# Chatwoot > Open-source support inbox you can self-host or use in the cloud Chatwoot is an open-source customer support platform that threads website chat, email, WhatsApp, Instagram and other channels into one queue, with a help center and the Captain AI agent. It can be used as a hosted cloud service priced per agent, or run on your own server, where the Community Edition is free. - **Category:** Help Desks & Live Chat - **Made by:** Chatwoot Inc - **Website:** https://www.chatwoot.com - **Runs on:** Web, iOS, Android - **Facts last checked:** Oct 17, 2026 ## Pricing Chatwoot has a free plan. Paid plans start at $19 per agent / month, billing term not stated. - **Pricing model:** Free plan - **Free plan:** Hacker cloud plan: up to 2 agents and 500 conversations a month, live chat only, 30 days of history. The self-hosted Community Edition is also free. - **Free trial:** 15-day free trial of the cloud plans. | Plan | Price | What you get | | --- | --- | --- | | Hacker | $0 | Cloud plan for up to 2 agents and 500 conversations a month, live chat only, with 30 days of data retention. No AI, help center or automation. | | Community Edition | $0 | The open-source edition you host yourself, free forever. No Captain AI, voice calls, custom branding or SSO; help comes through Discord and GitHub. | | Startups | $19 per agent / month, billing term not stated | Cloud plan with all channels, unlimited conversations under fair use, a help center, 300 Captain AI credits a month and 1 year of history. | | Premium Support | $19 per agent / month, billing term not stated | Self-hosted plan adding Captain AI, voice calls, custom branding, agent capacity, roles and permissions, and priority email support. | | Business | $39 per agent / month, billing term not stated | Cloud plan adding voice, teams and automation rules, with 500 Captain AI credits a month and 2 years of history. | | Enterprise | $99 per agent / month, billing term not stated | Cloud plan adding SSO and SAML, audit logs, 800 AI credits and 3 years of history. The self-hosted Enterprise Edition costs the same and adds SLA policies. | Read from https://www.chatwoot.com/pricing on Oct 17, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with Chatwoot before buying. ## Ways to pay less - **Startups plan free for open-source projects** (Other savings): Chatwoot gives open-source projects the Startups plan free of charge and asks open-source projects and nonprofits to email it to arrange this. Source: https://www.chatwoot.com/pricing ## Key features - **One queue for every channel:** Website chat, email from Gmail, Outlook or any IMAP inbox, WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger are threaded into a single conversation queue. - **Captain AI agent:** Learns from your help center, PDFs and website, answers routine questions, hands off to a person, and drafts replies for agents. - **Help center:** A public knowledge base on paid plans that Captain also draws on, with suggestions for questions the articles do not yet answer. - **Self-hosting:** Runs on a Linux server with PostgreSQL and Redis, with guides for Docker and Kubernetes. Paid self-hosted plans add AI and support. - **Open API and webhooks:** Send messages, create channels and listen to events through the API, and export conversations and contacts at any time. - **Voice calls:** Voice calls are included on the Business and Enterprise cloud plans and on paid self-hosted plans. ## Good for - Teams that want to run their support inbox on their own servers - Small teams starting free with website chat - Developers who want an open API and source code they can change ## Worth knowing - The free Hacker plan is limited to 2 agents, 500 conversations a month, live chat only and 30 days of history. - Captain AI credits are 300, 500 or 800 a month by plan; more cost $20 per 1,000, and Captain is not in Hacker or the Community Edition. - Voice, teams and automation rules need Business at $39 per agent; SSO and audit logs need Enterprise at $99. - The pricing page does not say whether per-agent prices are billed monthly or annually. ## ToolGPA grades **GPA: 2.4 out of 4**, graded Oct 17, 2026. Chatwoot is an open-source support inbox: website chat, email, WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger in one queue, with a help center and the Captain AI agent. You can pay $19 an agent for the cloud version or run it on your own server for free. The free cloud plan is chat only, though, and self-hosting means looking after a Linux server. - **Value for money: C.** Startups is $19 an agent a month, a little under this category's middle, with all channels and 300 AI credits. The page doesn't say if that's monthly or yearly. The free self-hosted edition needs your own server, so it doesn't lift the grade. - **Free plan and trial: C.** The free cloud plan is 2 agents and 500 conversations a month, but live chat only, with 30 days of history. The self-hosted Community Edition is free forever if you can run a server. Paid cloud plans have a 15-day trial. - **Features: B.** One queue for chat, email, WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger, the Captain AI agent, a help center, voice calls on Business, an open API and webhooks. It covers the job, and you can read and change the source code. - **Ease of use: C.** No store rating on record. The cloud version means connecting each channel and training Captain on your help center. Self-hosting is real work: PostgreSQL, Redis and Docker or Kubernetes. - **Platforms and integrations: B.** Web, iPhone and Android, with an open API, webhooks and Slack, Shopify, Stripe, HubSpot, Linear and Dialogflow. There's no desktop app, so it stops at a B. These are ToolGPA's own grades. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from Chatwoot's own pages on 17 October 2026. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews. ## Where it stands among help desk and live chat tools - Chatwoot's GPA of 2.4 is higher than 6 of the 19 other help desk and live chat tools we grade, and level with 5. - It stands best on features (B, above 9 of 19) and worst on ease of use (C, above 0). - Its paid plans start at $19 a month for each person, against a middle price of $24.17 for the category: 5 of the 18 others that charge start lower. - On features, ease of use and platforms it scores 2.7 out of 4. 1 tool scores higher and costs less. The category's chart of price against score: https://toolgpa.com/charts/customer-support ## Keep it, or make your own? **Keep it.** To replace Chatwoot you would be making one mailbox that several people work at once. That is not a weekend's work, with an AI app builder or without one. That makes this kind of software worth paying for, not this one in particular: 8 of the 19 other help desk and live chat tools grade higher. It costs $228 a year. Chatwoot is open source, so there is a third way: take its code and run it yourself. - You could make: Help center: an app builder makes this well. - You could not: One mailbox that several people work at once. - You could not: An AI model answering your customers from your own help articles. - You could not: A chat box on your site that reaches you the moment a customer types. - You could not: A real app for iOS and Android. Something home-made would be a web page. - You could not: It is priced for each person, which means accounts and billing for a team. - You could not: It plugs into other products, Slack, Shopify and Stripe among them, and has an API. - You could not: The depth: we grade its features B, which means it covers the whole job. A judgement by ToolGPA from this listing, by rules that are the same for every tool. Nothing was built to test it. ## Works with Slack, Shopify, Stripe, HubSpot, Linear, Dialogflow, Google Translate, LeadSquared **Tags:** Open source, Self-hostable, Live chat, Shared inbox, Help center, AI support agent, Public API ## Alternatives - [Intercom](https://toolgpa.com/tools/intercom): Helpdesk with live chat and the Fin AI agent priced per outcome. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/chatwoot-vs-intercom) - [Zendesk](https://toolgpa.com/tools/zendesk): Ticketing, messaging, help center and AI agents for support teams. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/chatwoot-vs-zendesk) - [Crisp](https://toolgpa.com/tools/crisp): Live chat and shared inbox priced per workspace, not per seat. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/chatwoot-vs-crisp) - [Tidio](https://toolgpa.com/tools/tidio): Live chat, ticketing and the Lyro AI agent priced by conversations. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/chatwoot-vs-tidio) - [tawk.to](https://toolgpa.com/tools/tawk-to): Free live chat, ticketing and help center, with paid add-ons. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/chatwoot-vs-tawk-to) ## Sources The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Oct 17, 2026: - https://www.chatwoot.com/pricing - https://www.chatwoot.com/pricing/self-hosted-plans - https://www.chatwoot.com/ - https://www.chatwoot.com/mobile-apps - https://www.chatwoot.com/features/integrations Page: https://toolgpa.com/tools/chatwoot Listed by ToolGPA (toolgpa.com).