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I get why picking an AI chatbot app feels harder than it should. Every tool claims to answer anything, and the plans change every few months. The word “chatbot” now covers both the assistant you talk to and the bot that talks to your customers.
Pick the wrong kind and you pay for features you never use, or you put a bot in front of customers that can’t answer their questions. My advice is to decide the job first. For your own work, ChatGPT or Claude covers most needs. For your customers, pick a business AI chatbot app that answers from your own help content and hands off to a person when it should.
The Best AI Chatbot Apps
- ChatGPT for the broadest feature set and largest ecosystem
- Claude for writing quality and long document analysis
- Google Gemini for deep Google Workspace integration
- Perplexity AI for real-time research with cited sources
- Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 power users
- Intercom Fin for AI-powered customer support resolution
- Tidio Lyro for small business support on a budget
- ManyChat for Instagram and social media marketing automation
- HubSpot Breeze for CRM-connected AI agents
- Zendesk AI for enterprise-scale support automation
- Core Support for WordPress businesses that want the chatbot, docs and tickets on their own site
I’ve split the 11 apps into two groups: general-purpose AI assistants you use yourself, and business chatbots you put in front of customers for support and marketing.
Best General-Purpose AI Chatbots
These are the AI assistants you talk to directly. For writing, research, coding, brainstorming, analysis, and pretty much anything else you’d ask a very smart colleague to help with.
ChatGPT
Best for: Everyone who wants one AI tool that does a bit of everything. The default choice if you’re not sure what you need.
ChatGPT is the AI chatbot most people think of first, and it is the default choice for a reason. OpenAI’s ecosystem is the largest: custom GPTs, web browsing, image generation, voice, code execution and file analysis all live in one app.
The free tier works for everyday questions with usage limits. Go is the cheapest paid plan at $8 a month in the US. Plus costs $20 a month and adds the stronger reasoning models, and Pro is for heavy users who hit the Plus limits.
Its strength is breadth. No other chatbot puts image generation, voice, code, browsing and custom GPTs in one interface, so it’s the one app that covers the most ground.
Where it falls short: the free tier switches you to a smaller model once you hit its limit, and writing can feel generic next to Claude. The number of features has also made the interface cluttered.
Price: Free tier available. Go $8/month in the US. Plus $20/month. Pro for heavy use.
Claude
Best for: Writers, developers, and anyone who works with long documents. The writing quality is noticeably better than ChatGPT for nuanced, human-sounding content.
Claude is built by Anthropic, and it is strongest at long documents, careful writing and code. Its large context window lets you paste a long report, contract or codebase and ask questions about the whole thing at once.
The lineup runs from a fast, cheap model for quick tasks to a flagship for hard reasoning. Claude Code lets the AI write, test and debug code in your own project, which saves developers real time.
Pro costs $20 a month, or $17 a month on annual billing. Max at $100 a month and Ultra at $200 a month give heavy users much more usage. The free tier works, but its limits are tighter.
Where Claude falls short compared to ChatGPT: it doesn’t generate images and its ecosystem of custom assistants is smaller. If you need image creation or custom GPTs, ChatGPT is the better pick.
Price: Free tier available. Pro $20/month. Max $100/month. Ultra $200/month.
Google Gemini
Best for: People deep in the Google ecosystem who want AI that works with their existing Gmail, Docs, and Drive without switching apps.
Google Gemini‘s biggest advantage is that it lives inside the Google ecosystem. If you use Gmail, Google Docs, Calendar, Drive, and YouTube, Gemini can access all of it. Ask it to summarize your latest emails, draft a response, or find that document you saved three months ago. No other AI chatbot has this level of integration with tools most people already use.
Gemini also handles very long inputs, so you can give it large documents, long videos or a folder of files in one conversation. For researchers and analysts, that is a real advantage.
Pricing is competitive. The free tier covers basic use and Google AI Plus costs $4.99 a month. Google AI Pro costs $19.99 a month and adds Deep Research and fuller Workspace features, and Ultra starts at $99.99 a month for the highest limits.
The weakness: Gemini’s answers can read more like a search result than a conversation, and Deep Research is slow and sometimes stays on the surface of a topic.
Price: Free tier available. AI Plus $4.99/month. AI Pro $19.99/month. Ultra from $99.99/month.
Perplexity AI
Best for: Researchers, journalists, students, and anyone who needs accurate, sourced answers quickly.
Perplexity isn’t trying to be another ChatGPT. It’s an answer engine. You ask a question, it searches the web in real-time, reads the sources, and gives you a cited answer with links to every claim. Think of it as Google Search reimagined with AI.
The Pro plan lets you switch between models from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google in the same interface, so you aren’t locked into one company’s model.
For fact-checking or a quick overview of a topic with sources, it is faster than the general chatbots, and the citations let you check every claim yourself.
The limitation: it’s not great for creative work, coding, or long conversations. It’s built for research and information retrieval. If you need to write an essay, brainstorm ideas, or debug code, use ChatGPT or Claude instead.
Price: Free tier available. Pro $20/month. Max for heavy users.
Microsoft Copilot
Best for: Microsoft 365 power users who want AI assistance directly inside Word, Excel, Outlook, and Teams.
Microsoft Copilot is embedded everywhere: Windows, Edge, Bing, and the entire Microsoft 365 suite. If your business runs on Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams, Copilot adds AI directly into those tools without switching apps.
The free Copilot app is generous enough for everyday questions, and for many people it is all they need.
For personal use, Copilot now comes bundled with Microsoft 365 plans. Microsoft 365 Premium, at $19.99 a month, is the plan built for AI and productivity. Business plans are priced per user and add admin controls and compliance features.
The honest take: as a standalone chatbot, Copilot is weaker than ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini. The value is entirely in the Microsoft 365 integration. If you don’t use Microsoft’s productivity suite, there’s little reason to pick Copilot over the others.
Price: Free tier available. Microsoft 365 Premium $19.99/month. Business plans per user.
AI Chatbot Comparison
Here’s a quick side-by-side of all 11 AI chatbot apps in this guide. Plans change often, so I’ve listed how each one charges and the entry price only where it is stable.
| App | Type | Free Tier | How It Charges | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | General AI | Yes (limited) | Plans from $8/mo (Go) | Everything |
| Claude | General AI | Yes (limited) | From $20/mo (Pro) | Writing & Code |
| Google Gemini | General AI | Yes | From $4.99/mo (AI Plus) | Google Users |
| Perplexity AI | AI Search | Yes (limited) | From $20/mo (Pro) | Research |
| Microsoft Copilot | Productivity AI | Yes | Microsoft 365 Premium $19.99/mo | Microsoft 365 Users |
| Intercom Fin | Customer Support | No | Per seat, plus $0.99 per Fin outcome | SaaS Companies |
| Tidio Lyro | Customer Support | Free live chat plan | Plan by volume, Lyro AI billed separately | Small Business |
| ManyChat | Marketing | Limited free plan | Pro by contact count, AI add-on | Social Media |
| HubSpot Breeze | CRM + AI | Basic chatbot | Per seat; AI agent from Professional | HubSpot CRM Users |
| Zendesk AI | Enterprise Support | No | Per agent, plus AI resolutions | Enterprise |
| Core Support | WordPress Support | 14-day refund | $199 once; AI runs on your own API key | WordPress Businesses |
Best AI Chatbots for Business
These are the AI chatbots you deploy on your website, app, or social media channels to handle customer support, lead generation, and sales automation. They talk to your customers so your team doesn’t have to handle every single query.
Intercom Fin
Best for: SaaS companies and mid-to-large businesses with significant support volume that want to automate ticket resolution.
Intercom Fin is the AI support agent that actually resolves tickets. Not just routes them. Not just suggests articles. It reads your help docs, understands the question, and gives a real answer across chat, email, and SMS.
The pricing model is what makes Fin interesting: $0.99 per Fin outcome. You pay when the AI actually settles the customer’s request, and a conversation it hands to a human doesn’t cost that fee.
Seats start at $29 a month on the Essential plan, less on annual billing. Copilot, the assistant that helps your human agents reply faster, costs $29 per agent per month after a small free allowance.
The downside: Intercom is expensive if you’re a small business. Between per-seat costs and per-resolution charges, the monthly bill adds up quickly once you scale past a few hundred support conversations. But if customer support is a real cost center for you, Fin can genuinely reduce headcount needs.
Price: From $29/seat/month + $0.99 per Fin outcome. Copilot $29/agent/month.
Tidio (Lyro AI)
Best for: Small e-commerce stores and service businesses that want affordable AI support without Intercom’s price tag.
Tidio is the small business alternative to Intercom. Their AI agent, Lyro, handles customer conversations using your knowledge base and FAQ content. It’s not as sophisticated as Intercom Fin, but it’s a fraction of the cost.
Live-chat and AI quotas are separate. Tidio’s free customer-service plan includes 50 billable conversations per month. The included 50 Lyro AI conversations are a one-off allowance; ongoing AI usage requires a paid Lyro allowance.
The drag-and-drop chatbot builder is easy to set up even without technical skills, and Lyro learns from the help content you give it.
The limitation: Lyro’s AI is simpler than Fin’s. Complex multi-step queries often get escalated to humans. If your support requires nuanced troubleshooting, you’ll hit Lyro’s ceiling quickly. But for common questions like “Where’s my order?” and “What’s your return policy?”, it handles them well.
Price: live chat and Lyro AI are priced separately. Compare their current conversation allowances and billing intervals before choosing a plan.
ManyChat
Best for: E-commerce brands, creators, and marketers who generate leads and sales through Instagram and Messenger automation.
ManyChat owns the Instagram DM automation space. If you’re running an e-commerce brand, coaching business, or content creator operation that generates leads through social media, ManyChat is probably already on your radar.
It automates conversations on Instagram, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, SMS, and email. When someone comments on your Instagram post, ManyChat can automatically send them a DM with a link, discount code, or lead capture form. This isn’t customer support. It’s marketing automation through messaging.
The free plan is small and meant for testing. Pro is priced by the number of contacts you have, so the bill grows with your audience, and the AI features are sold as an add-on. WhatsApp messages are billed separately by Meta.
ManyChat is purpose-built. Don’t expect it to handle customer support like Intercom or Tidio. It’s a marketing tool that uses messaging as its channel. For that specific use case, nothing else comes close.
Price: Limited free plan. Pro priced by contact count. AI as an add-on.
HubSpot Breeze AI
Best for: Existing HubSpot CRM customers who want AI agents that use their customer data for context-aware conversations.
HubSpot rebranded their AI features under “Breeze” and it’s now woven into the entire CRM platform. You get four specialized AI agents: Customer Agent (support), Prospecting Agent (lead research), Content Agent (blog writing), and Social Media Agent.
The key advantage: Breeze knows your CRM data. When a customer asks a question, the AI has full context on their purchase history, support tickets, and interactions. This makes responses more relevant than a standalone chatbot that only reads your FAQ page.
The catch is pricing. The free CRM includes a basic chatbot builder without AI. The Customer Agent needs a Service Hub Professional plan or higher, priced per seat with an onboarding fee. Its conversations use HubSpot credits, so the monthly cost depends on volume.
If you’re already paying for HubSpot’s CRM, adding Breeze makes sense. If you’re not a HubSpot customer, it’s not worth switching just for the AI features. Intercom or Tidio will serve you better at lower cost.
Price: Free CRM (basic chatbot). Customer Agent from Service Hub Professional, per seat.
Zendesk AI Agents
Best for: Enterprise companies with large support teams that need AI capable of handling complex, multi-step customer issues.
Zendesk AI is the enterprise option. Built on top of Zendesk’s massive customer service dataset, these AI agents handle complex, multi-step support scenarios that simpler bots can’t manage.
Pricing reflects the enterprise positioning. Suite Professional is listed at $115 per agent per month on annual billing, and the Copilot add-on costs extra per agent. Automated resolutions beyond the included allowance are billed one by one.
What sets Zendesk apart: the AI isn’t just matching keywords to articles. It reasons through problems, asks clarifying questions, and adapts its approach based on the conversation. For complex B2B support with technical troubleshooting, this matters.
The downside is cost. For a 10-agent team, the Suite Professional seats alone run past $1,000 a month before any AI charges. That only makes sense when support volume is high enough to justify automation at scale.
Price: Suite Professional $115/agent/month, billed yearly. AI add-ons and resolutions extra.
Core Support
Best for: Businesses that sell software, plugins or digital products on WordPress and want the chatbot, the docs and the ticket inbox on their own site.
Core Support is the WordPress helpdesk plugin I built. Its AI chatbot answers visitors from your docs, posts and WooCommerce, FluentCart or Easy Digital Downloads product data, and it shows the links it answered from.
It runs on your own API key from a provider such as OpenAI, Anthropic or DeepSeek, so you choose the model and pay that provider for usage. You also set the answer length, the topics it stays within, up to 20 rules of your own and a daily token budget. Once the budget is spent, the chat stops answering and offers a ticket instead.
When the chatbot can’t help, Talk to a person turns the conversation into a ticket with the whole transcript and the page the visitor was on. The same plugin includes the shared inbox, a customer portal, docs at /docs/ and changelogs, and the chat button can go on any of your sites with one script tag.
It pairs best with a docs library the chatbot can learn from. If you’re starting from zero, the docs importer can bring in pages from an existing docs site, Markdown files or a wordpress.org readme first.
Price: $199 once for unlimited sites and agents, plus your AI provider’s usage.
How to Choose an AI Chatbot
Your choice depends on what you’re trying to do. Here’s the simple framework.
For personal/professional use: Start with ChatGPT‘s free tier. It covers the most ground. If you’re a writer or developer, try Claude. You’ll notice the difference in output quality within a few conversations. If you live in Google’s ecosystem, Gemini is the most convenient. If you need sourced research, add Perplexity.
For customer support: Intercom Fin if you can afford it and want the most mature AI agent. Tidio if you’re a small business on a budget. Zendesk if you’re enterprise-scale. Core Support if you run on WordPress and want the chatbot, docs and tickets on your own site for a one-time price.
For marketing and lead gen: ManyChat if your business runs on Instagram and social messaging. HubSpot Breeze if you’re already paying for HubSpot CRM.
One thing I’d recommend: don’t force one general-purpose chatbot to do everything. ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity each have strengths the others don’t, and all three have free tiers, so try them on your own work before paying for one.
Frequently Asked Questions
These are the questions I get most about AI chatbot apps.
What is the best free AI chatbot?
ChatGPT’s free tier is the most capable all-rounder, with usage limits that switch you to a smaller model when you hit them. Google Gemini’s free tier is strong if you use Google Workspace, Claude’s free tier is good for writing and long documents, Perplexity’s free tier covers quick sourced research and the free Copilot app suits Microsoft users.
Is ChatGPT better than Claude?
It depends on the job. ChatGPT is better for breadth: image generation, custom GPTs, browsing and voice. Claude is better for depth: long documents, careful writing and coding. If you only want one, ChatGPT covers more ground. If writing quality matters most, pick Claude.
What’s the best AI chatbot for business customer support?
Intercom Fin is the most mature option and charges $0.99 per Fin outcome on top of seats. Tidio is the budget option for small businesses. Zendesk AI suits enterprise teams with complex support. HubSpot’s Customer Agent makes sense only if you already use HubSpot. Core Support suits WordPress businesses that want the chatbot, docs and tickets on their own site for $199 once.
How much do AI chatbots cost?
Personal assistants mostly start around $20 a month for the main paid plan, with cheaper tiers such as ChatGPT Go at $8 and Google AI Plus at $4.99. Business chatbots usually charge per seat plus a fee for each AI resolution, so the cost grows with your support volume. Core Support costs $199 once, and you pay your AI provider for usage.
Can AI chatbots replace human customer support agents?
Not completely. They handle routine questions well, such as order status, return policies and setup steps. Complex issues that need empathy, judgment or access to several systems still need people. The sensible setup uses AI for the volume and hands the rest to a person with the full conversation attached.
Which AI chatbot works best on a WordPress site?
For a hosted widget, Tidio and Intercom both have WordPress plugins. If you want the chatbot to answer from your own WordPress docs and products and to open tickets in a helpdesk on the same site, Core Support is built for that.
Where I’d Start
If you’re still unsure which AI chatbot app to pay for, I’d let the job decide. For your own work, use the free tiers of ChatGPT and Claude for a week on real tasks and pay for the one you keep opening.
For your customers, count the questions your inbox answers again and again. If a page could answer most of them, put a chatbot on top of good docs. If most of them need a person, fix the helpdesk first and add the chatbot after.
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