On most conversation platforms the AI agent unlocks somewhere up the price list, and the bill grows with how many people you talk to. On HiQBot the agent ships on the entry plan, contacts are not counted, and nothing bills past the allowance. Underneath that, it ships tuned to five industries rather than as one general assistant you configure yourself. Below is what to check on any platform you are weighing, including where we are the wrong answer.
Competitor figures read from their own pricing pages, dated below.
The axes that matter
Sticker price is the least useful column. What decides the invoice is what a platform counts and what it does when you pass the line.
| What differs | HiQBot | What we see elsewhere |
|---|---|---|
| Where the AI agent sits | Every plan, from $49 | Commonly an upper tier. respond.io lists AI Agents from their $159 Growth plan. |
| What one credit buys | One reply, at the Core level. Stronger levels think harder and draw more. | Their AI credits are drawn by the agent’s steps, so a single reply that calls a tool costs several. |
| What gets metered | AI replies only, as credits. Contacts are not counted. | respond.io meters monthly active contacts and AI credits, separately. |
| Past the allowance | AI replies pause. Nothing bills automatically. | respond.io charges $12 per 100 extra contacts on Growth, $15 per 100 on Advanced, and $15 per 1,000 extra AI credits. |
| Unused allowance | Carries two billing periods on monthly plans. | respond.io resets with the cycle. Gallabox publishes no policy. |
| Channels on the entry plan | Website chat, WhatsApp and Instagram, all three at $49. | Check where WhatsApp itself sits in the price list, not only where the AI does. |
| A channel with no AI on it | Set any channel to live chat. It skips the agent and draws no per-reply credit. | Worth asking for. It is the answer to accounts you do not want an AI touching. |
| How the agent is tuned | Five industry packs, each with its own way of qualifying and its own closing tool. | Usually one general assistant plus a flow builder you configure yourself. |
The actual argument
Price and channel lists move. These do not, because they are how the product is built rather than how it is packaged.
It ships tuned to five industries: automotive, hospitality, restaurants, SaaS and travel. Each pack carries its own way of qualifying and its own way of closing. The restaurant one handles menu questions, dietary questions and opening hours, and its qualifying brief opens by working out whether a guest wants a table or an order.
Not a general assistant with a flow chart bolted on.
DMs answered by the full agent, comment rules that open a DM, insights and publishing, all in the same dashboard and all on the $49 plan. Most tools in this category do Instagram DMs and stop there, or sell the comment rule as a product on its own.
Four capabilities where the category usually ships one.
Fully shipped from the Starter plan. In Japan, Thailand and Taiwan, LINE is the app people open to message a business, the way WhatsApp is in Brazil or India. Tools that handle LINE properly are usually priced for large support organisations, and tools priced for small teams tend to skip it.
The channel most platforms at this price skip entirely.
The engine, every channel connection and the inbox are ours end to end. One consequence you can see: each channel runs its own agent, so WhatsApp can behave differently from Instagram while both land in one queue, under one contact history.
Why the channels behave the same once they hit the inbox.
Side by side
Their AI Agent starts at the $159 plan. Ours starts at $49.
Tiers verified 28 August 2026: Starter $79, Growth $159, Advanced $279. Tier for tier we sit below at all three, and the agent is not held back.
Read the respond.io comparisonAI on WhatsApp and Instagram from $197. Ours from $49.
Prices verified 4 August 2026 and due a re-read. Strong on WhatsApp commerce workflows if that is the shape of your business.
Read the Gallabox comparisonTwo platforms are missing on purpose. SleekFlow and WATI both publish pricing we could not read reliably enough to quote, so we have not written those pages rather than print a number we cannot stand behind.
The metering argument
respond.io counts two things: monthly active contacts, meaning unique people you exchange messages with in a month, and AI credits. Verified on their pricing page on 28 August 2026, going past either is billable. Extra contacts are $12 per 100 on Growth and $15 per 100 on Advanced. Extra AI credits are $15 per 1,000.
The credits are not comparable units either. Theirs are drawn by the agent's steps, so one reply that looks something up or calls a tool spends more than one credit, and an allowance quoted in credits is worth fewer replies than it reads. A HiQBot credit is one reply at the Core level. Pick a stronger level and it thinks harder and draws more, but the level is yours to set per inbox and the page always tells you which one a number assumes.
HiQBot does not count contacts at all. Credits are prepaid, and when they run out the AI stops replying until you renew or add a pack. The number on the invoice is the number you agreed to.
Which model suits you depends on shape, not size. Many contacts each sending one message is expensive per contact and cheap in replies. Few contacts holding long conversations is the reverse. Work out which one you are before comparing headline prices.
We have not published a worked total here, because the included contact and credit allowances on their plans did not render on the page we read, and we do not print a competitor number we have not seen ourselves.
Website chat, WhatsApp, Instagram. 2,500 credits.
Every channel, live chat, team inbox. 6,000 credits.
Support agent, tickets, Jira, voice. 10,000 credits.
Stronger AI levels think harder and draw more.
Optional add-ons
None of them fire on their own. Meta bills WhatsApp message fees to your own account separately, and we do not mark those up.
Being straight about it
If any of these is load-bearing for you, buy something else. Finding out in week three is worse for both of us.
Shopify or WooCommerce. Both connectors are built and switched off. No plan can use them today.
SMS or email as a conversation channel. Neither is built.
A public API, webhooks or Zapier. None exist for customers.
A CRM other than HubSpot. Salesforce, Pipedrive and Zendesk are not connected.
Reservation-system sync. The agent takes a booking into the dashboard; it does not read live table availability.
An AI that answers phone calls. Growth has human WhatsApp calling and transcription of voice notes, not an AI on a call.
Yes. Solo at $49 runs the same agentic engine as the other two tiers. What changes higher up is the entitlement profile: Starter adds live chat behind the agent, Growth adds a support agent that resolves rather than only sells.
AI replies pause until the plan renews or you add a credit pack. Nothing bills automatically. There is no overage on a HiQBot plan, which is the whole difference from a metered platform.
On monthly plans, for two billing periods, provided the renewal is paid on time. The current month is always spent first. Annual plans do not carry.
A credit pack is $20 for 1,000 credits. Voice minutes are $15 for 150. An extra live-chat agent seat is $15 a month. All three are optional and none of them fire on their own.
Yes. A number can only sit with one provider at a time, so you remove it from the current one and connect it here through Embedded Signup in the dashboard.
Put the agent on one channel for a week and compare it to the tool you are paying for. That answers more than a feature table will.