So you want to create a chatbot website, an AI bot, or social media bots and you’re wondering “How much does a chatbot cost?”
You’re not alone. Are you a small business or even a large business enterprise?
An increasing number of businesses, of all sizes, build a bot to:
✅ generate and qualify leads
✅ automate bookings and registrations
✅ drive sales
✅ provide customer support
✅ boost website conversions
✅ increase their ROI on remarketing
✅ collect feedback
It’s the holy grail of automation.
Some businesses use a chatbot website.
Others use social media bots on messaging platforms such as Facebook Messenger or Whatsapp.
The smarter businesses use both a chatbot website and social media bots (“multi-channel bots”).
Want to know the cost to build a chatbot? The first thing to consider is: what do you want to use a bot for?
Then you need to work out: which channels do you want your bots to operate on?
Do you need a chatbot website? Or do you need social media bots? Do you need an AI bot that uses natural language processing?
These questions will help you work out what’s the best chatbot for your business.
This is what we’ll cover in this article:
How Much A Chatbot Cost? (The Basic Answer)
The short answer is that costs vary from being free ($0) to $1,000/month or more.
It depends on what your goals are and which channels you want to operate on (chatbot website or social media bots or both).
We’ll explore this in more detail throughout this article so keep reading to the end.
Here are 3 simple ways to look at it:
- Free: build a bot (with basic functionality) in-house.
You can do this for your website or your social media channels or both. The only investment is your time.
Your bot software should be able to respond to questions from your customers or prospects.
- $20/month – $500/month (or more): use a bot platform to build a more powerful bot
There are a number of bot platforms that allow you to build bots without needing any special skills.
They typically provide bot templates or the best chatbot examples to get started.
Or you can build bots on their platform from scratch.
Using a robust platform, you can build a multi-functional bot from scratch in as little as 2 hours. For a small business this is often the best chatbot solution
Your bots can perform powerful functions such as:
✅ instant lead capture
✅ drive more sales
✅ reduce customer support
✅ automate bookings, registrations, and appointments
✅ reduce the cost of advertising on Facebook, Google or other channels
✅ increase ROI on remarketing
✅ collect feedback
The best bot platform is one that allows you to build website bots and social media bots.
ConvertoBot is both a chatbot website platform and a social media bot platform. 😊
- $500 – $4,000/month or more: hire a chatbot agency to manage the entire process.
A chatbot agency can create and maintain bots for you on both a website and social media. This option is more costly but reduces your time investment.
The cost will depend on which functions you want your bot to achieve and which channels you want to operate on (website, social media, or both). The best chatbot is one that operates on both channels.
It also depends on the expertise of the chatbot agency.
Why Bot Pricing Depends On Your Business Goals
When considering cost, you need to be clear about your goals. Which functions do you need your bot to perform?
Here are some of the best conversational bots examples:
- Lead Generation Bot
A Lead Generation bot converts visitors to your website or social media into qualified leads.
It’s commonly used as an alternative to web-forms, to increase lead conversion rates.
A bot is by nature, interactive, and has the potential to be far more engaging and entertaining than a web-form.
Think of it this way…
Does anyone enjoy actually enjoy filling out a form?
You can use a bot to ask for the same information that you would on a form, but through engaging conversation.
On social media you can use a Facebook Messenger chatbot, for example, to capture and nurture leads.
You can set up an automated drip campaign through Messenger for potentially much higher engagement rates, than through email.
You can also use bots to qualify your leads through conversation before handing them over to your sales team. Or you can even close sales through bot interaction.
If you’re using a lead generation bot, you may need to pass data captured by the bot to your other marketing apps.
Those apps may be your CRM, email autoresponder, or marketing automation app.
To connect your bot with your apps, you need to use a bot platform that offers a wide range of integrations.
At ConvertoBot we have a number of native integrations with popular marketing automation tools.
We also have a dedicated Zapier app. Through Zapier, you can integrate ConvertoBot with over 1,000 marketing tools.
- Sales Or Transactions Bots
Many beginners asking “how much a chatbot cost?” are in the e-commerce industry.
You can use bots to make product suggestions, promote discounts or special offers.
You can also use bots to automate your post-sale support such as providing receipts, tracking information, and shipping updates.
If you offer live chat support, you can use bots as an alternative.
A bot has the ability to respond instantly to multiple visitors.
Or you can use bots in conjunction with live chat.
For example, when your live chat is offline, you can activate your bot during those hours.
You can also use bots as the initial point of contact with your visitors, before handing them over to a human to close the sale.
- Customer Service Chatbot
According to estimates, around 85% of all customer interactions will be handled without a human agent in the near future. (Source)
There may be common questions from your customers you can automatically answer through a bot.
A bot gives them an instant response and can significantly reduce your support queries.
Maybe you have a list of FAQs or a knowledge base on your website?
An FAQ chatbot is an effective way to deliver the same information through conversation.
- Bookings, Registrations & Appointments Bots
A bot can be used to automate bookings, registrations, and appointments through your website or social media channels.
A robust bot platform should allow you to seamlessly automate the booking or registration through the chat.
You can integrate your bot with popular calendars such as Outlook, Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, Yahoo Calendar, and more.
That allows your end-user to easily add the appointment, event, or meeting they booked through the bot, to their calendar.
- Chatbot Website
A chatbot website can handle questions, drive sales, automate bookings, capture qualified leads and much more.
There are several ways in which to use a bot on your website.
Firstly it’s important that the chatbot app is compatible with your website, particularly if you’re using a website builder.
So, if you’re using a chatbot website platform, check that their bots can be installed on your website.
– Bot Widget
The widget is one of the best bot examples. It sits in the bottom corner of your website.
You can see more website chatbot examples here.
– Embedded Bot
An embedded bot sits within the content of your website.
For example, you may want to embed it within an article or an important page.
It has an element of surprise and can, therefore, have a high engagement rate.
It’s one of the best bot examples for websites.
– Bot Popup
A popover or popup bot can be a powerful alternative to traditional popups.
For example, you can use an exit-intent bot to capture leads, or promote special offers, before your visitors leave your website.
– Full Page Chatbot Website or Conversational Landing Page
A “full page” chatbot website or a conversational landing page is unusual. It can be a highly effective strategy for driving conversions.
It’s often used for marketing purposes to generate leads, sales, or bookings.
The entire page is a bot landing page.
Check out this full page chatbot website we use to sign up for a free account to ConvertoBot.
All of our website chatbot examples work as a full page bot website. You can easily get started using a chatbot landing page template.
Watch the video below to learn more about a full page bot.
- Bots To Work Alongside Live (Human) Chat
You may already be using live chat (real, actual humans!) on your website or social channels.
A bot’s an effective way to qualify leads or provide support before handing over to a human operator.
You can also use a bot when your live chat operators are offline.
- Bots To Reduce Cost Of Advertising
Social media bots are becoming increasingly popular tools to reduce advertising costs.
If you advertise on Facebook, linking your ads to a Facebook Messenger bot keeps your prospects within Facebook.
This helps to reduce your cost as Facebook rewards you for keeping your prospects within the platform.
Alternatively, a full page chatbot website can be a powerful landing page for ad campaigns. It’s becoming a popular alternative to traditional landing pages.
Traditional landing pages are often difficult to navigate, load slowly and aren’t optimized.
In comparison, a bot can load instantly, and it’s naturally intuitive to the vast majority of visitors who already use chat mobile apps. WhatsApp, for example, has 1.5 billion users in 180 countries. (Source)
So if you direct your ads to a bot landing page, it can be a more natural and intuitive experience for your visitors, therefore leading to more conversions.
- Bots To Increase ROI Of Remarketing
Remarketing or retargeting is a popular marketing strategy to generate conversions, leads, or sales from visitors who’ve already visited your website or your social media channels.
For example, you can use a remarketing campaign on Facebook Ads linking directly to a Messenger bot.
Or you can set up a remarketing campaign on Google Ads which links to a full page chatbot website.
Read this article for more insight into the question: what’s the best chatbot for your business?
Chatbot Website Or Social Media Bots Or Both?
So if you’re thinking “how much a chatbot cost?” you need to work out the goals you want your bot to achieve. Can you achieve these goals through bots on your website or do you also need social media bots?
Let’s briefly examine the pros and cons of a chatbot website vs. social media bots.
|
| Chatbot On Website | Social Media Bots |
| PROS | ✅ Keeps your visitors on your website | ✅ Acquire leads through basic engagement with your bot |
|
| ✅ Not subject to the rules of third parties such as Facebook or Whatsapp | ✅ Potential to get higher engagement through social messaging (when compared to email) |
|
| ✅ Easy to use different types of bots: widget, embedded, full page, popover etc | ✅ Follow-up with your leads or customers once they’ve engaged with your bot (without needing their email) |
|
| ✅ Use multiple bots on a single page or on different pages | ✅ Reduce your Facebook advertising costs |
|
|
|
|
| CONS | ❌ Need to capture contact information to directly follow-up with visitors who engaged with your bot | ❌ Limited by the rules of the social media platform |
|
| ❌ Need a website and hosting to operate | ❌ If hosted on a website, they take your visitors away from your site |
It’s common for businesses to use both a chatbot website and social media bots (“multi-channel” bots) to fully explore the advantages they both offer. The best bot platforms allow you to build both types of bots.
They also provide you with chatbot templates or the chatbot examples which work on both websites and social media. A bot example is a pre-built conversation flow that you can easily edit to suit your needs.
Chatbot Pricing Options: In-House (Using Bot Platform) vs Chatbot Agency
Once you’ve worked out what you’re using bots for, the next question is how do you build them?
So do you do it in-house? Or do you hire a chatbot agency? In other words, hire an outside party that specializes in bots and marketing.
Let’s do a quick comparison of the costs involved with setup, support and maintenance when comparing in-house vs. agency.
| Requirement | In-House Cost (using bot platform) | Agency Cost (outsourcing to specialist) |
| Build A Bot | Salary (typically 2-50 hours depending on the bot) | $500 – $5,000 depending on the bot |
| Support & Maintain Bot | Salary (typically 0-5 hours a week, depending on the business needs) $20 – $500 a month (bot platform cost) | $50 – $4,000 a month |
Explaining The Costs:
- Build Bot
A beginner may think that building a chatbot is complicated, technical, and requires specialist knowledge.
But that couldn’t be further from the truth, particularly if you’re using a good platform. It will help to significantly reduce your chatbot development cost.
The best chatbot platform is one that allows you to build a bot without any technical or special skills.
It’s a quick and easy process of dragging & dropping blocks.
In fact, with the best chatbot examples or free chatbot templates to work with, it’s even easier.
A beginner can build a chatbot in under 2 hours.
That could be:
- a lead generation chatbot which enters your prospects into a marketing campaign
- a customer service chatbot which answers FAQs
- an e-commerce bot which drives sales
- a chatbot for appointment booking
- and much more.
Naturally, the more complex you want your bot to be, the more time you need to invest.
Alternatively, you can completely outsource the task of building a bot to a chatbot agency.
The estimated cost will vary from $500 to $5,000 depending on your goals and how simple or complex your bot needs to be.
- Support & Maintain Bot
After your bot is live, you may need to tweak or update it.
For example, a customer service chatbot may need updating with new questions and answers.
Or you may want to run split-testing on a marketing bot to optimize your chatbot funnel and conversion rate.
The time involved depends on the number of bots you’re using and the different roles they’re performing.
A chatbot platform should offer a chatbot analytics dashboard to help you understand how your bot is performing.
It should also allow you to add goals to your bots.
For example, you may want to add a goal to calculate the number of people who complete a chat with your bot.
Monitoring the performance of these goals and carrying out tweaks requires an ongoing time investment.
Alternatively, you can completely outsource this task to a chatbot agency. Those costs are estimated to vary from $50/month to $4,000/month and possibly higher.
So going back to the issue at hand: “how much a chatbot cost?” It depends on how many bots your agency is managing and how complex they are.
In-House: Cost Of Website Chatbot Platforms, Social Media Chatbot Platforms Or Multi-Channel Chatbot Platforms
If you build bots in-house, it’s important you choose the right chatbot platform.
Some chatbot platforms only support a chatbot website. Others only support social media bots.
The more flexible option is to pick a platform that supports “multi-channel” bots.
In other words, bots that work on both websites and social media.
Our own platform, ConvertoBot is a multi-channel chatbot platform with a range of powerful features for both a chatbot website and social media bots.
The pricing is highly competitive and starts from as little as $27/month. Find out more about the different ConvertoBot chatbot pricing plans (Starter vs Professional vs Agency) here.
See the full list of features you get with the 3 different bot service pricing options here.
You can also learn more about the pros and cons of our platform in this comprehensive ConvertoBot review.
In-House: Using The Best Chatbot Examples (Or Chatbot Templates) To Save Time & Cost
One way to save a lot of time and cost is to use the best chatbot examples to get started. You can then customize them according to your business needs.
Chatbot platforms often provide their own chatbot template as part of their service.
An important consideration, if you want to use both a chatbot website and social media bots, is to find templates that work on both.
For example, Facebook has its own rules you need to abide by when building a bot on their messaging platform. Therefore a chatbot template that works on a website may not work on Facebook.
ConvertoBot has a wide range of website and Facebook chatbot examples. They cover a wide range of industries and are growing in number, on a weekly basis.
So…In-House or Agency?
The answer depends on your business model, the number of employees in your organization, and your views on cost or time investment.
If you hire a chatbot agency, you’re making a significant financial investment, but you’re freeing up time to focus on what you do best.
On the other hand, if you do it in-house, you’re making a substantial cost saving but you’re investing your own time.
If you proceed in-house, it’s worth noting, that you don’t need any special tech skills to get started with a bot platform.
If your bot strategy is relatively simple (at least to start with), it might be sensible to go in-house. Be aware of these common chatbot problems is you’re using an inhouse development team.
A Third Option: Hire A Contractor ($500+ Setup & Monthly Chatbot Platform Fees)
Another option is to hire a contractor to perform certain tasks and work alongside your own internal team.
This can help to save both cost and time.
For example, here at ConvertoBot, we offer a custom bot service.
We’ve built hundreds of bots for clients from scratch and customized them according to the business needs.
This service starts from $297 and increases depending on the complexity of the bot.
You can contact us here to find out more about this service.
FAQ
Here are the most common FAQ relating to “how much a chatbot cost?”.
- Will I be charged based on the number of bots I use?
Some agencies may charge for each bot they build for you.
Similarly, some bot platforms offer bot service pricing plans that are based on the number of chatbots you build.
However, there are also platforms that don’t charge based on bots built.
At ConvertoBot, we allow our users to build unlimited website chatbots and social media bots.
Take a look at our competitive ConvertoBot chatbot pricing (Starter vs Professional vs Agency) plans here.
See the full list of features you get with the 3 different bot service pricing options here.
You can also learn more about the pros and cons of our platform in this comprehensive ConvertoBot review.
ROI is crucial to any business. Read our ultimate “how to” guide: How To Make A Chatbot With A High ROI.
- Will I be charged based on the number of conversations my bots generate?
Chatbot platforms may charge you according to the number of conversations you use each month.
If you outsource to a chatbot agency, they may also charge you per conversation.
They’re likely to be using bot platforms to build your bots and are passing on the cost per conversation to you.
- Will I be charged based on the number of websites I use my chatbots on?
It’s not common to be charged based on number of websites if you’re using a chatbot website platform.
At ConvertoBot, we offer an unlimited website license, no matter what your plan.
You can learn more about the different plans we offer in this ConvertoBot review.
It will help you answer the question “how much a chatbot cost?”
- Will I be charged based on the number of subscribers generated by my bots?
Some bot platforms do charge based on the number of subscribers. It’s particularly common with social media bots.
For example, your Facebook bot should be generating subscribers to your Facebook business page.
It’s common to be limited to a certain number of subscribers according to your monthly plan.
At ConvertoBot, we allow unlimited subscribers and unlimited bots.
- Will I be charged based on the number of Facebook Business Pages I connect my bots to?
Many chatbot platforms, and agencies, do charge based on the number of Facebook Business Pages you need bots for.
At ConvertoBot, we allow our users to connect their bot to as many Pages as they need to.
- Will I be charged more if I use both social media bots and chatbots for websites?
There aren’t many bot platforms which allow you to build both social media bots and a chatbot website, and provide enough features to support both.
Therefore you are typically charged more if you use both social media bots and a chatbot website platform.
At ConvertoBot, we initially started out as a chatbot website platform.
However after we developed our social media version, we decided not to increase our charges.
Learn more about the differences between the competitive ConvertoBot chatbot pricing (Starter vs Professional vs Agency) plans.
See the full list of features you get with the 3 different bot service pricing options here.
You can also learn more about the pros and cons of our platform in this comprehensive ConvertoBot review.
- What’s the upfront chatbot cost if I build bots in-house?
There is no upfront cost of building a basic bot with most bot platforms. It’s usually free. The cost to you may be employee salary.
To build a basic customer service chatbot or a marketing bot may take as little as 2 hours.
If you need a more complex bot then you may need to upgrade to a paid plan from the outset.
At ConvertoBot, we provide all of our features in our free trial.
- What’s the ongoing monthly cost if I build bots in-house?
Firstly, there’s the cost of the bot platform. This may be as little as $20/month and may go up to $500/month or more.
It depends on the number of bots you build and the number of conversations they generate.
At ConvertoBot we offer unlimited bots on unlimited websites. We also offer unlimited social media bots on unlimited Facebook Pages.
The only monthly cost relates to how many conversations your bots generate.
Find out more about the different ConvertoBot chatbot pricing (Starter vs Professional vs Agency) plans.
See the full list of features you get with the 3 different bot service pricing options here.
ROI is crucial to any business. Read our ultimate “how to” guide: How To Make A Chatbot With A High ROI.
- What’s the upfront chatbot cost if I outsource to an agency?
The upfront cost to develop a chatbot typically starts from $500 and can be as high as $5,000 or more.
It depends on the number of bots you need and the complexity of your bots.
- What’s the ongoing monthly chatbot cost if I outsource to an agency?
This can range significantly. At the lower end, it may be as little as $50/month.
However depending on the number of bots, the number of conversations they generate, and the complexity of the bots it can be as high as $4,000/month or more.
- What’s the upfront cost if I use a contractor to work with me or my team?
For a basic bot, it’s typically $500.
As your needs become more complex, for example, you need more bots or you need them to perform more complex functions, that price increases.
ConvertoBot offers a custom bot service that starts at $500. To find out more about that contact us here.
- Are there any chatbot problems that I should be aware of?
As with any new technology which is rapidly evolving, there are flaws. We discuss the most common chatbot problems in this article.
- What’s the ongoing monthly cost if I use a contractor to work with me or my team?
This would typically be the cost of a bot platform. It can range from $20 to $500 a month.
It can depend on how many bots you’re using, whether you’re using both social media bots and a chatbot website, and how many conversations your bots are generating.
ConvertoBot offers highly competitive bot service pricing which includes unlimited website chatbots and social media bots.
Check out this article to learn more about our plans: ConvertoBot chatbot pricing (Starter vs Professional vs Agency).
ROI is crucial to any business. Read our ultimate “how to” guide: How To Make A Chatbot With A High ROI.
- What’s the cost of using the best chatbot examples (or chatbot templates)?
A robust bot platform should include a wide range of chatbot template to help you get started.
They should be available within the monthly cost of using the platform.
There are over 100 of the best chatbot examples available at ConvertoBot and that number is rising each week, as new templates are added.
- I’ve got a limited budget. How do I keep my chatbot cost down?
Here are four suggestions:
#1 The cheapest way to get started with bots is to use a chatbot website platform and build bots yourself. You don’t need any coding skills.
#2 Use chatbot examples which you can easily edit, to save both time and money.
#3 Use a service that supports both a chatbot website and social media bots. That way, you don’t need to pay for two separate subscriptions.
#4 There are many services out there that limit the number of bots you can use on websites. Find a service that offers unlimited bots on unlimited websites.
For social media bots, find a competitive deal on the number of contacts you can store. Or find a good deal for bot service pricing in respect of the number of monthly conversations.
ROI is crucial to any business. Read our ultimate “how to” guide: How To Make A Chatbot With A High ROI.
- I want to use a bot platform. How can I keep my chatbot cost down?
Usually, a bot platform will offer a cheaper deal on an annual license. You could try the monthly service first and see if it’s a good fit for your business.
Once you feel more comfortable with the service, switch to an agency license. You can typically save up to 30%.
If you don’t want to commit to a lump sum annual payment, find a service that offers an annual deal, paid-monthly. You get the benefit of a cheaper deal that you can pay for in installments.
We offer both annual pre-paid and annual paid-monthly to make substantial savings. See our bot service pricing to learn more.
You can also learn more about the pros and cons of our platform in this comprehensive ConvertoBot review.
ROI is crucial to any business. Read our ultimate “how to” guide: How To Make A Chatbot With A High ROI.
- Cost isn’t an issue – will I get a good ROI from chatbots?
OK, so you’re not too concerned about the question “how much a chatbot cost” and you just want to know about ROI.
Well, it’s estimated that the ROI of bots can range from 200% to as high as 20,000% depending on their role. (Source)
If you’re using bots for marketing purposes, your goal may be to achieve a 200% ROI or more.
If you’re using a customer service chatbot then your ROI may be in the thousands.
For example, let’s assume your bot reduces your customer service hours by an average of 15 hours a week at the rate of $12/hour.
Over the course of a year, that’s a saving of $9,180. If that bot costs you $500, that’s an ROI of 1,836%.
Learn more about this in our ultimate “how to” guide: How To Make A Chatbot With A High ROI.
- Can I get started for free?
If you’re using a chatbot website platform, you usually can get started for free.
You can get started with your first free chatbot on ConvertoBot by opening a free account.
You’ll have access to the bot platform, the best chatbot examples, and a wide range of features.
I’m Short On Time. What’s The Best & Cheapest Way To Proceed?
Start with your first free chatbot on ConvertoBot by opening a free account with our chatbot website and social media bots platform.
It’s quick. It’s easy. And you can be up and running in minutes.
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