What is the best free AI chatbot?

For a real website, Ollabear: free forever, 100 conversations a month, with the full AI agent (not a stripped preview) and no credit card. Many other "free" plans are 14-day trials or are capped so low you outgrow them in a week.

Are free AI chatbots actually free, or a trial?

It varies, and that is the trap. A 14-day trial is not a free plan. Look for three things: no credit card to sign up, no expiry date, and a monthly volume you can actually run on. Ollabear, and a few others, pass; several well-known names do not.

What happens when I outgrow the free plan?

You move to a paid tier that adds monthly conversation volume. Bots and domains stay unlimited on every tier, so growing your number of sites or bots never costs more - only chat volume does.

Best free AI chatbot for your website (2026, honestly compared)

Q: Is the free plan a stripped-down version?

With Ollabear, no - the free plan includes the full agent: it builds itself from your website, runs a tool-calling loop (MCP + 280+ apps), answers from your content with citations, and remembers visitors. The only limit is 100 conversations a month and a small 'powered by' line.

Search "free AI chatbot" and most of what you find isn't free in any way that matters: 14-day trials with a countdown, plans that need a credit card up front, or "free" tiers capped so low you hit the wall in a week. This is the honest version — the chatbots with a genuinely free plan you can actually run a small website on, ranked, with the catch for each one stated plainly.

What "genuinely free" has to mean

Three tests separate a real free plan from a trial in disguise:

No credit card to sign up.
No expiry — it doesn't turn into a bill on day 15.
A usable monthly volume — enough conversations to run a small site, not a 5-message demo.

A surprising number of well-known "free AI chatbots" fail at least one of these. The ranking below only counts plans that pass all three.

The best genuinely-free AI chatbots

1. Ollabear most usable free plan

We make it, so check the facts rather than the framing. Ollabear's free plan is free forever: 100 conversations a month, no card, no expiry — and crucially, it's the full agent, not a stripped preview. On the free plan an AI builds your bot from your website in about 90 seconds, then it runs a tool-calling loop (MCP + 280+ apps), answers from your content with citations, and remembers returning visitors. The only catch is a small "powered by Ollabear" line on the widget.

Free: 100 conversations/month, full agent, no card, no expiry.
Catch: "powered by" badge; conversation volume capped at 100/mo.
Best for: small sites that want a real AI agent, not a demo.

2. Tidio free Lyro, then paid

Tidio's free plan includes a limited run of its Lyro AI (around 50 conversations), after which the full AI sits on the paid Plus tier. Good if you want to try Lyro; the free AI allowance is small.

3. Chatling free AI credits

Chatling's free plan offers a monthly pool of AI message credits across a couple of agents — usable for a very small site, with a clean visual builder. Watch the credit cap as volume grows.

4. Crisp free chat, AI is paid

Crisp has a genuinely free live-chat plan, but its Hugo AI agent is gated to the paid Plus tier. Pick it if you want free human chat now and AI later, not free AI today.

5. HubSpot free, rule-based

HubSpot's free chatbot is solid for rule-based flows and lead capture inside its CRM, but it's closer to a classic chatbot than an AI agent. Great if you're already in HubSpot.

At a glance

Tool	Free plan	Real AI on free?	Catch
Ollabear	100 conv/mo, forever	Yes - full agent	"Powered by" badge
Tidio	~50 Lyro conv	Limited, then paid	Small AI allowance
Chatling	Monthly AI credits	Yes, capped	Credit cap
Crisp	Live chat free	No - AI is paid	Hugo on Plus only
HubSpot	Free chatbot	Rule-based, not an agent	CRM-centric

Free-tier limits change often — confirm on each vendor's pricing page before deciding.

Why "free agent" beats "free chatbot"

Most free chatbots give you a flow builder or a doc-Q&A bot. The reason Ollabear's free plan ranks first isn't the price — it's that the free plan is a real agent: it configures itself from your site, reasons in a tool-calling loop, uses your tools and 280+ apps via MCP, answers from your content, and can consult a per-bot knowledge graph (in pilot) for multi-hop questions. You're not trialing a crippled version to be upsold; the free plan is the product, capped at 100 conversations a month.

Bottom line: if "free AI chatbot" has burned you with a trial or a 5-message cap before, the genuinely-free shortlist is short. Ollabear gives you the full AI agent free forever for 100 conversations a month — no card, no expiry.
Start free - 100 conversations/mo