Nine chat vendors offer a free plan or free tier for online stores as of September 2026: Vatdi, Tidio, Tawk.to, Crisp, Freshchat, HubSpot, Chatbase, Shopify Inbox and Zoho SalesIQ. "Free" means something different at each: a conversation cap, a seat cap, live chat without AI answers, or the full product with a visible badge. Below: what each includes, the four ways free turns into a bill, and a one-week test plan.
The four shapes a free plan takes
Free chat plans fall into four patterns, and knowing which one you are looking at saves most of the confusion.
- Capped product. Everything works, but a monthly volume limit applies (conversations, messages or tickets). Vatdi and Tidio are this shape.
- Capped team. The product is free up to a number of agents. Freshchat is this shape.
- Live chat without AI. Human chat is free; automatic answers are a paid add-on. Tawk.to is the clearest example.
- Free entry to a larger suite. The chat tool is free because the vendor sells something bigger next to it: a CRM, a helpdesk or a commerce platform. HubSpot, Zoho SalesIQ and Shopify Inbox fit here.
None of these is a trick; they are different bets on what you will pay for later.
Nine free tiers compared
Prices and limits below are as published in September 2026. Prices change; check each vendor's pricing page before deciding. Where a detail is not published clearly, the cell points to the vendor's pricing page rather than guessing.
| Vendor | Free plan | What is capped | AI answers on free | Branding removal | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vatdi | Yes, $0 forever, no card | 15 conversations/month, 100 knowledge items, 200 synced products; one store | Yes, answers from your own products, pages and uploads | Paid: "Powered by Vatdi" badge shown on Free; removable from $4.49/mo | Small stores on WooCommerce, OpenCart, PrestaShop, Magento, Shopware, Joomla or Drupal that want AI answers from their catalogue |
| Tidio | Yes | 50 conversations/month | No; Lyro AI agent is a separate add-on from about $39/mo | See vendor pricing page | Stores that need one inbox across Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp and email |
| Tawk.to | Yes, unlimited agents | No agent cap on live chat | No; AI is a paid add-on | Paid add-on | Teams that want free human live chat with many agents |
| Crisp | Yes (Basic) | See vendor pricing page; paid starts at $45/mo per workspace | See vendor pricing page | See vendor pricing page | Teams that will grow into a shared inbox priced per workspace, not per seat |
| Freshchat | Yes, up to 10 agents | Agent count | No; Freddy AI is an add-on | See vendor pricing page | Support teams already using Freshworks products |
| HubSpot | Yes, chatbot builder in free tools | See vendor pricing page; paid hubs from about $15–20 per seat/mo | Chatbot builder; see vendor pricing page for AI answers | See vendor pricing page | Businesses already running HubSpot CRM |
| Chatbase | Yes | See vendor pricing page; Hobby $40/mo is the first paid tier | Yes, trains on uploaded content | See vendor pricing page | Answer bots built from uploaded documents; check catalogue fit for a store |
| Shopify Inbox | Free with any Shopify plan | Shopify-only | No RAG-style AI answers | Not applicable in the same sense; it is part of Shopify | Shopify merchants who want a free inbox inside the admin |
| Zoho SalesIQ | Yes | See vendor pricing page; Basic is $7/operator/mo (annual) | See vendor pricing page | See vendor pricing page | Businesses on the Zoho suite |
Notes on each row
Vatdi. The free plan is the full product: AI answers from your catalogue and pages, product cards, order status lookup on the supported plugins, human handover, leads, analytics, 95+ languages and unlimited teammates. The limits are volume (15 conversations a month, 100 knowledge items, 200 synced products) and the badge. Fifteen conversations is enough to test with real visitors on a small store, not enough to run a busy one. Vatdi is the website widget only, so it is the wrong choice if you need Messenger or WhatsApp in the same inbox. See the plan table for the two paid tiers.
Tidio. Fifty conversations a month is more room than Vatdi's free plan, but there are no AI answers on it; Lyro is metered separately, from about $39 a month. If your priority is a multi-channel inbox with human agents, Tidio's free plan is a reasonable start. If your priority is automatic answers, the free plan does not test that. A fuller comparison is at Vatdi vs Tidio.
Tawk.to. The most generous free live chat on this list: unlimited agents at no cost. AI answers and removing the branding are both paid add-ons, so a store that wants automation will pay, but a team that mainly wants to chat with visitors by hand may never need to.
Crisp. A free Basic plan exists; paid tiers are $45, $95 and $295 a month per workspace. The paid step is large but does not grow with headcount.
Freshchat. Free for up to 10 agents, which is unusual. The paid tiers ($19, $49 and $79 per agent per month on annual billing) and the Freddy AI add-on are where the cost sits. Good fit if you already run Freshdesk or another Freshworks product.
HubSpot. The chatbot builder is part of the free tools; check whether automatic answers from your own content are included before relying on it. It makes sense if the CRM is the reason you are there. Paid hubs start around $15 to $20 per seat per month.
Chatbase. A free plan for a bot that answers from uploaded content. It is built around documents rather than store catalogues, so check whether product data, prices and stock fit your use before relying on it. Paid tiers are $40, $150 and $500 a month.
Shopify Inbox. Free with any Shopify plan and lives inside the admin. It does not give retrieval-based AI answers from your store content. If you are on Shopify and want that, you will be adding an app; see how Vatdi works on Shopify, including the honest note that live order lookup is not available there.
Zoho SalesIQ. Free plan, with Basic at $7 per operator per month on annual billing, Professional at $12.75 and Enterprise at $20. Sensible if you are already inside Zoho.
The four ways "free" gets expensive
1. AI answers are an add-on
This is the biggest one for a store. At Tidio, Tawk.to and Freshchat the free plan is live chat; the automatic answering that would actually reduce your workload is a separate line item. Tidio's Lyro starts at about $39 a month on top of the plan; Vatdi's Grow plan, which includes AI answers, is $7.49. When you compare free plans, ask one question first: does the free tier answer questions on its own, or does it only let a person answer them?
2. Seats
Per-agent pricing is fine for a two-person team and painful for six. Freshchat at $19 per agent, Zoho at $7 per operator and HubSpot at $15 to $20 per seat all scale with headcount. Vatdi, Tawk.to (on the free plan) and Crisp (per workspace) do not. If you expect to add part-time helpers over the holidays, check the seat rule before the feature list.
3. Volume caps
Conversation caps are honest but easy to hit. Vatdi's free plan allows 15 conversations a month, Tidio's 50. A cap that fits a store doing a handful of chats a day will not fit one running a promotion. Work out your likely monthly conversation count before you sign up (count the chats and question emails you receive in a typical month; if you already run a widget, use its conversation count) and compare it with the cap.
4. Branding
Most free plans show the vendor's name in the widget. Vatdi shows "Powered by Vatdi" on Free and lets you remove it from the $4.49 Starter plan; Tawk.to sells branding removal as an add-on. This is the cheapest of the four to fix, and for many small stores it is the only reason to pay at all.
How to test a free plan properly in a week
A week is enough to learn whether a chat tool will answer your customers, as long as you test with real questions rather than "hello".
- Day 1: connect the data. Install the plugin or script, sync the catalogue if the tool supports it, and load your shipping, returns and payment pages. If a tool cannot take your content at all, that is your answer.
- Day 2: build a 30-question test set. Pull 30 real questions from your support inbox, phrased the way customers typed them. Include at least five about specific products, five about shipping to specific places and three that should trigger a handover.
- Day 3: score the answers 0 to 10. Ten is correct, specific and quotes your policy. Five is vaguely right but missing the number. Zero is wrong or invented. Write down each score.
- Day 4: fix the content, not the bot. Most low scores come from a missing or vague page. Rewrite those pages with the numbers in, re-sync, and re-run the failed questions.
- Day 5: test the handover. Ask for a person inside and outside your agent hours. Check that a notification arrives and that the customer is told the truth about when someone will reply.
- Day 6: turn it on for real visitors. Read every conversation. Note the questions you did not predict.
- Day 7: count. How many conversations happened, how many the bot answered without a person, how many hit the cap or a paywall. Decide with those numbers.
The guide on training a chatbot on your own data covers which formats load cleanly and how to write pages the bot can quote.
When paying $5 to $30 a month is the right move
There is a band of entry-level paid plans where the price is lower than an hour of anyone's time, and staying on free past that point is usually a false economy. As of September 2026 the band looks like this.
| Plan | Price | What you get over the free tier |
|---|---|---|
| Vatdi Starter | $4.49/mo or $44.90/yr | 150 conversations/month, 500 knowledge items, 2,000 synced products, badge removable |
| Vatdi Grow | $7.49/mo or $74.90/yr | Unlimited conversations and knowledge items, 10,000 synced products, badge removable |
| Zoho SalesIQ Basic | $7/operator/mo (annual) | First paid operator tier |
| ManyChat Pro | From $15/mo | Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp automation (not a website widget in the same sense) |
| HubSpot paid hubs | About $15–20 per seat/mo | Paid CRM features around the free chatbot |
| Freshchat Growth | $19/agent/mo (annual) | First paid agent tier; Freddy AI still an add-on |
| Tidio Starter | $29/mo | First paid tier; Lyro AI still separate |
Pay when one of these is true:
- You hit the free cap in the first two weeks. The cap is telling you the tool is being used.
- The badge matters to how your store looks. Removing it is the cheapest upgrade on the list.
- You need AI answers and the free tier only gives you human chat. Compare the AI add-on price directly with a plan that includes it.
- Your team is growing and you are on per-seat pricing. Move to a plan without seats before the third agent, not after the sixth.
Do not pay for features you have not tested on free. Every feature on every Vatdi plan is available on Free, so the paid step there is only about volume and the badge; on tools where features are gated, test the gated feature during a trial first. For a wider view of what chat tools cost at each level, see how much an AI chatbot costs and the cheapest AI chatbot options.
When free is enough
Free is a good permanent home for a side business with a few hundred visitors a month or a team happy to answer by hand. The signs are simple: you are not hitting the cap, nobody minds the badge, and the questions the tool cannot answer are ones you would want a person on anyway.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a completely free AI chatbot for an online store?
Yes, with limits. As of September 2026 Vatdi's free plan includes AI answers from your own products and pages, capped at 15 conversations a month with a visible badge. Chatbase has a free plan for bots built from uploaded documents. Tidio, Tawk.to and Freshchat offer free live chat, but their AI answering is a paid add-on.
Does Tidio's free plan include AI answers?
No. As of September 2026 Tidio's free plan covers 50 conversations a month of live chat. Its Lyro AI agent is a separate, conversation-metered add-on from about $39 a month. Prices change, so check Tidio's pricing page.
Which free chat tool has no agent limit?
Tawk.to offers free live chat with unlimited agents. Vatdi also has no seat limit on any plan, including Free, though it caps conversations at 15 a month on the free plan. Freshchat is free up to 10 agents.
How do I remove the "powered by" branding on a free chat widget?
Usually by paying. Vatdi removes the badge from the $4.49 a month Starter plan; Tawk.to sells branding removal as an add-on. For other vendors, check the pricing page, since the branding rule differs by vendor and tier.
Is Shopify Inbox enough for a Shopify store?
For a free inbox inside the Shopify admin, yes. It does not provide retrieval-based AI answers from your store content, so if you want a bot that answers product and policy questions on its own you will need an app alongside it. Note that live order lookup in chat is not available on Shopify through Vatdi either.
