be lower.
However, you will not have development control for the chatbot and will have to rely on the agency for future maintenance.
So, the only initial cost is what you pay the agency for the project (a one-time cost) and then there is a monthly cost as shown below.
| Type of Chatbot | Estimated Monthly Cost | Estimated Development Time |
| Rule-Based Chatbots | $2,000 – $10,000 | 1 – 2 Months |
| AI Chatbots | $7,000 – $15,000 | 2 – 4 Months |
| Hybrid Chatbots | $10,000 – $20,000 | 2 – 6 Months |
| Generative AI Chatbots | $20,000 – $35,000 | 3 – 9 Months |
Hence, the cost is lower upfront and for each chatbot type, but you lose development control and are dependent on an agency. This might be a good solution for you if you lack the technical team and do not want to invest into one while creating a specialized solution for yourself.
DIY Solutions
There is also a much cheaper custom solution you can make, by using DIY tools such as ManyChat to create your own chatbot without any code. However, the options are extremely limited as you can only build a rule-based chatbot with it.
Furthermore, you are stuck with the platform’s templates and extremely limited customization and integration options. Hence, this is a true case of “you get what you pay for.” Other than that, for a startup or a small scale business, this could be an option for a custom installation.
2. Subscription Models
With custom developments out of the way, the next way to acquire a chatbot is subscribing to a service via a third-party business. There are many companies that specialize in creating chatbots for businesses, and subscribing to them is not only cheaper but also allows you to get more features in the process.
Hence, you have no overhead costs to subscribe to a chatbot service and you pay monthly or annually to get your service. The only drawback is that if you do not like one service, you have to cut bait and get another one, which starts the whole deployment process all over again.
Here are some different subscription models you can subscribe to for your business.
Free Plans
Some SaaS companies offer a free plan that you can use for as long as you want. However, like DIY builds, your options are extremely limited and you can only complete a certain number of conversations until you have to pay for more.
So, this option might be a good option for startups and some small businesses, but it is a better tool to simply test out a chatbot and not use a Free plan for a permanent solution.
Standard Plans
The first of the premium subscription models is the standard plan. Suited more for small-scale businesses, these allow your business to interact with a designated number of users, depending on who you get the chatbot from. Here are some standard plan pricing examples
| Company | Estimated Cost |
| REVE Chat | $45 per month (billed annually) |
| Chatbot | $52 per month (billed annually) |
| Zendesk Suite | $55 per month (billed annually) |
Most standard plans include one chatbot that is configured to handle from 100 to 1000 conversations or unique customers and can be integrated into your website or social media handles.
Also, SaaS companies have all switched to AI Powered Chatbots, particularly Generative AI ones. That means at this price, you can enable NLP, LLMs, and many more to your requested chatbot. Hence, you get a lot more at a lower price compared to custom-made solutions, which have a hefty price tag.
Advanced Plans
Next, we have advanced plans, which add more into the mix like more chatbots, higher conversation limit, a robust analytics system, multilingual support, and many more. Here are some examples:
| Company | Estimated Cost |
| REVE Chat | $149 per month (billed annually) |
| Kommunicate | $166 per month (billed annually) |
| Tidio | $749 per month (billed annually) |
So, what you are getting is more features and more chatbots to handle your customer support solution. This type of plan is best for medium-scale to small-scale businesses, looking to fully automate their customer service.
Enterprise Plans
Lastly, we have enterprise plans, which are for the large-scale to massive corporations. They require highly advanced reporting systems, a plethora of chatbots, top-notch LLM and NLP capabilities, options to customize the build further, and many more.
Thus, the pricing for enterprise plans can range from $399 dollars to over $4000 dollars per month. That is a massive price, but you get a large number of chatbots to handle your customer service along with the best features a chatbot can have.
3. Pay-As-You-Go Models
There are also some options available that offer chatbots to be integrated into their suites or your own CRMs, but charge per conversation. This can be an addition to all the plans above or just a different option.
A great example of this is what Intercom offers as they provide their AI chatbots for $0.99 per conversation for either their own suite or a small list of other CRMs. While this can be good for small-scale or even medium-scale businesses, the overall cost astronomically increases as you deal with more customers.
Hence, this type of model is not recommended at all, especially for large and enterprise-scale businesses.
How to Choose a Cost-Effective Chatbot For Your Business?
With all that said, the most important thing for you is to identify what type of chatbot you need for your business and how much you can afford to spend. While businesses get huge value from chatbots, you cannot invest on a whim without doing a cost-benefit analysis.
Hence, here is a checklist you can follow to choose the right chatbot pricing plan for your business.
1. Identify the Purpose of Chatbot
The first thing you should do is find out why you need the chatbot, whether for simple or complex tasks. For simple queries like FAQs, a rule-based chatbot will suffice while complex ones require more AI capabilities like multilingual support.
Let’s say you want an AI powered chatbot that can handle tasks up to a moderate level of complexity.
2. Finding the right type of chatbot for the role
This follows straight after the first step as now you can identify the type of chatbot you need. It is a fairly simple yet important step.
Through the previous example, what you need is an AI-powered chatbot.
3. Volume of Queries
Next, you have to estimate the number of customers and queries your chatbot will need to handle. If it is an extremely large amount, you will need to get a subscription for multiple chatbots.
So, knowing the number of customers and potential questions you will need to answer can help you choose the right pricing plan.
As an example, let’s assume you run a medium-scale business and you will need to handle about 5000 queries a month.
4. Do a Cost-Analysis of Your Current Support Team
Calculate how much your current support staff costs and how much of the system you want to be automated via chatbot. With this, you will get a figure and amount that you can do a cost-benefit analysis with.
To handle the 5000 queries a month, three support agents handle those queries, costing you $1200 a month, working 4 hours per day on simple to moderate level tasks.
5. Choose the Right Chatbot Plan
With the previous steps, you can now choose the right pricing plan for your needs and then do a comparative analysis on the costs.
In this case, you can choose an Advanced Plan for REVE Chat that will cost you $149 a month. Compare that to $1200 and you can see it is of huge value for you. See the best chatbot pricing plan for your business.
Key Takeaways
Thus, through this blog, you can gain an understanding of chatbot pricing in general, what affects the prices, and some steps to help you choose the right plan for your business.
It is easy to see that custom solutions cost a lot more and it is not for every business. On the flip side, getting a subscription for a chatbot works for businesses at all scales and integrates with a variety of channels.
As a recommendation for a chatbot platform to subscribe with, you can try REVE Chat. We provide AI powered chatbots with state-of-the-art features that can help you automate queries and keep customers happy. All of this at a reasonable price.
Thus, check out our free trial to see how our solution can help you transform your business in a cost-effective manner.
