Comparison · vendor pages checked October 21, 2026

What happens when your chatbot runs out of credits

Most AI chatbot plans are metered: credits, conversations or messages. The price is on every pricing page; what happens on the day the meter hits zero usually is not. This page collects it, vendor by vendor, from each vendor’s own help pages, then explains what FlatRateChat does at its limits. Prices are deliberately left out here; Wix chatbot pricing: credits vs flat rate has those.

Wix Smart Chat

Smart Chat’s AI answers use the AI credits that come with your Wix plan. Wix says the same credits are shared across other Wix AI tools in your account, such as the AI Custom Agent and the AI Marketing Agent, and that “When you use up your AI credits, the Smart Chat switches to offline mode.” You can customise the offline settings, or change the availability mode to “Manual Chat 24/7” and answer incoming messages yourself (Wix Help Center: Smart Chat and AI credits, checked October 21, 2026).

On the credits themselves, Wix’s About AI Credits article (checked October 21, 2026) says: credits apply to your entire Wix account, not just one site; unused credits do not roll over; on a free plan you can use up to 30 credits a day, to a maximum of 120 a month; on Premium plans credits renew monthly on the date you purchased the plan. The number of actions you get and the credits each action uses are not guaranteed and depend on the length and complexity of the request. On buying extra credits, the article is inconsistent on the day we checked: one section says you can upgrade for more monthly credits “or add credits directly to your account”, while the FAQ says it is “not currently possible to buy top-up credits for Wix Premium plans”. We leave that one to Wix.

Chatbase

Chatbase meters “message credits”, and a response does not always cost one credit. Its FAQ lists the current cost per response by model: 1 credit for most models, 2 credits for a named group of models, 4 credits for one, and 5 for another (Chatbase FAQ, checked October 21, 2026; the model list changes, so read the current table). When the credits run out, Chatbase’s usage guide says “your AI agents stop responding until the credits reset” (Chatbase docs: Usage, checked October 21, 2026), and the FAQ says visitors see “This AI Agent is currently unavailable. If you are the owner, please check your account.”

Subscription credits are renewed at the start of every calendar month regardless of when you subscribed, and unused credits do not carry over. There is an optional auto-recharge that adds non-expiring credits when your balance falls below a threshold you set, priced at $40 per 1,000 message credits on the pricing page (Chatbase pricing, checked October 21, 2026). The plan allowances on that date were 700, 4,000 and 15,000 credits a month on the Hobby, Standard and Pro plans.

Tidio (Lyro AI agent)

Tidio meters its Lyro AI agent in conversations. Its help article explains the counting: a conversation is counted the first time Lyro replies in a new thread, Lyro can reply many times within that thread without using more quota, and a thread closes after 15 minutes of inactivity, after which a new message starts a new thread and a new count (Tidio Help: The Lyro AI agent limit, checked October 21, 2026).

On the free plan the same article describes “a non-renewable quota of 50 Lyro conversations”: when you reach it, Lyro stops working and the quota does not reset. Paid Lyro packages range from 50 up to 1,000 conversations a month, with the quota resetting monthly on the day you purchased the upgrade. Tidio’s AI agent page prices Lyro at $0.5 per conversation (Tidio: Lyro AI agent, checked October 21, 2026). What happens when a paid package reaches its monthly cap is not stated on either page; ask Tidio before you rely on it.

FlatRateChat

FlatRateChat counts answers: one per visitor question. There are no credits to buy and the price of a plan is the most you pay.

1. Basic (free): 50 pages, 100 answers a month. When the month’s answers are used up, the bubble stays on your site and shows your contact details until the 1st. Nothing is charged, nothing changes on your site, and your settings are kept.
2. Starter and Full (paid): 1,000 or 5,000 answers a month. Above the included answers the chatbot keeps answering at up to 10 answers an hour for the rest of the month. There are no overage charges and no top-ups to buy.

Before the limit, the FlatRateChat page in your Wix dashboard shows how many answers have been used this month and, on the free plan, the date they are likely to run out at the current pace, so the day itself is never a surprise. Plans and prices are on the FlatRateChat for Wix page. If you are weighing this against Wix Smart Chat because of its AI credits, Wix Chat is being retired: what to switch to covers the whole switch.

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Side by side

On a phone, swipe the table sideways to see every column. Every vendor row is from the vendor’s own page linked above, checked October 21, 2026; vendors change their terms, so read the current page before you decide.

Three questions to ask before you choose

1. What does a visitor see at the limit? An offline message, an “unavailable” notice, nothing, or your contact details. Ask for a screenshot.
2. Can the bill be higher than the plan price? Auto-recharge and top-ups are useful, but only if you decided to turn them on.
3. Does one visitor question cost one unit? Per-model credit costs and per-thread conversation counts make the allowance harder to predict than it looks.

Questions