Chatbase Alternatives: 6 AI Support Chatbots Compared
Chatbase made “train a chatbot on your docs and embed it” a one-afternoon job. The reasons people look elsewhere are almost always the same: there’s no free plan, message credits run out, and removing the “Powered by Chatbase” badge is another $99 a month.
The quick answer: CarlyChat is the strongest Chatbase alternative for most sites. It’s free to start with no card or AI key, trains on your site, files, and exact Q&A pairs, shows you the source behind every answer before you publish, hands frustrated visitors to a person, and syncs the conversation to HubSpot, Attio, or Carly CRM. Your coding agent can also build and install it over MCP. If you already run Intercom, Fin is the natural pick; for a free tier with live chat bundled in, look at Tidio or Crisp.
Prices were read from each vendor’s pricing page in October 2026, on monthly billing unless noted.
Chatbase at a glance
| Plan | Monthly | Billed yearly | Message credits a month | Members |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hobby | $40 | $32 | 700 | 2 |
| Standard | $150 | $120 | 4,000 | 3 |
| Pro | $500 | $400 | 15,000 | 5 |
Each plan includes one AI agent; extras are $25 a month each. More credits cost $40 per 1,000, and removing the Chatbase branding is $99 a month. API access, the helpdesk, and advanced integrations (Stripe, Zendesk) start on Standard. There’s a 7-day trial and no free plan.
Chatbase alternatives compared
| Free to start | How paid plans work | Best for | |
|---|---|---|---|
| CarlyChat | Yes, no card or AI key | Monthly plans by chatbots and messages | Most websites, and teams that want an agent to build it |
| Intercom Fin | Trial | $0.99 per outcome, plus Intercom seats | Teams already on Intercom |
| Tidio (Lyro) | Yes, 50 AI conversations total | Lyro from $39 a month for 50 AI conversations | Small shops that want live chat too |
| SiteGPT | Trial | $59 a month, or $39 a month billed yearly | Sites with thousands of pages |
| DocsBot | Yes, 1 bot and 50 source pages | From $49 a month | Documentation and product help |
| Crisp | Yes | From $45 a month, AI credits included | Teams that want a shared inbox first |
1. CarlyChat
CarlyChat does what Chatbase does, then fills in the parts teams end up bolting on.
Training you can check. Add a whole website, single URLs, files, raw text, or exact question-and-answer pairs. Then ask real questions in the playground, and every answer shows the source it came from, so a wrong reply points you at the page to fix rather than a prompt to fiddle with. Pin the answers you can’t afford to paraphrase (refunds, pricing, hours) as exact Q&A.
One install, every surface. One script tag puts the chat in the corner of your site. The same bot also runs as a hosted chat page, an iframe, a REST endpoint, and over MCP, all answering from the same sources. See how to add a chat widget to your website.
It can do things, not just answer. Actions let the bot run a live lookup, an account update, an inline form, or any other safe function inside your site. “Where’s my order?” gets the order status, not a link to the shipping policy.
People stay in the loop. When a visitor asks for a person or sounds frustrated, the AI stops and your team gets an email with the conversation. A teammate replies from the dashboard and the visitor sees it in the open chat within seconds. Hand it back to the AI when you’re done.
The customer record follows the chat. Verified customers, chat context, leads, and support tickets sync out with presets for HubSpot, Attio, and Carly CRM, or signed webhooks for anything else.
Your agent can set it up. CarlyChat has a remote MCP server that works in ChatGPT, Claude, Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor. Paste one instruction and the agent creates the bot, crawls your site, sets the instructions, brand color, and lead capture, and hands back the install code. After launch it can search conversations, pull leads, and read analytics to find the questions the bot still misses.
Best for: small businesses and SaaS teams that want a grounded bot live today without a monthly bill to try it.
2. Intercom Fin
Fin answers from your help center and past conversations, and escalates into Intercom’s inbox. It’s billed at $0.99 per outcome, and an outcome includes a customer who leaves after Fin answers without asking for more help. It also runs on top of other helpdesks at the same rate. Strong if Intercom is already your support stack; expensive to adopt for a bot alone. More in Intercom Fin and Intercom pricing.
3. Tidio (Lyro)
A live chat widget with an AI agent, Lyro, on top. The free plan’s 50 Lyro conversations are a one-time allowance; monthly AI starts at $39 for 50 conversations and climbs to $700 for 1,000. Good if you want human live chat and a bot in one widget. See Tidio alternatives.
4. SiteGPT
Built for sites with a lot of pages: Starter trains on up to 1,000 pages, Growth 10,000, Scale 50,000. Monthly pricing is $59, $129, and $429, or $39, $79, and $259 a month billed yearly. Removing SiteGPT branding is an add-on.
5. DocsBot
Aimed at documentation and product support. A free plan gives you one bot and 50 source pages for testing; paid plans are $49, $149, and $499 a month, with two months free on annual billing.
6. Crisp
A shared team inbox and chat widget first, with AI included as credits: about 90 automated conversations on the $45 Mini plan, 450 on the $95 Essentials plan, and 1,350 on the $295 Plus plan. There’s a free plan for the basic widget.
How to pick a Chatbase alternative
- You want to try it free and launch today: CarlyChat or DocsBot.
- Your support team lives in Intercom: Fin.
- You want humans and a bot in the same widget: Tidio or Crisp, or CarlyChat with human takeover.
- You have thousands of docs pages: SiteGPT.
- The chat should update your CRM and act on accounts: CarlyChat, with actions and the HubSpot, Attio, and Carly CRM presets.
Moving off Chatbase is mostly a re-crawl: point CarlyChat at the same site and files, add your pinned answers as Q&A pairs, test them in the playground, and swap the script tag.
Common questions
Is there a free alternative to Chatbase? Yes. CarlyChat, DocsBot, Tidio, and Crisp all have free plans. Chatbase itself offers a 7-day trial.
How much does Chatbase cost? $40, $150, or $500 a month on monthly billing, or $32, $120, or $400 a month billed yearly. Branding removal is $99 a month extra.
Can a coding agent build a Chatbase-style bot for me? With CarlyChat, yes: connect its MCP server in Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, ChatGPT, or Claude, and tell it to create, train, and install a support chatbot for your site.
Related: best AI chat widgets, best AI chatbot for business, no-code chatbot builder, and how to add an AI chatbot to WordPress.
Put a support chatbot on your site today
Train it on your pages and documents, check every answer and its source, then add it with one line of code. No AI key needed.
Get startedSee the prompt
Read https://carlychat.com/llms.txt and follow it to connect to CarlyChat at https://carlychat.com/mcp, signing up yourself if you need to. Then create, train, and install a support chatbot for <your website URL>. Only ask me for what you can't do yourself.
