AR · July 2026 · 9 min read
Most of these answer questions. Only some can do anything about them.
Twelve chatbots sorted by what they can actually do, with published pricing and the limit each one hits.
The word chatbot now covers a $40-a-month widget that reads your FAQ page and a $15,000-a-month platform that cancels subscriptions. Sorting them by capability rather than by brand is most of the work.
The dividing line
Can it query another system, or only read your content? Everything else is detail. Order status is the highest-volume support question in most businesses, and a bot that cannot look up an order will escalate every one.
Can take actions
- 1. Fin by Intercom — $0.99 per resolution plus seats. Widely regarded as the best agent; custom actions call your APIs.
- 2. Gorgias — $10-900/mo by ticket. Native Shopify order lookups, returns and refunds.
- 3. Ada — custom pricing. Authenticates customers and follows no-code procedures before acting.
- 4. Decagon — custom pricing. Enterprise, procedure-driven, heavily funded.
- 5. Yuma AI — custom. Shopify-only autonomous resolution on top of an existing help desk.
- 6. Sierra — reported ~$1.50 per resolution. Voice and chat from one agent.
Answers well, cannot act
- 7. Tidio Lyro — free up to 50 conversations, then $24.17. Best cheap option, claims 67% of common questions.
- 8. Chatbase — free tier, then $40/mo. Fastest to deploy; message-credit billing.
- 9. My AskAI — free tier, flat rate. Deflection layer that hands off to your existing chat.
- 10. Botpress — free tier, usage-based. Visual builder with explicit flow control.
- 11. eesel AI — roughly $0.40 per ticket. Layers onto Zendesk or Freshdesk, no migration.
- 12. Chatwoot — free self-hosted, $19-99/agent cloud. The only genuinely open-source option.
Cheapest that works
| Tool | Entry price | Catch |
|---|---|---|
| Chatwoot | $0 self-hosted | A week of engineering to stand up |
| Tidio | $0 for 50 convs | $49 to $749 tier cliff above Growth |
| Chatbase | $0, then $40 | Free agents deleted after 14 days idle |
| My AskAI | Free tier | Deflection only, no system access |
| Gorgias | $10/mo | Overages $0.36-0.40 per ticket |
How to choose in one question
Look at your top ticket category. If it needs a lookup, buy from the first list. If it is genuinely informational, buy from the second and save an order of magnitude.
Capability classified from vendor documentation and integration surface. Pricing read from published sources and dated. We do not benchmark answer quality.
Frequently asked
What is the best AI customer service chatbot?
Fin by Intercom for answer quality, Gorgias if you sell on Shopify, Tidio if budget is the constraint. The right answer depends on whether you need actions or only answers.
What are the 3 best AI chatbots for customer service?
Fin, Gorgias and Ada cover the three main cases: best general agent, best Shopify integration, best enterprise multilingual.
How much does an AI customer service bot cost?
From free to $1.50 per resolution. A basic deflection bot runs $0-150 a month; an autonomous agent at 5,000 resolutions runs several thousand.
Is there a free AI chatbot for customer service?
Tidio covers 50 conversations a month free, Chatbase and My AskAI have free tiers, and Chatwoot is free to self-host. None will query your order system.
Can chatbots handle refunds?
Only ones with system access. Gorgias, Yuma and Zowie execute refunds natively on Shopify; Fin and Ada can through custom actions. Most cheap bots cannot.
What is the difference between a chatbot and an AI agent?
A chatbot answers from content. An agent takes actions in other systems. The word chatbot now covers both, which is why capability matters more than the label.
Which chatbot is easiest to set up?
Chatbase or Tidio, both live in hours with no code. Anything that queries your systems takes weeks because custom actions are engineering work.
Do AI chatbots actually reduce tickets?
On documented, repetitive questions, yes. Published claims run 30% to 93%, though they measure different events and are not comparable.
What is the cheapest AI chatbot that can look up orders?
Gorgias Starter at $10 a month for 50 tickets, with native Shopify order actions and unlimited seats.
Should I self-host a chatbot?
Only if data residency requires it or you have idle engineering capacity. Chatwoot is free in licence but realistically a week of setup plus ongoing maintenance.
Tools mentioned
Full reviews, pricing tiers and where each one breaks.
Fin by Intercom
The most polished autonomous agent on the market, attached to the pricing model buyers complain about most.
Gorgias
The Shopify-native default, with the deepest order, return and refund actions in this category.
Tidio Lyro
One of the few genuinely cheap autonomous agents, bundled with live chat and a basic help desk.
Chatbase
Point it at your site and get an embeddable agent in an afternoon. The low-effort end of the category.
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WRITTEN BY AR · UPDATED 2026-07-30
I read the fine print. Vendor pricing pages, billing definitions, terms, funding filings and acquisition notices — then I do the arithmetic nobody publishes: what a platform actually costs at your volume, what its headline metric is really counting, and who owns it now. I do not run benchmarks, and no page here pretends otherwise.