Chatwoot is an open-source customer support inbox from Chatwoot Inc. in San Francisco, sold as a US-hosted cloud service billed per agent and as a free, MIT-licensed Community Edition you run on your own servers. The cloud plans cover website chat, email, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, SMS, Telegram and, on Business and Enterprise, voice. Its Captain AI is metered in credits, with 1 credit per AI message or action.
Bottom line
- Best for: Technical teams willing to self-host, or US-based teams
- Not for: Chatwoot Cloud does not suit teams that need EU-hosted data without running their own servers, because the cloud runs only in the United States.
- Paid plans from: US$19 per seat per month, billed monthly
- The catch: Chatwoot Cloud is hosted only on AWS in the United States, so keeping data in the EU means self-hosting and maintaining the software yourself.
Score breakdown
Chatwoot scores 6.7 out of 10 on rubric v1.0. The rubric rates what can be verified from public information, not how the widget performs on a live site.
A free plan a very small team could use, with documented caps on seats or conversations and vendor branding that stays on the widget.
More than 50 and up to 125 a month.
Price, unit and edge cases are defined in writing, and an allowance is included on the free or entry paid plan, so the AI can be tried before buying usage.
Website chat plus email or one messaging channel, with a few integrations.
A data processing agreement and a documented hosting location, but data is hosted outside the EU only, or the vendor's own statements about location conflict.
Key facts
- Vendor
- Chatwoot Inc.
- Headquarters
- San Francisco, USA · founded 2016
- Pricing model
- Per seat
- Paid plans from
- US$19 per seat per month, billed monthly
- Prices published in
- USD
- Free plan
- Yes — Hacker
- AI chatbot
- Captain AI — billed per credit
- Channels
- Website chat, Email, Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, SMS, Telegram, Voice
- Languages
- Not documented · German: Not documented · Spanish: Not documented
- EU data hosting
- No
- Compliance
- SOC 2 Type II, GDPR DPA
- Integrations
- Slack, Linear, Google Translate, LeadSquared, Dialogflow, Cloudflare RealtimeKit
Strengths
- The Hacker plan is free for up to 2 agents and 500 conversations a month, which the pricing page states in plain figures.
- The self-hosted Community Edition costs US$0 per agent and is published under the MIT licence, so the software itself carries no seat fee.
- Captain AI credits are defined in writing: 1 credit per AI message or action, and at zero credits the AI step is skipped and the conversation is handed to a human agent.
- Every paid cloud plan includes monthly Captain AI credits, starting with 300 on Startups, and extra credits cost US$20 per 1,000.
- Startups already includes every channel except voice, from email and WhatsApp to Instagram, SMS and Telegram.
Weaknesses
- Chatwoot Cloud runs on AWS, United States with no EU region, according to the pricing page.
- Only 6 of the 15 integrations on the integrations page are live; Shopify, WooCommerce and HubSpot are marked "Coming Q4 2026".
- Removing the Chatwoot branding is included only in Enterprise at US$99 per agent a month.
- Captain AI is charged per message or action, so a multi-turn AI conversation uses several credits, and agent-side Copilot actions draw from the same pool.
- Captain AI is not in the free Community Edition: self-hosters need a paid licence plus their own OpenAI-compatible API key.
What the free plan allows
| Free plan | Free plan | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Free seats | 2 — capped | Source |
| Conversations | 500 / month — capped | Source |
| Chat history | 30 days — capped | Source |
| Remove branding | No — blocked or missing | Source |
| AI on the free plan | No — blocked or missing | Source |
| Beyond website chat | Chat only — capped | Source |
Chatwoot's free cloud plan, Hacker, covers up to 2 agents and 500 conversations a month on website live chat only, with 30-day data retention. It excludes Captain AI, email and social channels, conversation transcripts, and branding removal, and the fair-use policy caps it at 1,000 contacts and 10 inboxes. Cloud accounts inactive for more than 6 months are scheduled for deletion. The other free route is the self-hosted Community Edition, which the vendor lists at US$0 per agent but which leaves hosting, upgrades and backups to you, on a Linux server with at least 4 GB of RAM and 2 CPU cores for production. Chatwoot also says Startups is free for open-source projects. Compare both routes on the free live chat shortlist and in the free-plan audit.
Free-plan audit: does your team fit a free live chat plan? · Is a free live chat plan enough for your team?
Published prices
| Plan | Price | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Startups | US$19 per seat per month, billed monthly | Source |
| Business | US$39 per seat per month, billed monthly | Source |
| Enterprise | US$99 per seat per month, billed monthly | Source |
| Captain AI, 1,000 extra credits | US$20 | Source |
| Self-hosted Community Edition | US$0 per seat per month | Source |
| Self-hosted Premium Support | US$19 per seat per month | Source |
| Self-hosted Enterprise Edition | US$99 per seat per month | Source |
Chatwoot Cloud bills per agent per month in US dollars: Startups US$19, Business US$39 and Enterprise US$99, with one price per plan and no annual rate shown. Paid plans advertise unlimited conversations under a fair-use policy of roughly 10,000 messages and 10,000 contacts per agent. A team of 2 that only needs website chat fits the free Hacker plan; a team of 5 on Startups pays five times US$19 a month, and a team of 10 pays ten times that, because every agent is billed. Self-hosting changes the arithmetic: the Community Edition is US$0 per agent, while Premium Support (US$19) and the Enterprise Edition (US$99) add Captain AI, custom branding and support per agent, and the server bill is yours. The per-seat vs per-workspace guide shows where per-agent billing overtakes flat pricing.
How the AI is billed
Chatwoot meters Captain AI in credits. The help centre says 1 credit is deducted per AI message or action, which covers each assistant reply, Copilot lookup, rephrase, summary, reply suggestion, label suggestion, automation-triggered model call and audio transcription; the vendor notes the rate may change for other models. Each account gets a monthly allowance: 300 credits on Startups, 500 on Business and 800 on Enterprise, with none on Hacker. Extra credits cost US$20 per 1,000, are used after the monthly allowance runs out and expire after 6 months. The catch is the unit: an AI conversation costs 1 credit per AI reply rather than a flat amount per conversation, so per-credit prices do not compare one-to-one with per-conversation pricing elsewhere. When credits run out, the AI action is skipped and the conversation goes to a human agent. Self-hosted Captain requires a paid licence and your own OpenAI-compatible API key, so model costs are paid to the model provider. The AI billing guide compares the units. Source
Data hosting and languages
Chatwoot's pricing page says Chatwoot Cloud runs on AWS with servers in the United States, and its enterprise page says that to keep data in another region you self-host in your own VPC or data centre. The vendor states SOC 2 Type II compliance on its home page, offers a data processing agreement, and says data is encrypted at rest and in transit with AES-256; those are vendor claims, and we have not seen the SOC 2 report itself. For EU buyers, self-hosting, either the free Community Edition or a paid self-hosted licence, is the only route to EU residency with Chatwoot, at the cost of running the servers yourself. Chatwoot does not publish a widget language list on the pages we could confirm, so German and Spanish support should be checked in the trial. See the EU-hosted shortlist and the privacy and law guide before choosing the cloud for EU visitors.
Verdict
Chatwoot suits two kinds of buyer: US-based teams that want a per-agent omnichannel inbox with metered AI at a low entry price, and technical teams willing to self-host the free Community Edition to control where data lives. A two-person team that only needs website chat can start on Hacker for free. Look elsewhere if you need a live Shopify or WooCommerce integration today, an unbranded widget below Enterprise, or EU hosting without running servers: Crisp and Lime Connect both document EU hosting.
Related pages
- Chatwoot pricing explainedpricing
- Best live chat software in 2026best list
Frequently asked questions
Is Chatwoot free?
Chatwoot has two free options. The cloud Hacker plan covers up to 2 agents and 500 conversations a month on website chat only, with 30-day retention. The self-hosted Community Edition is US$0 per agent under the MIT licence, but you run and maintain the servers and it excludes Captain AI.
Where is Chatwoot Cloud hosted?
Chatwoot Cloud runs on AWS in the United States, and the vendor offers no EU or UK cloud region. Chatwoot's own advice for keeping data in another region is to self-host in your own VPC or data centre.
How much does Chatwoot cost per agent?
Chatwoot Cloud costs US$19 per agent a month on Startups, US$39 on Business and US$99 on Enterprise, in US dollars. The pricing page shows no separate annual rate. Self-hosted licences are US$19 (Premium Support) or US$99 (Enterprise Edition) per agent, and the Community Edition is free.
How do Chatwoot Captain AI credits work?
Captain AI uses 1 credit per AI message or action, including agent-side Copilot features. Paid cloud plans include 300 to 800 credits per account each month, and extra credits cost US$20 per 1,000. At zero credits the AI action is skipped and the conversation goes to a human agent.
Does Chatwoot integrate with Shopify or WooCommerce?
Not yet. Chatwoot's integrations page lists Shopify and WooCommerce as "Coming Q4 2026", with 6 of 15 listed integrations live. Stores that need a native integration today can compare options on the ecommerce shortlist.
Sources
- Chatwoot Cloud pricing — Chatwoot · 18 September 2026
- Chatwoot self-hosted plans — Chatwoot · 18 September 2026
- How AI credits work in Captain — Chatwoot · 18 September 2026
- Captain AI credits and billing — Chatwoot · 18 September 2026
- Fair use policy — Chatwoot · 18 September 2026
- Chatwoot security — Chatwoot · 18 September 2026
- Chatwoot home page — Chatwoot · 18 September 2026
- Chatwoot for enterprise — Chatwoot · 18 September 2026
- Chatwoot integrations — Chatwoot · 18 September 2026
- Chatwoot changelog — Chatwoot · 18 September 2026
- Chatwoot handbook: company — Chatwoot · 18 September 2026
- Chatwoot LICENSE — Chatwoot · 18 September 2026
This page was researched and drafted with AI assistance from the sources listed on it. We have not installed or tested these products ourselves. Method: How we review