Honest comparison · figures checked 24 July 2026
Chatbase is a solid general-purpose bot builder. If you want billing you can predict, your data hosted in the UK, and to see your own bot working before you create an account, here’s the honest side-by-side.
| Chatbase | Talk Shop | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry paid tier | $40/mo — 500 message credits, 1 AI agent (Hobby) | £49/mo — 2,000 messages, 2 bots (Ghostwriter) |
| The meter | Credits per model request: 1–6 by model — and enabled AI Actions can double what one answer costs | 1 message = 1 message, whatever model it takes to answer |
| When you hit the limit | The bot goes dark ("This AI Agent is currently unavailable") — or auto-recharges at $40 per 1,000 credits | Your bot politely pauses and you decide — never an auto-charge |
| Try it before signing up | No — account first; the demo is an enterprise sales call | Yes — paste your URL below and meet your bot |
| Data residency | United States — AWS us-east-1, per their privacy policy | Hosted in the UK, GDPR-first |
| Remove the “powered by” badge | $1,188/year add-on | Included from £49/mo |
| Built for selling online | General-purpose bot builder | Your site’s tone and topics, plus live Shopify order status (Poltergeist) |
Figures verified against Chatbase’s live pricing pages on 24 July 2026. Spotted something out of date? Tell us and we’ll fix it.
The recurring theme in Chatbase’s public reviews is billing friction — credits running out faster than expected, and cancellation or refund trouble. Read their reviews yourself; here’s a representative sample (paraphrased).
“Charged for three months after cancelling — getting a refund took threatening a chargeback.”
“Hit the limit faster than expected, with no clear warning — and the refund request was denied.”
Paste your website URL and meet your own bot — trained on your real pages, before you sign up for anything. That’s the comparison that actually matters.
Not on the sticker — Chatbase’s entry plan is $40/mo and ours is £49/mo. But compare the meters, not the sticker: 500 credits that burn 1–6+ per answer (and can double when AI Actions fire) versus 2,000 flat messages where one answered question always costs exactly one message. We won’t claim to be the cheapest; we’ll claim you can explain our bill to your accountant.
Your bot pauses politely and tells you — nothing gets charged automatically, ever. Chatbase’s own docs say the agent shows "currently unavailable" when credits run out, unless you’ve enabled auto-recharge at $40 per 1,000 credits.
In the UK. Chatbase’s privacy policy states its database and application run on AWS us-east-1 in the United States, with EU/UK transfers covered by standard contractual clauses.
There’s nothing to migrate — Talk Shop learns from your live website. Paste your URL and you’ll have a working bot to judge in about two minutes, before creating an account.