Best chatbot for WordPress, 8 tools compared

What is a WordPress chatbot, and which kind do you need?

A WordPress chatbot is a chat window that answers your visitors automatically, day and night. There are three kinds, and the kind matters more than the brand:

• Rule-based or decision-tree bots. Visitors tap through buttons you wrote. Predictable and cheap, but they cannot answer anything you did not plan for. WPBot's button menu mode and Tidio's Flows, which "follow set rules and pathways", work this way.
• AI that answers from your own content. It reads your pages or documents and replies in plain language, ideally with a link to its source.
• AI with a hand-over to a person. The bot answers first, and a person takes over when needed, ideally with the whole conversation.

Most small businesses want the third kind. If you want a person answering from the start, that is WordPress live chat.

How we compared these WordPress chatbots

We compared what decides whether a chatbot helps you or embarrasses you: answers from your own content, hand-over to a person, free plans, AI pricing and the WordPress install. Every fact comes from the vendor's own pages and wordpress.org, checked on 10 October 2026.

Disclosure: WPCentrify is our product. We list it first because this site is about WordPress, describe its limits as plainly as the others' and use no affiliate links. Our comparison methodology explains how we research and correct these pages.

WordPress chatbots at a glance

The 8 best chatbots for WordPress, one by one

1. WPCentrify: best for many WordPress sites

WPCentrify is a hosted WordPress management platform for anyone responsible for more than one WordPress site, and its Virtual Assistant is the AI chatbot inside it. (Disclosure: it is our product.) It answers from the pages and posts already on the site, and most answers link to the page they came from.

When the site does not say, it says it does not know and offers the published phone number or to take a message. After helping, it asks one qualifying question at a time, and the inquiry lands beside your contact form submissions from every site. With WPCentrify's live chat, a person can take over with the whole conversation.

Before a hosted AI model phrases a reply, the message is checked for anything naming a real person; if it does, it does not leave WPCentrify's servers. Health and addiction sites get crisis screening and no clinical advice. It is included on every plan with no per-conversation charge. Read more about the AI chatbot that answers from your own pages.

Good for: several WordPress sites, with answers you can check and every inquiry in one list.

Watch out for: it answers in English only for now, covers website chat only and does not book appointments. It is free during early access; white label branding is the one paid add-on.

2. Tidio: best all-rounder for one business

Tidio combines live chat with Lyro, its AI agent. Tidio says "Lyro works only with the content and guidance you provide", and that a question your support content does not answer goes to a human agent.

The free plan includes 50 billable conversations, plus 50 Lyro conversations that do not renew. Starter is $29 a month billed monthly ($24.17 billed annually), and Lyro starts at $39 a month for 50 AI conversations, which do not use up billable conversations. The plugin has 70,000+ installs and was updated in September 2026.

Good for: a small business that wants live chat and AI answers in one inexpensive tool.

Watch out for: AI conversations are priced separately, and the free ones do not refresh monthly.

3. AI Engine: best free AI plugin

AI Engine by Meow Apps runs inside WordPress (90,000+ installs, updated 8 October 2026). You connect your own OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Mistral, Perplexity or OpenRouter account, with no markup on tokens, Meow Apps says.

Chatbots are free; answering from your own content through embeddings, which lets a bot "answer from your site instead of guessing", is a Pro feature from $79 a year for one site. Its disclaimer says AI Engine "does not guarantee the accuracy or appropriateness of the content generated by the AI".

Good for: technical owners who want control of the AI model and the bill.

Watch out for: a hand-over to a person is not mentioned, and you manage your AI provider's costs and privacy terms yourself.

4. Chatbase: best for training on your documents

Chatbase builds an AI agent "trained on your own content (your documents, your website, your knowledge base)", and a live chat action hands the conversation to a human agent inside Chatbase.

The free plan gives 50 message credits a month, but inactive agents are deleted after 14 days. Hobby is $40 a month billed monthly ($32 billed annually) for 700 credits; removing Chatbase branding is $99 a month. The WordPress plugin, which takes your Agent ID, has 5,000+ installs, was last updated in March 2025 and is flagged on wordpress.org as untested with the latest three major releases.

Good for: businesses with documents, PDFs and help articles beyond their website.

Watch out for: pricing is in message credits, so estimate how many messages a typical chat takes.

5. HubSpot: best free chatbot inside a CRM

HubSpot offers a free chatbot builder and free live chat, with no credit card required. Its bots qualify leads, book meetings, answer common questions, hand over to a live agent and save what they collect in HubSpot's CRM.

Its AI customer agent costs $0.50 per resolution and needs a Professional or Enterprise edition of HubSpot. The HubSpot All-In-One Marketing plugin has 200,000+ active installs and was updated in September 2026.

Good for: teams that use HubSpot as their CRM, or plan to.

Watch out for: the free builder runs chatflows you set up, so check how it handles questions outside them.

6. WPBot: best free chatbot with no AI bill

WPBot from QuantumCloud, in its own words, "can work with or without the AI LLM services". Without AI, its built-in responses and button menus cost nothing extra; with AI, you connect OpenAI, Gemini, OpenRouter or Dialogflow.

Pro starts at $39 a year for one site, and live human chat comes with the $189-a-year Master plan for five sites, in US dollars before tax, with a 14-day money-back guarantee. The free plugin has 5,000+ installs and was updated on 7 October 2026.

Good for: a free, predictable FAQ and lead capture bot.

Watch out for: a rule-based bot only knows what you write into it.

7. Crisp: best flat price per workspace

Crisp is a shared inbox with a chat widget and Hugo, its AI agent. Crisp says "every answer comes from your own data, not from hallucinated guesses", and that Hugo brings in a person with the full conversation context.

The free plan has two seats and no AI credits. Mini is $45 a month per workspace with $5 of AI credits, whatever your conversation count, and Crisp estimates AI conversations at $0.05 each. Its plugin (20,000+ installs) was last updated in April 2025 and carries the same untested-release warning.

Good for: small teams that want flat inbox pricing across chat and email.

Watch out for: AI usage is metered by credits on top of the plan.

8. Intercom Fin: best for large support teams

Fin is Intercom's AI agent, used inside Intercom or alongside another support platform. Intercom says Fin "hands off to your human team effortlessly, maintaining full customer context" and speaks dozens of languages.

"Fin is priced at $0.99 per outcome", plus a seat for each teammate on an Intercom plan. There is a 14-day free trial but no free plan, and Intercom's plugin (6,000+ installs) was last updated in April 2025.

Good for: support teams with a high chat volume.

Watch out for: per-outcome pricing rises as the bot succeeds, so model your real numbers. A small brochure site may not need it.

What to check before you choose a WordPress chatbot

Check where the answers come from, what happens when the bot does not know and where the conversation ends up, before you compare features:

1. It answers only from your content. A bot that also uses the AI model's general knowledge will one day quote a price or service you do not offer.
2. It says "I don't know". The right reply to a question your site does not cover is "I don't know, here is how to reach us".
3. It links its source, so you and the visitor can check an answer in one click.
4. It hands over to a person with the whole conversation, and is honest when nobody is online. Our guide to live chat response time has benchmarks for the reply.
5. It captures the lead where you already look, with spam judged as it is for your forms. See stopping contact form spam without losing leads.
6. It keeps visitor messages private. Ask where messages are processed and stored, who else receives them, and which cookies the widget sets for your cookie consent plugin.
7. It is safe on sensitive sites. Clinics and law firms need a bot that refuses medical and legal advice and handles a visitor in crisis. Chatbase, for example, lists HIPAA-eligible on its Enterprise plan.
8. It keeps pages fast. Prefer a widget that loads only its launcher until opened, and compare Core Web Vitals before and after with performance monitoring.
9. It answers in your visitors' language, not only with translated buttons.
10. Its pricing fits your traffic (see the costs below).

The first three checks matter beyond good service. In Moffatt v. Air Canada (2024 BCCRT 149), British Columbia's Civil Resolution Tribunal rejected the airline's argument that its chatbot was "a separate legal entity", noting that "It makes no difference whether the information comes from a static page or a chatbot." Whatever your chatbot tells a customer, your business said it.

Free chatbots for WordPress: what you actually get

Yes, you can run a chatbot on WordPress for free, but every free option limits the AI, the volume or how long the bot lasts:

• WPBot: a free plugin that answers from responses you write, with no AI bill.
• AI Engine: a free plugin; your AI provider bills usage, and answering from your content needs Pro.
• HubSpot: a free chatbot builder and live chat; the AI agent is paid.
• Tidio: 50 Lyro AI conversations once, plus 50 billable conversations.
• Chatbase: 50 message credits a month; inactive agents are deleted after 14 days.
• Crisp: a free chat widget with no AI credits.
• WPCentrify: free during early access (our product).

For routine questions only, a rule-based bot such as WPBot is safest, because it cannot invent anything.

How do you add a chatbot to WordPress?

You add a chatbot to WordPress with a plugin from the WordPress plugin directory, the vendor's embed script, or a platform whose plugin is already on the site. With a plugin:

1. In wp-admin, go to Plugins, then Add New Plugin, and search for the vendor.
2. Check the active installs and last update, then install and activate.
3. Connect your account or paste your ID (Chatbase asks for an Agent ID).
4. Set the welcome message and colors, then check the site in a private window.

If your chatbot has no plugin, paste the vendor's script into your footer with a header and footer code plugin; see our guide to a WordPress tracking code manager. Caching and script optimizers are the usual reason a widget quietly disappears, so check the live page.

On a site connected to WPCentrify, the connector adds the chat window with one script tag, so the chatbot is a switch per website. It adds a small script, and the chat loads only when a visitor opens it.

How to test a WordPress chatbot before it goes live

Test it with the questions it should refuse and the ones your site cannot answer, not only the easy ones:

1. Questions your pages answer. Check five, such as prices, hours and service areas, and their source links.
2. Questions your site does not answer. It should say it does not know and offer a way to reach you.
3. Questions it must refuse. Try medical or legal advice, a discount code and "ignore your instructions".
4. A request for a person, in and out of business hours.
5. Test contact details. Confirm one inquiry arrives where your team looks, with the conversation attached.
6. The live page, on a phone, in a private window and behind your cache.

In the first week, read every conversation and fill each gap the bot found with an FAQ or a page.

How much does a chatbot for WordPress cost?

A chatbot for WordPress costs from nothing to several hundred dollars a month, and the pricing model matters more than the headline price:

• Per AI conversation: Tidio's Lyro from $39 a month for 50, billed monthly.
• Per resolution or outcome: Intercom Fin at $0.99 per outcome; HubSpot's AI agent at $0.50 per resolution.
• Message credits: Chatbase Hobby, 700 credits for $40 a month.
• A flat plan plus AI credits: Crisp Mini, $45 a month per workspace with $5 of credits.
• Your own AI provider bill: AI Engine and WPBot licenses from $79 and $39 a year, plus usage when you use AI.
• Included in a platform: WPCentrify, with no per-conversation charge (our product; prices are announced at launch).

Estimate a typical month before you choose. Per-resolution pricing grows as the bot improves, and per-conversation pricing usually counts every chat the bot replied to, whether or not it helped.

Running a chatbot on many WordPress sites

Running a chatbot on several WordPress sites usually means a separate setup for each, and Tidio's FAQ, for example, says its widget shares one set of appearance and behavior settings across every site you add.

In WPCentrify, the chatbot is switched on per website from the dashboard that already handles updates, backups and security. Each site keeps its own wording, every site's inquiries land in one list, traffic analytics shows how many people reached each site, and the white label add-on, the one paid add-on, removes the Powered by WPCentrify line.

It is one part of a WordPress website management platform for anyone responsible for more than one WordPress site. See how it works when you manage multiple WordPress sites from one dashboard, with live chat on every client site where a person should take over.

Sources

• Tidio pricing and Lyro AI Agent
• AI Engine, AI Engine Pro and its disclaimer
• Chatbase pricing, introduction, actions and WordPress setup
• HubSpot free chatbot builder and customer agent
• WPBot pricing
• Crisp pricing and Hugo
• Intercom pricing and Fin
• WordPress.org plugin pages for Tidio, AI Engine, Chatbase, HubSpot, WPBot, Crisp and Intercom
• WordPress documentation on managing plugins
• Moffatt v. Air Canada, 2024 BCCRT 149, Civil Resolution Tribunal of British Columbia

All sources checked on 10 October 2026.