Best AI Chatbot for Small Business

Tidio: for website chat with an AI support agent

A fit for small businesses that want website chat and an AI support agent in one setup. For free-plan details, see the FAQ below. Tidio combines its help desk with Lyro AI Agent, and it also offers Lyro as an add-on for another help desk. That makes the platform worth considering if you want customer conversations and an AI agent in one support setup, or want to add an agent to an existing system. Tidio says Lyro draws answers from support content. Its live chat can transfer a question it cannot resolve to a human while keeping conversation context. The trade-off to plan around is the separate usage meter: the first 50 conversations are free for a lifetime, while full Lyro access requires a paid quota. Paid quota sizes run from 50 to 1,000 conversations, so compare the available allowance with the volume your team expects.

Gorgias: for ecommerce teams that need order actions

A fit for ecommerce teams that need order information and actions such as refunds or cancellations in support tickets. Gorgias is built around ecommerce support, with order information and actions such as refunds, cancellations, order edits, and shipping-address updates available in tickets. Its AI Agent can handle ecommerce requests such as tracking and returns. The billing requires attention: plans include monthly ticket buckets, tickets over quota can cost extra, and AI automation has its own charge when it resolves a conversation. A handoff to a human is billed differently from an automated resolution. This can suit a team that values ecommerce workflows and can forecast its ticket and automation volume; it is less straightforward to budget from a single flat fee.

Help Scout: for teams comparing a familiar support inbox

A fit for teams comparing an established support workflow with AI tools that assist agents. Help Scout’s listed plans include channels such as email and live chat, and its paid plans bundle agent-assist tools: AI Assist and AI Summarize, with AI Drafts available on specified paid tiers. That makes it a candidate when the team is comparing an existing support workflow and AI that assists agents. The trade-off is that the evidence establishes agent-assist features, not a customer-facing AI agent answering website questions from uploaded documents. Check that distinction against your workflow before treating it as a chatbot replacement. No Help Scout price is included here because a verified price is not established by the supplied product details.

Chatbase: for a chatbot trained on business material

A fit for teams that want a chatbot trained on business material. Chatbase supports training an agent on PDF files, website pages, and Notion documents. That makes it a practical candidate when the main job is to build a customer-facing chatbot from existing help material rather than select a full support inbox. The free-plan caveat matters: free agents are deleted after 14 days of inactivity, and the evidence does not establish a free trial for paid plans. Before using it as the team’s whole support operation, check whether its customer-facing answers, escalation, and inbox fit your workflow.

Botpress: for teams building a custom bot

A fit for teams willing to configure a bot using a visual studio, knowledge base, and API connections. Botpress offers a visual building studio, a built-in knowledge base for documents and URLs, and API connections. Its free plan includes up to 1,000 messages per month and a monthly credit for AI usage. Live chat tools are listed from its Plus plan, with human handoffs described for WhatsApp chatbots. That makes it more relevant to a team willing to configure a bot than to someone simply adding an answer widget to a support inbox. The free message allowance and AI credit are separate considerations, and the evidence does not establish the current total cost of a production setup.

HubSpot: for teams already working in its CRM

A fit for businesses already using HubSpot to qualify leads, schedule meetings, or support customers. HubSpot’s chatbot builder connects conversation flows with CRM workflows and is suited to lead qualification, meeting scheduling, and basic support for businesses already using HubSpot. Its free builder is described as allowing unlimited chatbot conversations, while customer-agent functionality is a different, higher-tier product. The reported Customer Agent requirement is a Professional or Enterprise Customer Platform, with credit-based usage. This is a substantial platform commitment compared with choosing a standalone website-answer bot, so consider the whole CRM workflow and credit use rather than the chatbot in isolation.

momo: for answers grounded in company knowledge with an inbox fallback

A fit for small teams that want answers grounded in company knowledge and a human route for unanswered questions. For more on support handoffs, see the practical guide. The product retrieves passages from a business’s knowledge, drafts an answer, and checks it against those sources. Confident answers go to the visitor with citations; below its confidence line, it says it is not sure and opens a ticket for the team. The included helpdesk inbox means a person can take over the conversation. Knowledge can come from a website crawl, PDFs, Word files, plain text, and Q&A pairs. The free plan is a way to try this workflow, while paid plans use a flat monthly or yearly fee with included AI conversations rather than a per-resolution charge. Shopify is in preview, and the product does not provide Shopify order lookups or actions. Shopify is in preview, and the product does not provide Shopify order lookups or actions.

How to choose by team size, channels, and budget

Start by listing the questions that fill your inbox, then decide whether the bot needs to answer those questions or take actions in another system. Product FAQs, shipping policies, and return instructions are different work from looking up an individual order, issuing a refund, or changing an address. Gorgias describes ecommerce ticket and order-action workflows. The knowledge-answer option uses company content; it does not provide Shopify order lookups or actions, and Shopify is in preview.

For a solo operator or a very small team, test the free allowance against the volume and type of conversations you actually expect. Do not treat all free offers as the same: Tidio’s first 50 conversations are a lifetime allowance, while the Free plan for the knowledge-answer option includes 30 one-time AI conversations. Botpress lists a monthly message allowance and an AI credit, which are separate measures. Check whether the free option includes the support channel and human route you need, not just a bot builder.

For a growing support team, account for the whole bill. Tidio separates Lyro quota from its other options. Gorgias uses ticket buckets and an AI automation charge, with possible ticket overages. HubSpot Customer Agent uses credits and is associated with Professional or Enterprise Customer Platform plans. Those meters can make sense for teams that value the associated workflow, but forecast them using your own conversation patterns. The knowledge-answer option instead charges a flat plan fee with a stated included number of AI conversations; its paid plans do not charge per resolution.

Finally, decide where humans will work. If you already have a helpdesk, consider whether you want a chatbot that connects to that workflow or are willing to use a separate inbox. If you want one support queue included with the bot, check that the shared inbox is part of the plan and inspect what information a handoff collects. For the knowledge-answer option, the inbox is included on every plan, and the business chooses the handoff details. Compare those operational details with the channel list: website widget, email, and Slack are available today in the knowledge-answer option, while Shopify is in preview and WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger are coming soon.