The margin is not in the licence
Reselling a chat product at a markup is a small, fragile business. Clients discover the underlying price eventually.
The defensible value is the work: preparing the content, configuring the handover, reading the logs and turning them into improvements. That is a monthly retainer, not a licence resale.
What agencies actually deliver
- Content preparation — finding and fixing what the bot needs
- Configuration — tone, handover, lead capture, placement
- Installation across whatever platform the client runs
- Monthly review — the unanswered-question log turned into content work
- Reporting the client can understand
It feeds your other services
The unanswered-question log is a permanent, evidence-based content brief. For an agency already doing content or SEO work, it is the best source of topics you will get.
That makes chat a natural addition to an existing retainer rather than a separate product.
Running several clients
- Separate bots per client, never a shared knowledge base
- White-label where the client wants it to be theirs
- One monthly review process applied consistently
- Clear ownership of the account, so a client can leave with it
Pricing it
Setup as a one-off covering content and configuration, then a monthly fee covering the licence and the review. Be transparent about the licence cost; clients respect it and it removes a future argument.
The review is what justifies the monthly fee, so make sure it produces something visible each month.