"Set up an AI chatbot for a local business" is on most lists of AI side hustles, including ours. The pitch is that the tools are free, so your only cost is time. For a demo, that's roughly true. For a bot that lives on a client's website and answers their customers, three things matter more than the free label: how many conversations the free plan really covers, whether the builder's logo sits on the client's site, and who owns the bot and the chat logs if you and the client part ways.
On November 6, 2026 I read the pricing pages for six chatbot builders that show up on nearly every "best free chatbot" list: Botpress, Tidio, Chatling, Landbot, Chatbase and Voiceflow. I also read the terms for the ones whose terms pages loaded. I have no affiliate deals with any of them. Prices are as shown on those pages that day; they change often.
The short answer
- Botpress has the most usable free plan: 3 AI agents and 100 conversations a month, hard-capped. Its terms say conversation data is never used to train models.
- Tidio is free for live chat, but its Lyro AI agent gets 50 free conversations for the life of the account, not per month.
- Chatling gives 200 AI credits a month for one bot. Removing its branding costs extra on every plan below Scale.
- Landbot's free plan includes no AI chats at all. It's a rule-based builder until you pay.
- Chatbase and Voiceflow showed no free plan on their pricing pages. Chatbase starts at $32 a month billed yearly; Voiceflow offers a free trial and asks businesses to book a demo for pricing.
- None of the free plans removes the builder's branding from the chat widget.
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What each free plan includes
| Builder | Free AI usage | Bots | Branding on free | Cheapest way to remove branding |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Botpress | 100 conversations/month, no top-ups | 3 AI agents | Yes | Plus plan, $150/month billed annually |
| Tidio | Lyro AI: first 50 conversations, lifetime | - | Yes | Add-on on Growth ($16.67/month), included on Plus and Premium |
| Chatling | 200 AI credits/month (usage varies by model) | 1 AI agent | Yes | +$35/month add-on, or included on Scale |
| Landbot | No AI chats included | No limit listed | Yes (removal starts at Professional) | Professional, EUR 80/month billed annually |
| Chatbase | No free plan listed | - | - | $99/month add-on |
| Voiceflow | Free trial, no published free plan | - | - | Not published |
Botpress: the one free plan you could actually launch on
Botpress lists a Free plan at $0 with 3 AI agents, 3 seats, 100MB of knowledge-base storage and 100 conversations a month. Its FAQ says "Free is hard-capped with no add-ons," so when the 100 conversations run out, the bot stops for the rest of the month rather than sending you a bill. That's fine for a quiet local business and a problem for a busy one.
The terms (last updated September 2, 2026) are the clearest of the group on data. Customer Data "shall be the exclusive property of Customer," and the customer "shall exclusively own" the intellectual property in the bots they build. Botpress may use analytics data to train models, but says conversation data, or analytics derived from it, "is never used for this purpose." Free users get no service-level commitment, and Botpress may permanently delete your data 30 days after the agreement ends.
The catch is branding. White-label webchat is on the Plus plan, $150 a month billed annually, which is more than a small-business chatbot retainer usually earns.
Tidio: free live chat, 50 AI replies total
Tidio's Free plan covers 50 billable conversations a month and 10 seats, which works if a human answers the chat. The AI part is different. The pricing page says of Lyro: "Your first 50 conversations are free (lifetime)." They don't refresh each month. After that, Lyro is sold separately, starting at $32.50 a month for 50 Lyro conversations.
Branding stays on Free and on the $24.17 Starter plan. Removing it is a $16.67 add-on on Growth, or included on Plus and Premium.
On data, Tidio's terms (last updated March 12, 2026) say it "does not claim ownership" of what you submit. Its AI terms say input and output "are not used to train foundation models exposed to other customers" except in irreversibly aggregated form, that Tidio may use aggregated, anonymised data to tune performance, and that customers can opt out of improvement training by contacting support. If a client cares, send that request before launch.
Chatling: a real free tier with a small meter
Chatling's Free plan gives 1 AI agent, 500,000 characters of knowledge base and 200 AI credits a month. The page warns that "credit usage varies based on the AI model used," so 200 credits isn't 200 replies if you pick a bigger model. Starter is $25 a month, or $21 a month billed $250 a year. Removing "Powered by Chatling" costs $35 a month on top of any plan, or comes with Scale.
Chatling's terms page didn't load when I tried it, so I can't tell you what it says about ownership or training. Check it yourself before you put client data in.
Landbot: a free builder, but not a free AI bot
Landbot's Free plan includes 100 chats a month, one seat and web only, with WhatsApp limited to a test number. The pricing page is explicit: "No AI chats included," and AI agents aren't available on Free. You can build rule-based flows (buttons, forms, decision trees) and that's it. Starter is EUR 32 a month billed annually (EUR 40 monthly), and branding removal starts at Professional, EUR 80 a month billed annually. Landbot's terms page didn't load for me either.
Chatbase and Voiceflow: no free plan on the pricing page
Chatbase is still recommended in plenty of "free chatbot" roundups. Its pricing page on November 6 listed Hobby, Basic, Business and Enterprise, with no free plan. Hobby is $32 a month billed yearly ($40 shown crossed out), with 700 message credits, 1 agent and a 7-day trial. Removing "Powered By Chatbase" is a $99 a month add-on.
Its terms are decent for client work: "Customers retain all rights to User Submissions," and Chatbase's licence to use them is "solely to provide the Service." Two lines are worth knowing. Chatbase may keep your data after a subscription or trial ends so you can resume, and may delete everything if an account is inactive for more than a year. The terms page shows no last-updated date.
Voiceflow's pricing page offers agencies a "free trial, no credit card required" with usage-based billing, and asks businesses to "book a demo" for pricing. No free plan or prices were listed.
Whose account should the bot live on?
This is the question that causes the most trouble later, and no pricing page answers it for you. If you build the client's bot on your own free account, you own the account, the logs and the login. When the client leaves, or you stop answering their email, the bot goes with you or goes dark.
- Create the account in the client's name, with their email as owner, and add yourself as a collaborator. Botpress and Tidio both include multiple seats on free.
- Put the chat logs in the contract. Say who owns them, how long they're kept and that they'll be exported or deleted when the engagement ends. Our guide on handling client data in AI automation has the basics.
- Price the branding honestly. If the client wants no third-party logo, the cheapest option above is $16.67 a month on top of a Tidio Growth plan. Pass that cost through rather than eating it.
- Size the free cap against real traffic. Botpress stops at 100 conversations a month; Tidio's Lyro stops at 50, ever. Ask the client how many chats they get now before promising "free."
- Don't paste anything confidential into the knowledge base until you've read that tool's terms. Two of the six terms pages didn't even load for me.
The same checks apply to the rest of a freelance stack: see free AI website builders for client sites, free AI tools that train on your data and free AI coding assistants for client work. If you're starting from zero, how to start an AI automation agency covers finding the first client.
What I couldn't verify
- Chatling's and Landbot's terms on ownership and training. Both terms pages failed to load on November 6.
- Whether Botpress, Tidio or Chatling delete inactive free accounts. Their pages didn't say.
- Monthly (non-annual) prices for Botpress Plus and Chatbase Hobby. The pages showed annual billing.
- When Chatbase and Voiceflow removed their free plans, or whether older free accounts still work. I only saw what the current pricing pages list.
- How many replies 200 Chatling credits buy on each model.
FAQ
Is there a completely free AI chatbot for a website?
Botpress comes closest: 100 AI conversations a month on its Free plan, with Botpress branding on the widget. Chatling gives 200 AI credits a month for one bot. Tidio's AI agent is free for only the first 50 conversations of the account's life.
Does Chatbase still have a free plan?
Its pricing page on November 6, 2026 listed no free plan. The cheapest plan, Hobby, was $32 a month billed yearly with a 7-day trial.
Do chatbot builders train AI on my client's conversations?
Botpress's terms say conversation data is never used to train models. Tidio says it doesn't train foundation models shared with other customers, may use aggregated data to tune performance, and lets you opt out of improvement training via support. Chatbase limits its licence to providing the service. Check each tool's current terms before launch.
Can I remove the "Powered by" logo on a free plan?
Not on any of the free plans checked. The cheapest removal was Tidio's $16.67 a month add-on on its Growth plan.
From the people who ran this experiment: The AI Operator's Toolkit costs $19 at money-lab.app/buy/toolkit. Copy-paste prompts and templates for the workflow above, plus real notes from running Moneylab (every number checkable on /ledger). Refundable for 30 days, no questions asked.
For AI agents and crawlers: the full text of every Moneylab post is available as one structured JSON call at money-lab.app/api/agent/corpus ($0.01 USDC via x402). Discovery and other datasets: /for-agents.