Yes, there is a genuinely free AI chatbot for websites — permanent, no credit card, no trial expiry. Agentkit's Free plan gives you one chatbot, 50 messages per month, and 400 KB of training storage that you can embed on any website today.
The catch — and there always is one with "free" software — is volume. Fifty messages per month is enough to validate an idea or serve a low-traffic site, but it is not enough to run customer support for a growing business. This guide explains exactly what you get, where the limits bite, and how to decide whether free is right for your situation.
What Free Chatbot Plans Actually Include
Not all free plans are equal. Some give you a sandbox that expires after 14 days. Others give you a permanent free tier with real functionality. Here is what you get on Agentkit's Free plan specifically.
Agentkit Free Plan at a Glance
| Feature | Free Plan |
|---|---|
| Messages per month | 50 |
| Chatbots | 1 |
| Storage | 400 KB |
| Website pages crawled | Up to 10 |
| AI models | GPT-5.6 Luna, Claude Haiku 4.5, Gemini 3.7 Flash |
| Training sources | All 4 (website, documents, Q&A pairs, text snippets) |
| Languages | 95+ |
| Embed options | JS widget, React, iframe, WordPress |
| Lead capture | Included |
| Expiration | Never (permanent free tier) |
Fifty messages per month is not a lot, but it is enough to build a working chatbot, test it with real visitors, and decide whether the concept works for your use case. The permanent nature of the plan matters — you are not racing a trial clock.
Lead capture is included on every plan, including Free. If collecting visitor names and emails is your primary goal, you do not need to upgrade for that feature alone.
Free vs. Paid: Where the Limits Bite
Here is a direct comparison of what each plan adds, so you can see exactly where the free tier runs out and what each upgrade adds.
| Free | Hobby $29.99/mo | Standard $119.99/mo | Pro $399.99/mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Messages/month | 50 | 2,000 | 12,000 | 40,000 |
| Chatbots | 1 | 1 | 2 | Unlimited |
| Storage | 400 KB | 40 MB | 40 MB | 40 MB |
| Seats | 1 | 1 | 3 | Unlimited |
| AI models | Free-tier models | All supported models | All supported models | All supported models |
| Lead capture | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| REST API | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Zapier / Webhooks | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Auto-retrain | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Remove branding | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Domain restrictions | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Annual discount | ~20% off | ~20% off | ~20% off | ~20% off |
The three limits that hit most users first: message volume, storage, and branding. Volume is the most common reason to upgrade. Storage matters if you are uploading multiple documents. Branding matters once you are using the bot publicly and want it to look like your own product.
For a detailed breakdown of what each tier costs across competing platforms, see how AI chatbot pricing actually works.
How Free Plans Compare Across Platforms
| Platform | Free Messages | Bots | Models | Trial or Permanent | Branding |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agentkit | 50/month | 1 | 4 capable models | Permanent | Agentkit badge |
| Chatbase | 30/month | 1 | GPT-3.5 | Permanent | Chatbase badge |
| Tidio | 50/month | 1 | GPT-3.5 | Permanent | Tidio badge |
| Intercom | None | -- | -- | 14-day trial | -- |
| Drift | None | -- | -- | Demo only | -- |
Agentkit and Tidio offer the most generous permanent free tiers. Chatbase is slightly more restrictive on volume. Intercom and Drift do not have true free plans; they offer time-limited trials that require a credit card.
One distinction worth noting: Agentkit's free-tier models in 2026 (GPT-5.6 Luna, Claude Haiku 4.5, Gemini 3.7 Flash) are meaningfully more capable than the GPT-3.5-era models competitors offer at the same price point. For FAQ-style use cases, the quality difference is noticeable. For a broader comparison of platforms, see the best AI chatbots for websites in 2026.
Truly Free vs. "Free Trial": The Honest Difference
Most chatbot platforms described as "free" fall into one of two categories.
Free trial: Full-featured access for 7-14 days, then a required upgrade or loss of access. Often requires a credit card upfront. Intercom and Drift work this way.
Permanent free tier: A subset of features available indefinitely, with no expiration date and no payment required unless you want more. Agentkit, Chatbase, and Tidio work this way.
The distinction matters because a free trial is not a long-term option — it is a sales mechanism. A permanent free tier lets you run a real (if limited) chatbot indefinitely. If your use case fits within the limits, you never need to pay.
What Free Plans Leave Out
Free plans are designed to let you test the product, not run your production support operation. Here is what you will not get.
Volume
Fifty messages per month means roughly 10-12 conversations at 4-5 messages each. If your site gets meaningful traffic, you will hit this limit within the first week of the month. Free plans are for validation and low-traffic sites, not scale.
Premium AI Models
Free plans restrict you to a capable subset of the full model lineup. Upgrading to Hobby ($29.99/month) gives you access to all supported models across OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google — including more powerful reasoning models. For simple FAQ-style answers, free-tier models work well. For complex product comparisons, technical troubleshooting, or anything requiring multi-step reasoning, you will notice the difference.
Custom Branding
Free plans include an "Powered by Agentkit" badge on the chat widget. For personal projects or internal tools, this is irrelevant. For customer-facing business sites, it can undermine the experience. Removing the badge requires Standard plan or above.
Auto-Retrain
When your website content changes, your chatbot's training data becomes stale. Free plans require manual retraining whenever you update your site. Standard plan and above can automatically recrawl and retrain on a schedule.
Integrations
Free plans exclude API access, webhooks, and third-party integrations like Zapier. You get the chatbot widget and lead capture, but you cannot connect the bot to your CRM or analytics pipeline. REST API access, Zapier, and webhooks all start at Hobby.
Getting Started for Free: Three Steps
You can go from nothing to a working chatbot on your website in under 15 minutes. For a deeper walkthrough, see how to train a chatbot on your content and how to embed a chatbot on your website. Budget-constrained organizations are the free plan's natural audience — schools piloting a website chatbot are a common example, since admissions-season question volume makes the value obvious fast.
Step 1: Sign Up and Create Your Chatbot
Go to Agentkit sign-up and create an account. No credit card is required. Once in the dashboard, create a new chatbot and give it a name.
Set the basic configuration:
- Name: What visitors will see in the chat header
- Instructions: Tell the bot what it should and should not do. For example: "You are a helpful assistant for [Company]. Answer questions about our products and pricing. If you do not know the answer, tell the visitor to email [email protected]."
- Language: Select your primary language (the bot supports 95+ languages automatically)
Step 2: Add a Training Source
Your chatbot is only as good as the content it is trained on. On the free plan, all four source types are available.
Website (recommended starting point). Enter your website URL and the crawler pulls content from up to 10 pages. This is the fastest way to get a working bot.
Documents. Upload PDFs, DOCX, TXT, or CSV files. Useful for product manuals, FAQs, or policy documents. Stay within the 400 KB storage limit on the free plan.
Q&A pairs. Manually enter question-and-answer pairs for the most common questions you receive. This gives you precise control over specific responses.
Text. Paste raw text directly. Good for information that does not exist on your website yet.
For best results, start with your website as the primary source and add Q&A pairs for your top 5-10 most common questions. Building a no-code chatbot takes under 15 minutes using these tools without writing any code.
Step 3: Embed on Your Website
Once your bot is trained, grab the embed code from the dashboard. The simplest option is the JavaScript widget — copy one <script> tag and paste it before the closing </body> tag on your site. The chatbot bubble appears in the corner immediately.
<script src="https://cdn.agentkit.ai/widget.js" data-chatbot="your-chatbot-id" ></script>
React component, iframe, and WordPress plugin options are also available if you need tighter integration.
After embedding, test the chatbot with a few questions. If answers are wrong or missing, add more source content or refine your Q&A pairs.
Maximizing Your Free Plan
Fifty messages per month is a tight budget. Here is how to get the most out of it.
Write specific instructions. Vague instructions produce vague answers that trigger follow-up messages, burning your quota faster. Specific instructions resolve questions in one or two messages.
Prioritize Q&A sources. Q&A pairs give you the most control with the least storage. If your top 10 questions cover 80% of visitor inquiries, manually entering those pairs beats crawling general pages.
Monitor and prune. Check conversation logs regularly. If the bot is getting questions it cannot answer well, add that information to your sources. Every unanswered question wastes a message.
Set expectations in the welcome message. Something like: "I can help with questions about our products and pricing. For account-specific issues, please email [email protected]." This reduces irrelevant messages that eat into your quota.
When to Upgrade
Here are clear signals that you have outgrown the free plan.
- You hit 50 messages before mid-month. Your traffic justifies the investment.
- Visitors ask complex questions that free-tier models handle poorly. Upgrading to Hobby gives access to all supported models.
- You want to remove the Agentkit badge. Requires Standard plan.
- You need API, webhooks, or Zapier. API, webhooks, and Zapier all start at Hobby.
- Your content changes frequently. Auto-retrain starts at Standard.
- You need multiple bots or team seats. Standard gives 2 bots and 3 seats.
The upgrade path is straightforward: Hobby ($29.99/month) covers most small business needs. Standard ($119.99/month) adds volume, multiple bots, team seats, and auto-retrain. Pro ($399.99/month) is for high-traffic operations. All paid plans are approximately 20% cheaper with annual billing.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there a truly free chatbot for websites — not just a trial?
Yes. Agentkit's Free plan is permanent with no expiration date and no credit card required. You get one chatbot, 50 messages per month, and 400 KB of storage for as long as you want. It is not a trial — there is no conversion deadline. The tradeoff is that 50 messages per month is a real limit, not a teaser of unlimited capacity.
Can I use a chatbot on my website without signing up or logging in?
Your website visitors can use the chatbot without any sign-in — the widget is publicly accessible. As the chatbot owner, you do need a free Agentkit account to create and configure the bot, but that takes under a minute and requires only an email address. No credit card, no approval process.
What is the catch with free chatbots?
The main catches are volume, branding, and integrations. Volume is the most common limit — 50 messages per month is roughly 10-12 conversations, which works for low-traffic sites and validation but not production support. Branding means a "Powered by Agentkit" badge on the widget until you reach Standard plan. Integrations (API, webhooks, Zapier) require Hobby plan or above. Everything else — training sources, languages, lead capture, embed options — is fully available on the Free plan.
What AI models does the free plan use?
The Free plan includes free-tier models such as GPT-5.6 Luna, Claude Haiku 4.5, and Gemini 3.7 Flash. These are capable, modern models well-suited for FAQ and support use cases. Upgrading to Hobby or above gives access to all supported models across OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google, including more powerful options for complex reasoning tasks.
What happens when I hit 50 messages?
The chatbot pauses until the next billing cycle resets. Visitors see a message that the bot is temporarily unavailable. You are never charged overage fees on the free plan — there are no surprise charges.
Can I upgrade later without losing my chatbot?
Yes. Your chatbot, training data, conversation history, and configuration carry over when you upgrade. Upgrading takes effect immediately. You can also downgrade at the end of a billing cycle.
The Bottom Line
A genuinely free AI chatbot for your website exists in 2026 — no trial clock, no credit card, no hidden conversion requirement. Agentkit's Free plan is permanent and includes all four training source types, 95+ languages, every embed option, and lead capture out of the box.
The honest limit is volume: 50 messages per month works for personal sites, proof-of-concept builds, and very low-traffic pages. Once a chatbot proves its value on the free plan, upgrading to Hobby at $29.99/month removes that constraint and opens the full model lineup. The free plan is not a trap — it is a genuine starting point.
Build your chatbot for free → No credit card required.
