How to pick an AI chatbot for your business website

By Ranjit Bhinge, founder of Blur Studio · Updated October 24, 2026 · 6 min read

Short answer: An AI chatbot for business answers customer questions on your website or chat apps, using your own help pages and policies. Tidio has a free plan and suits small shops, Chatbase suits a simple bot trained on your documents, and Intercom Fin charges $0.99 per successful outcome for support teams. Test any bot on your real customer questions before launch, and tell users they are talking to a bot.

You want a chatbot on your website that actually answers from your own policies and products.

I'm Ranjit, and I run Blur Studio: 15+ years building software, 120 apps taken live, and clients who have gone on to raise $10M+. I build AI systems and processes that help businesses do a lot more with a lot less time. I also work differently from most of what else is out there, more on that further down this page. Say hello.

What does an AI chatbot for business do?

An AI chatbot reads your help pages, policies and product details. It then answers customer questions in plain language, in a chat box on your website or in a chat app. Older bots followed fixed menus. AI bots can understand a question asked in many different ways.

Common jobs for a business chatbot include these.

Answering repeat questions: Opening hours, shipping times, return rules and prices.
Catching leads: The bot asks a visitor what they need and takes their name and email. My guide to AI lead qualification covers this in depth.
Booking: The bot offers open slots and books a call or visit.
Order lookups: The bot checks an order's status, if it connects to your store or system.
Handing off: The bot passes hard or upset customers to a person, with the chat history attached.

What does that look like on a real website?

Say a bike shop gets 30 chat questions a day. Most ask about service prices, stock and opening hours. A chatbot trained on the shop's price list and FAQ page answers those within seconds. When someone asks about a warranty claim, the bot takes their details and passes the chat to the owner. The owner now reads a handful of chats a day instead of 30.

Which AI chatbot tools should a small business look at?

These three tools cover the most common needs. Each one charges in a different way, so read the price notes closely.

Tidio

Tidio combines live chat, a help desk inbox and an AI agent called Lyro. It suits small online stores and service businesses.

Free plan: Live chat and ticketing for up to 50 billable conversations a month.
Starter: $24.17 a month billed yearly, for 100 conversations.
Growth: From $49.17 a month billed yearly, for 250 or more conversations.
Lyro AI agent: An add-on from $32.50 a month billed yearly, which includes 50 AI conversations. Tidio says the first 50 Lyro conversations are free for life.

Those prices include the two months free that Tidio gives on yearly billing. Monthly billing costs more.

Chatbase

Chatbase builds an AI agent from your own documents, website pages and help articles. It suits a business that wants a focused bot for one website.

Chatbase plan	Billed monthly	Billed yearly	Message credits a month
Hobby	$40 a month	$32 a month	700
Standard	$150 a month	$120 a month	4,000
Pro	$500 a month	$400 a month	15,000

Each plan includes one AI agent. Extra agents cost $300 an agent a year. A message credit is used up each time the bot replies, so busy sites need a bigger plan.

Intercom Fin

Fin is an AI support agent built by Intercom. It suits support teams with lots of tickets. Fin charges $0.99 per outcome, which is a chat the AI resolves. You do not pay when Fin passes a chat to your team without an outcome. A handoff you set up as a planned Fin step does count as an outcome.

Fin works with the Intercom help desk. It also works with other help desks, including Zendesk, Salesforce, HubSpot, Freshdesk and Gorgias. On another help desk, Fin has a minimum of 50 outcomes a month. If you use Intercom's own help desk, each help desk seat costs $19 a month extra.

How do these chatbot tools compare?

Tool	Starting price	How it charges	Best for
Tidio	Free plan, then $24.17 a month billed yearly	Plan price plus a Lyro AI add-on	Small stores that want live chat and AI in one place
Chatbase	$32 a month billed yearly, or $40 monthly	Plan price with a monthly credit limit	A focused bot trained on your own documents
Intercom Fin	$0.99 per outcome	Pay for each chat the AI resolves	Support teams with high ticket volume

How do I choose an AI chatbot for my website?

Start with the job you want done, then test. These checks matter most.

Where your answers live: The bot can only be as good as the pages it reads. Fix out-of-date help pages before you start.
How it charges: Per conversation, per credit or per outcome. Estimate your monthly chats and work out the real cost for each tool.
What it connects to: Check the vendor's own page lists your help desk, store or CRM. Do not assume an integration exists.
How it hands off: Ask what happens when the bot does not know. It should pass the chat to a person and say so.
What it can do: Answering questions is common. Looking up an order or changing a booking needs a live connection to your systems.
Who sees the data: Find out where chats are stored and who can read them.

How should I test a chatbot before launch?

Pull 50 real questions from your inbox and past chats. Ask each one to the bot during the free trial. Include hard ones, angry ones and questions your pages do not answer. Mark each reply as right, wrong or made up. A bot that invents answers is worse than no bot, so fix the gaps before it goes live.

What rules apply to business chatbots in the US?

There is no single federal chatbot law. A few rules still matter.

California: State law bars using a bot to mislead people in California about being a bot in order to push a sale. A clear notice that the user is talking to a bot meets the rule.
Utah: Utah requires a business to disclose generative AI use when a customer clearly asks if they are talking to a person. Higher-risk chats, such as those that collect health or financial data and give advice, need a notice at the start. The law runs until July 2027.
You own what the bot says: In a 2024 Canadian case, Air Canada's chatbot wrongly promised a fare refund. A tribunal held the airline responsible and made it pay. Plan as if your own bot speaks for your business.
Truth in advertising: The FTC has said that using AI tools to trick or mislead people is illegal. Your bot must not make claims about your products that you could not make yourself.

So the safe default is simple. Label the chat as an AI assistant, keep it to facts from your own pages, and give users a way to reach a person.

When does a custom AI chatbot make more sense?

Most small businesses should buy a tool. A ready-made bot handles FAQs and lead capture for a modest monthly fee.

A custom build fits better in these cases.

The bot must act inside your systems: It needs to quote a job, check live stock or update a record in software no tool connects to.
Your rules are strict: You need fixed answers for prices, legal terms or medical topics, with logs of every reply.
Costs grow with volume: Per-outcome or per-credit fees can climb fast on a busy site.
You want one bot across channels: The same bot answers on your website, WhatsApp and SMS, with one set of rules. My guide to the WhatsApp Business API covers that channel.

I build custom chatbots that read a business's own data and connect to the CRM, booking and order tools it already uses. I test each bot against real customer questions before launch, and the business owns the code and accounts. If you need a bot built for you, my guide to AI chatbot development services explains what that involves.

Questions people ask

What is the best AI chatbot for a small business?

It depends on the job. Tidio suits small stores that want live chat and AI together. Chatbase suits a simple bot trained on your documents, and Intercom Fin suits support teams with many tickets. Test two tools on your real questions before you pick.

How much does an AI chatbot cost for a business?

Ready-made tools range from free plans to a few hundred dollars a month, as of October 2026. Tidio has a free plan, Chatbase starts at $32 a month billed yearly, and Intercom Fin charges $0.99 per resolved chat.

Do I have to tell customers they are talking to a chatbot?

In California, you must not use a bot to mislead people about being a bot to push a sale, and a clear disclosure meets the rule. Utah requires disclosure when a customer asks, and at the start of higher-risk chats. Labelling every chat as AI is the safest choice in every state.

Can an AI chatbot give wrong answers?

An AI chatbot can give wrong answers. It can make up answers when your pages do not cover a question. Train it on accurate pages, test it on real questions and set it to hand off to a person when it is unsure.

Can an AI chatbot connect to my CRM?

Many tools connect to popular CRMs and help desks, but check the vendor's own integration page for your exact system. If your system is not listed, a custom build can connect the bot to it.

Should my chatbot's answers come only from my own content, or can it use general knowledge too?

For anything involving your prices, policies or legal terms, restrict it to your own content only, so it cannot improvise. A good tool lets you turn off general knowledge entirely for exactly this reason, worth checking before you buy.

Roughly what does this cost?

As a broad reference, fixes and finishes start at around $1,500, and new builds start higher, always a fixed price agreed in writing before I start, never an hourly rate. My AI app cost guide explains what actually drives a quote up or down.

Is my project too small for this?

No. Most of the owners I work with have no tech team at all, that is the whole point. If the smarter move is a cheap software subscription instead of custom software, I will tell you that on the first call, even though it means I do not get paid.