Chatwoot, Without the Servers or the Per-Agent Meter
Chatwoot makes you choose: self-host a Rails stack, or pay $19–$39 per agent every month. GhostChat is the third option — fully hosted, $25/mo/mo flat for 10 seats, with an open-source ~15KB widget and zero tracking.
GhostChat vs Chatwoot Cloud
| Feature | GhostChat | Chatwoot Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Flat per account | Per agent, per month |
| 10-agent team (total/mo) | $25/mo flat | ~$190 (Startups) to $390 (Business) |
| AI agent pricing | +$10 flat ($35/mo w/ Team) | Captain: $20 / 1,000 credits |
| Free plan | Unlimited messages, 1 site | 2 agents, 500 convos/mo, 30-day retention |
| Anything to self-host or upgrade | Nothing — fully hosted | Cloud: no · Community: full stack |
| Widget footprint | ~15KB gzipped, dependency-free | Considerably heavier |
| Open source | Widget (MIT) | Full platform |
| Cookie-free / no tracking | ✓ | Depends on setup |
| Omnichannel (FB/IG/WhatsApp inboxes) | Website-focused | ✓ |
Chatwoot Cloud pricing from chatwoot.com/pricing, July 2026 (annual billing).
Monthly cost of a 10-person support team
Live pricing, July 2026 · per-agent plans × 10 seats · bars to scale
10 agents × $39/agent (annual billing) — Captain AI credits extra
10 agents × $19/agent (annual billing)
10 seats · 10 sites · AI assistant included, flat
10 seats · 10 sites · flat, forever
Per-agent pricing scales against you. Flat pricing doesn't. See the full AI pricing breakdown →
The Two Chatwoot Taxes
Chatwoot is genuinely good software — full-platform open source, omnichannel, self-hostable. But using it means paying one of two taxes. The ops tax: the community edition is free until you count the server, Postgres, Redis, storage, upgrades, and the afternoon each one steals. Or the seat tax:Chatwoot Cloud removes the ops and replaces it with a meter — $19–$39 for every agent, every month, plus metered credits for the Captain AI.
GhostChat charges neither. The whole account is $25/mo/mo on Team — 10 seats, 10 sites, branding removal, unlimited history — and the AI assistant is a flat +$10, not a credit pack. The widget your visitors load is MIT-licensed open source (audit it yourself), ~15KB gzipped, with zero cookies and zero tracking by default.
When Chatwoot is the right call
Two cases, honestly: you need omnichannel — Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, email, and Telegram unified in one inbox — or you need the entire backend self-hostedfor compliance reasons and have the ops capacity to run it. GhostChat deliberately does neither; it does website live chat with a footprint and price those suites can't match. Pick the shape of tool that matches the actual job.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does Chatwoot actually cost for a team?
Chatwoot Cloud is priced per agent: Startups is $19/agent/month and Business is $39/agent/month (billed annually), with the free Hacker plan capped at 2 agents, 500 conversations/month, and 30-day retention. A 10-person team on Startups is ~$190/month. GhostChat Team is a flat $25/month for up to 10 seats and 10 sites — the price doesn't move when your team grows.
Can I avoid self-hosting Chatwoot without paying per agent?
That's the gap this page exists for. Chatwoot's community edition is free but you run the servers, upgrades, and storage; its cloud removes the ops but bills per agent. GhostChat is the third option: fully hosted, flat-priced, nothing to deploy — and the widget that runs on your site is still MIT-licensed open source you can audit.
Does GhostChat have an AI agent like Chatwoot's Captain?
Yes — the built-in AI Assistant (powered by Claude Haiku) answers from your FAQ knowledge base 24/7 and hands off to you when it's out of depth. It's a flat +$10/month on any plan (Team + AI is $35/mo with ~6,000 replies/month fair use). Chatwoot's Captain AI is metered at $20 per 1,000 credits on top of per-agent seats.
What does Chatwoot have that GhostChat doesn't?
Omnichannel breadth. Chatwoot unifies website chat with Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, email, and Telegram inboxes, and the whole backend can be self-hosted. GhostChat focuses on doing website live chat extremely well — a ~15KB widget, Gmail threading, and privacy by default. If you need every social channel in one inbox, Chatwoot is the honest pick; if website chat is the job, you don't need to run a Rails stack for it.
Now with a built-in AI chatbot. GhostChat can auto-answer your visitors’questions 24/7 from your FAQ knowledge base — and hand off to you when it doesn't know. See the AI chatbot →
Hosted. Flat-Priced. One Script Tag.
No Rails stack to run, no per-agent meter to watch. Free for 1 site with unlimited messages.
Start free — no cardAlso compare: GhostChat vs Papercups · GhostChat vs Crisp