Chatbot cost calculator
See how many hours an AI chatbot would give back to your business, and what the popular tools would charge for your volume.
How the calculator works
Time & money saved multiplies the questions the chatbot could handle by the minutes each one takes you today, then values those hours at the rate you enter. It then picks the cheapest Naruva plan that covers the volume, assuming about three AI replies per question, and shows what's left over.
Price across tools takes the same workload and prices it on each tool's published plans. Naruva and Chatbase are sized by replies — for Chatbase we assume one credit per reply, which only holds on its standard AI models. Tidio and Intercom are sized by conversations. Where a vendor doesn't publish a price for your volume, we say so rather than guess.
A chatbot won't answer everything. It handles the repetitive questions your documents already answer — hours, shipping, pricing, policies, how-tos — and the rest still come to you. That's why the savings tab asks what share it could handle instead of assuming all of them.
Common questions
- How much does an AI chatbot cost for a small business?
- Most small-business AI chatbots cost between $0 and $150 a month at typical volumes. Naruva is $19/month for 1,000 AI replies, Chatbase is $40/month for 700 message credits, Tidio's Lyro AI starts at $39/month for 50 conversations on top of a Tidio plan, and Intercom charges $0.99 per resolved conversation plus seats. The calculator above shows what each would cost at your volume.
- How much time can a chatbot save?
- It depends on how many repetitive questions you get. A business answering 300 questions a month at 5 minutes each spends 25 hours on them; if a chatbot handles 60% of those, that's 15 hours back every month. Enter your own numbers in the Time & money saved tab.
- Why do chatbot tools price so differently?
- They bill different units. Naruva counts AI replies, Chatbase counts message credits (more per reply on premium AI models), and Tidio and Intercom bill per conversation. A conversation usually contains 2–4 replies, so compare on the same workload rather than on the headline number.
- Are these prices up to date?
- They're the published list prices on each vendor's pricing page as of September 2026. Vendors change pricing, so each row links to the source — check it before you buy.
Ready to try it? Start free — 50 AI replies a month, no credit card.