How GhostChat compares
Five chat widgets on one page: what each one weighs, what it actually costs a ten-person team, and — honestly — when you should pick them instead of us.
Weight is total transfer including opening the panel, measured in our own Lighthouse benchmark. A dash means we haven't measured that vendor — we don't estimate.
The short version
GhostChatis for people who want website chat they answer from their own inbox, with an optional AI assistant, without buying an entire customer-support platform to get it. It is the lightest widget we have measured, the AI answers from your own website and hands off to you when it can't, and nothing is billed per agent.
GhostChat
18.9 KBLightweight website chat with AI
- Ten people
- $25/mo + $0.10/AI conversation
- AI
- charged per conversation it answers, free when it hands off first
Customer engagement, chatbot flows
- Ten people
- $295/mo
- AI
- Credits — AI stops when they run out
Pick them if: You want a visual chatbot flow builder, or a full customer-engagement platform rather than a chat widget.
Free chat plus broader support tooling
- Ten people
- $58+/mo per site
- AI
- Add-on: from $29/mo per site
Pick them if: You need built-in ticketing, a knowledge base, co-browsing, or voice and video — or you want to hire agents through them.
Full customer-support platform
- Ten people
- $390–$1,390/mo + AI fees
- AI
- Fin: $0.99 per outcome
Pick them if: You need product tours, a help center, ticketing with SLAs, or hundreds of native integrations.
Omnichannel, or self-hosting
- Ten people
- ≈$990/mo
- AI
- Credits: 1 per message, $20 per 1,000
Pick them if: You need true omnichannel — Instagram, WhatsApp, Telegram and email in one inbox — or you must self-host for compliance.
Simple chat with Facebook Messenger built in
- Ten people
- $199/mo + AI fees
- AI
- $0.50 per resolved conversation
Pick them if: You want Facebook Messenger built in.
How the ten-person figure is calculated, and how AI billing was read
Same configuration for every vendor: ten people, widget branding removed, AI assistant enabled, monthly billing where the vendor publishes it, one site unless the vendor prices per site. Taxes and optional add-ons excluded.
The number moves because of what each vendor meters. Chatwoot only removes branding on Enterprise at $99/agent/mo, so ten agents is ≈$990. Crisp gates branding removal to Plus at $295/mo. Tawk.to prices branding removal per site, so the figure grows with each site rather than each person. GhostChat's Team is one flat price for the people, the sites and the badge; the AI, when you switch it on, is billed per conversation on top, under a spending limit you set.
AI billing shown is each vendor's standard model as of 6 October 2026; what you actually pay depends on your plan and usage. Chatway publishes monthly and yearly rates, and the monthly one is used here; Chatwoot lists per-agent prices without stating a billing period. All competitor pricing read from vendor pricing pages, 6 October 2026. Each vendor's page below shows the full breakdown.
Still deciding?The free plan is one site, one seat and unlimited messages — no card. Install is one script tag or the WordPress plugin, and the widget sets no cookies, so there's no consent banner to add.
Start free — no cardWhat GhostChat deliberately isn't
It isn't a customer-support platform. There is no ticketing system, no help center, no omnichannel inbox and no visual flow builder — the table above says which vendor to use when you need those. What's left is narrower on purpose: website chat, an AI first responder, a human behind it, and a bill that doesn't move when you add a teammate or another site.
Lightest measured
18.9 KB total transfer, 0 ms blocking time.
AI billed per conversation
Only for conversations it answers, never per message or per seat. Free when it hands off first, under a limit you set.
Flat pricing
Ten seats and unlimited sites: one flat $25/mo.
No third-party requests
The widget sets no cookies and talks only to our own servers.
One script tag
Or the official WordPress plugin. No tag manager, no CRM first.
Reply from Gmail
Answer the notification email; the visitor sees it in the chat.
Questions
Read the full comparison
Each page covers pricing in detail, what migrating looks like, and where that competitor genuinely wins.
Try GhostChat free
One script tag or the WordPress plugin, and Free needs no card. Reply from Gmail, the Android app or the dashboard.
Start free — no card