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What running a site chatbot actually costs

Hosted chatbots charge per message and mark up the model. This hub covers the arithmetic: what a conversation costs at provider prices, how retrieval keeps the context small, which model is enough for answering from your own pages, and why bringing your own key removes the markup and the queue at the same time.

What this hub covers

  • Per-message pricing versus your own key
  • Choosing a model for support
  • Keeping context small
  • Predicting the monthly bill

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How much does an AI chatbot cost? The four pricing shapes: a row of dark bars growing taller left to right with one tall brand-coloured bar and a dashed grey baseline
Guides

How much does an AI chatbot cost? The four pricing shapes

The number on the pricing page tells you about an average month. The shape behind it tells you about your worst one, and only one of those is worth comparing.

10 min read

Related topic hubs

Named across this hub: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Mistral, tokens.

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