What a free tier is for
Answering one question: does a bot trained on our content actually answer our customers' questions well?
That is answerable in an afternoon at no cost, and it is the only question worth resolving before spending anything.
What you can prove for free
- Whether your content is good enough to answer real questions
- How your top twenty questions are handled
- Whether the tone fits your business
- Whether visitors engage with it at all
The first of those is the important one. If a bot cannot answer your top twenty from your own site, the problem is your website and it is worth knowing that.
When the free tier runs out
Message limits are the usual constraint. A hundred messages a month covers testing and a very quiet site; a business with real traffic will pass it quickly.
Hitting the limit is a good sign — it means people are using it.
What paid tiers add
| Need | Why you would move up |
|---|---|
| More messages | Real traffic exceeds a free allowance quickly |
| Website crawler | Training from your site rather than by hand |
| More bots | Different sites, brands or languages |
| Ticket inbox | Following up what needs a person |
| White-label | Removing the vendor's branding |
Do not over-buy at the start
Start at the level your current volume needs and move up when you hit the limit. Buying capacity for hypothetical growth is money spent early for no benefit.
Volume is the one thing you can measure precisely after two weeks live.