Table of Contents
- Key takeaways: cost to build a chatbot by route
- How much does it cost to build a chatbot?
- One-time versus recurring chatbot costs
- How the build routes are ordered
- Chatbot build routes with worked first-year totals
- 1. Botsonic Starter: best for the lowest first-year cost
- 2. SiteGPT Starter: best for a customer service chatbot trained on your own content
- 3. Chatbase Hobby: best for a low-volume agent with a choice of AI models
- 4. Botpress Plus: best for developers who want a platform under their own logic
- 5. Build on the OpenAI API with a freelance developer: best for a chatbot inside your own product
- 6. Custom build with integrations: best for workflows no platform covers
- Hidden costs of building a chatbot
- Build or buy: when a custom chatbot build pays back
- How to choose a chatbot build route
- Cost to build a chatbot FAQ
- Build costs
- How much does it cost to build a chatbot?
- How much does it cost to build an AI chatbot from scratch?
- How much does custom AI chatbot development cost?
- How long does it take to build a chatbot?
- Running costs
- How much does a chatbot cost per month?
- How much does the OpenAI API cost for a chatbot?
- What are the hidden costs of a chatbot?
- Build or buy
- Is it cheaper to build a chatbot or buy one?
- When does a custom chatbot make sense?
- What does a small business pay to set up a chatbot?
- Sources
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Sep 27, 2023 11:13 PM
It costs between $192 and about $8,700 to build a chatbot and run it for one year in 2026: $192 to $708 on a no-code platform's entry plan, $1,800 on a developer platform, and about $4,342 to $8,682 for a build on the OpenAI API with a freelance developer.
TL;DR
- No-code platform: there is no build fee. Botsonic Starter costs $228 in year one, Chatbase Hobby $480 and SiteGPT Starter $708, all billed monthly. On yearly billing they cost $192, $384 and $468.
- Developer platform: Botpress Plus costs $150 a month billed annually, or $1,800 in year one, plus the time of the person who builds the agent.
- Build on the OpenAI API: a freelance chatbot developer costs $30 to $61 an hour on Upwork. An example budget of 140 hours in year one comes to about $4,342 to $8,682.
- Model fees are the smallest line. 1,000 answers cost about $2.95 on gpt-6-luna with file search. Developer time is the largest line on every custom route.
- Recurring costs decide the total. Extra messages, branding removal, seats and upkeep hours are billed every month after launch.
Key takeaways: cost to build a chatbot by route
The cost to build a chatbot depends on the route. The table shows six routes with the one-time cost, the recurring cost and the first-year total for each.
Route | Best for | One-time build cost | Recurring cost | First-year total |
Botsonic Starter | The lowest first-year cost | $0 | $19 a month, or $16 a month billed annually | $228, or $192 billed annually |
SiteGPT Starter | A customer service chatbot trained on your own content | $0 | $59 a month, or $39 a month billed yearly | $708, or $468 billed yearly |
Chatbase Hobby | A low-volume agent with a choice of AI models | $0 | $40 a month | $480 |
Botpress Plus | Developers who want a platform under their own logic | Builder time | $150 a month billed annually | $1,800 plus builder time |
OpenAI API with a freelance developer | A chatbot inside your own product | $2,400 to $4,880 at 80 hours | $162 to $317 a month for upkeep and usage | About $4,342 to $8,682 |
Custom build with integrations | Workflows no platform covers | $9,000 to $18,300 at 300 hours | Upkeep, hosting and usage | Above $9,000 |
How much does it cost to build a chatbot?
It costs $0 up front and $16 to $59 a month to build a chatbot on a no-code platform, and $2,400 to $18,300 up front to have a developer build one. The gap comes from who does the work.
A no-code platform has already built the crawler, the retrieval layer, the chat widget and the dashboard. You pay a subscription and add your content. A custom build pays a developer to write those parts and then to maintain them.
Four figures explain the chart.
- Botsonic Starter costs $19 a month billed monthly. Twelve months cost $228.
- SiteGPT Starter costs $59 a month billed monthly. Twelve months cost $708. Yearly billing costs $468. That saves $240, or 34%.
- Botpress Plus has no monthly rate on its pricing page. It costs $150 a month billed annually, or $1,800 a year.
- The API build uses 140 developer hours in year one: 80 hours to build and 5 hours a month to maintain. At $30 an hour that is $4,200. At $61 an hour it is $8,540. Usage fees add $141.60.
This guide covers the cost to build and set up a chatbot. Plan-by-plan vendor prices at 1,000, 5,000 and 10,000 conversations are in the AI chatbot pricing comparison. Contract sizes and total cost of ownership for large teams are in the enterprise AI chatbot cost guide.
One-time versus recurring chatbot costs
One-time chatbot costs are paid once at launch, and recurring chatbot costs are billed every month the chatbot runs. A no-code platform has almost no one-time cost. A custom build has both.
Cost line | Type | No-code platform | Custom build |
Design and development | One-time | Included in the plan | 80 to 300 developer hours in the examples below |
Content setup | One-time | A few hours of your own time | A few hours, plus the ingestion code |
Subscription | Recurring | $16 to $59 a month on an entry plan | None |
Model usage | Recurring | Included up to the plan's message quota | About $2.95 per 1,000 answers on gpt-6-luna with file search |
Extra usage | Recurring | $25 to $59 per pack of messages or credits | Billed by the token |
Maintenance | Recurring | Included | Developer hours every month |
Hosting | Recurring | Included | Billed by your cloud provider |
The custom build column has no subscription. It replaces the subscription with developer hours, and developer hours cost more than any entry plan in this guide.
How the build routes are ordered
The build routes are ordered by first-year cost for one scenario: a small business that wants a chatbot on its website to answer customer questions. Four criteria decided the order and the labels.
- First-year cost. The one-time cost plus twelve months of recurring cost, from published prices.
- Who builds it. Anyone on the team, or a developer.
- What the entry plan includes. Messages, team members and content limits.
- What costs extra. Add-ons and overage prices listed on the pricing page.
SiteGPT publishes this guide and is one of the six routes. Its limits are listed with the same weight as the others. No route is the best pick for every team, so each one has a "best for" label.
Chatbot build routes with worked first-year totals
Each chatbot build route below follows one template: what it is, the one-time cost, the recurring cost, the first-year total, the limits and who it fits.
1. Botsonic Starter: best for the lowest first-year cost
Botsonic is a no-code chatbot builder from Writesonic, and its Starter plan has the lowest first-year cost in this guide. The product is covered in the Botsonic review.
- One-time cost: $0. The trial lasts 7 days.
- Recurring cost: $19 a month billed monthly, or $16 a month billed annually.
- First-year total: $228 billed monthly, or $192 billed annually. Annual billing saves $36, or 16%.
- Included: 1 chatbot, 1,000 messages a month, 1 team member, 10M uploaded characters and sitemaps with up to 5,000 URLs.
- Costs extra: 2,000 extra messages cost $25 a month. Removing the "Powered By Botsonic" label costs $49 a month. API access costs $49 a month below the Advanced plan. Ticket and live agent handoff to Zendesk costs $199 a month.
- Limits: the next plan with more than 3,000 messages is Advanced at $299 a month. Starter with branding removed costs $68 a month, or $816 a year on monthly billing.
Source: Botsonic pricing.
Best for: a small site that expects up to 1,000 messages a month and wants the lowest bill.
2. SiteGPT Starter: best for a customer service chatbot trained on your own content
SiteGPT is a no-code AI chatbot trained on your own website and files, and its Starter plan includes up to 4,000 GPT-4.1-mini messages a month against 1,000 messages on Botsonic Starter. It costs more in year one, so it sits second for the lowest-cost scenario.
- One-time cost: $0. The trial lasts 7 days and needs a credit card. There is no free plan.
- Recurring cost: $59 a month billed monthly, or $39 a month billed yearly.
- First-year total: $708 billed monthly, or $468 billed yearly. Yearly billing saves $240, or 34%.
- Included: 1 chatbot, up to 4,000 GPT-4.1-mini messages or 400 GPT-4.1 messages a month, 1,000 pages of training content, 1 member and basic analytics.
- Content sources: website URLs, sitemaps, files, raw text, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Box, Notion, GitHub and YouTube.
- Costs extra: a pack of 5,000 extra messages costs $59 a month, or $39 a month billed yearly. Branding removal and WhatsApp each cost $39 a month billed yearly.
- Limits: Starter refreshes content manually and has no chat integrations. Integrations, API access and monthly auto refresh start on Growth at $129 a month, or $79 a month billed yearly. The Zendesk integration starts on Scale. SiteGPT has no Intercom or HubSpot integration today and no visual flow builder.
Per 1,000 messages, SiteGPT Starter costs $14.75 on monthly billing and Botsonic Starter costs $19.00. Each vendor defines a message in its own way, so treat the two figures as a rough guide.
Source: SiteGPT pricing. The setup steps are in how to create an AI chatbot.
Best for: a business whose answers already exist on its website and in its documents, and that expects up to 4,000 messages a month.
3. Chatbase Hobby: best for a low-volume agent with a choice of AI models
Chatbase is a no-code AI agent builder priced in message credits, and its Hobby plan lists access to advanced models. The plans are covered in the Chatbase review.
- One-time cost: $0. The trial lasts 7 days.
- Recurring cost: $40 a month. Yearly plans are 20% off.
- First-year total: $480 billed monthly. At 20% off, a yearly plan comes to $384.
- Included: 1 agent, 700 message credits a month, 2 members, 10 MB of training content and basic analytics.
- Costs extra: auto-recharge credits cost $40 per 1,000. Removing the "Powered By Chatbase" label costs $99 a month. Extra agents cost $25 each a month.
- Limits: Helpdesk, API access and auto-resync start on Standard at $150 a month. Hobby with branding removed costs $139 a month, or $1,668 a year.
Source: Chatbase pricing. A feature comparison is in SiteGPT vs Chatbase.
Best for: a team that expects under 700 AI replies a month and wants to pick the model.
4. Botpress Plus: best for developers who want a platform under their own logic
Botpress is a platform for building custom AI agents, and it prices by conversation. It fits a team that has a developer and wants to write its own logic without hosting the stack. The platform is covered in the Botpress review.
- One-time cost: the time of the person who builds the agent. Botpress publishes no price for its managed build service.
- Recurring cost: $150 a month billed annually. The pricing page shows no monthly rate.
- First-year total: $1,800, before builder time.
- Included: 250 conversations a month, 3 seats, unlimited AI agents, $25 of AI usage a month and white-label webchat.
- Costs extra: packs of 100 conversations cost $65. Botpress adds a pack automatically at 95% of the quota, and auto-recharge cannot be turned off. A storage add-on costs $40 a month.
- Limits: the Free plan includes 100 conversations with no top-ups. Team costs $750 a month billed annually and includes 1,500 conversations.
Source: Botpress pricing.
Best for: a team with developer time that needs custom steps more than a low price per conversation.
5. Build on the OpenAI API with a freelance developer: best for a chatbot inside your own product
Building on the OpenAI API means a developer writes the chatbot and you pay OpenAI by usage. This route fits a team that wants answers inside its own app, with its own interface and data rules.
The developer builds five parts: content ingestion, a vector store for retrieval-augmented generation, the chat interface, a content refresh job and a handoff to a person. OpenAI hosts the vector store through its file search tool.
One-time cost. Chatbot developers on Upwork cost $30 to $61 an hour. An example budget of 80 hours costs 80 x $30 = $2,400 at the low rate and 80 x $61 = $4,880 at the high rate. The hour count is an example budget. Replace it with a quote from your developer.
Recurring cost. Usage and upkeep are both billed monthly.
Line | Rate | At 4,000 answers a month |
Model tokens on gpt-6-luna | $0.10 per 1M input tokens and $0.50 per 1M output tokens | $1.80 |
File search tool calls | $2.50 per 1,000 calls | $10.00 |
Usage subtotal | $2.95 per 1,000 answers | $11.80 a month, or $141.60 a year |
Upkeep at 5 hours a month | $30 to $61 an hour | $150 to $305 a month, or $1,800 to $3,660 a year |
The token math assumes 3,000 input tokens and 300 output tokens per answer, with one file search call. File storage costs $0.10 per GB per day after the first free GB. Hosting for the chat interface is billed by your cloud provider and is not included.
First-year total. The low case is $2,400 + $1,800 + $141.60 = $4,341.60. The high case is $4,880 + $3,660 + $141.60 = $8,681.60.
An in-house developer costs more per hour. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics lists median pay for software developers, quality assurance analysts and testers at $64.44 an hour in 2025. The same 140 hours cost $9,021.60 in wages, or $9,163.20 with usage.
Sources: OpenAI API pricing, Upwork chatbot developer rates and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The build steps are in the guide to training ChatGPT on your own data.
Best for: a product team with a developer on hand for the build and for every later change.
6. Custom build with integrations: best for workflows no platform covers
A custom build with integrations is an API build that also connects to your own systems, such as a CRM, an order database or a billing tool. Each integration adds design, code and testing hours.
- One-time cost: an example budget of 300 hours costs 300 x $30 = $9,000 at the low Upwork rate and 300 x $61 = $18,300 at the high rate. At the Bureau of Labor Statistics median of $64.44 an hour, 300 hours cost $19,332 in wages.
- Recurring cost: upkeep hours, hosting and model usage. Upkeep grows with each connected system, because a change in that system can break the chatbot.
- First-year total: above $9,000 at any rate in this guide.
- Limits: agencies quote these projects case by case, so no public price list exists. Ask for a fixed quote that names the hours.
Best for: a company with a workflow that no platform supports and a budget for ongoing development.
Hidden costs of building a chatbot
The hidden costs of building a chatbot are the lines below the plan price: extra usage, branding removal, seats, human handoff, API access and compliance. The table lists the published price of each.
Hidden cost | Botsonic | SiteGPT | Chatbase | Botpress |
Extra usage | $25 a month per 2,000 messages | $59 a month per 5,000 messages, or $39 a month billed yearly | $40 per 1,000 credits | $65 per 100 conversations on Plus |
Branding removal | $49 a month | $39 a month billed yearly | $99 a month | Included on Plus |
More team members | $25 per member a month | 4 members on Growth at $129 a month | 3 members on Standard at $150 a month | Unlimited seats on Team at $750 a month billed annually |
Human handoff to a helpdesk | Zendesk handoff add-on at $199 a month | Chat integrations from Growth. Zendesk from Scale at $429 a month | Helpdesk from Standard at $150 a month | Not listed as a paid add-on |
API access | $49 a month below Advanced | From Growth at $129 a month | From Standard at $150 a month | Not listed as a paid add-on |
Three more costs do not appear on any pricing page.
- Content upkeep. Someone has to fix the answers the chatbot gets wrong. Plans with a manual refresh need a person to resync the content after each change.
- Compliance. A signed HIPAA BAA or DPA sits on Enterprise plans with custom prices. SiteGPT signs both on Enterprise only. Chatbase lists HIPAA eligibility on Enterprise. Healthcare buyers can compare terms in the guide to HIPAA compliant AI chatbots.
- Switching. A custom build is yours to keep. A platform chatbot has to be set up again if you change vendors.
Branding removal changes the order of the entry plans. With branding removed for a year, Botsonic Starter costs $780 on annual billing, SiteGPT Starter costs $936 on yearly billing and Chatbase Hobby costs $1,668 on monthly billing.
Build or buy: when a custom chatbot build pays back
A custom chatbot build pays back only when its upkeep costs less than the subscription it replaces. In the examples in this guide, that does not happen.
Route | Year one | Year two | Three-year total |
Botsonic Starter, billed monthly | $228 | $228 | $684 |
Chatbase Hobby, billed monthly | $480 | $480 | $1,440 |
SiteGPT Starter, billed monthly | $708 | $708 | $2,124 |
SiteGPT Starter, billed yearly | $468 | $468 | $1,404 |
Botpress Plus, billed annually | $1,800 | $1,800 | $5,400 |
API build at $30 an hour | $4,341.60 | $1,941.60 | $8,224.80 |
API build at $61 an hour | $8,681.60 | $3,801.60 | $16,284.80 |
The table assumes prices and volumes stay flat for three years.
- The low API build costs $1,941.60 a year after launch. That is $1,233.60 more than SiteGPT Starter on monthly billing and $1,713.60 more than Botsonic Starter.
- The $2,400 build fee alone equals about 41 months of SiteGPT Starter at $59, or about 126 months of Botsonic Starter at $19.
- Over three years, the low API build costs $6,100.80 more than SiteGPT Starter on monthly billing.
The reasons to build are control and fit. Build when the chatbot must live inside your product, follow data rules no vendor meets, or run steps no platform offers. For a website chatbot that answers customer questions, a platform costs less in every year of this example.
How to choose a chatbot build route
Choose a chatbot build route by answering three questions: who will build and maintain it, how many messages you expect, and what the chatbot must do besides answer questions.
If you need | Pick | Why |
The lowest bill for up to 1,000 messages a month | Botsonic Starter | $19 a month, or $192 a year billed annually |
Answers from your website and files for up to 4,000 messages a month | SiteGPT Starter | $59 a month, or $468 a year billed yearly |
A choice of AI models at low volume | Chatbase Hobby | $40 a month with 700 message credits |
Your own logic without hosting the stack | Botpress Plus | $150 a month billed annually with unlimited AI agents |
A chatbot inside your own app | An OpenAI API build | About $2.95 per 1,000 answers, plus developer hours |
Connections to your CRM, orders or billing | A custom build with integrations | No platform limit on what the code can do |
A scripted flow with no AI | A flow builder | No-code chatbot builders with free plans cover this |
A signed BAA or DPA | An Enterprise plan | The price is a custom quote on every platform in this guide |
Teams that want to test before paying can start with the guide to free chatbots for websites.
Cost to build a chatbot FAQ
Build costs
How much does it cost to build a chatbot?
It costs $0 up front and $16 to $59 a month to build a chatbot on a no-code platform's entry plan. A build on the OpenAI API with a freelance developer costs about $4,342 to $8,682 in the first year at 140 hours.
How much does it cost to build an AI chatbot from scratch?
An AI chatbot built from scratch costs $2,400 to $4,880 for an 80-hour freelance build at $30 to $61 an hour. A build with integrations at 300 hours costs $9,000 to $18,300. Upkeep and usage are billed on top every month.
How much does custom AI chatbot development cost?
Custom AI chatbot development costs $30 to $61 an hour with a freelance chatbot developer on Upwork. The US median wage for software developers, quality assurance analysts and testers is $64.44 an hour. Multiply the rate by the hours in your developer's quote.
How long does it take to build a chatbot?
This guide budgets 80 hours for a basic API build and 300 hours for a build with integrations. Both figures are example budgets. A no-code platform skips the build, so setup is limited to adding your content and placing the widget on your site.
Running costs
How much does a chatbot cost per month?
A chatbot costs $19 a month on Botsonic Starter, $40 on Chatbase Hobby and $59 on SiteGPT Starter, all billed monthly. An API build costs $11.80 a month in usage at 4,000 answers, plus $150 to $305 for 5 hours of upkeep.
How much does the OpenAI API cost for a chatbot?
The OpenAI API costs about $2.95 per 1,000 chatbot answers on gpt-6-luna with file search. That figure assumes 3,000 input tokens and 300 output tokens per answer. At 10,000 answers a month the usage bill is $29.50.
What are the hidden costs of a chatbot?
The hidden costs of a chatbot are extra messages, branding removal, added team members, helpdesk handoff and API access. Branding removal alone costs $39 to $99 a month on the platforms in this guide.
Build or buy
Is it cheaper to build a chatbot or buy one?
It is cheaper to buy a chatbot for a website that answers customer questions. Three years of SiteGPT Starter cost $2,124 on monthly billing. Three years of the low API build cost $8,224.80.
When does a custom chatbot make sense?
A custom chatbot makes sense when it must run inside your own product, follow data rules no vendor meets, or connect to systems no platform supports. The extra cost buys control over the interface, the data and the logic.
What does a small business pay to set up a chatbot?
A small business pays $192 to $708 in the first year on an entry plan, with no setup fee listed on the Botsonic, Chatbase or SiteGPT plan cards. The main setup cost is the time to add content and test the answers.
Sources
All pages below were opened on 12 October 2026.
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