Botpress vs Chatbase vs Tidio vs a Custom Chatbot: What a Growing Company Pays in 2026

Short answer: for a website chatbot that answers from your help pages, a platform costs $32 to $750 a month on the prices the vendors publish today, and a custom chatbot costs $15,000 to $50,000 once. The platform is cheaper for the first year at almost any volume. The custom build wins when the bot has to read or change data in your own systems, or when conversation volume is high enough that per-conversation fees overtake the build. Botpress Team at 3,000 conversations a month works out to about $18,000 a year, so over 24 months the two routes meet.The market range for a custom chatbot is $3,000 to $10,000 for a basic bot and $10,000 to $40,000 when it quotes, books or qualifies against your systems (development-studio guides read 7 November 2026: Riseup Labs, Folio3, Aristek, SoluLab, Biz4Group); a studio like KUMO, building for US and European companies, works within that range; where your scope sits in it is what a scoped estimate tells you. ## The comparison in one table

Want the number for your own scope? Send a short brief: what takes your team the most manual time, which systems are involved, roughly how many people touch it. A senior engineer replies within two working days with a range and the questions we would ask on a call. No call needed. Or get a range in a minute from the AI development cost calculator.

How to read these numbers. Subscription prices are the vendors' published list prices on the date shown, before taxes, overages, add-ons and seat growth. The custom-build figures are market ranges from 2026 studio cost guides, for the build only: hosting, model usage, third-party fees and ongoing engineering (about $4,000 to $12,000 a month in the same guides if you have no engineers) sit on top, and we say so wherever a total is compared. A standard tool is the right answer when your workflow fits it; configuration is enough when the gap is small; a custom build is justified only by a specific complexity named on this page, not by preference.

When Botpress, Chatbase or Tidio is enough: the bot answers from your help content and hands off to email or a human; the platform wins at a few hundred dollars a month. A custom build is justified only when the assistant must quote, book or qualify against your own systems with your rules and an audit record.

Two cautions on reading it. Platforms count different things: Botpress counts conversations, Chatbase counts message credits, Tidio counts AI conversations, so a monthly figure is not comparable until you know your own volume in each unit. And Botpress states that paid plans include $0.10 of AI usage per conversation, with AI spend billed beyond that, so the sticker price is a floor.

What the platform route does well

If the questions your customers ask are answered on pages you already have, a platform chatbot is live in an afternoon. You paste in your site or documents, tune the tone, and embed a widget. At 250 conversations a month, Botpress Plus at $150 or Chatbase Basic at $120 is far below one month of any engineering retainer. There is no reason to commission a build to answer "what are your opening hours".

What moves the number

1. Volume. Per-conversation fees grow with every customer you win. A custom build's cost does not; only model usage does.
2. Whether it must act. Answering is cheap on a platform. Checking an order, changing a booking, issuing a refund or updating a record means validation, approval rules and an audit trail.
3. Number of systems. Each system the bot reads or writes (CRM, order system, calendar, billing) is integration work, on any route.
4. Permissions. If different customers or staff may see different data, the bot needs access rules, not just a knowledge base.
5. Where data may live. Some companies need conversations and documents to stay in their own cloud account.
6. Who operates it. Someone has to read unanswered questions, refresh knowledge and watch handoffs. On a platform you do it in their dashboard; on a custom build it is a retainer or your own person.

The same 3,000 conversations, three ways

Take a company with 3,000 customer conversations a month, mostly answerable from documents, and about a fifth needing an order lookup.

• Botpress Team: $750 per month includes 1,500 conversations. The other 1,500 are 15 packs of 100 at $50, which is $750. Total $1,500 per month, $18,000 a year, $36,000 over 24 months, billed annually.
• Chatbase Business: $400 per month billed yearly is $4,800 a year for 15,000 message credits. A conversation uses several messages, so check how many credits your typical conversation consumes before trusting this line.
• Custom Starter Build: $15,000 to $50,000 once, plus model usage, which at this volume is usually tens to low hundreds of dollars a month.

That is arithmetic on published prices, not a quote. It shows why the answer depends on the order lookup: if that fifth of conversations matters, the platforms need a custom integration behind them either way.

Three quotes for the same brief

Ask every vendor the same question. Write one page: the questions the bot must answer, the three systems it needs to read, the two actions it may take, the monthly conversation count and the handoff target. Then get one platform price (at your volume, including overages), one freelancer quote and one agency quote. Compare them over 24 months, not on the first invoice. A quote that cannot tell you what happens when conversations double has not priced the real bill.

What a Starter Build buys at KUMO

A KUMO build for a chatbot is a launched first production version: retrieval over your knowledge with citations, one or two systems read or written under stated rules, handoff into your helpdesk with the conversation attached, an evaluation set with pass criteria, deployment in your own cloud, and a handover another engineer can continue from. Two to three months. The code and data are yours from day one. The full breakdown of what moves the number is in chatbot cost to build, and the AI development cost calculator gives a range for your scope in about a minute. If your platform of choice is a helpdesk, the Intercom Fin comparison covers that route.

KUMO's founders built Volopay's first production version as its founding engineers; how KUMO builds AI products is on AI product and platform engineering.

Costs after launch

A platform bill continues for as long as the bot runs, and rises with volume and with add-ons: Botpress sells a storage add-on at $40 per month, and Chatbase charges $1,188 a year to remove its branding and $300 per extra agent per year. A custom bot has model usage plus whoever improves it. Budget either way for a monthly review of failed answers; the production AI support cost breakdown lists what that involves.

How to get a real number this week

1. Export last month's chats or emails and tag each one: answerable from a page, needs account data, needs an action.
2. Count conversations per month and note the busiest month.
3. Trial one platform on the first group for a week and note where it fails.
4. Write the one-page brief above and run it through the calculator.
5. If you want a second opinion on the tagging, book a free 30-minute call with an engineer and bring the export.

KUMO is a software engineering studio that builds custom AI agents, workflow apps and portals for 10 to 100 person companies, and a Registered Partner in the OpenAI Partner Network. With that, get a scoped estimate and KUMO returns a band and the questions we would ask in two working days.

How these numbers were produced: vendor prices are the vendors' published list prices on the dates shown (KUMO-measured on that date); yearly and three-year totals are KUMO's calculations on those prices at the volumes stated (KUMO estimate); KUMO bands are KUMO's published prices for the build only.

FAQ

How much does Botpress cost? Plus is $150 per month and Team is $750 per month, both billed annually, with extra conversations at $65 per 100 on Plus and $50 per 100 on Team (botpress.com/pricing, read 28 October 2026). Enterprise is custom.

How much does Chatbase cost? $32 per month for Hobby, $120 for Basic and $400 for Business, billed yearly, with extra credits at $40 per 1,000 (chatbase.co/pricing, read 28 October 2026).

How much does it cost to build a custom chatbot? $15,000 to $50,000 for a first production version that answers from your data, reads one or two systems and hands off to people; $50,000 to $100,000 for larger scopes; $5,000 to $10,000 per month for ongoing engineering.

Is a chatbot platform cheaper than a custom build? Usually for the first year and for help-page questions. The gap closes as volume grows or as the bot needs to read and act on your systems.

How long does a custom chatbot take? Two to three months for a Starter Build. A platform bot can be live in an afternoon.

Last verified 28 October 2026. Vendor prices were read from the vendors' own pages on that date; they change, so check the pages. KUMO bands are KUMO's published prices.