WooCommerce chatbot pricing comparison 2026: what you actually pay at every scale

Every WooCommerce chatbot pricing page shows the cheapest plan. Here is what you actually pay when you add AI, scale past the base tier, or hit Black Friday volumes. This is the honest pricing math page — real numbers, real scenarios, no asterisks hiding the expensive parts.

I built Storebird, so yes, one of the six tools in this comparison is mine. I am also the person who has sat with WooCommerce store owners watching their Tidio bills climb during November, so I know what the pricing pages leave out. Every number below is sourced from public pricing pages as of April 2026 — I link to each one so you can verify.

Key takeaways

• The headline price of a WooCommerce chatbot and the real monthly cost with AI are almost never the same number.
• At 2,000 conversations per month, the cheapest option with real AI is Storebird Pro at €89/month. The most expensive is Intercom at $349+/month.
• Per-reply pricing punishes your best months. Black Friday can double or triple your chatbot bill on Tidio, Intercom, or any tool that charges per AI conversation.
• WoowBot looks cheap at $49/year until you add the OpenAI API key it requires — that alone costs $30–$80/month on a busy store.
• Gorgias AI Agent does not work on WooCommerce. If you are reading this because someone recommended Gorgias, save yourself the evaluation.

Written by Rob Abrahams, founder of Storebird. Last updated: April 12, 2026.

Why chatbot pricing pages are misleading

Every chatbot vendor optimizes their pricing page for one thing: the lowest possible number a visitor sees before clicking "Start trial." The tricks are consistent across the industry:

1. Base plan without AI. Tidio shows $29/month. That is the live chat plan. The AI (Lyro) is a separate add-on starting at $39/month. The real entry price with AI is $68.
2. Per-year pricing shown as monthly. WoowBot shows $49/year Pro — reasonable until you realize you need an OpenAI API key that costs more than the plugin itself.
3. Per-reply or per-resolution fees buried in footnotes. Intercom's Fin AI charges per resolution. At scale, this dominates the bill.
4. "Starting at" with no volume context. $49/month means nothing if you don't know how many conversations that covers — or what happens when you exceed the limit.

This page exists because I got tired of answering the same question from WooCommerce store owners: "What will I actually pay?"

The answer depends on three things: which tool, how many conversations, and whether you need real AI or just a keyword-matching bot. Below, I calculate all three.

The full pricing comparison table

Here are six tools that WooCommerce store owners actually evaluate. I include the base plan, the AI add-on cost, and the total monthly price at three conversation volumes: 500/month (small store), 2,000/month (growing store), and 5,000/month (Black Friday spike).

All Storebird prices are in EUR. All other tools are priced in USD as listed on their pricing pages. I do not convert between currencies — you will pay in the currency the vendor charges.

Footnotes: ¹ WoowBot annual license converted to monthly + estimated OpenAI API costs. OpenAI charges vary based on model (GPT-4o vs GPT-3.5), prompt length, and conversation complexity. Range assumes $0.06–$0.15 per AI conversation. ² Intercom assumes 1 seat. Fin resolution rate estimated at 50–60% of conversations. Each resolved conversation costs $0.99. Unresolved conversations still require agent time. ³ Gorgias AI Agent works on Shopify only. WooCommerce stores cannot use the AI features. Included for completeness since WooCommerce merchants frequently evaluate Gorgias before discovering this limitation.

For Storebird's full plan details, see our pricing page. For Tidio's current numbers, check Tidio's pricing page. For Intercom, see Intercom's pricing. For WoowBot, see the WoowBot CodeCanyon listing.

Three store scenarios: what you actually pay

Small store — 500 conversations per month

Solo operator, under €30K/month revenue. Most conversations are "where is my order?" and product questions.

• Storebird Essential: €39/month. AI included, WooCommerce catalog sync, order tracking, lead capture, human handoff. Start a 14-day free trial.
• Tidio Starter + Lyro: $68–$169/month. Base plan ($29) plus Lyro. The $39 Lyro tier only covers 50 AI conversations — to handle 500, you need the $140 tier. Real price: $169.
• WoowBot Pro + OpenAI: ~$34–$79/month. Plugin is cheap ($49–$189/year), but the required OpenAI API key adds $30–$75/month. You manage the key yourself.
• Zipchat Starter: $49/month. Included AI, but Shopify-first — script embed on WooCommerce, no catalog sync.
• Intercom: $124–$149/month. Overkill for a solo WooCommerce store.
• Gorgias: Shopify-only. Not an option.

Verdict: Storebird Essential at €39/month is the cheapest with native WooCommerce AI. For how it compares to WoowBot, see our Storebird vs WoowBot breakdown.

Growing store — 2,000 conversations per month

Small team (2–4 people), €30K–€150K/month revenue, WPML, 500+ SKUs with variations. This is where per-reply pricing hurts.

• Storebird Pro: €89/month. 5,000-conversation cap, revenue attribution, WPML-native. Plenty of headroom.
• Tidio Growth + Lyro: $148–$348/month. Growth ($59) plus Lyro at the 1,000–2,000 tier ($89–$289).
• WoowBot + OpenAI: ~$54–$134/month. OpenAI bill becomes material. No live agent handoff when the AI gets stuck.
• Zipchat Growth: $189/month. Still Shopify-first.
• Intercom: $274–$399/month. One seat plus ~1,000–1,200 Fin resolutions at $0.99 each.

Verdict: Storebird Pro at €89/month is roughly half the cost of Tidio + Lyro. Full comparison: Storebird vs Tidio for WooCommerce.

Black Friday spike — 5,000 conversations per month

Same growing store, late November. Chat volume spikes 2.5x for three to four weeks. This is the scenario that exposes per-reply pricing. For the full playbook, see our guide on Black Friday WooCommerce chatbot preparation.

• Storebird Scale: €199/month. Predictable. No overage charges.
• Tidio Growth + Lyro: $348–$600+/month. Overages accumulate in real-time while you are busy fulfilling orders.
• WoowBot + OpenAI: ~$84–$264/month. GPT-4o at 5,000 conversations can hit $200+ in API costs alone.
• Zipchat Pro: $499/month. Expensive for a WooCommerce store that only hits this volume one month per year.
• Intercom: $574–$849/month. Intercom working as designed — priced for SaaS companies.

Verdict: Flat pricing wins. Storebird Scale costs the same whether it is January or Black Friday. Per-reply pricing is a tax on your best months.

The hidden costs nobody puts on the pricing page

The comparison table covers list prices. Here is what it misses — the costs that show up after you have already committed.

Per-reply overages

Tidio Lyro, Intercom Fin, and StoreAgent all charge per AI conversation or per resolution. When you exceed your tier's allocation, overage rates kick in — and they are almost always more expensive per unit than the bundled rate. On Tidio, you either upgrade to the next Lyro tier mid-month or watch the overages accumulate. There is no "pause AI when I hit the limit" button that keeps live chat working.

Storebird and Zipchat use flat tiers with conversation caps. If you approach the cap, you upgrade to the next tier at a known price. No per-conversation overages.

Required API keys (OpenAI)

WoowBot Pro, AI Chat & Search Pro, and several smaller WooCommerce chatbot plugins require you to bring your own OpenAI API key. This means:

• You pay OpenAI directly — and OpenAI's pricing changes without notice.
• You manage the key — expiration, rate limits, billing alerts, all on you.
• You absorb the risk — if a bot loop fires 500 API calls in an hour, you pay for all of them.
• You pick the model — GPT-4o is better but 10–20× more expensive per token than GPT-3.5-turbo.

Storebird, Tidio, Intercom, and Zipchat all run AI on their own infrastructure. No merchant-managed API keys. No OpenAI key needed with Storebird — that is a deliberate design choice.

Seat fees and agent pricing

Intercom charges per agent seat ($74–$99/month). Tidio's Growth plan includes up to 5 seats but the Starter plan is limited. Gorgias is ticket-volume-priced but also seat-limited at lower tiers.

For a two-person WooCommerce team, agent-based pricing doubles the base cost on Intercom before you even count AI fees.

Storebird does not charge per seat. Every plan includes the full team dashboard.

Annual-only discounts and lock-in

Several tools show annual pricing as the default (per-month equivalent) and charge 20–40% more for monthly billing. WoowBot is annual-only. Zipchat offers a significant annual discount. Tidio pushes annual billing hard on the checkout page.

If you want monthly flexibility — to pause during slow months or switch tools without losing a year of prepayment — check which price you are actually seeing. The comparison table above uses monthly billing for all tools except WoowBot (annual-only, converted to monthly).

ROI breakeven: at what volume does each tool pay for itself?

A chatbot pays for itself when the support time it saves exceeds its monthly cost. Here is the math.

Assumptions:

• Average cost of a manual support interaction: €3–€5 (15–25 minutes of a shop owner's time, or a support agent at €12–€15/hour)
• AI resolution rate: 60–80% of conversations handled without human involvement
• Average order value influenced by chat: €50–€80 (for stores where the chatbot answers pre-purchase questions)

At 500 conversations per month with a 60–80% AI resolution rate, every tool on this list pays for itself within the first month or two. The question is not whether a chatbot is worth it — it is which one gives you the most value per euro at your conversation volume.

At higher volumes, the ROI gap widens. Storebird Pro at €89/month handling 2,000 conversations saves roughly €300–€500/month in support time — a 3–5× return. Tidio at the same volume costs $148–$348, cutting the return margin significantly.

The kicker: Storebird also tracks revenue attribution — conversations that led to completed WooCommerce orders. So you are not guessing at ROI; you can see the exact euro amount in the dashboard.

Which tool fits which store

• Small WooCommerce store, under 750 conv/mo, want real AI: Storebird Essential at €39/month.
• Already on Tidio, want to add AI: Add Lyro — but the combined cost is $68–$348/month. If that surprises you, compare Storebird against Tidio directly or see the full Tidio alternative listicle.
• Cheapest possible, comfortable managing an OpenAI key: WoowBot Pro + your own key. Budget $30–$80/month for API costs on top. No live handoff, no revenue attribution, no WPML. See Storebird vs WoowBot.
• On Shopify, not WooCommerce: Look at Gorgias AI Agent or Zipchat. This page is not for you.
• $500+/month support budget, enterprise-grade AI: Intercom with Fin. Best AI on the market. Not built for WooCommerce, but powerful if you can afford it.
• Scaling past 5,000 conv/mo on WooCommerce: Storebird Scale at €199/month. The only flat-priced WooCommerce chatbot at this volume.

How to evaluate pricing for your store

Three steps. Takes 15 minutes.

1. Check your actual conversation volume. If you already use a chat tool, pull last month's count. If not, estimate: roughly 2–5% of monthly visitors start a chat. A store with 20,000 visitors generates 400–1,000 conversations.

1. Map your volume to the comparison table above. Compare the total monthly cost with AI — not the base plan price.

1. Factor in WooCommerce depth. A cheap tool that cannot answer "do you have this in blue, size L?" from your actual catalog is not saving time — it is generating handoff tickets you still handle manually.

For the WooCommerce integration side of this equation, read our WooCommerce chatbot buyer's guide. To test whether Storebird handles your catalog, start the 14-day Pro trial — under 10 minutes to install.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a WooCommerce chatbot cost per month? It depends on the tool and your conversation volume. At 500 conversations per month with AI: Storebird is €39, Tidio + Lyro is $68–$169, WoowBot + OpenAI is $34–$79, Zipchat is $49, and Intercom is $124–$149. Most pricing pages show the base plan without AI — always add the AI cost.

Which WooCommerce chatbot is cheapest for a small store? Storebird Essential at €39/month is the cheapest option with AI included and native WooCommerce integration. WoowBot is cheaper on paper ($49/year) but requires an OpenAI API key that costs $30–$80/month — making the real price higher than Storebird for most stores.

Why is Tidio so expensive when you add Lyro AI? Tidio prices Lyro as a separate add-on, charged per AI conversation tier. To get both live chat and meaningful AI coverage, you need a base plan ($29–$59) plus Lyro ($39–$289). The realistic monthly cost for a growing store is $148–$348 — check Tidio's pricing page yourself.

Do I need to pay for an OpenAI API key with WoowBot? Yes. WoowBot Pro's AI features require your own OpenAI API key. You pay OpenAI directly based on usage — typically $30–$80/month for 500–2,000 conversations. This cost is not shown on the WoowBot CodeCanyon listing.

What happens to chatbot pricing during Black Friday? Per-conversation tools (Tidio Lyro, Intercom Fin) get dramatically more expensive during traffic spikes. A 2.5× volume increase can add $200+ to your monthly bill. Flat-priced tools like Storebird charge the same amount regardless of volume within your plan tier.

Is Gorgias a good WooCommerce chatbot option? No. Gorgias AI Agent is Shopify-only. The helpdesk can pull WooCommerce orders through a basic integration, but the AI features that make Gorgias worth evaluating do not work on WooCommerce at all.

At what conversation volume does a chatbot pay for itself? If a manual support interaction costs €3–€5 in staff time and the chatbot resolves 60–80% of conversations, breakeven is roughly 10–20 AI-handled conversations per month on Storebird Essential (€39). Most stores doing 500+ conversations per month hit positive ROI in week one.

Does Storebird charge per conversation or per reply? No. Storebird uses flat monthly pricing: €39/month Essential (750 conversations), €89/month Pro (5,000), €199/month Scale (15,000). AI is included on every plan. No per-reply fees, no overage charges. See Storebird pricing for the full breakdown.

The short version

Three price points, one decision:

• Under 750 conversations/month: Storebird Essential at €39/month. Cheapest option with WooCommerce-native AI. No add-ons, no API keys, no surprises.
• 750–5,000 conversations/month: Storebird Pro at €89/month. Half the cost of Tidio + Lyro at equivalent volumes, with deeper WooCommerce integration and revenue attribution.
• 5,000–15,000 conversations/month: Storebird Scale at €199/month. The only flat-priced WooCommerce chatbot at this volume. Predictable cost through Black Friday and beyond.

I built Storebird, so the recommendation is obvious. But I also showed you every number, linked to every competitor's pricing page, and did not hide the scenarios where WoowBot is cheaper on paper or Intercom's AI is objectively better. That is what a useful pricing comparison looks like. If you want to test the numbers yourself, install Storebird from WordPress.org and run the 14-day Pro trial alongside whatever you use today.