The Best Chatbot Apps in 2026 (And Where Each One Actually Lives)
Most lists compare feature checklists. The better question is where the conversation actually happens: a widget on your site, a thread in Microsoft Teams, a WhatsApp message, or your phone at nine in the evening. Eight apps, judged on that.
The short version
- "App" means four places. Buy for the one your conversations start in.
- The most common chat app is a WhatsApp button. Our scan, not a survey.
- Free tiers are common. Free tiers with working AI are rare.
- Disclosure: EzyConn is ours.
First, what people mean by "chatbot app"
The phrase is doing a lot of work. People searching for the best chatbot apps usually mean one of four things. The widget on your website. A bot answering inside WhatsApp or Messenger, which the customer already has open. A chatbot in your own team workspace, landing in Microsoft Teams, Slack or Zoom. Or the phone app your agents use nowhere near a laptop.
A tool can be superb at one and hopeless at the other three. Start with the place, then pick the app.
| Where the bot lives | Buy when | Who covers it |
|---|---|---|
| Website widget | Someone reads your prices at 11pm | Every tool here |
| WhatsApp or Messenger | Customers already message you | The commonest setup in the wild |
| Teams, Slack, Zoom | Your team lives in its workspace | EzyConn replies from Slack; rivals notify |
| iOS and Android | Replies happen between jobs | Crisp, Tawk.to |
Where chat really lives, from our own scan
We checked rather than guessed. We scanned 4,278 small business websites across seven countries and only 7.5% ran any chat widget. Among those that did, a plain WhatsApp click-to-chat button accounted for 53.7%, more than every dedicated vendor put together. HubSpot led the real chat tools at 10.2%, then Tawk.to at 9.9%, LiveChat at 9.0%, Tidio at 5.0%, Zendesk at 4.0% and Intercom at 2.2%.
So most businesses are not choosing between chatbot apps, because they have none. And those that chose mostly chose a phone number. Full method in our live chat adoption study.
The eight apps at a glance
A note on money first. We print a competitor price only where that vendor publishes it and we have checked it. Otherwise we describe the billing model and stop. We do not quote unpublished figures.
| App | Where it lives | How it charges | Free plan |
|---|---|---|---|
| EzyConn (our product) | Website, WhatsApp, Slack, Teams, phone browser | Flat plan, AI included | Free forever |
| Intercom | Website, mobile SDKs, own inbox | Per seat + per AI resolution | None |
| Crisp | Website, inbox, mobile app | Flat tiers + AI credit balance | Yes, without AI |
| Tidio | Website, ecommerce storefronts | Plan fee, metered AI, branding add-on | Yes, AI one-off |
| Zendesk | Website, email, voice, help centre | Per agent + metered resolutions | Not offered |
| Tawk.to | Widget, mobile app | Free core, paid add-ons | Yes |
| HubSpot | Website, inside HubSpot CRM | Bundled with CRM seats | Yes, in CRM |
| Freshdesk | Website, email, ticketing, voice | Per agent, AI on top | Yes, narrow |
The eight apps, one by one
1. EzyConn
Ours, so read this with that in mind. A website widget, a shared inbox, replies from a Slack thread, new chats posted to Microsoft Teams, and an inbox that works in a phone browser. GPT-4o and Claude on every plan. Free is $0 forever: 2 seats, 500 messages a month, 1 chatbot. Paid plans are Starter at $25 a month and Professional at $95 a month.
2. Intercom
The polished end of the market. Intercom bills per seat and again per AI resolution: Essential is $39 per seat per month on monthly billing, and Fin adds $0.99 per resolution. More agents and more automation both push the invoice the same way. No free tier.
3. Crisp
Flat tiers, but the AI arrives as a dollar credit balance. Mini is $45 a month with about $5 of AI credit, Essentials $95 with about $25, Plus $295 with about $75. Plus is also the first tier where the Crisp watermark can be removed. The free plan has 2 seats and no AI credits, so you cannot trial the part you are buying.
4. Tidio
Three meters stacked: plan, AI, branding. Lyro AI starts around $32.50 a month for 50 AI conversations, billed apart from the plan. Removing Tidio branding costs roughly $16.67 a month on lower tiers. The free tier gives 50 Lyro conversations as a one-off, so free AI stops for good once spent.
5. Zendesk
The enterprise default. Zendesk charges per agent and meters automated resolutions on top. It publishes no public per-resolution figure, so we do not quote one. Budget for two lines, and expect setup in days, not minutes.
6. Tawk.to
The quiet giant of small business chat: a free core product with paid add-ons around it. We have not verified a published price list for those add-ons, so we leave the numbers alone. What we can say is measured: it appeared on 9.9% of the sites in our scan that had chat, third behind WhatsApp and HubSpot.
7. HubSpot
The most common real chat tool in our scan at 10.2%, largely because it arrives with the CRM rather than being chosen. Billing is bundled into CRM seats and contact tiers, and HubSpot publishes no standalone chatbot price we would quote.
8. Freshdesk
A full ticketing platform with chat attached. It charges per agent, with Freddy AI sold on top, and again we do not quote unpublished figures. The free tier is real but narrow, and the jump to usable AI is a big one.
The bit most lists skip: the phone app
AI answers the first message. Nobody asks in a demo what happens to message two, the one the AI correctly refuses to handle, when it lands at 4pm on a Friday. If that escalation only exists in a browser tab, it waits until Monday.
A good phone app needs three things: notifications that fire on escalation, not on every message; the full history; and a real reply box. The EzyConn inbox works in a phone browser on every plan. Screens are on our mobile app page. Crisp and Tawk.to have phone apps.
How to choose in five minutes
Ask two questions. Where do enquiries arrive today, and what happens to the bill when the AI does well? The second splits the market: per-seat plus per-resolution billing punishes success twice, credit balances stop the AI mid-month, and flat plans with a published cap let you see the ceiling first. Ours look like this.
| Plan | Price | Messages/mo | Seats |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 forever | 500 | 2 |
| Starter | $25/mo | 5,000 | 4 |
| Professional | $95/mo | 25,000 | 11 |
| Enterprise | Talk to us | Agreed with you | Agreed with you |
Annual billing takes 20% off. The full breakdown is on our pricing page, and if you want us against one named rival rather than a list, the comparison pages go feature by feature.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best chatbot app in 2026?
There is no single winner, because the word app hides four places a bot can live: your website, a messaging app your customer already uses, your own team workspace like Microsoft Teams or Slack, and your phone. Pick the tool that covers the place your conversations start. If they start on your website and get answered on phones, a flat-priced tool with a real mobile app beats an enterprise suite.
Is there a genuinely free chatbot app?
Several tools have a free tier, but very few include working AI in it. EzyConn, our own product, gives you 2 seats, 500 messages a month, 1 chatbot, free forever. Crisp publishes a free plan with 2 seats and no AI credits. Tidio gives 50 Lyro conversations as a one-off, not a monthly reset. Intercom has no free tier.
Which chatbot app works inside Microsoft Teams or Slack?
Most tools send a notification into Teams or Slack, then ask you to click through to their dashboard to reply. EzyConn lets agents read and answer from a Slack thread, so the reply goes out from the app your team already has open, and it posts new chats to a Microsoft Teams channel. Pylon is built around shared Slack and Teams channels for named B2B accounts.
Can a chatbot app answer on WhatsApp?
Yes, and for many small businesses that is where the conversation starts. In our scan of 4,278 small business websites, a plain WhatsApp click-to-chat button was 53.7% of all the chat we found, more than every dedicated vendor combined. The gap is that WhatsApp alone has no shared history, no routing and no handoff, so the right setup adds a proper inbox behind it.
Do I need a mobile app for my chatbot?
You need one if replies have to happen away from a desk, which is true for most small teams. The AI handles the first message either way, but the escalation still has to reach a human. Push notifications turn a missed enquiry into a two-minute reply from a car park. The EzyConn inbox works in a phone browser on every plan, free one included. Crisp has a well-regarded app.
Try it free, in every place at once
2 seats, 500 messages a month, replies from Slack, and an inbox that works on your phone. $0 forever, no card.
Start freeDisclosure: EzyConn is our own product. Competitor prices appear only where the vendor publishes them and we checked them, last verified July 2026; otherwise we describe the model. Adoption percentages come from our own August 2026 scan.