The short answer: a setup fee plus a retainer
A website chatbot is two kinds of work. The build happens once: gathering the client's content, writing the answers their site lacks, setting up, testing and installing the agent. The running never stops: the platform bills you every month, the client's prices change, and the weakest answers need fixing. A setup fee pays for the first, a retainer for the second. Three rules keep it profitable:
- Price the setup on your hours. "Training" means preparing the client's content and loading it as sources. ChatterLab trains no model on it, and the agent does not learn from conversations by itself.
- Build the platform cost into the retainer. The client buys a working assistant; the platform is your supplier.
- Cap the volume. Every answer draws on a pool of credits that all your clients share, so the retainer needs a fair-use limit.
What one client's chatbot costs you
Your cost has three lines. We use ChatterLab's published prices because we can vouch for them; if you use another platform, put its prices in their place.
The platform. The Agency plan costs €249 a month per workspace, or €199 a month paid yearly, with 5 agents, 12,000 credits a month and 5 people who sign in. Each client gets its own agent. Extra agents cost €19 a month each, and removing "Powered by ChatterLab" from every agent costs €49 a month. For a first client or two, Studio (€79, 1 agent, 4,000 credits, your own domain) or Starter (€29, 1 agent, 1,500 credits) may do. Prices exclude VAT (Plans and credits).
The AI answers. Answers are paid in credits: 1 credit an answer on most models, a few more on the largest, whatever the length of the answer. A visitor's "hello" costs a credit, and so does each test question in the Playground; checking answers against their sources is free. Credits are shared by all agents, start again on the first of the month and do not carry over. You pay per answer, not per conversation:
| Example assumption | Value |
|---|---|
| Conversations a month | 400 |
| Visitor messages per conversation, greetings included | 3 |
| Credits per answer, on a 1-credit model | 1 |
| Credits a month for this client | 1,200 |
After the first month, the Clients screen gives the real figure: the credits each client's agent used this month (Clients). Files that visitors send, if you allow them, cost extra and are not in that figure.
Your hours. This is the line only you control. ChatterLab's own method for agencies budgets about fifteen minutes per client for the monthly review (Running agents as a service); content changes, client e-mails and the report note come on top. The examples below count one hour per client a month.
Chatbot agency pricing models compared
| Model | How it works | Fits | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Setup plus retainer | A one-off fee for the build, a fixed monthly fee for running it | Most website chatbots | List what the retainer covers, or every change becomes a negotiation |
| Monthly only | The build folded into a minimum term, for example twelve months | Clients who balk at an upfront fee | Without an early-exit fee, a client who leaves early never pays for the build |
| Tiers by volume | The retainer steps up with the conversations a month | Unpredictable or growing traffic | Define how conversations are counted and what happens above the top tier |
| Per agent | Each extra site, brand or country version is a line | Groups with several sites | One agent already answers in the visitor's language; a second is worth selling when the content differs per country |
| Per seat | A price per person who logs in | Rarely | On ChatterLab a client cannot sign in to your workspace; on Agency they get a read-only dashboard link |
| Pass-through | The client pays the platform directly and you bill your hours | Clients who insist on holding the account | No margin on the platform, and a separate account for every client. On ChatterLab, Starter and Studio have a single login: the owner's |
| Value-based | Priced on an outcome, such as the leads the chat collects | Clients who know what a lead is worth | Attribution gets disputed, so never price on a resolution rate you cannot measure |
| Per conversation, no cap | The client pays for each conversation, without a ceiling | Avoid it | Your cost has no ceiling, and the client's bill no forecast |
The first and third combine well, as in the example quote below.
What agencies charge, according to published figures
The figures that come up for these searches are published by companies that sell chatbots or chatbot platforms. None of the pages we read is a neutral survey, so read each figure as what it is: a vendor's claim.
| Publisher | What the page says | Dates |
|---|---|---|
| Botnation, a chatbot platform that also builds chatbots, as the page discloses | Orders of magnitude it recorded in July 2026 from French providers' published rate cards: an AI chatbot on the client's own content at €0 to €3,000 setup and €40 to €300 a month plus AI credits; a scoped project with CRM integration at €8,000 to €25,000 setup and €300 to €2,000 a month | Published 27 July 2026, read 25 October 2026 |
| Upliora, an AI consultancy for Spanish companies | Indicative ranges of €500 to €2,000 for a basic website chatbot and €2,000 to €6,000 for one connected to a CRM, a knowledge base or tickets | Updated 31 March 2026, read 25 October 2026 |
| SiteGPT, a chatbot platform, on its page for agencies | $500 to $2,000 a month per client, called standard for setup, maintenance and training updates, with no source given | Updated 7 September 2026, read 25 October 2026 |
A website agent built on a client's own content is what Botnation calls an AI chatbot on your data, and its FAQ puts that level at €40 to €300 a month plus €1,000 to €3,000 of optional support. Your setup fee competes with the client doing it alone, so its lines should name work that saves them real time. The €300 to €2,000 retainers belong to projects with scoping and CRM integration; for a plain website agent, expect to justify them. The buyer's side of the question is in what a website chatbot costs.
An example quote you can adapt
The client in this example is a bicycle shop with a web shop in Dutch and French, expecting about 400 conversations a month. Every amount is an example, not a market statistic. Setup hours are priced at €90.
Setup, charged once
| Line | Hours | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Kick-off and content audit: which pages, PDFs and policies to use, and what is missing | 2 | €180 |
| Question-and-answer pairs for the 30 questions the shop is asked most | 4 | €360 |
| Configuration: instructions, tone, limits, when to offer a person, allowed domains | 2 | €180 |
| Look and texts: name, colour, logo, welcome message in Dutch and French | 1 | €90 |
| Testing: 60 questions in both languages, fixes, the shop's sign-off | 4 | €360 |
| Installation and go-live check | 1 | €90 |
| Total | 14 | €1,260 |
Every month
| Tier | Conversations a month | Price a month |
|---|---|---|
| Essential | up to 300 | €140 |
| Standard | up to 800 | €190 |
| Plus | up to 2,000 | €390 |
The shop starts on Standard, whose cap is twice its expected volume. ChatterLab's method for agencies calls this pricing with room: a bundle above the client's normal month. Above the top tier, charge per block, for example €40 for each further 250 conversations: at three answers each that is 750 credits, and packs cost €30 for 1,000 credits.
Two clauses for the quote, as examples to adapt and have checked by your own adviser:
Fair use. The monthly fee covers the conversations of the chosen tier, as counted under Conversations in the monthly report. If the assistant handles more than that in two consecutive months, the service moves to the next tier from the following month, after notice in writing. A single busy month changes nothing.
Not included. Connections to other systems, channels other than the chat on the website, live chat with a person, answers from documents the Client has not supplied, and any guarantee that every answer is correct or that a given share of questions is resolved without a person. The assistant is set up to answer only from sources the Client has approved, and to say when they do not cover a question.
What the monthly retainer covers
Name each item in the quote, with how often it happens:
- The weakest answers. Weekly in the first month, then monthly: work through Worth adding to your sources on the agent's Overview, usually by adding a question-and-answer pair (Fixing weak answers).
- Content refresh. On Agency, every site an agent learned from is crawled again 7 days after its last crawl. On Studio and Starter nothing is re-read on a schedule, so re-crawling is work you bill.
- The monthly report. An e-mail from you in the language you set for each client (English, Dutch, French, German or Spanish), with a link to a read-only dashboard. Hold it back to add two sentences on what you fixed (Reports and the client's dashboard).
- Questions for a person. With tickets on, a visitor can leave a question for a person in the chat. Have the tickets e-mailed to the client's team, who answer by replying, and agree how fast: the chat shows a sentence of your own, such as "We answer within one working day". It is e-mail, not live chat.
- Advice. A question asked twenty times a month shows what the client's website fails to make clear; say so in the report.
Margin at 5, 10 and 20 clients
Every client in this example pays €190 a month, uses about 1,200 credits and takes one hour of your time a month, valued at €60: what the hour costs you, not what you bill for it.
| A month | 5 clients | 10 clients | 20 clients |
|---|---|---|---|
| Retainers | €950 | €1,900 | €3,800 |
| Your hours | €300 | €600 | €1,200 |
| Left before the platform bill | €650 | €1,300 | €2,600 |
| Agents needed, one per client | 5 | 10 | 20 |
| Credits at the expected volume | 6,000 | 12,000 | 24,000 |
| Credits if every client reaches its cap | 12,000 | 24,000 | 48,000 |
The platform bill to subtract, at our current prices:
| Platform line | Price |
|---|---|
| Agency plan, with 5 agents and 12,000 credits a month | €249 a month |
| Badge removal, once for the whole workspace | €49 a month |
| Each agent above the 5 included | €19 a month |
| Each 1,000 credits above the 12,000 included | €30 |
Doing the subtraction shows three things:
- Up to 5 clients, a new client adds no platform fee while the credits last.
- Beyond that, each client adds an agent at €19 a month, plus its credits once the month's 12,000 are spent.
- The shared pool is where a busy month hurts. If every client reaches its cap at once, credit use doubles. Switch on auto-recharge so that no agent goes silent, let the fair-use clause move clients up a tier, and lock each agent to its client's site: while its list of allowed domains is empty, any website can embed it and spend your credits.
Two levers help without touching your prices: paying yearly (€199 a month), and a 1-credit model, which suits most agents, since a larger one reads the same passages at up to several credits an answer. For one or two clients, compare Studio (€79) plus extra agents with Agency: Studio has your own domain, but not the client management, reports, client dashboards, weekly re-reading or team that Agency adds.
What to promise and what to put in the contract
You can promise an assistant that is built to answer from the client's own content in the visitor's language and to say when that content falls short, that tells every visitor it is an AI, and that gets a monthly round of fixes. Do not promise:
- That every answer will be right. No language model stays within its sources every time. ChatterLab measures each answer twice and lists the doubtful ones: oversight, not a guarantee.
- A resolution or automation rate before anyone has read the client's conversations. Botnation's buyer's guide (read 25 October 2026) counts an automation rate promised that early among its red flags.
- What the platform does not do. ChatterLab is a chat on the website: no live chat (tickets are answered by e-mail), no WhatsApp or phone, no scanned PDFs or pages behind a login as sources, no learning from conversations by itself.
The contract holds those lines. A checklist, with the reason for each item:
- Scope: the sites, languages and sources, and what is excluded, so that additions are billable.
- Content sign-off before launch, because a business answers for its own website. In Moffatt v. Air Canada (2024 BCCRT 149), British Columbia's Civil Resolution Tribunal, deciding a small claim, held the airline liable for its chatbot's wrong answer about bereavement fares and found it "responsible for all the information on its website". The decision binds no European court, but it shows where the risk lands.
- Fair use: the tier, how conversations are counted, and what happens above the cap.
- Tickets: who answers the questions that go to a person, and how fast.
- Exit: what the client receives (the conversations as a PDF export, the leads as a CSV file, the question-and-answer text you wrote). Under Article 28(3)(g) GDPR the client chooses whether you return the personal data or delete it. Deleting an agent on ChatterLab deletes everything it holds; the audit log keeps a record of events, not of what anyone wrote, for 2 years.
- Data processing: visitors type personal details into chats, so your client is usually the controller, you their processor and the platform yours. Article 28 GDPR requires a written contract with your client that sets out, among other things, the subject, duration, nature and purpose of the processing and the types of data; your client's written authorisation before you use the platform; and the same obligations passed on to it. The Commission's standard contractual clauses (Implementing Decision (EU) 2021/915) meet the requirements of Article 28(3) and (4). ChatterLab sends its data processing agreement on request; agency chatbots and the GDPR roles explains who is who.
- Price changes: your right to adjust the fee, with notice, when your own costs change.
- Liability: a cap, and the plain statement that answers are not guaranteed to be correct.
Adapt the wording to your clients and have it checked by your own adviser.
Selling under your own brand
What white label includes on ChatterLab, plan by plan, as our white-label page describes it:
| Starter | Studio | Agency | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your or your client's name, colour and logo on the widget | yes | yes | yes |
| "Powered by ChatterLab" removed, for €49 a month | yes | yes | yes |
| Widget and install snippet on your own domain | no | yes | yes |
| Mails sent for you from your own address, once the domain is verified | no | yes | yes |
| Clients screen, monthly report, read-only client dashboard | no | no | yes |
| People who sign in | 1 | 1 | 5 |
Until your domain is verified for sending, mails go out from our address as "Your Agency via ChatterLab". With your own hostname and sending address both set up, the snippet, the report links and the report e-mails carry your name, not ours (Your own domain). Two things stay on every plan. The AI notice at the top of each conversation names no brand and cannot be removed, because the AI Act (Article 50(1)) asks that people are told when they are dealing with an AI system (our AI Act page). And ChatterLab bills you, never your clients: invoicing them, in your name and at your price, is yours to do, and the fees you record on the Clients screen are only a note.
Questions agencies ask about chatbot pricing
How much should I charge for a chatbot setup?
Price the hours the build takes: content audit, question-and-answer pairs, configuration, testing and installation. Our example for a small web shop comes to 14 hours, or €1,260 at €90 an hour. Published ranges are wide: Botnation's compilation of French rate cards, read on 25 October 2026, puts an AI chatbot on a client's own content at €0 to €3,000 setup.
Should I charge monthly or a one-off fee?
Both. The build is one-off, but the platform bills you every month and the agent needs monthly work: weak answers, changing content, a report. A one-off price leaves those costs with you. If a client will not pay a setup fee, fold it into a twelve-month minimum term with an early-exit fee covering the unpaid part of the build.
What if a client uses more than expected?
Agree it beforehand: a fair-use limit in conversations, counted as the monthly report counts them, and what happens above it, such as the next tier after two months. On ChatterLab the Clients screen shows each client's credits this month. The credits are one pool, so switch on auto-recharge to keep the other agents answering.
Do I need a contract with my client?
Yes. Commercially, it fixes scope, what the retainer covers, fair use, term and exit. Legally, visitors type personal details into chats, which usually makes your client the controller and you their processor, and Article 28 GDPR requires a written contract between you, with the same obligations passed on to your platform. Have it checked by your own adviser.
Can I resell a chatbot under my own brand?
Yes. On ChatterLab every plan carries your or your client's name, colour and logo, and €49 a month removes "Powered by ChatterLab" from every agent on any paid plan. From Studio the widget can run on your own domain, and on Agency the reports and client dashboards can too. You invoice the client yourself. The AI notice stays and names no brand.
How many clients can I run on one plan?
On Agency, one client per agent: 5 agents are included and each extra one costs €19 a month. Credits are the other limit, since all agents share 12,000 a month: add up your clients' expected answers and compare. Packs of 1,000 credits cost €30 and do not expire. Our pricing page lists every plan.
Sources
- AI Chatbot Agency: Pricing, Services and How to Choose (2026), Botnation AI, read on 25 October 2026.
- Precio de un Chatbot IA para Web o WhatsApp en Empresa [2026], Upliora, read on 25 October 2026.
- AI Chatbot Agency Partner Program – Resell SiteGPT to Your Clients, SiteGPT, read on 25 October 2026.
- Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (General Data Protection Regulation), Article 28, Publications Office of the European Union, read on 25 October 2026.
- Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2021/915 of 4 June 2021 on standard contractual clauses between controllers and processors, Publications Office of the European Union, read on 25 October 2026.
- Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (Artificial Intelligence Act), Article 50, Publications Office of the European Union, read on 25 October 2026.
- Moffatt v. Air Canada, 2024 BCCRT 149, Civil Resolution Tribunal of British Columbia, read on 25 October 2026.
How this was made: drafted with AI, then checked against how ChatterLab actually works and against the sources listed in the article. Spotted an error? Write to management@sri-group.eu.