Home · Blog · How much does a chatbot cost: designer, freelancer or studio - three calculations
How much does a chatbot cost: designer, freelancer or studio - three calculations
There are three honest answers to the question “how much does a chatbot cost”: from zero to 1,290 rubles per month in the designer, 30–150 thousand one-time for a freelancer and from 200 thousand for a studio plus monthly support. All three answers are correct - for different tasks. Below we calculate the cost of ownership per year for three typical projects: leads and recording for a salon, online store support, AI consultant on the knowledge base. Separately, there are expenses that are not in any price list, and boundaries beyond which the designer really cannot cope.
Three ways to get a bot and what they pay for in each
Before you compare numbers, it's important to understand what exactly you're buying in each case—the mix of expenses varies more than the amounts.
Constructor. Pay for a subscription and your time. You assemble the script yourself from blocks, connect channels using a token, and make edits in minutes. Hosting, updates for changes to the Telegram API or MAX, backups, certificates - everything is included in the subscription. Risk: running into something the designer doesn’t know how to do.
Freelancer. Pay one-time for development, then for hosting (VPS from RUB 500–1,500 per month) and for each edit. Typical market guidelines in 2026: a simple push-button bot - 15-50 thousand, a bot with integrations and admin panel - 50-150 thousand. This is not a price list, but a guideline: the result depends on the task and the performer. Risk: the developer disappeared, the code was left without documentation.
Studio. Project work with technical specifications, conversation design, testing and contract. From 150–300 thousand per project, support – 10–40 thousand per month. The risk is minimal, the price is maximum; pays off on complex systems with load and non-standard logic.
There is a fourth way - a hybrid: a constructor for conversations and channels plus its own small service, where the bot uses a webhook to retrieve data. About him at the end.
How designers count money: three plan models
The difference between designers is not only in numbers, but also in what they charge money for. It depends on the model how the price will grow with your bot.
- For subscribers or contacts in the database. The most common model. The database is always growing - even “dead” contacts who wrote once a year ago remain in the counter. After a year, a bot with the same flow costs more than in the first month.
- For messages, actions or active users for the month. More honest for small projects, but unpredictable: a successful post in the channel - and the bill for the month triples.
- For the bot. Fixed price for the project, regardless of the size of the database and the number of messages. This is how CHBT works: 0 ₽ with a limit of 30 conversations per month, 650 ₽ - Basic without a limit of conversations, 1,290 ₽ - Business. Channels - everything and at any plan. AI responses are considered credits within the plan (150 and 500 per month), there is no separate bill for the neural network.
What to check in any constructor before paying: how much does the second channel cost, is AI included in the plan or sold separately, is there a limit on operators and what happens to the bot when the limit is reached - it is silent, requires additional payment, or responds with a service message. A complete analysis of the free plan CHBT and its limit is in the article about what is included in Free.
Task 1. Applications and recording for the salon: 100–200 conversations per month
What is needed: the client selects a service with a button, writes a convenient time in text, leaves his phone number; the administrator confirms from “Conversations”; the day before the visit - a reminder; after the visit - ask for feedback. Channels: Telegram and MAX, later a widget on the site.
Constructor. The “Recording clients” template plus the “Pause” block for reminders and the “Collecting reviews” template - 3-4 hours of work for the administrator without a programmer. The Basic plan, because 100–200 people per month do not fit into 30 Free conversations. Total for the year: 650 × 12 = 7 800 ₽ plus a few hours at the start. Edits (“add a service”, “change reminder text”) are free and take minutes. What it looks like in its entirety - on the page beauty salon solutions.
Freelancer. Bot with recording, reminders and notification to the administrator - 30-60 thousand one-time, hosting 6-12 thousand per year, edits 1-3 thousand per request. Total for the first year: 45–90 thousand ₽. Plus: you can ask for a real calendar with slots - there is none in CHBT, the entry here is always “time in text, the administrator confirms.” Disadvantage: every change is a call and a wait.
Studio. For this task it is redundant: the price of the project is 20–40 times higher than the annual subscription, but functionally it will provide the same buttons and reminders.
Conclusion: if you need a calendar with busy craftsmen, go freelance. If an lead that is confirmed by a person is sufficient, the constructor is an order of magnitude cheaper.
Task 2. Online store support: 500+ conversations, 2–3 operators
What you need: a widget on the website and a bot in Telegram; push-button menu “delivery / payment / return / order status”; Frequent questions are closed by the bot, the rest goes to the operators in a common inbox; three employees answer in turns; product requests - in CRM.
Constructor. “Support” and “Online Store” templates, widget with pre-chat form and files, operators without restrictions on Basic, “CRM” kanban built-in. The bot itself does not know the status of the order by number: the “order status” button leads to the operator or, if orders are in your system, to an “HTTP request” to it; with Ozon and Wildberries CHBT does not receive status by number. Total: 7,800 ₽ per year on Basic; An AI agent for free questions is already available on Basic (150 credits per month - 150 answers to default models); if there are more such conversations, Business gives 500 credits, 15,480 ₽ per year. A cart and payment via your YooKassa or CloudPayments are in the shop in your bot on the same plan; without it, an order in the chat is a lead that the manager processes. Details - in the description bot for online store.
Freelancer. The multi-operator inbox is the most expensive part: it is written from scratch or someone else’s is screwed in. Realistically, 80–150 thousand for a bot with a web panel, integration with the store’s CRM and a widget. Hosting, domain, certificate - 10-15 thousand per year. First year: 100–180 thousand ₽. Plus: any integration with your accounting system directly.
Studio. 200–400 thousand for a project with integration into 1C or your own order database, support 15–30 thousand per month. First year: 380–760 thousand ₽. Justified when the order status must come from your system in real time and a non-standard interface is needed.
Conclusion: if questions about orders are answered by operators or your system can be asked with an HTTP request, the designer closes the task for the price of one studio hour per month. If you need a deep connection with the accounting system, consider it a hybrid.
Task 3. AI knowledge base consultant
What you need: the bot answers free questions about the product, prices, conditions - based on your materials, and not “from your head”; When unsure or using the word “operator”, he transfers the conversation to the person.
Constructor. In CHBT, an agent is created in the “AI agents” section: role, knowledge base in free text, choice of a model from ten (GPT-5, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, Qwen), escalation to the operator. It is included in the script with the “AI Agent” block. The agent's answer is from 1 to 7 credits depending on the model, for the default model - one: 150 credits per month for Basic, 500 for Business. With an average conversation of 3-4 responses, this is approximately 40 and 125 AI conversations per month; when the credits run out, the agent responds with a neutral text and the script goes along the fallback branch - for example, to buttons or the operator. Cost per year: 7,800 or 15,480 ₽, there are no separate accounts for tokens. The database can be assembled from text, a link page and PDF, DOCX, TXT, MD, CSV files. There is no separate report “what the agent could not answer” yet. How the answer is structured and how to evaluate its quality - in the article about bot with a neural network using a knowledge base.
Freelancer or studio. Here the difference between them is erased: a developer is needed who will put together a combination of “vector database of documents + model + transmission logic to the operator.” Development 150-500 thousand, plus monthly: API model (depending on the volume, usually several thousand rubles), hosting, and most importantly - support: the knowledge base needs to be updated, prompts need to be edited. First year: from 250 thousand ₽ and higher. Plus: any model, documents of any format, fine tuning to your terminology.
Conclusion: up to several hundred AI conversations per month, the constructor is tens of times cheaper. If you need thousands of answers a day or a knowledge base consisting of hundreds of documents, get ready for custom development.
Summary table: first year of ownership
All figures are guidelines for the market and Plans CHBT for September 2026, without taking into account the cost of your time.
| Task | Constructor CHBT | Freelancer | Studio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Applications and registration for the salon | 7,800 ₽ (Basic) | 45–90 thousand ₽ | redundant |
| Online store support, 3 operators | 7 800–15 480 ₽ | 100–180 thousand ₽ | 380–760 thousand ₽ |
| AI knowledge base consultant | 7 800–15 480 ₽ | from 250 thousand ₽ + API models monthly | |
| Edit text or add a button | minutes, 0 ₽ | 1–3 thousand ₽, days | by agreement, weeks |
| Second channel (MAX, VK, website) | 0 ₽, in the same bot | from 10–30 thousand ₽ | by agreement |
The gap is several times, and with the studio - an order of magnitude or more - not because developers are expensive, but because you buy different things: from the designer - access to ready-made infrastructure, from the developer - code that belongs to you and does exactly what you asked.
Hidden costs that are not in the price list
They are the ones who most often break the calculation “they ordered for 40 thousand - that’s all.”
- Post-launch edits. The bot is never ready: after a week you will realize that the greeting is long, the question about the phone number is too early, and the menu is missing an item. In the constructor this is minutes; the developer has an invoice for each request and waiting in line.
- Infrastructure. Server, domain, certificate, backups, monitoring “is the bot even alive?” Not much money, but constant attention. In the constructor, it is included in the subscription: CHBT, for example, checks the health of the webhook itself and writes to the owner if Telegram responds with 401.
- Platform changes. Telegram changes its API, MAX releases new features, VKontakte updates its Callback API. The self-written bot needs to be improved; in the constructor this is done by the vendor.
- Dependence on one person. The freelancer has disappeared - a bot without documentation turns into a black box. Put a monetary risk on this: the cost of re-development.
- Your time. The designer requires 3-10 hours for the first assembly and understanding of the blocks. If an hour of your time is worth a lot, this watch is also a price.
- 152-FZ. Phone numbers and names of clients are personal data. Servers must be in the Russian Federation, policy and consent are needed. For the designer, this is decided at the infrastructure level (data CHBT is stored in the Russian Federation), for the self-written one, it’s your concern.
- Cost of downtime. The bot is silent for a day - lost leads. With a self-written bot, the downtime is fixed by the one who managed to get through; the designer has the vendor's team on duty.
When a constructor is not enough: an honest list
The constructor is not a universal answer. These are the cases when you run into CHBT and it is better to immediately plan development or a hybrid.
- Card payment inside the messenger. There are no Telegram Payments: the “Payment” block sends a link to your provider’s page — Prodamus, YooKassa or CloudPayments — and the cash register and receipts are on its side. Inside Telegram — only Telegram Stars, without a 54-FZ receipt.
- Media in messengers. Script blocks send only text and buttons to Telegram, MAX and VK; photos and files - link. Photos are only available in the product cards of the AI seller in Telegram. Files directly - only in the widget on the site.
- Calendar with slots. The busyness of the craftsmen, the choice of free time using buttons - this does not exist; the entry works like an lead with confirmation.
- Complex calculations and logic. A cost calculator based on ten parameters, selection from a catalog of thousands of items - this is already a code. Partially solved by a hybrid: the bot collects parameters, sends them with an “HTTP request” to your service and receives a response.
- Channels not listed. WhatsApp, Telegram Business and chat bots for social networks Meta (recognized as an extremist organization and banned in the Russian Federation) - they are not and will not be in CHBT. There are exactly four channels: Telegram, MAX, VKontakte and a widget on the site.
- Marketplace chats. Correspondence with the buyer within Ozon or Wildberries is not available to us; The buyer is given a QR in the insert and a link in the instructions.
- Load of thousands of conversations per minute and the SLA requirements specified in the contract are at the studio level.
A hybrid is a compromise that often wins: conversations, channels, inbox and CRM - in the designer; one or two narrow pieces of logic - on your server, where the bot goes through an “HTTP request”, and the server’s response is inserted into the message through the “into a variable” field. The development of such a service costs 20–60 thousand instead of 200, and everything else continues to cost 650 rubles per month. How it works technically - on the page integrations page.
Formula for your task
Calculate the first year cost for each option using four lines:
- Fixed payments — subscription × 12 or development + hosting × 12.
- Edits — estimate 10–15 changes per year; multiply by the price of one request (in the constructor - 0).
- Integrations and channels — each additional channel and each external system.
- Risk — how much does a week of downtime cost in lost leads, multiplied by the probability that there will be no one to fix it.
Then answer one question separately: does the problem contain at least one item from the list “when the constructor is not enough”? If not, the designer almost always wins, and the debate is only about which one; there's something for that comparison of Russian designers by channel, price and AI. If so, evaluate the hybrid before ordering everything from scratch.
The cheapest way to check the calculation is to build a bot on a free plan and see if you hit something in the first month. plan prices - for Plans page, but you can start without a map: create a bot for free →
Plans CHBT: 0, 650 and 1290 RUB per botWhat's included in the free plan?Comparison of chatbot buildersPush-button, AI or hybrid: choosing a bot typeIntegrations: webhook and HTTP request