Chatwoot Pricing 2026: Plans, Costs and Hidden Limits
🚀 Quick Takeaways
- Four Cloud tiers: Hacker is free for two agents, Startups costs $19/agent/month, Business costs $39 and Enterprise costs $99.
- Captain AI is metered: each tier bundles 300, 500 or 800 credits, and extra usage costs $20 per 1,000 credits.
- Security sits at the top: SAML SSO and audit logs appear only on the $99 Enterprise plan.
- Self-hosting has no licence fee: Community Edition costs $0 per agent, but you fund the servers, backups and maintenance.
- Cheaper access exists: Toolsurf offers 1-Click Cloud Access at $2/Day with 99.9% uptime and no browser extension setup.
Chatwoot pricing 2026 comes down to four Cloud tiers, three self-hosted options, and a set of metered AI credits that decides your real monthly bill. Chatwoot Inc. publishes a free Hacker plan, paid Startups and Business tiers, and a $99 Enterprise plan that holds most of the security features. Every figure below comes from the official pricing page as read in October 2026.
The product itself is an open-source, AI-powered customer support platform built around a shared omnichannel inbox, a help center and an AI layer called Captain. It handles website live chat, email, WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, LINE, SMS and an API channel. The community core is MIT-licensed, while the enterprise directory ships under a separate proprietary licence.
This guide walks through each plan line by line, then covers the costs that never appear in the tier grid. It also explains which plan suits which team, and how Toolsurf’s $2/Day access compares with paying per agent.
Chatwoot Pricing 2026 at a Glance
All Cloud prices are per agent, per month, in US dollars. Chatwoot prints one price per tier rather than a monthly and annual pair, which is worth remembering when you read third-party comparisons.
| Cloud plan | Price per agent/month | Agents and conversations | Captain AI credits | Data retention | Key inclusions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hacker | $0 | Up to 2 agents, 500 conversations/month | None | 30 days | Live chat only |
| Startups | $19 | Unlimited conversations under fair use | 300 | 1 year | Omnichannel inbox, Help Center |
| Business | $39 | Unlimited conversations under fair use | 500 | 2 years | Voice, Teams, automation rules |
| Enterprise | $99 | Unlimited conversations under fair use | 800 | 3 years | SSO/SAML, audit logs, all lower-tier features |
| Toolsurf Group Buy ($2/Day) | $2/Day | 1-Click Cloud Access in the browser | Not applicable | Not applicable | 99.9% uptime, zero browser extension setup |
What the Free Hacker Plan Really Covers
Hacker gives two agents a live chat widget and 500 conversations each month, with 30 days of data retention. It excludes Voice, Captain AI, the Help Center, Teams, automation rules, SSO/SAML and audit logs. Signing up starts a 15-day free trial without a credit card, and the free tier has no stated end date.
Where Startups and Business Diverge
Startups costs $19 and adds the full omnichannel inbox, the Help Center, 300 Captain AI credits and one year of retention. Business doubles that to $39 and adds Voice, Teams, automation rules, 500 credits and two years of retention. For a five-agent team, the jump from Startups to Business is $100 more per month.
Enterprise Unlocks Security Rather Than Capacity
The $99 Enterprise tier adds SSO/SAML, audit logs, 800 Captain AI credits and three years of retention on top of everything below it. There is no published agent minimum on the official page, despite claims elsewhere that Enterprise requires 20 or more seats. Teams with a compliance requirement effectively start their budget here.
Self-Hosted Plans: A Free Licence With Real Bills
Chatwoot also sells support and licence tiers for teams running the platform on their own infrastructure. The Community Edition carries no per-agent fee at all, which is why self-hosting gets described as the cheapest route.
| Self-hosted tier | Price per agent/month | Captain AI and voice | Branding, roles and capacity | SSO/SAML and SLA policies | Support channel |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Community Edition | $0 | Not included | Not included | Not included | Discord and GitHub |
| Premium Support | $19 | Included | Included | Not included | Priority email |
| Enterprise Edition | $99 | Included | Included | Included | Phone and developer office hours |
| Toolsurf Group Buy ($2/Day) | $2/Day | Managed access, no install | Not applicable | Not applicable | 1-Click Cloud Access |
What a Self-Hosted Deployment Actually Requires
Chatwoot documents a production stack of Linux with PostgreSQL, Redis and S3-compatible storage, starting around 4 GB of RAM and 2 CPU cores. That is the minimum footprint, not the full cost. Upgrades, security patches, backups and monitoring all land on your team, and a managed host such as the options in our Cloudways pricing guide turns the free licence into a predictable monthly bill that arrives whether or not anyone opens a conversation.
Monthly Versus Annual Billing and Other Ambiguities
The official pricing page shows a single per-agent figure for each Cloud tier with no monthly or annual toggle. Several third-party write-ups describe those same numbers as billed annually, which has never been confirmed in the official text. Until Chatwoot prints both rates, treat each figure as the quoted per-agent rate and confirm the billing term at checkout.
Retention is the second place where sources disagree. The official page lists one, two and three years for Startups, Business and Enterprise, while a 2026 blog lists six months, one year and two years. The official page wins on this one, so plan around one year of history on Startups.
Claims Worth Verifying Before You Pay
One aggregator states that Enterprise requires 20 or more agents, and the official pages state no minimum at all. Another comparison still lists a “Team” plan at $29 per agent that does not exist in the current four-tier structure. Chatwoot’s FAQ does confirm a free Startups plan for open-source projects and discounts for nonprofits, so ask support before assuming you pay list price.
Hidden Costs and Limits That Change the Real Price
The tier grid is honest about features but quiet about usage, and usage is where support budgets usually break. Three mechanics matter most: AI credits, retention caps and the features you rebuild elsewhere.
Captain AI Credits Are Metered and Non-Refundable
Each paid tier bundles a fixed number of Captain AI credits, from 300 on Startups to 800 on Enterprise. Additional credits cost $20 per 1,000, billed pay-as-you-go through the billing dashboard, and they are non-refundable because they are usage-based. Reviewers describe 500 credits as comfortable for agent-assist work but tight for autonomous first-response, where a busy inbox can consume the allowance quietly.
Retention Caps Turn History Into an Upgrade Trigger
Hacker keeps 30 days of conversations, Startups keeps one year, Business keeps two years and Enterprise keeps three. That matters when a customer disputes a refund or a contract from eighteen months ago. If your team needs older context, the retention limit silently converts a support lookup into a plan upgrade.
Automation and Integrations Fill the Gaps
Automation rules arrive with Business, so Startups teams that need routing and assignment logic often bolt on external workflows. That is where a second subscription appears, and the tiers in our Zapier pricing breakdown are the usual next line in the spreadsheet. Build that add-on into the comparison before you commit to Startups.
Fair Use and the Missing Volume Discount
Paid Cloud plans advertise unlimited conversations subject to a fair-use policy that is never spelled out numerically. No volume discount is published for larger teams, so a twenty-agent desk pays the same per seat as a three-agent desk. Cloud refunds are pro-rata based on the cancellation date, Captain AI credits are excluded, and self-hosted Enterprise Edition is not refundable at all.
Which Chatwoot Plan Fits Your Team?
Plan choice usually follows headcount first and feature requirements second. The exceptions are voice and compliance, which force a jump of two tiers rather than one.
Two Agents Running Live Chat Only
Hacker is the right start for a founder handling website chat alone or with one colleague. You get 500 conversations a month, a live chat widget and 30 days of history at zero cost. The moment you need WhatsApp, email or the Help Center, the free tier stops being enough.
Three to Ten Agents on Email and Social
Startups at $19 per agent is the value tier for this group, because it unlocks the omnichannel inbox, the Help Center and 300 Captain AI credits. A five-agent desk pays $95 per month and keeps a year of history. Most small e-commerce and SaaS support teams fit here comfortably.
Voice-First and WhatsApp-Heavy Desks
Business at $39 adds inbound and outbound calls inside the same inbox, with recordings and transcripts threaded into each conversation. It also brings Teams, automation rules and two years of retention. Teams that replaced a separate phone system will usually find the extra $20 per agent easy to justify.
Compliance, SSO and Long Retention
Enterprise at $99 is the only Cloud route to SAML SSO, audit logs and three-year retention. Regulated industries that must keep conversations on-premises should compare the self-hosted Enterprise Edition instead, which adds SSO, SLA policies and phone support for the same per-agent figure.
Is Chatwoot Worth Paying For in 2026?
Chatwoot pricing 2026 stays competitive at the low end and turns ordinary at the top. At $19 per agent it undercuts most commercial support suites while covering WhatsApp, Instagram, email and live chat in one inbox. At $99 per agent it competes directly with enterprise platforms, so the value argument changes shape.
The 2026 release cadence has been steady. A February release added the Captain Editor inside the reply composer, along with conversation workflows and required attributes before resolving. Voice calls arrived with recordings and transcripts via Twilio and WhatsApp calling, a July release added an Intercom import workflow for contacts and conversations, and a September release added per-inbox call recording settings and IP masking.
The honest limits matter too. Chatwoot is conversation-first rather than a full ITSM suite, voice is a first release without workforce management, and reporting is lighter than premium rivals at high volume. Buyers weighing a premium AI-first suite can read our Intercom group buy access comparison, because the pricing models are built on completely different units.
Scale is not the concern. Chatwoot reports 15,000+ businesses, 37,000 GitHub stars and 400+ contributors, and the platform is used across e-commerce, B2B SaaS and regulated industries. The question is whether you need the top tier’s security features, and whether metered AI fits your support volume.
Pros & Cons of Chatwoot in 2026
👍 Pros
- Every Cloud and self-hosted tier publishes a per-agent price you can model before talking to sales.
- The free Hacker plan lets two agents run live chat with 500 conversations a month at no cost.
- Paid plans cover 12+ channels, including WhatsApp Business, Instagram, email and SMS.
- Self-hosting removes per-seat licence fees and keeps customer conversations on your own infrastructure.
- The 2026 releases shipped Captain Editor, voice calls and an Intercom import workflow within months.
- The MIT-licensed core means no vendor lock-in on the community edition.
👎 Cons
- SAML SSO and audit logs are gated to the $99 Enterprise plan, which blocks compliance-driven teams.
- Captain AI credits are metered, non-refundable and easy to consume without a loud warning.
- Self-hosting carries real maintenance, security and backup responsibility that rarely shows up in comparisons.
- Data retention stops at 30 days on the free tier and one year on Startups.
- No annual discount or volume pricing is published for larger teams.
Who Should Use Chatwoot in 2026?
Small Support Teams Living in WhatsApp and Instagram
A three to ten person team answering social and email queries gets the most from Startups. The omnichannel inbox puts WhatsApp Business, Instagram DMs and email in one queue, and the Help Center handles repeat questions. At $19 per agent, the maths works long before a premium suite becomes realistic.
Startups That Want Published Per-Seat Pricing
Founders comparing support tools usually hit a sales call before they see a number. Chatwoot prints every tier, every credit allowance and every retention limit on one page. That transparency makes it easy to forecast cost at five agents and at fifteen, without negotiating a contract first.
Technical Teams With Data Sovereignty Requirements
Organisations that cannot send customer conversations to a third-party cloud can run the Community Edition on their own infrastructure. The licence costs nothing per agent, and the conversations stay on your servers. The trade-off is engineering time for upgrades, backups and security patching.
Growing SaaS Desks Outgrowing Shared Inboxes
Teams that started with a shared Gmail inbox and a spreadsheet of canned replies usually need routing, SLAs and reporting next. Business adds Teams, automation rules and CSAT reporting at $39 per agent. It is a reasonable middle step before a full ticketing or ITSM platform.
How Toolsurf’s $2/Day Access Compares
Chatwoot charges per agent, so cost scales with every person who opens the inbox. Toolsurf takes a different route: members open premium tools through 1-Click Cloud Access in the browser for $2/Day, backed by 99.9% uptime and no browser extension to install. The comparison below uses Chatwoot’s published per-agent rates at the time of writing (October 2026).
| Scenario | Chatwoot Cloud cost | Matching Chatwoot plan | Toolsurf Group Buy ($2/Day) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 agents, live chat only | $0/month | Hacker | $2/Day |
| 3 agents, email and social | $57/month | Startups | $2/Day |
| 3 agents with voice | $117/month | Business | $2/Day |
| 5 agents with voice | $195/month | Business | $2/Day |
| 10 agents needing SSO | $990/month | Enterprise | $2/Day |
The pattern is straightforward. Per-agent pricing rewards small teams and penalises growing ones, while a daily rate stays flat as headcount rises. That difference matters most for agencies, freelancers and side projects that need capable software without a recurring per-seat contract.
Toolsurf is not a replacement for owning a Chatwoot account when you need admin control, custom integrations or data residency. It is a practical way to work inside premium tools at a low daily rate. Readers who want to compare access models side by side can check the Chatwoot group buy page before committing to a per-agent plan.
🏆 Toolsurf Verdict: Strong Value Below $39, Careful Above It
Chatwoot remains one of the few support platforms that publishes every tier, credit allowance and retention limit without a sales call. Startups at $19 per agent is the standout tier for small teams, and Business at $39 justifies itself once voice and automation rules are genuinely needed. The $99 Enterprise jump is where buyers should slow down and model the cost properly.
- 1-Click Cloud Access: Toolsurf members open premium tools directly in the browser, so there is nothing to configure on a laptop before a shift starts.
- 99.9% Uptime: Access stays available during long support days, which is the baseline any inbox tool needs.
- $2/Day Pricing: Toolsurf charges a daily rate instead of a per-agent monthly seat, so growing a team does not multiply the software bill.
- Zero Browser Extension Setup: There is no extension to install or maintain, which keeps locked-down work machines usable.
For a two-agent team, Chatwoot’s free Hacker plan is the obvious starting point. For a five to ten agent desk that needs omnichannel support without per-seat commitments, comparing Toolsurf’s $2/Day access against the $39 and $99 tiers is the sensible next step.
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) – Chatwoot in 2026
How much does Chatwoot cost in 2026?
Cloud plans are priced per agent, per month: Hacker is $0, Startups is $19, Business is $39 and Enterprise is $99. Self-hosted tiers run at $0 for Community Edition, $19 for Premium Support and $99 for Enterprise Edition. Captain AI overage adds $20 per 1,000 credits on top of any paid Cloud plan.
Is there a free Chatwoot plan?
Yes. The Cloud Hacker plan costs $0 per agent and supports up to two agents with 500 conversations per month, live chat only and 30 days of retention. Signing up also starts a 15-day free trial with no credit card required. The self-hosted Community Edition is free forever if you supply the infrastructure.
Does Chatwoot offer annual billing or a discount?
The official pricing page prints one per-agent price per tier with no monthly or annual toggle. Some third-party articles describe those figures as billed annually, but the official page does not confirm it. Ask support to confirm the billing term and any commitment before you pay, especially for a larger team.
What happens when Captain AI credits run out?
Additional credits cost $20 per 1,000 and are billed pay-as-you-go through the billing dashboard. The credits are non-refundable because they are usage-based, so they are excluded from the pro-rata refund on Cloud cancellations. Teams running autonomous first-response should watch consumption closely, because the allowance can disappear faster than expected.
Is self-hosting Chatwoot really free?
The Community Edition licence costs $0 per agent and has no per-seat fee. You still fund the servers, PostgreSQL, Redis and S3-compatible storage, plus upgrades, backups and security patching. Chatwoot documents a minimum footprint of roughly 4 GB RAM and 2 CPU cores, which is a starting point rather than a full budget.
Which Chatwoot plan includes SSO and audit logs?
SAML SSO and audit logs appear only on the Cloud Enterprise plan at $99 per agent, per month. On self-hosted deployments they require the Enterprise Edition at the same per-agent figure. Business at $39 includes Voice, Teams and automation rules but still excludes SSO and audit logs, which is the most common upgrade complaint.
How does Toolsurf’s $2/Day access compare to Chatwoot pricing 2026?
Chatwoot scales with agents: five agents on Business cost $195 per month, and ten agents on Enterprise cost $990. Toolsurf charges $2/Day for 1-Click Cloud Access with 99.9% uptime and no browser extension setup. The daily rate stays flat as your team grows, which suits agencies and freelancers more than large support departments.
Can nonprofits or open-source projects get Chatwoot free?
Chatwoot’s FAQ states that the Startups plan is offered free of charge to open-source projects, and that discounts exist for nonprofits. Neither offer is automatic on the pricing page, so contact the team with your project details before subscribing. Confirm the terms in writing, since the published tiers still list $19 per agent.