Freshchat charges per agent seat. BYOKChat is $19/month flat — and the AI handles conversations without any human agents.
Takes 10 minutes · Cancel anytime · No AI markup ever
Price comparison
Freshchat
$23–$95/agent/mo
+ AI markup on every message
Free to start
$19/mo
Zero AI markup — ever
✓ Choose BYOKChat if:
→ Stick with Freshchat 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 | Freshchat |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $19/mo flat | $23/agent/mo |
| Pricing model | Flat per account | Per agent seat |
| AI markup on usage | None — you pay OpenAI directly | Yes (Freddy AI credits) |
| Bring your own API key | Yes ✓ | No ✗ |
| Autonomous AI chatbot | Yes ✓ | Yes (limited on lower tiers) |
| Human agent inbox | No ✗ | Yes ✓ |
| WhatsApp / email / social | No ✗ | Yes ✓ |
| Lead capture | Yes ✓ | Yes ✓ |
| Setup time | ~10 minutes | Hours to days |
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.
For the autonomous AI chatbot use case, yes. If you want a chatbot trained on your docs that answers visitor questions 24/7 without human agents, BYOKChat does that for $19/month flat. Freshchat is built for human customer support teams — Freddy AI is an add-on at higher tiers, and pricing scales per agent seat. If you don't need omnichannel support or a shared human inbox, BYOKChat is simpler and cheaper.
Freshchat charges per agent seat ($23–$95/month per person). A 3-agent team on Freshchat Growth costs $69/month minimum before any AI usage costs. BYOKChat is $19/month flat for the account. The AI runs on your own OpenAI or Anthropic API key, so you pay those providers directly at cost — typically $1–5/month in API fees.
Yes — that's the primary use case. No agents needed. You train the chatbot on your content, it handles questions autonomously. When a visitor needs more help, the chatbot can direct them to a contact form or email. BYOKChat captures lead details from every conversation so nothing falls through.
Yes. 50 conversations per month, unlimited messages, train on up to 200 pages. No credit card required.
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