For teams whose Freddy AI bill grows with every visitor
Freshchat alternative and Freshchat competitors for AI website chat at one flat price
InChat is an AI chatbot for your website that learns your pages, help articles and policies, answers visitors in seconds and hands anything sensitive to your team in a shared inbox. One monthly price covers the AI, the inbox and the team, with no per-agent seat and no charge per AI session.
- $24/mo
- Starter billed yearly, 500 AI conversations, 3 team members
- $0
- per AI session or resolution on every plan
- 10 minutes
- from pasting your site URL to a working preview
The short answer
Freshchat charges per agent ($19, $49 or $79 a month on yearly billing, about $23, $59 and $95 monthly) and bills its Freddy AI Agent separately: 500 sessions once, then $49 for every 100 sessions, whether the AI solved the question or not. A 3-agent team whose AI talks to 250 visitors a month pays about $180; InChat Starter covers that volume for $24 a month billed yearly, with human handoff included. If you live inside Freshdesk and need its ticketing and phone tools, Freshchat still fits; if website chat and repeat questions are the job, a flat-price AI chatbot costs a fraction.
Compare
What Freshchat and InChat cost at three team sizes
Each setup assumes Freshchat on yearly billing, the one-time 500 Freddy AI sessions already used up (they last about two months at these volumes), and extra sessions at $49 per 100, about $0.49 each. InChat is priced on its yearly plans; on monthly billing InChat plans are $49, $149 and $499.
| Team size | Freshchat (yearly billing) | InChat (yearly billing) | What changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 agents, 400 chats a month, AI handles 250 visitors | Growth 3 x $19 = $57, plus 250 Freddy sessions at about $0.49 = $123, about $180 | Starter $24 for 500 AI conversations, 3 team members, human handoff | About $156 a month less, and a busy month costs the same |
| 8 agents, 1,500 chats, AI handles 900 visitors | Growth 8 x $19 = $152, plus 900 sessions = $441, about $593 | Plus $74 for 2,000 AI conversations, 10 team members, email, WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram inbox | Roughly $519 a month less |
| 20 agents, 5,000 chats, AI handles 3,000 visitors | Pro 20 x $49 = $980, plus 3,000 sessions = $1,470, about $2,450 | Pro $249 for unlimited AI conversations and unlimited team members | One fixed line instead of seats plus a session meter |
Freshchat prices from freshworks.com's Freshchat pricing page and Freddy AI Agent session FAQ, checked in September 2026: Free $0 for up to 10 agents, Growth $19 per agent a month billed yearly (about $23 monthly), Pro $49 (about $59), Enterprise $79 (about $95). Freddy AI Agent includes 500 sessions once, then $49 per 100 sessions, with no rollover. A session is every AI interaction with one visitor within 24 hours and is billed whether or not the question was resolved. Freddy Copilot is $29 per agent a month billed yearly on Pro and Enterprise.
See it answer
A subscriber question at 9pm, answered from your own FAQ
The agent answers from your subscription terms, shipping page and product guides, names the page it used, and sends billing disputes or damaged deliveries to your team with the whole conversation attached. A visitor talking to it for twenty minutes costs nothing extra.
- Every answer cites the page or policy it came from
- Billing and account issues go to a person, not the bot
- AI conversations are part of the plan, no session meter
Questions about your subscription?
AI answers from this site, a person when you need one
Billing question, handed to Marcus in the shared inbox
Why teams switch
What you keep, and what stops costing extra, when chat leaves Freshchat
Answers from pages you already wrote
InChat reads your website, Freshdesk solution articles and uploaded PDFs, then answers from them and links the source. There are no FAQ bots to script and no flows to maintain for common questions.
No session meter
AI conversations are part of the plan: 500 on Starter, 2,000 on Plus, unlimited on Pro. A visitor who asks ten follow-up questions is one conversation and adds nothing to the invoice.
Team pricing, not agent seats
Starter includes 3 team members, Plus 10 and Pro unlimited. Adding a part-time person to cover weekends does not add another $19 to $79 a month.
Human handoff built in
When a question needs judgment, the agent collects the visitor's email and context and routes the chat to the right person with the transcript, live during your hours or by email after.
One inbox for chat, email and social on Plus
Website chat, email, WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram arrive in one shared inbox with assignment and internal notes, the same channel mix most teams bought Freshchat Growth for.
Proactive prompts
Open the chat when a visitor lingers on pricing, checkout or a setup guide, or moves to leave. Trigger on time on page, scroll depth or exit intent.
How it works
Move website chat off Freshchat in an afternoon
-
1
Paste your website URL
InChat crawls your public pages and help articles. Upload canned responses, internal guides or a PDF price list if you want them in the knowledge base.
-
2
Replay last month's questions
Take the 20 most common topics from your Freshchat reports and ask them. Fix any weak answer by editing the source page or adding a short instruction.
-
3
Set handoff rules
Billing disputes, account access, damaged orders and bug reports go to a person. Add team members, their hours and who owns which topic.
-
4
Swap the widget
Remove the Freshchat widget snippet and add the InChat script tag. Keep Freshdesk for email tickets if your team relies on it, or move email to the Plus inbox.
What is the best alternative to Freshchat?
The best alternative to Freshchat depends on why you use it. If website chat is your main channel and most questions repeat, a flat-price AI chatbot like InChat is the cheaper fit, from $24 a month billed yearly with 500 AI conversations, 3 team members and human handoff. If you need a full help desk with ticketing, phone and SLAs, Zendesk, Help Scout and Zoho Desk are the closer like-for-like comparisons.
The teams that switch to InChat tend to look alike. They run an online store, a subscription business, a SaaS product or a local service company with 2 to 20 people answering customers. Their help pages already answer most questions: when will my order ship, can I pause my plan, does the Pro tier include SSO, do you serve my zip code. What they want is an AI agent that answers those from the site, without a second bill that rises every time traffic does.
If you are weighing other chat-first tools, our LiveChat alternative page prices per-agent seats plus a separate AI agent, and the Zendesk chat alternative covers teams paying for a full Suite seat just to run chat.
What are Freshchat competitors?
Freshchat's main competitors are Intercom, Zendesk, LiveChat, Tidio, Crisp, Help Scout and Zoho SalesIQ. They split into two groups: help desks that sell chat inside a per-agent suite (Zendesk, Intercom, Help Scout, Freshworks itself) and chat-first tools priced for smaller teams (Tidio, Crisp, LiveChat, Zoho SalesIQ). AI-first chatbots such as InChat compete on the website chat and AI answer side, at a flat price.
| Tool | Entry price for chat | How AI is billed | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Freshchat | $19 per agent a month, yearly | $49 per 100 Freddy sessions after a one-time 500 | Teams already on Freshdesk |
| Intercom | $29 per seat a month, yearly | $0.99 per Fin outcome | SaaS with in-app messaging and product tours |
| Zendesk | $55 per agent a month for a Suite seat with chat | $1.50 to $2.00 per automated resolution past the allowance | Large help desks with phone and SLAs |
| Tidio | $29 a month | Lyro add-on from $39 for 50 AI conversations | Small stores on Shopify |
| InChat | $24 a month yearly for 3 team members | Included, 500 to unlimited AI conversations | Teams whose support is mostly website chat |
Per-tool cost math sits on our cheaper alternative to Intercom and Tidio alternative pages.
Why is Freshchat expensive?
Freshchat looks cheap at $19 per agent, but the AI is billed on top. Freddy AI Agent includes 500 sessions once per account, not every month, and after that each block of 100 sessions costs $49. A session is every AI interaction with one visitor in a 24-hour window, and it is charged even when the visitor still needs a human.
For a small team that puts the AI on every page, 250 to 1,000 visitors a month is normal, which adds $120 to $490 to a bill whose seats cost less than $100. Unused sessions do not roll over, and Freddy Copilot for agents is another $29 per agent a month on Pro and Enterprise. Our Freshchat pricing breakdown totals four team sizes with every line shown.
None of that is unusual for help desk software. It becomes expensive when chat is the whole job and you want the AI to talk to as many visitors as possible, because then your best month is also your most expensive one.
Is Freshchat free?
Freshchat has a free plan for up to 10 agents with a chat widget, shared inbox and basic email integration, but it does not include the Freddy AI Agent, social channels such as WhatsApp, or reports. To get AI answers you move to a paid plan from $19 per agent a month and buy Freddy sessions once the one-time 500 are gone.
That makes the free plan a fair choice for a team that only wants human live chat. Teams that want an AI agent answering first, with people stepping in for the hard cases, end up on a paid plan plus sessions, which is the cost InChat replaces with one monthly price.
Can I use InChat with Freshdesk?
Yes. Paste the public URL of your Freshdesk knowledge base and InChat reads every published solution article, then answers from them with a link to the source. When your team edits an article in Freshdesk, InChat picks up the change on its next crawl, so the knowledge base stays your single source of truth.
Plenty of teams run both for a while: Freshdesk for email tickets and internal workflows, InChat on the website for AI answers and live handoff. Handed-off chats arrive in the InChat inbox, and on Plus you can send them on to any system through webhooks or the REST API. Once the chat queue is quiet, many teams also move email into the Plus inbox and drop Freshworks seats they no longer need.
The bill that grows when the marketing works
Freddy sessions are counted per visitor per day, so a good newsletter, a holiday sale or a mention in a podcast shows up on next month's Freshchat invoice. The owners who move to InChat usually say the same thing: they wanted more people chatting with the site, not a reason to hope fewer would. A flat plan turns that traffic back into good news.
Who it is for
Teams that replace Freshchat with InChat
Subscription and DTC brands
Skips, pauses, delivery dates and billing cycles fill the chat. The agent answers from your subscription terms and shipping pages and sends charge disputes to a person.
SaaS companies
Plan limits, integrations, SSO and trial questions repeat daily. Answers come from your docs and pricing page, and bug reports go to whoever is on call.
Local and professional services
Prospects ask about service areas, scheduling and price after hours. The agent answers from your service pages and passes qualified leads to your team for a call.
FAQ
Freshchat alternatives, common questions
Freshchat Growth is $19 per agent a month on yearly billing (about $23 monthly), Pro is $49 (about $59) and Enterprise is $79 (about $95). Freddy AI Agent includes 500 sessions once, then costs $49 per 100 sessions. A free plan covers up to 10 agents without AI.
A Freddy AI session is every interaction the AI Agent has with one visitor within 24 hours. It is billed whether or not the AI resolved the question, so a visitor who later needs a human still uses a session. Unused sessions do not roll over.
For a small business whose support is mostly website chat, InChat costs less once AI is switched on: Starter is $24 a month billed yearly with 500 AI conversations and 3 team members, and Plus is $74 with 2,000 conversations, 10 team members and email and social channels in one inbox. There are no per-agent or per-session fees.
No. Freshchat is Freshworks' messaging and live chat product, and Freshdesk is its ticketing help desk. Freshworks also sells them together as Freshdesk Omni. Many teams use Freshdesk for email tickets and a separate chat tool on the website.
Yes. InChat trains on your Freshdesk knowledge base articles, answers website chat with AI and hands complex conversations to your team. You can keep Freshdesk for email tickets and remove the Freshchat widget without migrating ticket history.
Most teams switch in an afternoon. Paste your site URL, test the agent on your most common questions, set handoff rules, then replace the Freshchat widget snippet with one InChat script tag. Your Freshworks account and history stay untouched until you decide to close them.
Keep comparing
Freshchat pricing, worked out
Agent seats and Freddy sessions totaled at four team sizes.
Zendesk chat alternative
Suite seats plus resolution fees, compared with one plan.
LiveChat alternative
Per-agent seats plus a separate AI agent, compared.
Tidio alternative
Lyro, Flows and branding add-ons against a flat plan.
Help Scout alternative
Per-user seats plus $0.75 AI resolutions, compared.
AI chatbot pricing
Every InChat plan, what it includes and the yearly price.
Let the AI talk to every visitor without a session meter.
Paste your website URL, test the agent on your own pages and go live with one script tag. Plans from $24 a month billed yearly with 500 AI conversations, 3 team members and human handoff included.