Chatfuel
Picture this: it's 2 AM, and a customer has a question about something they're about to buy. They send a message and expect to wait until morning. Instead, a reply arrives within seconds, with the price, the options and an offer to book a time. Nobody on your team was awake.
That's what a good AI chatbot does today, and customers are open to it. In a 2026 Gartner survey of 3,566 customers, 49% said they would have been willing to use a chatbot if the company had offered one. The same survey shows the catch: 87% say access to a human agent is essential when companies use generative AI in customer service. A bad bot loses the customer. A good one answers fast and knows when to hand the chat to a person.
So how do you pick the company that builds it? Hundreds of platforms and agencies promise the same thing. Below are ten options compared on what matters to a small or mid-sized business: channels, AI quality, human handoff, price and user ratings. All prices and ratings were checked in October 2026.
AI chatbot development services explained
Before the rankings, it helps to know what you're actually buying, because not all chatbots work the same way.
A few years ago, chatbot development meant drawing decision trees: buttons, keywords and fixed replies. Today most businesses want an AI agent instead. It understands free text, answers from your own information (prices, services, policies), asks for missing details, books appointments and passes the chat to a person when it should.
There are three ways to get one:
- Set it up yourself on a platform. You connect your channels, add your business information and turn the agent on. On current platforms that takes hours, not weeks, and no developer.
- Have the platform's experts build it. Many platforms sell a done-for-you service: their team sets up the agent, connects the channels and tunes it on your real conversations.
- Hire an agency for a custom build. This makes sense when you need deep integrations with internal systems. It's the slowest and most expensive route, and the agency still builds on top of a platform.
The companies below cover all three: every one sells a platform, and several also build the agent for you.
Top 10 picks for an AI chatbot development company
Here are the ten companies we'd look at first in 2026, starting with our own.
Chatfuel
We may be biased, but we built Chatfuel for exactly this job. Chatfuel is an AI agent platform for WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, TikTok and your website. Its AI Agent answers customers from your AI Knowledge Base (company info, catalog and FAQ), qualifies leads, books appointments and hands chats to your team when needed.
You don't build it block by block. AI Co-pilot, the assistant inside the panel, does the setup from a chat: tell it to send refund questions to a teammate, or paste your price list, and it changes the settings and fills the catalog for you. If you'd rather not do it yourself at all, Chatfuel Premium is the done-for-you option: Chatfuel's in-house experts design, build and launch the agent, and a personal account manager stays with you afterwards.
Features
- AI Agent on 5 channels: WhatsApp, Instagram (DMs, comments and story replies), Messenger, TikTok and a website chat widget, each with its own automation settings.
- AI Knowledge Base: the agent answers from your company info, your catalog with photos and your FAQ, and can reply in any language.
- AI Co-pilot: sets up automations, the knowledge base, the catalog, bookings and handoff rules from a chat, and sums up what your customers are asking.
- Switch to human agents: up to 20 handoff rules per automation, and each rule can assign the chat to a specific teammate.
- Lead Qualification and Kanban board: the AI collects the details you ask for and moves each lead from Captured to Qualified.
- Calendar and bookings: the AI books appointments in your calendar, and WhatsApp reminders go out before the visit.
- Chats: one inbox for every channel where your team can take over any conversation, plus the mobile app for iOS and Android.
- Broadcasts: send WhatsApp templates to all contacts or to a segment, right away or on a schedule.
- Comment auto-replies: public replies and DMs for comments on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.
- For developers: a Public API and an MCP server for working with your bot from AI assistants such as Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor.
Pricing
Chatfuel pricing is one plan with every channel and every feature:
- Business: $20 per month, including $20 in credits for AI replies and WhatsApp messages. Unlimited contacts and teammates.
- Agency plans: from $100 per month, for agencies that run bots for several companies.
- Chatfuel Premium: a done-for-you agent with a personal account manager, priority support and volume pricing. You get a quote after a demo call.
Every plan starts with a 7-day free trial, and yearly billing saves 10%. Meta's WhatsApp message fees are paid from the same credit wallet, so there's one bill.
User ratings & customer feedback
Chatfuel is rated 4.4 out of 5 on G2 (45 reviews) and 4.3 on Capterra (28 reviews).
Redonda Inmobiliaria, a real estate agency in Mexico, shows what this looks like in practice. Before Chatfuel, a team replied to every message by hand, and hot leads went cold. After the switch, the agency got 171% more leads and cut its reply time from an hour to 15 seconds. Read the Redonda Inmobiliaria story.
Manychat
Manychat is a marketing automation platform best known for Instagram. Its visual flow builder runs comment-to-DM campaigns, giveaways and lead capture on Instagram, TikTok, Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, SMS and email.
In March 2026 Manychat switched to pricing by Active Contacts, the people you actually talk to each month. AI replies in DMs and comments now come with the Pro plan and above.
See also: 9 best ManyChat alternatives, free and paid
Features
- Flow builder: visual automations started by comments, story replies, keywords and ads.
- Growth tools: links, QR codes and website widgets that open a conversation.
- AI replies: AI answers in DMs and comments on Pro and higher plans.
- Tags and broadcasts: segment contacts and send broadcasts on WhatsApp, Telegram and Messenger.
Pricing
Manychat pricing depends on your active contacts and your billing country:
- Free: up to 25 active contacts and 2 channels.
- Essential: $17 per month ($14 billed yearly), 250 active contacts, without WhatsApp, SMS or email.
- Pro: $39 per month ($29 billed yearly), 2,500 active contacts, AI replies and broadcasts.
- Business and Advanced: from $99 per month ($69 billed yearly) for 7,500 contacts and more.
User ratings & customer feedback
Manychat has 4.5 on G2 (165 reviews) and 4.6 on Capterra (72 reviews). Reviewers like how fast Instagram automations go live; the most common complaint is the price as the contact list grows.
Wati
Wati started as an inbox for the WhatsApp Business API and grew into an omnichannel platform. It gives a team one inbox for WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and website chat, plus broadcasts, chatbots and Click-to-WhatsApp ads. Its AI agents, called Astra, work on the web, WhatsApp and voice, and are sold as a separate add-on.
Features
- Team inbox: WhatsApp (including WhatsApp Business Calling), Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and website chat in one place, with assignment, tags and follow-ups.
- Broadcasts: up to 15,000 a month on Growth, unlimited from Pro.
- Chatbots and Instagram automation: no-code chatbots, forms, and comment and DM automations.
- Astra AI Agents: AI agents for the web, WhatsApp and voice, priced separately.
Pricing
Wati pricing includes a set number of users:
- Growth: $69 per month ($59 billed yearly), 3 users.
- Pro: $149 per month ($119 billed yearly), 5 users, extra users $39 each.
- Business: $349 per month ($279 billed yearly), 5 users.
There's a 7-day free trial. WhatsApp message fees are charged on top of the plan.
User ratings & customer feedback
Wati has 4.6 on G2 (515 reviews). It's a strong pick for teams that sell mostly on WhatsApp and run regular broadcast campaigns.
Landbot
Landbot is a no-code AI agent and chatbot builder for websites and WhatsApp. It made its name with conversational landing pages that replace long web forms, and its AI agents now qualify leads and book meetings around the clock.
The analytics show where people drop out of a conversation, which helps you fix the weak steps.
Features
- Conversational landing pages: turn static forms into chats on your site.
- AI agents: answer questions, qualify leads and book meetings, on the web and WhatsApp.
- Conditional logic: different conversation paths based on what the user answers.
- Integrations and webhooks: send collected data to the tools you already use.
Pricing
Landbot pricing is in euros in the EU and in dollars elsewhere:
- Free: 100 chats per month.
- Starter: €40 per month (€32 billed yearly), 500 chats and 100 AI chats.
- Professional: €100 per month (€80 billed yearly), 2,500 chats and 300 AI chats.
- WhatsApp: from €160 per month billed yearly.
- Business: from €400 per month.
User ratings & customer feedback
Landbot has 4.7 on G2 (334 reviews) and 4.4 on Capterra (70 reviews). Users like the metrics and chat assignment, though some find advanced logic limited without JavaScript.
Respond.io
Respond.io is a customer conversation platform for teams that sell and support on messaging apps. It brings WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, Telegram, LINE, email and other channels into one team inbox, with AI Agents, workflows and lead management on top.
It suits mid-sized sales teams with several people per channel and a process to follow. For a single owner, it's more tool than needed.
Features
- Omnichannel team inbox: every channel in one place, with custom inboxes per team.
- AI Agents: answer, qualify and route conversations, from the Growth plan.
- Workflows: automations for routing, assignment and follow-ups.
- Lead management: lifecycle stages to track every contact from first message to deal.
Pricing
Respond.io pricing depends on the contacts you talk to each month:
- Starter: $99 per month ($79 billed yearly).
- Growth: $199 per month ($159 billed yearly), with AI Agents.
- Advanced: $279 per month billed yearly.
There's a 7-day free trial without a card, and WhatsApp fees are extra.
User ratings & customer feedback
Respond.io has 4.8 on G2 (548 reviews), one of the highest ratings in this list.
Ada
Ada calls itself an agentic customer experience platform. It builds AI customer service agents for large companies, working across chat, voice and email. The goal is to resolve support requests end to end, not only answer questions.
Ada fits enterprise support teams with high ticket volumes and their own systems to connect. Small businesses will find the setup and the price out of reach.
Features
- AI agents for chat, voice and email: one agent across support channels.
- Actions in your systems: the agent can look things up and make changes through integrations.
- Multilingual support: answers customers in their own language.
- Escalation and reporting: handoff to human agents, with analytics on resolution rates.
Pricing
Ada doesn't publish prices. Its pricing page leads to a demo request, and the quote depends on your yearly support volume.
User ratings & customer feedback
Ada has 4.6 on G2 (174 reviews) and 4.7 on Capterra (15 reviews). Users say the Ada team is easy to reach, but some technical knowledge helps to get the most out of it.
Cliengo
Cliengo is a Latin American platform (its site is in Spanish) for capturing and qualifying leads on your website and WhatsApp. Its AI chatbot answers 24/7, a CRM inbox keeps the team's conversations together, and WhatsApp campaigns follow up with leads.
Features
- AI chatbot for web and WhatsApp: trained on your business information, answers in several languages.
- Lead qualification: collects contact details and sorts leads for sales.
- CRM inbox: one place for the team's conversations.
- WhatsApp campaigns and reports: follow-ups and reports on results.
Pricing
Cliengo pricing is in US dollars:
- Premium: $119 per month, 3 users and 2,000 AI conversations.
- Business: $259 per month, 5 users, 4,000 AI conversations and the WhatsApp API.
- Corporate: custom price.
There's a 14-day free trial without a card. Meta's WhatsApp fees are extra.
User ratings & customer feedback
Cliengo has 4.5 on G2 (12 reviews) and 4.3 on Capterra (13 reviews). Users like the chatbot and how easy it is to set up; some miss CRM features such as sales stages and better filters.
ChatBot
ChatBot, from the company Text (formerly LiveChat), is an AI chatbot for websites. You train it on your site, and its AI agent answers questions, recommends products and helps close sales. It connects with the company's other products, LiveChat and HelpDesk.
Features
- AI agent trained on your website: learns from your pages and knowledge base.
- Customizable chat widget: matches your brand and site design.
- AI Copilot and reply suggestions: help human agents answer faster.
- Analytics: tracks resolutions and sales from chat.
Pricing
ChatBot pricing is per user:
- Essential: $25 per user per month ($19 billed yearly), 1 AI agent and 10 AI resolutions a month.
- Growth: $99 per user per month ($79 billed yearly), 10 AI agents and 200 AI resolutions a month.
- Enterprise: custom price.
Extra AI resolutions cost $49.50 per 50. There's a 14-day free trial without a card.
User ratings & customer feedback
ChatBot has 4.5 on G2 (26 reviews) and 4.6 on Capterra (66 reviews). Users find it easy to customize; the per-user price and the cost of extra resolutions add up as a team grows.
DoubleTick
DoubleTick works only with WhatsApp, and it's built for businesses that run many numbers and large teams there. It puts every number and department into one inbox, and adds broadcasts, automation and AI agents on top.
Features
- Unified inbox: many WhatsApp numbers and departments in one place.
- Broadcasts: bulk campaigns within WhatsApp's policies.
- AI agents: up to 10 agents on the Pro + AI plan.
- Team controls: assignment, monitoring and access rules for large teams.
Pricing
DoubleTick pricing is billed quarterly or yearly:
- Starter: $170 per month billed yearly, without AI agents.
- Pro + AI: $308 per month billed yearly, up to 10 AI agents and 3,500 AI credits a month.
- Enterprise + AI: custom price.
DoubleTick doesn't offer a free trial.
User ratings & customer feedback
DoubleTick has 4.8 on G2 (69 reviews) and 3.3 on Capterra (3 reviews). Users praise the support and the ease of use; some wish for a full CRM next to the inbox.
WotNot
WotNot is an AI agent platform for small teams. You paste your website URL, the agent learns from it, and you deploy it on your site, WhatsApp or SMS. It handles lead generation and support, and hands the chat to a person when asked.
Features
- AI agent trained from a URL: no engineering needed to start.
- Web, WhatsApp and SMS: one agent on several channels.
- 80+ languages: answers in the visitor's language.
- Analytics: shows how conversations go and where to improve.
Pricing
WotNot pricing is billed monthly, with 20% off for yearly billing:
- Lite: $29 per month.
- Starter: $99 per month.
- Premium: $299 per month.
- Enterprise: custom price.
There's a 14-day free trial.
User ratings & customer feedback
WotNot has 4.6 on G2 (102 reviews). Users mention the steady product updates and helpful support; some would like more features on the cheaper plans.
What to look for in a chatbot development company?
The right choice turns your chats into sales; the wrong one becomes an expensive experiment your customers have to put up with. Here's what to check before you sign.
- Test the AI on your own questions. A demo script always works. Ask the bot what your customers really ask, with follow-ups, typos and a change of topic mid-chat, and see whether it keeps up.
- Check where the answers come from. The agent should answer from information you control: prices, services, policies. You should be able to see and edit what it knows, and it should ask or hand off rather than guess.
- Make sure a person can step in. Remember Gartner's 87%. Look for handoff rules, assignment to a specific teammate, one inbox for all channels and a mobile app, so nobody waits.
- Cover the channels your customers use. If they write on WhatsApp, Instagram and TikTok, you want one agent on all of them, not three tools. More on this in our guide to multi-channel communication tools.
- Understand the pricing model. Some tools charge per contact, some per user, some per AI conversation or credit. On WhatsApp, Meta's message fees come on top. Count what a normal month will cost you, not the price on the first card.
- Look beyond answers. Good agents qualify leads, book appointments and follow up. Check that this happens inside the same tool, not through three integrations.
- Ask who does the setup. Can you set it up yourself in a day? Does the platform offer a done-for-you service if you can't? An agency build only pays off when you need custom integrations.
- Ask how you'll see results. You need to know what customers ask, which chats turn into sales and where conversations stall.
- Check security and permissions. Every integration gets access to your data. In August 2025, attackers used OAuth tokens stolen from the Salesloft Drift integration to pull data from customers' Salesforce instances, as Google Threat Intelligence reported. Ask what each connection can access and how fast it can be revoked.
Not sure which route fits? With Chatfuel Premium, it starts with a demo call: our experts look at how you talk to customers today and show what an AI agent would take over.
Best chatbot development company: comparison table
Here is the whole list in one table, with prices checked in October 2026:
| Company | Best for | Price (from) | Key features |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chatfuel | AI agent on WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, TikTok and web | $20/month with $20 credits | AI Agent, AI Co-pilot setup, handoff, bookings, done-for-you option |
| Manychat | Instagram marketing | Free; paid from $17/month | Flow builder, comment automations, AI replies on Pro |
| Wati | WhatsApp-first teams | $69/month ($59 yearly) | Team inbox, broadcasts, Astra AI add-on |
| Landbot | Website and WhatsApp lead capture | Free; paid from €40/month | Conversational landing pages, AI chats |
| Respond.io | Multi-channel sales teams | $99/month ($79 yearly) | Omnichannel inbox, AI Agents, workflows |
| Ada | Enterprise customer service | Custom | AI agents for chat, voice and email |
| Cliengo | Latin American businesses | $119/month | Web and WhatsApp AI chatbot, CRM inbox |
| ChatBot | Website AI chat | $25/user/month ($19 yearly) | AI agent trained on your site |
| DoubleTick | WhatsApp at scale | $170/month (yearly) | Multi-number inbox, broadcasts, AI agents |
| WotNot | Small teams on web and WhatsApp | $29/month | URL-trained AI agent, web, WhatsApp and SMS |
Ready to boost your customer service with chatbots?
Customers expect a fast answer at any hour and a person when it matters. A team alone can't keep that pace without missing messages or burning out; an AI agent with a good handoff can.
The fastest way to see it is to try it on your own business. On Chatfuel, you connect a channel, add your prices and services, and the AI Agent starts answering. AI Co-pilot helps you with every setting along the way. If you'd rather have it built for you, Chatfuel Premium takes it from there.
FAQs
Can I build a chatbot?
Yes, and you don't need code or a flow builder anymore. On Chatfuel you connect a channel, add your business information to the AI Knowledge Base and turn on the AI Agent. AI Co-pilot can do most of the setup for you from a chat. If you'd like to compare more tools first, see our list of no-code chatbot builders.
Which chatbot builder is best?
It depends on where your customers write and how big your team is. Chatfuel fits businesses that want one AI agent on WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, TikTok and the web at a low starting price. Manychat is strong for Instagram marketing flows. Wati and DoubleTick suit teams that live on WhatsApp, Respond.io fits larger multi-channel sales teams, and Ada is built for enterprise support.
How much does it cost to develop a chatbot?
Platform plans in this list start at $20 per month (Chatfuel, including $20 in credits), and Manychat and Landbot have free plans. WhatsApp-focused tools cost $59 to $170 per month, and enterprise platforms like Ada quote custom prices. On top of the plan, expect usage costs: AI credits or resolutions, and Meta's WhatsApp message fees. Custom agency builds are priced per project; our chatbot pricing guide breaks the costs down.
What is the best chatbot development company for a small business?
For most small businesses, Chatfuel is the best mix of price, channels and ease of setup. One $20 plan covers every channel, unlimited contacts and unlimited teammates. AI Co-pilot helps you set up the AI Agent without hiring developers, and Chatfuel Premium is there if you want experts to build it for you. Start with the 7-day free trial and test the agent on your real questions before you pay.
