Chatbase starts at $40/month. BYOKChat starts at $19/month — and you pay your AI provider directly, with zero markup ever.
Takes 10 minutes · Cancel anytime · No AI markup ever
Price comparison
Chatbase
$40–$399/mo
+ AI markup on every message
Free to start
$19/mo
Zero AI markup — ever
✓ Choose BYOKChat if:
→ Stick with Chatbase if:
We'd rather you make the right choice than the wrong one. Both tools have real uses.
Honest. Every ✗ is real. Every ✓ is verified.
| Feature | BYOKChat | Chatbase |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $19/mo | $40/mo |
| Free tier | Yes — 50 conversations/mo | Yes — 50 messages/mo |
| AI markup on usage | None — you pay OpenAI directly | Yes — resells API at a markup |
| Bring your own API key | Yes ✓ | No ✗ |
| Messages per month | Unlimited | 500 (starter) |
| Knowledge base (starter) | 100MB — PDFs, URLs, text | 20 documents |
| Lead capture | Yes ✓ | No ✗ |
| Analytics / funnel | Full funnel ✓ | Basic |
| Embeddable widget | Yes ✓ | Yes ✓ |
| Native CRM integrations | No — webhook / Zapier only | Salesforce, HubSpot, Zendesk ✓ |
| White-labeling | No ✗ | Yes (paid add-on) ✓ |
| AI Actions | No ✗ | Yes ✓ |
| Setup time | ~10 minutes | ~10 minutes |
No credit card. Create your chatbot in 30 seconds.
OpenAI, Anthropic, or Gemini. We encrypt it. You pay them directly.
Step-by-step guide →Paste URLs or upload PDFs. BYOKChat trains the AI on your knowledge base.
Copy it from the Embed tab. Paste on your site. Done.
Every feature on every plan. No AI markup. Cancel anytime.
Try it — no card needed
Everything you need to scale
The math
Why BYOK saves money
You pay OpenAI directly at $0.001–0.003/conversation at current GPT-4o mini rates.
Yes. BYOKChat builds chatbots from your documents and website content, captures leads mid-conversation, and embeds on any website with one script tag — the same core use case as Chatbase. The key difference is pricing: BYOKChat uses a bring-your-own-key model, so you connect your OpenAI or Anthropic API key and pay your AI provider directly at cost. Chatbase buys API access in bulk and resells it at a markup on top of their $40/month platform fee.
BYOKChat's paid plan is $19/month. Chatbase's starter is $40/month — plus Chatbase marks up your AI usage and charges overages beyond 500 messages. With BYOKChat you pay $19 for the platform and roughly $1–5/month in direct OpenAI API costs at their standard rates. Typical total savings: $20–35/month over Chatbase's starter plan.
Not all. BYOKChat has the core features: chatbot training on your docs, embeddable widget, lead capture, and analytics. Lead capture is actually something Chatbase's starter does not include. What BYOKChat does not have: native Salesforce/HubSpot/Zendesk integrations, white-labeling, or AI Actions. If those matter, Chatbase may be the right fit. If they don't, BYOKChat saves you money every month.
When you sign up for BYOKChat, you paste your own OpenAI, Anthropic (Claude), or Gemini API key in settings. BYOKChat encrypts it and uses it to power your chatbot. Your AI provider bills you directly at their standard rates — typically $0.001–0.003 per conversation. BYOKChat takes nothing from your AI usage. The $19/month covers the platform, hosting, and database only.
About 10–15 minutes. Sign up free, paste your OpenAI key, re-upload your training documents or paste your URLs, customize the widget, then replace the Chatbase script tag on your website with BYOKChat's one-line embed. Your chatbot is live immediately.
Yes. BYOKChat's free tier includes 50 conversations per month with unlimited messages within those, and you can crawl up to 200 pages for your knowledge base. No credit card required.
BYOKChat works with OpenAI (GPT-4o, GPT-4o mini), Anthropic (Claude), Google Gemini, Mistral AI, Grok (xAI), and DeepSeek. You choose which provider and model powers your chatbot — and you pay that provider directly at their published rates.
No credit card. No AI markup. Train on your content and embed on your site in 10 minutes.
Start free — no credit card →Takes 10 minutes · Cancel anytime · No AI markup ever