AI chatbots for websites: which one fits a small business
Yevhen Kurapov, co-founder · Updated Oct 13, 2026
At about 150 chats a month (three AI replies each), ChatPal costs $20 a month and answers on WhatsApp, Instagram and Telegram too; its free plan gives 100 AI replies a month. SiteGPT and Chatbase ($59 and $40 a month) suit website-only answers. Tidio and Crisp add AI to live chat. Fin suits support teams with a help center.
We make ChatPal, one of the tools below, and list its limits on the same terms as everyone else's.
All six tools here answer website visitors from your own pages, and none of them needs a developer to install. The differences show up after the first week: what the free plan still covers, whether an edited page reaches the AI, who answers when the AI can't, and whether the same assistant also works on WhatsApp or Instagram.
What a website chatbot has to do
Most small business sites get the same handful of questions. We used them as the test for every tool on this page:
- "How much is it?" The price has to come from your own pricing page or price list, and be updated when you change it. A chatbot that learned your prices in March and quotes them in June is worse than no chatbot.
- "Are you open on Sunday?" Short facts like opening hours and delivery areas sit on a contact page or footer. The tool must find them among menus and cookie banners.
- "Can I return this after 30 days?" A policy answer has to say what your policy says, not what most shops do.
- "Do you have this in blue?" Product questions need product data. A tool that only read your pages knows what those pages said on the day it read them.
- "Can I talk to a person?" Someone has to see that chat and reply, and a website visitor may have closed the tab by then.
The first four come down to where the answers come from and how fresh they are. The fifth is about what happens when the AI should step aside.
How we chose
We looked for tools a small business can set up without a developer, that answer with AI from your own content, and that publish their prices. For each we read the pricing page, the help center and the install guides on October 13, 2026, and noted what the AI learns from, how often it re-reads your site, how you install it and what a month costs.
We make ChatPal, so weigh that. We tested ChatPal ourselves and did not test the others hands-on. We left out ChatBot.com because its help center now points new setups to a newer product, Text, while the older ChatBot workflow stays for existing users.
The tools are grouped by the situation they suit, not ranked.
Six tools, by situation
| Tool | Best for | Price |
|---|---|---|
| ChatPal | Your website plus messaging apps | Free for 100 replies a month; $20 for 500, $50 for 1,500 and $120 for 4,000, billed monthly |
| Tidio | Live chat with AI added | Free plan; Starter $29 a month ($24.17 billed yearly); Lyro AI from $39 a month for 50 conversations ($32.50 billed yearly) |
| Crisp | Live chat with AI added | Free plan without AI; Mini $45 and Essentials $95 a month per workspace |
| Chatbase | An AI agent trained on your site | No free plan on the pricing page; Hobby $40 a month for 700 message credits, Standard $150 for 4,000, billed monthly; 7-day trial |
| SiteGPT | An AI agent trained on your site | Starter $59 a month, or $39 a month billed yearly; no free plan, 7-day trial with a card |
| Fin | A support team with a help center | $0.99 per outcome, plus Intercom seats from $19 a month billed yearly ($29 billed monthly); 14-day trial |
Your website plus messaging apps
ChatPal
Price: Free for 100 replies a month; $20 for 500, $50 for 1,500 and $120 for 4,000, billed monthly
Good at
- Learns from pages it crawls on your site and from files you upload; the Playground shows what each answer used
- The same assistant answers on your website, WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, Telegram and Zendesk, all on the free plan
- Hands a chat to your team when needed, and your reply goes out in the same chat
- Answers product questions from a synced copy of a Shopify or Horoshop catalog
Keep in mind
- On other sites, such as WordPress or Wix, product answers come only from the pages and files you add: there is no catalog sync
- One assistant on the free plan, and replies to your own tests count toward the 100
Live chat with AI added
Tidio
Price: Free plan; Starter $29 a month ($24.17 billed yearly); Lyro AI from $39 a month for 50 conversations ($32.50 billed yearly)
Good at
- The free plan includes live chat and one inbox for chat, Messenger, Instagram and email
- Lyro, its AI agent, builds its knowledge from your support content
- Ready-made WordPress plugin and Shopify app
Keep in mind
- The free plan's 50 Lyro AI conversations are a lifetime allowance, not a monthly one
- AI is an add-on priced per conversation, separate from the live chat plan
Crisp
Price: Free plan without AI; Mini $45 and Essentials $95 a month per workspace
Good at
- Priced per workspace, not per seat: Mini covers 4 agents, Essentials 10
- Its AI agent, Hugo, learns from web pages it crawls, TXT, CSV and PDF files, and your Crisp help articles
- Install guides for WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, Webflow, Shopify and WooCommerce
Keep in mind
- No AI on the free plan; Mini includes $5 of AI credits, about 90 automated conversations
- When the credits run out, the AI stops and new chats go to your team, unless you turn on pay-as-you-go
An AI agent trained on your site
Chatbase
Price: No free plan on the pricing page; Hobby $40 a month for 700 message credits, Standard $150 for 4,000, billed monthly; 7-day trial
Good at
- Trains on files, text, websites, Q&A pairs and Notion pages, and uses a new source within seconds
- Official WordPress plugin: you paste your agent ID, no code
Keep in mind
- Websites re-sync automatically, once a week, only on Standard and Pro; on Hobby you click Resync now
- Removing the “Powered by Chatbase” branding costs $99 a month
SiteGPT
Price: Starter $59 a month, or $39 a month billed yearly; no free plan, 7-day trial with a card
Good at
- Up to 4,000 GPT-4.1-mini messages a month on Starter, trained on up to 1,000 pages and 10 files
- WordPress plugin that needs only your chatbot ID, or a script for any site
Keep in mind
- On Starter your pages are refreshed only when you ask; monthly auto-refresh starts on Growth, $79 a month billed yearly
- Starter lists no integrations; Messenger starts on Growth; WhatsApp is an add-on, $59 a month or $39 billed yearly
A support team with a help center
Fin
Price: $0.99 per outcome, plus Intercom seats from $19 a month billed yearly ($29 billed monthly); 14-day trial
Good at
- Answers from help articles, PDFs, public web pages it re-syncs weekly, and content from Notion, Zendesk, Confluence and more
- Charged once per conversation, however many questions it answers in it
Keep in mind
- An outcome also counts when the customer doesn't ask for more help after Fin replies
- No free plan: the Messenger installs only with an active trial or subscription
Free plans compared
A free plan is the cheapest way to find out how a chatbot copes with your real questions. This is what each one gives you before you pay anything.
| Tool | Free plan | AI on the free plan | First paid step |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatPal | Yes, with no time limit | 100 AI replies a month, plus a one-time welcome bonus in month one | $20 a month for 500 replies |
| Tidio | Yes | 50 Lyro AI conversations, once | Lyro, $39 a month for 50 ($32.50 billed yearly) |
| Crisp | Yes, 2 seats | None | Mini, $45 a month with about 90 AI conversations |
| Chatbase | Not on its pricing page; 7-day trial | In the trial | Hobby, $40 a month for 700 message credits |
| SiteGPT | No, a 7-day trial with a card | During the trial only | Starter, $59 a month or $39 billed yearly |
| Fin | No, a 14-day trial without a card | During the trial only | $0.99 per outcome plus seats from $19 a month billed yearly or $29 monthly |
Two things are worth knowing. Tidio's 50 free Lyro conversations are a one-off allowance, so plan for a paid Lyro quota once they are used. And ChatPal counts the replies to your own test questions, so a long afternoon of testing uses part of the 100.
How they keep up when your site changes
All six can read your website. What matters a month later is whether a change to a page reaches the chatbot.
| Tool | How it learns your site | When it re-reads a changed page |
|---|---|---|
| ChatPal | Crawls the pages you add, plus uploaded files | When you click Reindex on that page |
| Tidio | Scans your site, plus Q&A, CSV/PDF files and Zendesk | Manual re-sync; weekly on Plus and Premium |
| Crisp | Hugo crawls the domains you add, plus files and Crisp help articles | Manual refresh; help articles sync live |
| Chatbase | Crawls your site, plus files, text, Q&A and Notion | Weekly on Standard and Pro; Resync now on Hobby |
| SiteGPT | Crawls up to 1,000 pages on Starter | Manual on Starter, monthly on Growth, weekly on Scale |
| Fin | Syncs public URLs, plus PDFs and help articles | Weekly |
If your prices or opening hours change often, either pick a tool with an automatic refresh or make re-reading the page part of your routine when you edit it.
Install effort
None of these needs a developer. Each gives you either a plugin, which you install from your site's dashboard, or a script of a few lines that you paste into your site's code settings once.
| Tool | Any website | WordPress | Shopify |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatPal | Two script tags before the closing body tag | The same script, through a header and footer plugin | App embed switched on in the theme editor |
| Tidio | Script above the closing body tag | Plugin | App |
| Crisp | Script in the head, or before the closing body tag | Plugin | Install guide |
| Chatbase | Script in the head or before the closing body tag | Plugin with your agent ID | Listed among its integrations |
| SiteGPT | Script in the head or before the closing body tag | Plugin with your chatbot ID | Script in theme.liquid |
| Fin | Snippet before the closing body tag | WordPress option in the install flow | Shopify option in the install flow |
A script and a plugin do the same job. A plugin saves you finding the right setting in your theme; a script works the same way on any platform that lets you add code. With ChatPal the script never changes: when you edit the chat window's colours or texts in the dashboard, your site picks up the change within a few minutes.
Website builders need the most care. Wix only accepts custom code on a published site with a connected domain, which needs a paid plan. Squarespace includes code injection on Core and higher plans, not on Basic. Webflow's free Starter plan has no custom code. Step-by-step help for those three is in AI chatbots for Wix, Squarespace and Webflow, and for WordPress in how to add an AI chatbot to WordPress and WooCommerce.
What 150 chats a month cost
Take a small business with about 150 website chats a month and an assumed three AI replies in each, so about 450 AI replies. Replace both numbers with your own.
- ChatPal: 450 replies fit the $20 a month plan (500 replies). If chats run longer, at five replies each, it's 750 replies and the $50 a month plan.
- Chatbase: 450 messages fit Hobby's 700 credits at $40 a month, if each reply uses one credit.
- SiteGPT: Starter's 4,000 GPT-4.1-mini messages cover it, at $59 a month or $39 billed yearly.
- Crisp: 150 AI conversations are more than Mini's roughly 90, so Essentials at $95 a month (about 450), or Mini with pay-as-you-go on top.
- Tidio: Lyro's 150-conversation step is $110 a month billed monthly, or $91.67 billed yearly.
- Fin: if 100 of the 150 conversations count as outcomes, that is $99, plus at least one seat at $29 billed monthly, so about $128 a month ($118 with the seat billed yearly).
Prices were checked on October 13, 2026, in US dollars. Some vendors show local prices by country, so yours may differ.
Picking by situation
You want answers on your website and nothing else. SiteGPT and Chatbase are built for that. SiteGPT's Starter gives 4,000 messages for $59 a month, the most messages per dollar on this page; Chatbase also learns from Q&A pairs and Notion pages. If your volume is low, ChatPal's free plan may cover it.
You want a live chat inbox for your team, with AI in front. Tidio and Crisp are live chat tools first. In our view Crisp's flat price per workspace suits a team of four or more. Tidio's free plan, with 10 seats, lets a team try it first.
Your customers also write on WhatsApp, Instagram or Telegram. ChatPal answers on all of them on every plan, from the same knowledge, and a chat handed to your team is answered from one inbox. Tidio's inbox covers Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp; Crisp adds WhatsApp and Instagram from Essentials.
You run an online store. Product questions need product data. On Shopify or Horoshop, ChatPal answers from a synced copy of your catalog; on any other platform it answers from the product pages and files you add, so a price change reaches it when you reindex that page. For Shopify specifically, see AI chatbots for Shopify stores.
You have a support team and a help center. Fin is built for that, priced per outcome, and it reads Zendesk, Confluence or Notion content you already keep.
Whichever tool you try, test it the same way: add your pricing, contact and returns pages, then ask it the five questions from the top of this page. In ChatPal you do that in the Playground on the free plan, and it shows which page each answer came from, so a wrong price points you straight at the page to fix. When the answers hold up, the website chatbot page shows how the chat window goes on your site.
If you are leaving one of these tools, see Chatbase alternatives and Tidio alternatives.