Chatbase alternative: Asktopus vs Chatbase compared

Chatbase is one of the best-known AI chatbot builders, and for good reason. It's mature, flexible and used by a lot of businesses. But it isn't the right fit for everyone. The most common reasons people look for a Chatbase alternative are the credit-based pricing, the $99 monthly add-on to remove the Chatbase branding, and wanting a European vendor.

This is a comparison between Chatbase and Asktopus, the AI chatbot we build. We'll be straight about where Chatbase is the better choice.

What Chatbase does well

Chatbase deserves its reputation. Here's what it does well:

• Scale and maturity. Chatbase says it is trusted by more than 10,000 businesses worldwide,¹ and states that it is SOC 2 Type II and GDPR compliant.²
• Channels. The same agent can run on your website, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, Slack, email and phone.³
• Actions and integrations. Agents can do more than answer questions, for example look up an order. The Standard plan adds advanced integrations such as Stripe and Zendesk, and the integration list includes HubSpot, Shopify, Zapier and WordPress.¹
• Model choice. Paid plans can pick advanced models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, DeepSeek, Meta, Mistral and others.¹
• Helpdesk and human handoff. Its escalation action creates a ticket in Chatbase's own helpdesk or in Zendesk, Salesforce, Intercom, Freshdesk, HubSpot, Help Scout, Gorgias, Zoho Desk and Odoo.⁵ With the helpdesk (Standard and up), a person can also take over the chat live.^{1, 6}
• Many knowledge sources. Files, text snippets, websites, Q&A pairs, Notion, and closed tickets from Salesforce or Zendesk, with a weekly automatic re-sync on Standard and Pro.⁷
• A free plan. 50 message credits a month to try it out, plus a 7-day trial on paid plans. Free agents are deleted after 14 days without activity.¹

If several of those points are must-haves for you, Chatbase is probably the right tool, and you can stop reading here.

Where Asktopus is different

Conversations instead of message credits

Chatbase sells message credits. Each AI answer costs 1 credit on standard models, 3 credits on Claude Sonnet 4.5 and 4.6, and up to 6 credits on Claude Opus 4.7 and 4.8.⁴ Credits renew on the 1st of each month, and unused credits don't carry over. If you run out without auto-recharge ($40 per 1,000 credits), the agent tells visitors it's unavailable.^{1, 4}

Asktopus counts conversations. One visitor's chat is one conversation, whether they ask one question or 25, and chats handed straight to a human don't count. Behind the scenes, simple questions go to a fast model and harder ones to a more advanced model. You pay the same per conversation either way, so you never have to trade answer quality against your quota. The flip side: you can't pick the model yourself.

Branding removal is included on Pro

Removing "Powered by Chatbase" is a $99 monthly add-on, with no discount on yearly billing.^{1, 8} On Asktopus, branding removal is included on the Pro plan (€99) and the Business plan.

A European company, prices in euros

Asktopus is made by Uneven Bits ApS in Copenhagen. Prices are in euros (Danish kroner for Danish customers), the dashboard is in English, Danish and Spanish, and the assistant answers visitors in their own language.

Data protection: EU company, US sub-processors

Chatbase Inc. is a US company in San Francisco. Its DPA says its primary processing takes place in the United States, with the EU's standard contractual clauses for transfers,⁹ and its servers run in AWS's us-east-1 region.²

Asktopus is an EU data processor with a DPA, our servers and database are in a data centre in France, and the content of chat conversations is deleted automatically after 90 days. To be precise, we don't process everything in the EU either. The language models come from OpenAI, Anthropic and xAI and run in the US, under the EU's standard contractual clauses (SCCs). What changes is who your contract is with: a Danish company, under Danish law. Our GDPR guide covers what to check with any vendor.

A simpler handoff

Asktopus has a "Talk to a person" button in the chat, and visitors can also write that they want a human. They leave a message with their email or phone number, and it goes to your team by email, Slack or webhook, together with the conversation so far. It's asynchronous: there's no live takeover in the widget. If your team wants to answer in real time inside the chat, Chatbase's helpdesk does more.

Weekly updates from €99

Chatbase re-syncs websites weekly on its Standard plan ($150) and up.^{1, 7} Asktopus updates each site's knowledge automatically every week on Pro (€99) and every 3 days on Business: it re-reads your sitemap, picks up new pages in the sections you chose, and replaces the old content without a gap. On any plan, you can also update right away with one click.

Asktopus vs Chatbase: comparison table

What the same traffic costs

Say your site gets 400 chat conversations a month with three questions each, so 1,200 AI answers.

• Asktopus: Pro, €99 (approx. $112), branding removed.
• Chatbase on a 1-credit model: 1,200 credits means Hobby ($40) plus auto-recharge ($40 per 1,000 credits). The first month costs $80, and since recharged credits don't expire, the average settles around $60. With branding removed, about $160.¹
• Chatbase with Claude Sonnet 4.6 for every answer (3 credits): 3,600 credits means Standard at $150. With branding removed, $249.^{1, 4}

So on a standard model with the branding kept, Chatbase is cheaper at this volume, and it stays cheaper or about even up to roughly 800 conversations a month. If you're happy with the Chatbase branding and a standard model, that's a fair reason to stay. Remove the branding or move to a premium model, and Asktopus is the cheaper of the two. Our AI chatbot pricing guide compares more vendors and pricing models.

Who should choose which

Chatbase is the better fit if you:

• need WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger or voice alongside the website
• want the bot to take actions in your payment, order or CRM systems
• want to choose and switch language models yourself
• have a support team that works in a helpdesk and takes over chats live

Asktopus is the better fit if you:

• mainly want your website visitors' questions answered from your own content
• want a predictable monthly price that doesn't depend on which model answers
• want your logo, not ours, without paying an add-on
• want your site's knowledge updated every week from the €99 plan
• prefer a European vendor with prices in euros

How to switch from Chatbase to Asktopus

Switching doesn't require any integration work.

1. Start a trial. 14 days, no credit card.
2. Add your site. Asktopus scans your sitemap and groups pages by URL pattern. Tick the sections you want the assistant to learn from.
3. Move your documents. Upload the PDF and Word files you used in Chatbase. Use the originals, since Chatbase exports files as extracted text.⁷ Q&A pairs, which Chatbase can export, go into a CSV file with the question in the first column and the answer in the second, which you upload like a document. Text snippets go into knowledge articles in the dashboard.
4. Set up the widget. Colors, position, greeting and icon, plus handoff channels and any blocked topics.
5. Test. Use the "Try it" tab with the questions your visitors actually ask. Your Chatbase chat logs are a good source.
6. Swap the embed code. Remove the Chatbase embed code and paste the Asktopus script tag. The same tag works on WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, Webflow and custom sites (on Shopify, use the Asktopus app instead), and the installation guide shows where to paste it.
7. Cancel Chatbase once you're happy with the answers.

If Asktopus sounds like the better fit, see the plans and prices or try it free for 14 days on your own site. It takes a few minutes to set up alongside your current Chatbase agent.