Chatwoot Pricing 2026: Is It Worth It?

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On the surface, Chatwoot appears to be a budget-friendly open-source customer support tool. But once you start comparing the plans, limits, retention rules, and add-ons like their AI Agent Captain, things get confusing fast.

In this guide, I’ll break down Chatwoot’s pricing clearly so you understand what each plan includes, where the limitations show up, and what the real cost looks like once you start growing your support volume. Let’s jump in. 👇

Key takeaways

• Chatwoot offers both cloud and self-hosted pricing plans
• Cloud plans range from $19 to $99/agent/month
• The Free plan is extremely limited. It supports only basic live chat and deletes all data after 30 days
• Self-hosting can be free with the open-source version, but you must handle all maintenance, updates, infrastructure, and external messaging costs yourself
• Paid self-hosted plans are also available, starting from $19 to $99/agent/month, with maintenance handled for you
• There are no publicly available discounts or savings on annual billing

What is Chatwoot?

Chatwoot is an open-source customer communication platform that gives you a shared inbox for handling messages from channels like live chat, email, social media, and WhatsApp.

Think of it as a lightweight customer support hub where your team can respond to customers, automate simple tasks, and track conversations in one place.

It’s especially popular with technical teams because you can self-host it and customize almost anything. But Chatwoot also offers a cloud-hosted version for teams that want a straightforward customer support tool without managing servers.

Chatwoot pricing 2026 (cloud-hosted)

Chatwoot offers 4 main cloud plans, all billed per agent per month.

The pricing looks simple at first, but each plan comes with different retention rules, feature limits, and channel access.

Hacker (Free)

Great for testing Chatwoot, but not designed for any real support workflow.

• Up to 2 agents
• 500 customer conversations per month
• 30-day data retention
• Only website live chat

Limitations:

• No email, WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, SMS, or API channels
• No help center
• No reporting
• No automations, no custom views, no filters

The free plan is basically a bare bones live chat widget and misses every core feature a support team needs, including channels, automations, and historical customer data.

Startups ($19/agent/month)

The first actually usable plan with proper channel coverage.

• Unlimited agents
• Unlimited customer conversations under fair use
• 6-month data retention
• Email, social channels, WhatsApp, SMS, Telegram, Line
• Help center included
• Custom views, filters, business hours
• Basic automations
• Campaigns and contact segments

The 6-month retention limit means your old conversations and attachments are automatically deleted, which can be a painful surprise for fast-growing teams.

Business ($39/agent/month)

Most teams will land here because it unlocks stronger automation and customer data features.

• Unlimited conversations
• 1 year data retention
• Automations
• Teams
• Custom attributes and pre-chat forms
• Full reporting suite
• Priority email support

If you work with customers who need long-term historical context, the 1-year retention still wipes out older conversations unless you manually export them.

Enterprise ($99/agent/month)

Best suited for larger teams that need compliance and branding control.

• Everything in Business
• 2-year data retention
• SSO
• Audit logs
• SLAs
• Remove branding
• Dedicated account manager for 20-plus seats

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Chatwoot pricing (self-hosted)

One of Chatwoot’s biggest selling points is that you can self-host it. This gives you full control over your data and lets you customize the platform however you like, but the actual pricing depends on which version you choose.

Hosting Chatwoot yourself sounds cheaper, but the hidden costs often outweigh the savings. You still pay for SMS & WhatsApp delivery fees, DialogFlow costs, backups and monitoring, and most crucially - engineering time.

Self-hosting gives full control, but unless you have a technical team ready to maintain it, the real cost often ends up higher than the cost of the cloud version.

Community Edition (Free)

The open-source version is free under the MIT License.

• Full control over data
• Host it anywhere
• Customize as needed

But you get no premium features and no official support. It may be free, but you pay with engineering time, maintenance work, and DevOps overhead.

Premium self-hosted ($19/agent/month)

This unlocks all Pro-level features, plus premium support and branding options.
Think of it as the Startups and Business plan equivalents, but on your own servers.

You still handle hosting and updates yourself, so costs rise quickly unless you already have a DevOps pipeline in place.

Enterprise self-hosted ($99/agent/month)

Built for companies with strict compliance needs. You get:

• Advanced access controls
• SLAs
• Dedicated account manager
• Phone support
• Video and voice support

At this point, you are paying close to full enterprise pricing while still hosting everything on your own infrastructure.

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Hidden costs & limitations

Chatwoot’s pricing looks simple at first, but several extra costs can push your actual monthly bill higher than expected. Here are the ones researchers should definitely keep in mind:

• Remove branding locked to Enterprise
  You cannot remove Chatwoot branding unless you are on the Enterprise plan.
• Short data retention on all pricing plans
  Retention is shorter than older versions suggested: 6 months on Startups, 1 year on Business, and 2 years on Enterprise. Older conversations and attachments get deleted unless exported manually.
• WhatsApp Business API fees
  WhatsApp is included in paid plans, but Meta charges per conversation through your BSP provider. So, if WhatsApp is one of your main channels, your real cost increases fast.
• SMS delivery costs
  SMS is supported, but all message delivery fees are paid directly to providers like Twilio. If you send OTPs or reminders, expect variable usage charges.
• DialogFlow usage fees
  Chatwoot integrates with DialogFlow, but Google Cloud charges separately for every customer interaction.
• Fair use limits on conversations and inboxes
  Conversations are labeled as unlimited, but Chatwoot monitors usage and may request upgrades if your volume exceeds typical patterns.
• No annual billing discount
  Chatwoot does not publicly offer lower pricing for yearly commitments, so you pay the same rate every month.

Chatwoot seems affordable at first, but WhatsApp fees, SMS charges, and strict retention limits often raise the real cost more than teams expect.

Other things to know

Does Chatwoot offer a free plan or trial?

Yes. Chatbase has a very limited Free plan and can also be self-hosted. All paid plans can be tried with a 15-day free trial without a credit card.

Does Chatwoot offer any discounts?

Chatwoot doesn't offer any public discounts.

Does Chatwoot offer annual billing discounts?

There is no public information about lower pricing for yearly commitments. All available documentation suggests billing is monthly only.

What happens when my data retention limit is reached?

Chatwoot removes older conversation history, messages, attachments, and related events once your retention period expires. You can still export data manually before it is deleted.

Does Chatwoot support all channels without extra fees?

Channels like WhatsApp and SMS are included on paid plans, but the message delivery costs are separate. Meta charges per WhatsApp conversation, and SMS providers charge per message.

Best Chatwoot alternatives

If Chatwoot feels too basic and limited, or the real cost becomes higher than expected here are the best alternatives worth considering. 👇

1. ✨ Featurebase – Modern AI support inbox with built-in help center and simple pricing
2. Intercom – Conversational support with advanced bots and proactive messages
3. Gorgias – E-commerce focused help desk with strong Shopify and WooCommerce integrations
4. Crisp – Affordable live chat and shared inbox for startups needing quick setup
5. Freshdesk – Budget-friendly ticketing system with automations and multichannel support
6. Zendesk – Enterprise-level ticketing, analytics, and routing for large support teams
7. Papercups – Lightweight open source shared inbox and chat widget for technical teams

You can dive deeper into the top Chatwoot alternatives to enhance customer support from our comparison article.

So, is Chatwoot worth it?

Chatwoot is a solid open-source support platform with omnichannel coverage, but it comes with real trade-offs. It lacks many essentials modern support teams rely on, like native AI tools and a built-in help center on the lower tiers, and the short data retention limits can be restrictive as you grow. Once you factor in WhatsApp fees, SMS costs, and DialogFlow usage, the real monthly price often ends up higher than it first appears.

Featurebase (👋 that's us) is a modern Chatwoot alternative with an AI-powered support inbox, automations, Slack integration, and a help center. You get all the same features, plus roadmaps, feedback management, and product updates, in a much more affordable package. It's loved by thousands of companies like Lovable, Polymarket, and Raycast.

What's best is that it comes with a Free plan, and the onboarding is super simple, so there's no downside to trying it out! 👇

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