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Chatbase Pricing (2026): What a Message Actually Costs
Chatbase publishes three paid plans at $40, $150 and $500 a month. The number that decides which one you want is not the plan price but the cost per message credit — and on the entry plan there is an oddity worth knowing: $40 spent on top-up credits buys 43% more messages than the $40 plan itself.
- Entry paid plan
- Hobby — $40 a month
- Cheapest per credit
- Pro — 2.7¢ paid yearly
- Dearest per credit
- Hobby — 5.7¢ monthly
- Free plan
- Yes — 50 credits a month
The short version
Chatbase bills in message credits, and every plan bundles a different number of them. Comparing $40 against $150 against $500 tells you almost nothing; comparing what each plan charges per credit tells you everything.
- Hobby — $40
- 700 credits, which works out at 5.7¢ a credit — the most expensive messages Chatbase sells.
- Standard — $150
- 4,000 credits, or 3.75¢ a credit. Nearly 3.7× the price for 5.7× the messages.
- Pro — $500
- 15,000 credits, or 3.3¢ a credit. The cheapest rate on the published list.
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The rate nobody publishes
Chatbase sells an add-on called auto-recharge credits: when your balance falls below a threshold you set, it tops you up at $40 per 1,000 message credits. Those credits, the vendor says, do not expire.
Now put that next to the Hobby plan. Hobby is $40 a month for 700 credits, and those credits renew — which is to say reset — each month.
Same $40. One route gives you 700 credits that expire at the end of the month. The other gives you 1,000 credits that do not. That is 43% more messages for the same money, and the better deal is the add-on rather than the plan.
This is not a mistake on Chatbase’s part, and it is not a loophole. You cannot buy the add-on without a plan underneath it, so the $40 subscription is the entry fee rather than the product. But it does mean that on Hobby, every credit included in your plan costs more than every credit you buy on top of it — and that is a genuinely odd thing to discover after you have signed up.
The relationship inverts higher up the range. On Standard, included credits cost 3.75¢ and top-ups cost 4¢, so overflow is now the expensive option. On Pro the gap is wider still. Which tier you are on decides whether running out of credits is a mild annoyance or an expensive one.
What each plan costs
| Plan | Monthly | Paid yearly | Credits/month | Cost per credit | Seats |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 | 50 | — | 1 |
| Hobby | $40 | $32 | 700 | 5.7¢ / 4.6¢ | 2 |
| Standard | $150 | $120 | 4,000 | 3.8¢ / 3.0¢ | 3 |
| Pro | $500 | $400 | 15,000 | 3.3¢ / 2.7¢ | 5 |
| Enterprise | Quote | Quote | Higher limits | — | Custom |
Read from Chatbase’s own pricing page on 17 September 2026. Yearly figures are the per-month rates shown under the vendor’s “20% off yearly plans” toggle. The cost-per-credit column is our arithmetic on those published figures — monthly rate first, yearly rate second — not a vendor claim. Hobby, Standard and Pro each carry a 7-day trial.
When top-ups beat an upgrade
Because top-up credits are sold at a flat $40 per 1,000, you can work out exactly where staying on a cheap plan and buying overflow stops being sensible.
Hobby versus Standard. Hobby plus two top-ups is $120 for 2,700 credits — cheaper than Standard’s $150. Add a third top-up and you are paying $160 for 3,700 credits, which is more money for fewer messages than Standard gives you at $150. The crossover sits at about 2,700 credits a month. Past that, upgrade.
Standard versus Pro. The same sum puts the crossover near 12,000 credits a month. Standard plus eight top-ups is $470 for 12,000; a ninth takes you to $510, which is more than Pro’s $500 for 15,000.
One caveat that matters if you are paying yearly. The 20% annual discount applies to plans, not to the add-on — top-ups stay at $40 per 1,000 either way. So on yearly billing the top-up route runs out of road sooner: Hobby plus two top-ups is $112 for 2,700 credits against Standard’s $120 for 4,000. Eight dollars for 1,300 extra messages is not a close call.
The practical reading: if your volume is genuinely unpredictable, auto-recharge on a low plan is a reasonable hedge, and the unexpiring credits soften a quiet month. If your volume is steady and above roughly 2,700 messages, you are paying a premium to avoid a decision.
The add-ons that change the maths
Two other add-ons sit alongside auto-recharge, and both are priced steeply relative to the entry plan.
Extra AI agents cost $25 per agent per month. Against a $40 Hobby subscription, a second agent adds 63% to the bill. Anyone planning several agents from the outset should price the higher tiers rather than stacking add-ons.
Removing the “Powered By Chatbase” badge costs $99 a month. This is the figure most likely to catch people out, because it is two and a half times the Hobby plan it would usually be bought alongside. Hobby with branding removed is $139 a month for 700 credits; Standard is $150 for 4,000 credits and is still branded. Full white-labelling appears only on Enterprise.
So if an unbranded agent is a requirement rather than a preference — and for a client-facing deployment it usually is — add $99 to whatever plan you were considering, then compare again. It changes which tier represents value quite substantially.
The free plan’s real limit
The free tier gives 50 message credits a month, one agent, one seat, 1 MB of training content and access to limited models. Fifty credits is the number everyone quotes, but it is not the constraint that actually bites.
The constraint is this, in Chatbase’s own words: agents get deleted after 14 days of inactivity on the free plan. Build something, leave it a fortnight, and it is gone — not paused, not archived.
That makes the free tier a demonstration rather than a sandbox. It is fine for deciding within an afternoon whether the product suits you. It is not somewhere to park a half-built agent while you think about it. If you want to evaluate properly, the 7-day trial on a paid plan is the more honest test, because it lets you use the advanced models and the integrations that the free tier withholds.
Our Chatbase review covers what the product does well and where it does not fit.
Which tier to choose
Hobby is enough if
- You are under roughly 700 messages a month and expect to stay there
- One or two agents covers what you are building
- Chatbase branding on the widget is acceptable to you
- You want auto-recharge as a cheap hedge against a busy month
Go straight to Standard if
- You are past 2,700 messages a month — top-ups stop paying at that point
- You need the helpdesk, voice, telephony or API access Hobby does not include
- You want the Stripe, Zendesk or Freshdesk integrations
- More than two people need a seat
Frequently asked questions
How much does Chatbase cost?
Hobby is $40 a month, Standard $150 and Pro $500, each dropping 20% on yearly billing to $32, $120 and $400 a month. They include 700, 4,000 and 15,000 message credits respectively. There is a free plan with 50 credits a month, and Enterprise is quote-based. Figures read from the vendor pricing page on 17 September 2026.
What is a Chatbase message credit?
It is the unit Chatbase bills in, consumed as your agent answers. Plan credits renew each month; credits bought through the auto-recharge add-on do not expire. The useful comparison between plans is therefore cost per credit rather than headline price — that runs from 5.7¢ on Hobby down to 3.3¢ on Pro, or 4.6¢ to 2.7¢ if you pay yearly.
Is it cheaper to buy extra credits or upgrade?
Top-ups cost $40 per 1,000 credits. On Hobby that is cheaper per message than the plan itself, so buying overflow is reasonable up to about 2,700 credits a month — beyond that Standard costs less for more. The equivalent crossover between Standard and Pro is around 12,000 credits a month. Note that the 20% annual discount applies to plans only, so top-ups look worse if you pay yearly.
Does Chatbase have a free plan?
Yes — 50 message credits a month, one agent, one seat, 1 MB of training content and limited model access. The limit that matters most is not the credits: Chatbase deletes free-plan agents after 14 days of inactivity. Treat it as a demonstration rather than somewhere to leave work in progress. Hobby, Standard and Pro each offer a 7-day trial instead.
How much is it to remove Chatbase branding?
$99 a month as an add-on, on top of whatever plan you are paying for. That is more than twice the Hobby plan itself, so a branded-free entry setup costs $139 a month for 700 credits — close to Standard’s $150 for 4,000. Full white-labelling is listed only under Enterprise. If an unbranded widget is a requirement, add the $99 before comparing tiers.
How we compiled this
Every price, credit allowance, seat count and add-on rate on this page was read directly from Chatbase’s own pricing page on 17 September 2026, and is published as a dated snapshot rather than a permanent claim. The cost-per-credit figures and the upgrade crossover points are our own arithmetic on those published numbers, marked as such throughout. We have not run Chatbase against a production support queue, so this page covers what it costs rather than how well it performs.
Spotted a figure that has changed? Tell us and we will correct it. Read our full methodology →
Is Chatbase the right tool at all?
Our review covers what it does well, where it struggles, and which support tools are worth weighing against it.