Best free AI chatbots for websites in 2026: what each free plan really includes

A free plan is only useful if it keeps working on a normal month. So for each website chatbot with a free plan, we read the vendor's pricing page and help center on October 7, 2026 and noted five things:

• The allowance and its unit: conversations, messages, AI credits, queries or widget views, and whether it renews every month.
• Whether the AI is included, or the free plan is only live chat or rule-based bots.
• Branding: whether the vendor's name shows in the widget, and what it costs to remove.
• What happens at the limit: the bot stops, the widget switches off, or the AI hands back to people.
• The cheapest paid step, billed monthly or annually, for when you outgrow the free plan.

Where a vendor's page doesn't say something, we write "not stated" rather than guess. Free plans change often, so check the linked pricing page before you rely on one.

• A local business that wants its website to answer alone (plumber, salon, clinic, restaurant): Nexoply. Conversations are a simple unit, the AI renews every month, and the import fills in your services and prices for you.
• A business that collects forms (intake forms, quote requests, bookings by form): Jotform AI Agents, with the most free conversations here.
• Someone can answer chats during the day: tawk.to, for free human live chat with 100 AI credits a month on top.
• You want to tinker with AI models and workflows: Chatling, with 200 credits a month.
• Developers and agencies: Botpress, with 100 conversations a month and a full builder.
• A very quiet site that just wants a widget: Elfsight, as long as you stay under 200 views a month.
• Already on HubSpot CRM: HubSpot's free chat and basic bots, then Customer Agent when you move to Service Hub Professional.

Nexoply is an AI assistant for small business websites. The free plan includes website import (15 pages per scan), answers only from your services, prices, FAQs and policies, 12 languages, the conversation history and the list of questions it couldn't answer. No credit card is needed to sign up.

• Free plan: 50 conversations a month, up to 30 messages each, 50 knowledge items, 1 chatbot.
• Branding: "Powered by Nexoply" shows on Free and Starter; removal is included from Business.
• Cheapest paid step: Starter, $19 a month billed monthly or $190 billed yearly, for 500 conversations, 40-page scans and document uploads. Business ($49) removes the branding. See pricing.
• Considerations: website only: no live-chat inbox for staff, no WhatsApp, Instagram, email or phone channel, no order tracking, no bookings or payments (it links to your booking page, phone or WhatsApp). One chatbot per business. You paste one script tag; there's no WordPress plugin or Wix or Shopify app.
• Best for: a local business with up to a few dozen website chats a month, which wants the AI to answer from its own information.

Jotform AI Agents come with Jotform's free Starter plan. An agent learns from your website, documents, text and Q&A, and can fill a Jotform form with the visitor during the chat.

• Free plan: 5 active AI agents, 100 conversations a month (chat and phone combined), 10,000 sessions and 10 million knowledge characters, with Jotform branding. Form limits on Starter are separate: 5 forms and 100 submissions a month.
• Cheapest paid step: Bronze, $39 a month billed monthly ($34 billed annually), with 1,000 conversations and removable branding. Jotform pricing.
• Considerations: the pricing page doesn't say what the agent does at the conversation limit; the paid plans cover all of Jotform, so they're best value if you use its forms too.
• Best for: clinics, schools and service businesses that already take forms.

tawk.to is free live chat, ticketing and a knowledge base with unlimited agents. AI Assist is its AI add-on, and its Hobby tier is free. It learns from your help center, FAQs, website and uploaded documents.

• Free plan: live chat for any number of agents, plus AI Assist Hobby with 100 message credits a month, 1 AI agent, 500,000 characters of data and up to 100 crawled pages. Each AI message uses 1 credit.
• At the limit: AI Assist finishes conversations already open but won't join new ones; your team can still answer by live chat. Extra credits are sold only on paid AI Assist plans.
• Cheapest paid step: AI Assist Growth, $29 a month billed monthly or $290 a year, with 1,000 credits and handover to human agents. Removing "Powered by tawk.to" is a separate $29 a month. AI Assist plans.
• Considerations: the AI allowance is small for a busy site, and AI Assist is bought per property (website).
• Best for: businesses with someone at a desk who can take over the harder chats.

Chatling is a no-code chatbot builder with actions, workflows and a long list of AI models to pick from.

• Free plan: 200 AI credits a month, 1 agent, 1 seat, 500,000 knowledge characters, 2 actions per agent and 1 workflow, on the web widget only, with Chatling branding. Credits reset every month.
• How far 200 credits go: a reply costs from 0.5 credit on the lightest models to 25 on the most powerful, so 200 credits is up to 400 replies, or as few as 8.
• Cheapest paid step: Starter, $25 a month billed monthly ($21 billed annually), with 1,750 credits and 2 agents. Removing the branding is a $35/month add-on. Chatling pricing.
• Considerations: you need to watch which model you choose; no WordPress plugin.
• Best for: owners who like to build and adjust their own bot.

Dante AI is an AI agent for website chat, phone and an inbox, with lead capture on paid plans. Its free plan is labelled "$0 forever" and needs no card.

• Free plan: 1 agent, 100 credits a month that reset on the 1st (on the free models, GPT-4o Mini and GPT-5.4 Nano, one credit is one reply), 150K characters of knowledge, 1 seat, website chat only, with Dante branding. Testing in the sandbox uses credits after the first 5.
• At the limit: the agent shows "This AI agent is offline" until credits reset.
• Cheapest paid step: Starter, $40 a month billed monthly ($33 billed annually), with 2,000 credits; branding removal adds $50 a month on Starter and is included from Advanced ($120). Dante AI pricing.
• Considerations: an offline bot on a busy day isn't a good look, so watch your usage; languages weren't stated on the pages we checked.
• Best for: trying an AI agent on a low-traffic site.

Tidio is live chat and a helpdesk with an AI agent, Lyro. Its free plan is a real live-chat plan, but the AI part is a one-time allowance.

• Free plan: 50 billable conversations a month and 50 Lyro AI conversations one-off (not monthly), with Tidio branding.
• At the limit: the 50 Lyro conversations don't renew; once they're used, AI answers need the Lyro add-on.
• Cheapest paid step: Starter, $29 a month billed monthly ($24.17 billed annually), plus Lyro from $39 a month billed monthly ($32.50 annually) for 50 Lyro conversations a month. Branding removal is an add-on from Growth. Tidio pricing.
• Considerations: good for testing Lyro, not for running an AI chatbot for free month after month.
• Best for: shops with people answering chats who want to try AI first. See Nexoply vs Tidio.

Chatbase builds an AI agent from your website, files and text, and can deploy it to your site and to messaging apps.

• Free plan: 50 message credits a month, 1 agent, 1 MB of training data; branding can't be removed. Free agents are deleted after 14 days of inactivity.
• How far 50 credits go: credits count messages, and a conversation uses several, so 50 credits cover far fewer than 50 conversations.
• Cheapest paid step: Hobby, $40 a month billed monthly ($32 billed yearly), with 700 credits. Branding removal is a $99/month add-on. Chatbase pricing.
• Considerations: the free plan is best for a trial; the jump to paid is large for a small site.
• Best for: testing an agent you plan to put on several channels. See Nexoply vs Chatbase.

Botpress is a platform for building AI agents with a visual studio and an API.

• Free plan: 100 conversations a month. Each conversation includes $0.10 of AI usage.
• Cheapest paid step: Plus, $150 a month billed annually, with 250 conversations and white-label web chat. Botpress pricing.
• Considerations: a learning curve for non-developers, and a big step to the first paid plan.
• Best for: developers and agencies building custom bots.

Elfsight sells more than 80 website widgets, including an AI Chatbot with a "Free forever" plan and no card.

• Free plan: 1 chatbot, 50 visitor messages a month, 200 widget views a month, 10 million characters of storage, support limited to bug fixes, Elfsight branding.
• At the limit: going over 200 views a month temporarily deactivates the widget. Views are counted separately from messages, so they can run out even when few people chat.
• Cheapest paid step: Basic, $5 a month billed yearly ($6 billed monthly), with 3 chatbots, 300 messages and 5,000 views. White label starts on the $30/month yearly tier. Elfsight pricing.
• Considerations: 200 views is a small number for any site with regular visitors.
• Best for: very quiet sites, or as a test before the low-cost paid plans.

• LiveChatAI: "Forever free plan" with 250 message credits, 1 chatbot, 1 seat and 500K characters, no card. The pricing page doesn't say whether the 250 credits renew each month, so treat them as unclear. Basic is $39 a month billed monthly; unbranded only on Expert ($389). LiveChatAI pricing.
• Denser.ai: free with 20 queries a month, 1 bot, 1 team member and 100 pages or 50 MB, no card. Starter is $39 a month billed monthly ($32 billed annually) for 1,500 queries. Denser.ai pricing.
• Wonderchat: free with 20 credits (about 10 resolutions a month, by its own estimate), 1 agent and 50 webpages, including human handover. Basic is $124 a month billed yearly; monthly prices weren't readable. Wonderchat pricing.

HubSpot offers free tools that include live chat and basic chatbots, with HubSpot branding. The AI Customer Agent is on Service Hub Professional and Enterprise, and uses 50 HubSpot credits ($0.50) each time it resolves a conversation without a person. Professional has a one-time $1,500 onboarding fee. HubSpot pricing.

• Considerations: the free tools have basic bots, not the AI agent, which is a big step up in cost.
• Best for: businesses already using HubSpot CRM.

• Crisp: free plan with no AI. The first paid plan, Mini, is $45 a month per workspace with $5 of AI credits (about 90 automated conversations). Crisp pricing.
• Freshchat: free for up to 10 agents, with no AI agent. Growth is $19 per agent a month billed annually; the Freddy AI Agent includes the first 500 sessions, then $49 per 100. Freshchat pricing.
• Landbot: free with 100 chats a month and no AI; Starter is €40 a month billed monthly (€32 annually) with 100 AI chats. Landbot pricing.

These are good free live-chat or flow-builder tools, but on the free plan a person or a scripted flow answers, not an AI.

As of October 7, 2026, these website chatbots offer a trial instead of a free plan:

• SiteGPT: 7-day trial, card required. SiteGPT pricing.
• Boei: 7-day trial without a card; the account becomes read-only afterwards. Boei pricing.
• FastBots: new accounts get a 14-day trial with 200 one-time credits; the bot goes offline when it ends. FastBots pricing.
• CustomGPT.ai: 7-day trial, card required, charged automatically when it ends. CustomGPT.ai pricing.
• Botsonic: 7-day trial; Starter $19 a month billed monthly. Botsonic pricing.

The headline numbers aren't comparable, because each vendor counts something different. Take a small restaurant that gets 40 website chats a month, each with 3 questions (opening hours, a vegan option, parking): 40 conversations, 120 visitor messages and about 120 AI replies.

The same restaurant with 15 chats a month would fit almost every free plan. Count your real chats before you choose, and on Elfsight remember that widget views are a second limit.

Upgrade when the free plan starts costing you answers: the bot goes quiet in the last week of the month, your visitors see someone else's brand on an important page, or you need more pages read, documents or a person to take over. Here is the first paid step for each free plan above:

Branding removal is often the hidden cost. As of October 7, 2026 it's included from Nexoply Business ($49), costs $29 a month on tawk.to, $35 on Chatling, $50 on Dante AI Starter and $99 on Chatbase, and comes only with Elfsight's $30/month yearly tier or LiveChatAI Expert. For full budgets, see how much an AI chatbot costs.

1. 01

   Count last month's questions

   Look at your contact form, email and calls. A salon that gets 30 "How much is a cut and colour?" messages a month needs a plan that covers at least that.

2. 02

   Load your real information

   Import your website or add your prices and policies. Check it fits the free plan's knowledge limit, for example 50 knowledge items on Nexoply Free or 150K characters on Dante AI.

3. 03

   Ask 10 real questions and one it can't know

   Check the answers match your information, and that it admits when it doesn't know, for example a price you never published.

4. 04

   Check the widget on your site

   See how the branding looks on a phone and whether it covers your own buttons.

5. 05

   Find the limit behaviour

   Read what happens at the limit for your tool (the table above) and decide whether that's acceptable for a busy week.

Nexoply's free plan gives a small business website 50 AI conversations a month, with no card and no AI key to manage. Create a free account, enter your website address to import your services and FAQs, test it on a sample page, then paste one line of code into WordPress, Wix or any other website. To compare paid tools as well, see the best AI chatbots for websites.