Comparison · Prices checked October 22, 2026

Chatbase alternative for small business websites

Chatbase is an AI agent platform priced in message credits. FlatRateChat is a website chatbot priced per month. This page puts the two next to each other using Chatbase’s own pricing page and documentation, so you can see which one fits a small business site. Nothing here judges Chatbase; the figures are theirs, dated, and linked.

Who each one is built for

Chatbase’s pricing page (checked October 22, 2026) describes its plans as “the ideal entry point”, “for small teams launching their first agent”, “for teams with a growing customer base” and “for companies deploying AI agents at scale”. The plans list workspace seats (2, 3 or 5 members), AI Actions and Procedures per agent, a helpdesk inbox, voice, API access and “access to advanced models”. It is a platform for building an agent, with the agent’s usage metered in credits.

FlatRateChat does one job: it reads the public pages of a website and answers visitor questions from them, linking the page each answer came from. When the answer is not on the site, it says so and shows the owner’s contact details. It can be wrong sometimes, like any AI. There is no inbox, no live human chat, no file or PDF uploads and no choice of model. The price is a monthly amount, and the plan price is the most you pay.

Side by side

On a phone, swipe the table sideways to see every column. Every Chatbase cell is from chatbase.co/pricing, its FAQ and its usage guide, checked October 22, 2026. Chatbase has since renamed its Standard and Pro plans Basic and Business; prices and listed features unchanged (re-checked October 28, 2026). Vendors change prices; read the live page before you decide.

How the two pricing models differ in practice

A Chatbase plan gives you a monthly pool of message credits, and the Chatbase FAQ (checked October 22, 2026) says each response “consumes credits based on the AI model used”: 1 credit for most models, 2 for a group that includes GPT-6.1 Sol and Claude 5.5 Sonnet, 4 for GPT-5.5 and 5 for Claude 5.5 Opus. Credits renew on the 1st of each month regardless of when you subscribed. So the number of visitor questions a plan covers depends on the model you pick: 700 credits is 700 responses at 1 credit each, or 350 at 2 credits each.

FlatRateChat counts answers. One visitor question is one answer, whatever it takes to produce it. Paid plans include 1,000 answers a month on Starter and 5,000 on Full; above that the chatbot keeps answering at up to 10 answers an hour, and there is nothing extra to pay. The Wix chatbot pricing page walks through the plans, and what happens when your chatbot runs out of credits compares the limit behaviour of several vendors from their own help pages.

When Chatbase is the better choice

Only Chatbase’s own pages are used for this list, and it is about fit, not quality.

1. Many data sources and files. The pricing page lists training content up to 40 MB per plan, “tickets as a source” and “sources suggestions” on Business, and the FAQ describes importing closed tickets from Zendesk or Salesforce. FlatRateChat reads your website’s pages and nothing else.
2. Actions and integrations. The plans list 5, 8 or 12 AI Actions per agent, Procedures, “advanced integrations”, voice and API access; the FAQ lists help-desk escalation to Zendesk, Salesforce, Freshdesk, Gorgias, Zoho Desk, Intercom, HubSpot, Help Scout and Odoo. FlatRateChat has none of these.
3. Model choice. Chatbase lets you pick the model and shows the credit cost of each. FlatRateChat does not offer a choice of model.
4. Team features. Workspace seats of 2, 3 or 5 members, a helpdesk inbox on Basic and Business, and Enterprise options such as SSO, audit logs and custom roles. FlatRateChat is one dashboard for one website.
5. Attachments and voice. “Allow file attachments in chat” is listed on every Chatbase plan and voice on Basic and Business. FlatRateChat is text only and visitors cannot upload files.

When FlatRateChat fits

A small business site, a shop, a salon, a restaurant, a contractor, a clinic, that wants a chatbot answering from its own pages at one flat price, with no credits to watch. The answers come only from the site’s published pages and each one links the page it came from. When the answer is not there, the bot says so and shows your contact details, so the visitor still has a way to reach you. On any website it is Starter at $19 a month or Full at $59 a month. It starts with a 14-day free trial (a card is needed to start it, but nothing is charged until day 15). On Wix there is a Free plan with 50 pages and 100 answers a month, then Starter at $19 a month and Full at $59 a month (yearly $15 / $49). Your content isn’t used to train AI models.

Try it on your website, free

On Wix? Free plan in the Wix App Market

Three questions to ask before you choose

1. How many visitor questions a month do you expect? With Chatbase, divide the plan’s credits by the credit cost of the model you intend to use. With FlatRateChat, compare the number with the included answers and remember the bot keeps answering above them on paid plans.
2. Where should the answers come from? If everything a visitor needs is already on your website, a bot that reads only the website is simpler to keep accurate. If the answers live in files, tickets or other systems, you need a tool that can take those sources.
3. What should a visitor see at the limit, or when there is no answer? Chatbase shows an “unavailable” message when credits run out; FlatRateChat shows your contact details when it cannot answer. Decide which you prefer your customers to meet.

Questions