Chatbase pricing: how message credits work and what a month costs

Chatbase charges in message credits, and a credit isn't a message. Each request to the AI model costs credits, more on stronger models, and an action such as a product search adds requests. So the same 700 credits on Hobby, $40 a month, can be 700 replies or fewer than 200.

Chatbase's plans at a glance

All prices are in US dollars, billed monthly, from Chatbase's pricing page on 13 October 2026. Billed yearly, every plan is 20% less.

The pricing page lists no free plan: each paid plan starts with a 7-day trial. Add-ons:

• Auto-recharge: 1,000 credits for $40, added when you fall below a threshold you set. These credits don't expire.
• Extra AI agents: $25 a month each. Each plan includes one.
• Remove "Powered by Chatbase": $99 a month.

How message credits work

Credits per reply depend on the model. Per Chatbase's FAQ, most models cost 1 credit a message. A list of mid-range models, including GPT-5.2 and Gemini 2.5 Pro, costs 2. GPT-5.5 costs 4 and Claude 5.5 Opus 5. Hobby's 700 credits are 700 replies on a 1-credit model, 350 on a 2-credit model, and 140 on Claude Opus.

Actions add requests. When the agent uses an action, the model can be called once to decide what to do and again to write the answer. Chatbase's own example is a calendar booking: two requests, twice the credits. On a store, the Shopify product search is an action too, so a product question that uses it typically takes two requests.

Testing has its own allowance. Each plan includes test credits (200 on Hobby), so trying questions in the dashboard doesn't use the credits meant for customers.

Credits reset on the 1st. Subscription credits renew at the start of each calendar month, whatever day you subscribed, and unused ones don't carry over. Auto-recharge credits stay until used.

At zero, the chat stops. Visitors see "This AI Agent is currently unavailable. If you are the owner, please check your account." until credits renew or you buy more. If the chat matters to your sales, turn on auto-recharge and set a cap you're comfortable with.

What a store's month costs

Take a store with 300 customer conversations a month and three AI replies in each: 900 replies. Say half of them answer a product question through the Shopify product search action, adding one request each. That is 1,350 credits on a 1-credit model. These are our assumptions; count your own conversations and replies.

Two notes. Hobby re-reads your website only when you ask it to; weekly auto-resync starts on Standard, so a store whose pages change often may want Standard anyway. And removing the Chatbase name from the chat adds $99 a month on any plan.

For the same month, priced on the tools in the cards below:

• ChatPal: 900 replies fit the $50-a-month plan (1,500 replies). A product answer is one reply, however the assistant finds the product.
• Tidio: 300 Lyro conversations are $210 a month, plus a live chat plan for the chats your team takes over.
• Intercom Fin: up to $297 if all 300 conversations count as outcomes, plus at least one seat: $29, or $19 billed yearly.
• CustomGPT.ai: about 900 questions fit Standard's 1,000 queries: $99, or $89 billed yearly.
• SiteGPT: 900 GPT-4.1-mini messages fit Starter: $59, or $39 billed yearly, but its integrations page lists no Shopify catalog sync.

Where Chatbase is a good buy

Chatbase is quick to set up as a website assistant: you add files, pages, Q&A pairs or Notion, and it answers. It has also grown well past that. From Hobby it connects to Shopify, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, Slack and Calendly. Its Shopify actions do more than answer questions: search the catalog, update the cart, look up orders, and create returns or exchanges. Standard adds voice and phone answers and a helpdesk.

It's a good buy if you use a 1-credit model, your volume sits inside a plan or one or two packs, and you want those actions.

What raises the bill

• Stronger models use more credits. Switching from a 1-credit to a 4-credit model uses four times the credits for the same month.
• Actions add requests. When the agent searches your products before it answers, the search and the reply can each use credits.
• The price steps are wide. Hobby to Standard is $40 to $150. Between them, packs at $40 per 1,000 credits cost less, up to the point worked out below.
• Extras add up. A second agent is $25 a month, and an unbranded chat is $99 a month.

Hobby or Standard for a store

Hobby is enough when your store needs a website assistant that answers from your pages and searches your Shopify catalog. It includes the Shopify, WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram integrations, two team members and one agent. What it doesn't do is re-read your website on its own: after you change a shipping page, you click Resync now on that source yourself.

Standard is worth $150 when you need what it adds rather than the credits: weekly automatic re-sync of websites, Notion and tickets, Chatbase's helpdesk, voice and phone answers, API access, or integrations such as Zendesk, Stripe and HubSpot. If you only need more credits, Hobby plus packs costs less up to 2,700 credits a month ($120). A third pack takes it to $160 for 3,700 credits, and there Standard's $150 for 4,000 wins.

Chatbase or ChatPal

Choose Chatbase if:

• you want the AI to look up Shopify orders and create returns or exchanges, not only answer questions;
• you want voice or phone answers, or the assistant in Slack;
• you use a 1-credit model and your month fits Hobby plus a pack.

Choose ChatPal if:

• you want a bill counted in replies that doesn't change with the AI model or with how the assistant looks a product up;
• your customers also write on Telegram, or you want Zendesk on every plan;
• you want to start free and have your team take over website, WhatsApp, Instagram and Telegram chats from one inbox.

Chatbase and five alternatives, by what they count

We make ChatPal, so weigh what we say about it accordingly. For each tool we read the pricing page and help documents on 13 October 2026; we didn't test the others hands-on. The tools are grouped by what they meter, not ranked.

Ways to spend less on Chatbase

1. Pick the cheapest model that answers well. Test the same twenty questions on a 1-credit model before you choose a 4-credit one.
2. Use only the actions you need. Each action call is another request.
3. Buy packs before upgrading. Hobby plus two packs ($120 for 2,700 credits) costs less than Standard ($150) if you don't need Standard's features.
4. Set auto-recharge with a ceiling, so the chat doesn't go dark at the end of a busy month.
5. Pay yearly once your volume is steady: 20% off every plan.

For tools that replace Chatbase rather than price it, see Chatbase alternatives. To compare pricing models across seven tools on one store's month, see AI chatbot pricing. If the per-reply bill sounds easier to live with, ChatPal's free plan gives you 100 replies a month to run those same twenty questions before you pay; the paid plans are on the pricing page, and the chat window itself on ChatPal for your website.