“How much does a chatbot cost?” is one of the first questions people ask. The honest answer: it depends less on the technology and more on how you pay for it. Two services with the same starting price can cost very different amounts by the end of the year.
Here you’ll find the items to include in the sum, a simple way to estimate how much you’ll use it and two worked examples.
The three cost items
- The upfront cost. Activation, setup or, for custom projects, development. It can be zero or the biggest item of all.
- The recurring cost. A fixed fee, usage-based charges, or both.
- Your time. The item no price list shows. A rule-based chatbot needs you to write every answer and update it by hand. An AI chatbot that reads your website updates when you change your pages.
Many comparisons only look at the second item. But if the bot takes an hour a week to keep up to date, that hour belongs in the sum.
The ways you pay
On the market you’ll find three models, often mixed together.
- Custom development. An agency builds the bot for you. High upfront cost, then maintenance and AI model costs. It makes sense for very specific needs.
- Subscription with an allowance. A monthly fee that includes a set number of conversations, messages or panel users.
- Pay-as-you-go. You only pay for what you use. Handy if traffic is low or changes a lot from month to month.
When you compare two offers, look at the unit. A “conversation” can hold one question or twenty. A “message” is sometimes just the question, sometimes question and answer together. The same price can be worth double or half.
How to estimate how many messages you need
The sum is simple:
Messages per month = conversations per day × questions per conversation × 30
If you have no idea how many conversations you’ll get, start from what you know: how many emails and calls with repetitive questions you get today. People who write in a chat are often people who wouldn’t have written at all, so the number usually grows. That’s why, at the start, it pays to choose a model that doesn’t lock you into the wrong allowance.
What it costs with Interlyo
A message is one visitor question with the bot’s answer. Reading your website’s pages is free.
| Option | Price | Messages included per month |
|---|---|---|
| Pay-as-you-go | €0.05 per message | — |
| Standard | €19 a month | 400 |
| Pro | €49 a month | 1,200 |
| Business | €139 a month | 3,000 |
Over the allowance the bot keeps answering and each extra message costs €0.05. With an annual subscription you save 17%. There’s no activation fee and your card is never charged again: credit is prepaid. All the details are on the Pricing page.
A rule of thumb: below 380 messages a month pay-as-you-go is cheaper, above it a subscription is.
Two worked examples
A small travel agency, three people
Say five conversations a day, with two questions each: office hours, travel documents, what a trip includes. That’s about 300 messages a month.
- Pay-as-you-go: 300 × €0.05 = €15 a month.
- Standard: €19 a month, with 100 messages to spare.
Here pay-as-you-go wins. If messages grow in high season, you switch to a subscription when you need it.
An online store
Say forty messages a day about shipping, returns and sizes: about 1,200 a month.
- Pay-as-you-go: €60 a month.
- Standard: a €19 fee plus 800 messages over the allowance = €59 a month.
- Pro: €49 a month, messages included.
Here Pro wins. The calculator on the Pricing page does the same sum with your numbers.
Costs you don’t see straight away
Before you choose a service, any service, ask these questions:
- What happens when I run out of my allowance? Does the bot stop, move to a more expensive plan or carry on at a known price?
- Does it renew automatically on my card? And how easy is it to cancel?
- Are bookings charged separately? There’s often a fee plus a charge per booking. With Interlyo, for example, the bookings fee is €10 a month, included in Pro and Business.
- How many pages does it read? A low limit forces you to choose what the bot can know.
- How much of my time does it take each week? Answers to write, rules to update, conversations to check.
In short
The price of a chatbot isn’t the number in the shop window: it’s what you pay by the end of the year, plus the time it takes. Estimate your messages with the sum above, check what happens over the allowance and, if you can, try it on your own website before you pay.
