Free Chatbot Pricing: What's Actually Included at $0 in 2026

Free chatbot pricing usually means a capped plan, not unlimited use. WaSMS's Connect plan is free forever with up to 500 contacts, 2 team members, 1 SMS device, AI and API enabled, and 10 quick replies. AiSensy offers a free-forever plan without broadcasting. WATI and respond.io offer 7-day trials.

Key facts

| Plan | Cost and limits | Source (date) | |---|---|---| | WaSMS Connect | $0. Up to 500 contacts, 2 team members, 1 SMS device, AI and API enabled, 10 quick replies. No credit card to start. | wasms.net/pricing, 2026-09-23 | | WaSMS Reach | $10/month or $84/year. 1,000 contacts, 20 team members, 10,000 SMS sends/month. | wasms.net/pricing, 2026-09-23 | | WaSMS Grow | $40/month or $336/year. 5,000 contacts, 100 team members, 50,000 SMS sends/month. | wasms.net/pricing, 2026-09-23 | | AiSensy Free Forever | $0. Unlimited contacts, up to 10 tags, 5 custom attributes. No broadcasting. | aisensy.com/pricing/usd, 2026-09-23 | | WATI | 7-day free trial. “Additional charges apply for template messages.” | wati.io/pricing, 2026-11-12 | | respond.io | 7-day free trial, no credit card needed. | respond.io/pricing, 2026-09-23 | | Meta WhatsApp billing | Per-message billing since July 1, 2025 for marketing, utility and authentication templates. | developers.facebook.com/docs/whatsapp/pricing, 2026-09-23 |

What Counts as 'Free' in Chatbot Pricing

A chatbot plan is free only if you can keep using it at $0 within limits you can read before you sign up.

Free trial vs. free forever

Three models exist:

• Time-limited trial. Access for a fixed window, then you pay to continue. WATI lists a “7 days free trial, zero setup fees” (wati.io/pricing, 2026-11-12). respond.io lists a “7-day free trial” (respond.io/pricing, 2026-09-23).
• Freemium with hard caps. The plan stays free, but contacts, seats or devices are capped. WaSMS Connect stops at 500 contacts, 2 team members and 1 SMS device.
• Free forever. The plan has no end date. AiSensy's Free Forever plan has unlimited contacts but no broadcasting (aisensy.com/pricing/usd, 2026-09-23).

Why the cap, not the price tag, decides if a plan is really free

A $0 plan with a cap you hit in week one is a trial in disguise. Check four numbers before you commit: contacts allowed, team members allowed, features locked (such as broadcasting on AiSensy's Free Forever), and messages billed separately. For more tools, see the full list of best free AI chatbots we compared.

WaSMS Connect: The Free Plan, in Full

Connect is WaSMS's free plan, listed as “Free forever. No credit card.” (wasms.net/features, 2026-11-14). It is a WhatsApp chatbot free plan on a WhatsApp-first platform that puts SMS and email in the same inbox.

What's included at $0

• Up to 500 contacts
• 2 team members
• 1 SMS device
• AI and API enabled
• 10 quick replies
• No credit card required to start

The AI Brain answers from your own content (PDFs, URLs or plain text) and reads the recent messages in the chat; here is how the AI Brain works on every plan. The full limits are in the complete WaSMS plans and limits documentation.

What it doesn't include — and why that's normal

Connect ends at 500 contacts, 2 team members, 1 SMS device and 10 quick replies. Anything above those numbers belongs to a paid plan, and priority support is listed on Reach and Grow. Every free option here has a ceiling: AiSensy's Free Forever excludes broadcasting, and the WATI and respond.io trials end after 7 days. WaSMS publishes Connect's ceilings, so you can check them before you sign up.

How Other 'Free' Chatbot Plans Compare

Free chatbot plans compared: AiSensy offers a free-forever plan without broadcasting, while WATI and respond.io offer 7-day trials.

AiSensy Free Forever: unlimited contacts, no broadcasting

AiSensy's Free Forever plan includes unlimited contacts, up to 10 tags, 5 custom attributes and a live chat dashboard. Broadcasting is not available on it (aisensy.com/pricing/usd, 2026-09-23). The AI Chat Agent is a separate add-on at $50/month for 1,000 AI messages, charged on top of any plan (aisensy.com/pricing/usd, 2026-09-23).

Against Connect: AiSensy's free plan has no contact cap and no broadcasting, while Connect caps contacts at 500 and lists AI and API as enabled. For a line-by-line view, read the full WaSMS vs. AiSensy comparison.

Why WATI and respond.io don't offer a free-forever plan

Both pricing pages list a 7-day free trial and no free-forever plan.

WATI lists a “7 days free trial, zero setup fees.” Growth includes 3 users with no option to add more; Pro and Business include 5 users, with extra users charged per user per month (wati.io/pricing, 2026-11-12).

respond.io lists a “7-day free trial” with no credit card needed. Its Starter plan excludes AI Agents, Broadcasts and Workflows, which begin on Growth (respond.io/pricing, 2026-09-23).

When Free Chatbot Pricing Hits a Wall

Free chatbot pricing hits a wall when you pass a published cap: contacts, team members, SMS devices or SMS volume.

Signs you've outgrown the free plan

• You pass 500 contacts. Reach lists 1,000 contacts; Grow lists 5,000.
• You need a third team member. Connect allows 2; Reach lists 20 and Grow lists 100.
• SMS becomes a core channel. Connect has 1 SMS device. Reach lists 10,000 SMS sends/month; Grow lists 5 SMS devices and 50,000 SMS sends/month.
• You collect leads or want priority support. Reach lists 50 lead forms; Grow lists 200. Both list priority support.

Past Grow's limits, the Custom plan lets you pick the exact amounts you need; you see an estimate as you go and the team replies with a quote.

Reach ($10/mo or $84/yr) and Grow ($40/mo or $336/yr)

Reach is the recommended plan at $10/month or $84/year. Grow is $40/month or $336/year. Annual billing saves 30% (wasms.net/pricing, 2026-09-23), which works out to $7/month for Reach and $28/month for Grow. Choose Reach if contacts or team seats are your constraint. Choose Grow if SMS volume or devices are.

The Hidden Cost Behind Many 'Free' Chatbot Plans

A $0 or low sticker price is not the full bill when messages are charged on top. Meta's documentation states “Effective July 1, 2025, Meta charges on a per-message basis” for marketing, utility and authentication templates on the Cloud API and Marketing Messages API (developers.facebook.com/docs/whatsapp/pricing, 2026-09-23). Any chatbot cost 2026 comparison needs the message line as well as the plan line.

Per-message fees some platforms add on top of the plan price

• WATI: its pricing page states “Additional charges apply for template messages” (wati.io/pricing, 2026-11-12).
• respond.io: Meta's per-message fees come on top of the plan price (respond.io/pricing, 2026-09-23).
• AiSensy: conversation credits are “recharged & managed separately” from the plan (aisensy.com/pricing/usd, 2026-09-23).

How WaSMS's own-number model avoids that extra layer

WaSMS connects WhatsApp through your own number and your own gateway, with no BSP in the path (wasms.net/features, 2026-11-14). You link the number in a few clicks by QR pairing, and no Meta Business Manager or API account is required. WaSMS adds no per-message fee of its own: its plans price contacts, team members, devices, SMS sends and lead forms. SMS goes out from your Android phone and SIM, so your carrier's rates apply.

Meta's per-message billing is scoped to the Cloud API and Marketing Messages API, so compare totals by checking how each platform connects your number. See how WaSMS's WhatsApp API pricing works without a BSP.

Start free on Connect — no credit card needed