On this page
- 01What moves the cost of a chatbot?
- 02Why testing and limits are part of the price
- 03Build, running costs and support are three separate bills
- 04When an off-the-shelf chatbot is enough
- 05Why you get a range first and a fixed price later
- 06Six questions to answer before you ask for a price
- 07Frequently asked questions
What moves the cost of a chatbot?
The chat window is the cheap part. The price follows what the chatbot is trusted to do, where it appears and how carefully it has to be limited.
| Cost driver | What it means | Effect on price |
|---|---|---|
| Channels | Web chat on your site, SMS, or social messaging. Each channel has its own message format and its own round of testing. | Lower: web chat only. Higher: each channel added. |
| Approved content | The material the chatbot is allowed to answer from. A two-page list of questions is quick to prepare. A library of policies and service details has to be cleaned, structured and kept current. | Lower: a small, stable set of answers. Higher: a large set, or content that changes often. |
| Booking in the chat | Sending a booking link, or checking your diary and confirming a slot inside the conversation. | Lower: a link. Higher: live booking against your calendar. |
| Qualification | Asking the questions your team asks a new enquiry, then deciding what happens next from the answers. | Lower: a fixed set of questions. Higher: different routes for different answers. |
| CRM logging | Where the conversation ends up. A transcript emailed to the team is simple. Creating or updating the contact in your CRM, with the answers in the right fields, is more work. | Lower: email the transcript. Higher: write to your CRM. |
| Handover | What happens when the chatbot cannot help: take a message, or pass the live conversation to a named person with the history attached. | Lower: take a message. Higher: live handover with out-of-hours rules. |
| Limits and refusals | The topics the chatbot must not answer. The more sensitive your sector, the more refusal cases have to be written and tested. | Lower: general service questions. Higher: anything near medical, legal or financial matters. |
The number of conversations is missing from that table on purpose. It changes what the providers bill you each month, and leaves the build price alone.
Why testing and limits are part of the price
A business is responsible for what its chatbot tells a customer. In Moffatt v Air Canada (2024), a British Columbia tribunal held the airline liable for incorrect fare information its website chatbot gave a customer. The airline argued the chatbot was responsible for its own actions, and that argument was rejected.
That is why a share of any chatbot budget goes on work you never see in the chat window. Our chatbots are limited to approved information, say when they do not know, hand over to a person and tell people they are automated. Advice on medical, legal or financial questions always goes to a person.
Each of those rules is tested with real questions, edge cases and failure paths before a customer sees the chatbot. The method is in our guide on how to test an AI agent before customers. A cheaper quote that skips this step moves the risk on to you.
Build, running costs and support are three separate bills
- The build, once. The scoped price, paid 50% upfront and 50% on launch. It is built in your accounts, and you own the code and the conversation data.
- Running costs, monthly. AI usage, hosting and any messaging software are paid by you straight to the providers. We state no provider prices here because they are theirs to set. The scope gives an expected figure from your own enquiry numbers.
- Support, if you want it. Run & Improve costs £1,000, £2,000 or £4,000 a month by plan. It covers reviewing conversations and agreeing the next changes. Leave it out and your team keeps the content up to date.
Ask any supplier to split their quote the same way. A low build price with a high monthly fee can cost more over time, and you may not own what was built.
When an off-the-shelf chatbot is enough
Ready-made chatbot products cost far less to start, and for many businesses they are the right answer. Choose one when:
- the chatbot only needs to answer a short list of common questions on your website;
- a booking link is fine and nothing has to be written into your CRM;
- you get few enough chats that a person can read every transcript;
- you have not yet worked out which questions customers ask. Run a ready-made tool, collect the questions, then decide.
A custom build earns its price when the chatbot must qualify, book, log to your systems and hand over cleanly, or when you need to own the code and data. The trade-offs are laid out in custom AI chatbot vs off-the-shelf.
Why you get a range first and a fixed price later
We give a range before the audit and never an exact figure. The audit maps how your business runs, the tools it uses and where work gets stuck, so we can see what the chatbot has to connect to and where a person must stay involved. You receive a written report within 10 working days.
The fixed price comes with the written scope, which names the channels, the content, the connections, the handover rules and the timeline. There is no flagship package behind this. The chatbot is scoped around what your business needs and already has.
Six questions to answer before you ask for a price
Bring answers to these and any supplier, including us, can place you in a range quickly.
- Where do customers message you now? List every channel and roughly how many messages each gets.
- What do they ask? Pull the last 50 enquiries and group them.
- Where is the approved answer to each question? If it only lives in someone's head, it has to be written down first.
- What should the chatbot do after answering? Book, qualify, or pass to sales.
- Where should the conversation be recorded? Name the system.
- Who picks up a handover, and when are they available? This decides the out-of-hours rules. Our guide on which decisions to keep human helps here.
More on what a chatbot can handle is on our conversational AI and chatbots page.
Frequently asked questions
What is the price of a custom AI chatbot?
It sits inside our scoped build range. A web chat that answers from a small set of approved content is towards the lower end. Several channels, live booking and CRM logging move it up.
Is there a monthly fee to Agentryx after the chatbot launches?
Only if you choose a support plan. The running costs go to the providers from your own accounts, not to us.
Do more conversations mean a higher build price?
No. More conversations mean more AI usage, which shows up in the monthly provider bills. The build is priced on channels, content, connections and handover.
Who owns the chatbot and the chat history?
You do. Everything is built in your own accounts, so the code and the data stay with you if we stop working together.
What stops the chatbot giving a wrong answer?
It answers only from content you have approved, and it is built to say when it does not know and pass the conversation to a person. No system removes the risk entirely, which is why it is tested on failure paths before launch.
Can we launch on the website first and add SMS later?
Yes. One channel first keeps the opening budget lower, and you learn what customers ask before paying to extend it.
Do we need the audit if we already know we want a chatbot?
Yes, the audit comes first. It is how we find what the chatbot must connect to, and its fee comes off the build if you go ahead inside the credit window.