How much does an AI chatbot cost in India?

Updated 12 October 20269 sources, each openedNo paid placements

The short answer

An AI chatbot in India costs a few thousand rupees a month on a platform1, about Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 6 lakh ($1,550 to $6,200) to build on your own documents, and Rs 6 lakh or more for an agentic system, according to Indian vendors who sell them2. Running costs, Meta fees and upkeep come on top, and quotes differ because the products differ.

Key facts

  1. Navtechy, a Jaipur agency that sells chatbots, lists a rule-based bot at Rs 40,000 to Rs 1,50,000, an AI or RAG bot at Rs 1,50,000 to Rs 6,00,000, and a custom agentic assistant at Rs 6,00,000 to Rs 25,00,000 or more, in an article dated 23 April 20262.
  2. Decipher Consultancy, also a seller, puts a rule-based bot at Rs 50,000 to Rs 1.5 lakh and a bot over your own data at Rs 3 lakh to Rs 8 lakh, in an article dated 25 July 20263.
  3. SOT Labs, an automation studio in Jodhpur, publishes a website chatbot from Rs 50,000 plus Rs 6,000 a month and a WhatsApp AI agent from Rs 60,000 plus Rs 8,000 a month, excluding 18 percent GST4.
  4. On platforms, Interakt lists plans at Rs 2,799 and Rs 3,799 a month plus taxes1, AiSensy lists an AI agent builder add-on at Rs 1,350 a month with 1,000 AI messages5, and Chatbase lists $40, $150 and $500 a month plans6.
  5. Meta's own Business Agent on WhatsApp is priced at $2.00 per million tokens, which Meta puts at about 4 to 5 US cents a message7.
  6. One US rate card, based on a thin method, lists a flat-fee AI customer-support agent at $5,500 to $15,0008.

What are the three tiers of AI chatbot?

Every price we found comes from a seller, so read these as asking prices. USD figures use about Rs 96.6 to the dollar (RBI reference rate, 9 October 2026) and are our arithmetic9.

  • Platform. You configure a hosted tool, alone or with help. Interakt lists plans at Rs 2,799 and Rs 3,799 a month plus taxes1, AiSensy an AI agent add-on at Rs 1,350 a month5, and Chatbase $40 to $500 a month with 700 to 15,000 message credits6.
  • Built. Someone builds a rule-based or document-grounded bot for you, as a one-time project. Navtechy lists Rs 40,000 to Rs 6,00,000 across its first two tiers, about $410 to $6,2002, and Decipher lists Rs 50,000 to Rs 8 lakh, about $520 to $8,3003.
  • Agentic. The bot takes actions in your systems: books, updates a CRM, follows up. Navtechy lists Rs 6 lakh to Rs 25 lakh or more, about $6,200 to $25,9002. Decipher lists Rs 6 lakh to Rs 15 lakh for multi-channel builds, and Rs 12 lakh to Rs 25 lakh for large or regulated organisations3.

What does it cost to run each month?

Navtechy lists model usage at Rs 2,000 to Rs 15,000 a month for a low-traffic support bot, hosting and a vector database at Rs 1,500 to Rs 20,000, and maintenance and tuning at Rs 10,000 to Rs 50,0002.

Decipher lists monthly operations of Rs 3,000 to Rs 8,000 for a rule-based bot and Rs 25,000 to Rs 80,000 for a bot over your data. The larger figure includes model tokens at Rs 10,000 to Rs 40,000, a vector database at Rs 3,000 to Rs 15,000, monitoring at Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000 and human review of low-confidence answers at Rs 5,000 to Rs 20,0003. It adds that WhatsApp, voice and SMS charges are billed separately3.

On WhatsApp that channel fee is Meta's per-message charge, Rs 0.115 for a service reply after the first 1,000 a month7. We break it down in the WhatsApp price answer.

Why do quotes differ so much?

The word chatbot covers different products. A rule-based flow that answers fixed questions is a different job from a bot that reads your documents and cites them, and different again from an agent that books appointments and writes to your CRM. In Decipher's breakdown the extra running cost of the middle tier is vector storage, monitoring and human review, not only the model3.

The two Indian vendors also disagree on the middle tier. Navtechy lists Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 6 lakh and Decipher lists Rs 3 lakh to Rs 8 lakh, ranges that overlap without matching23. The US rate card we found is built on a thin method, so use its $5,500 to $15,000 only as a rough comparison8.

Which tier fits which job?

If your questions are repetitive and the answers are already written down, a platform bot may be enough. If answers must come from documents that change, or the bot must act in your systems, you are in the built or agentic tier. If a wrong answer could cost a customer money, read who is liable when a chatbot gets it wrong before you choose.

What should the quote itemise?

  • Build, hosting, model usage, channel fees and upkeep as separate lines.
  • Who owns the code and the accounts after launch.
  • What the bot does when it does not know: a handover to a person, not a guess.
  • How wrong answers are logged and reviewed.
  • What is out of scope, and how a change in scope is priced.

Our side, stated plainly

What KanavuLab does

KanavuLab builds custom AI systems and agents. We start from systems we built and run for our own work, including an AI-answer tracker and an outreach engine whose validator blocks unsourced claims.

Code and accounts are in your name, and an agent uses only the accounts and data in the written scope. We do not publish a chatbot price because scope decides it. Scope and price are quoted after a 20-minute call, and scope changes are priced in writing first.

Custom AI solutions AI development services

Follow-up questions

How much does a WhatsApp AI chatbot cost in India?

SOT Labs publishes a WhatsApp AI agent from Rs 60,000 plus Rs 8,000 a month, excluding GST4. Meta then charges Rs 0.115 for each service reply after the first 1,000 a month7, and a provider's platform fee applies too, such as Interakt's Growth plan at Rs 2,799 a month plus taxes1.

Is a cheap platform chatbot enough?

For repeating questions with written answers, it can be. Check the message credits: Chatbase's $40 plan includes 700 a month and its $150 plan 4,0006.

Which running costs surprise people?

Human review of low-confidence answers, monitoring and channel fees. Decipher lists human review at Rs 5,000 to Rs 20,000 a month and says WhatsApp, voice and SMS charges are billed separately3.

Can I get a fixed price for a chatbot from KanavuLab?

We scope and quote after a 20-minute call, and any scope change is priced in writing before extra work starts.

Sources

Every source was opened before this page was published. Figures from vendors who sell in this market are labelled as such in the text.

  1. Interakt WhatsApp Business API pricing, 2026. Opened 12 October 2026
  2. Navtechy AI Chatbot Development Cost in India: 2026 Pricing Breakdown, 2026. Opened 12 October 2026
  3. Decipher Consultancy AI Chatbot Cost in India 2026: Full Pricing Breakdown, 2026. Opened 12 October 2026
  4. SOT Labs Pricing: Published INR Prices for AI Agents, Automation and Training, 2026. Opened 12 October 2026
  5. AiSensy WhatsApp Business API Pricing in India (2026), 2026. Opened 12 October 2026
  6. Chatbase Chatbase pricing, 2026. Opened 12 October 2026
  7. Meta Pricing on the WhatsApp Business Platform (updated 30 September 2026, INR list rates linked from the page), 2026. Opened 12 October 2026
  8. Bet on AI AI Automation Rate Card 2026: What to Charge for n8n, Make, and Zapier Builds (Real Rates From 54 Operators), 2026. Opened 12 October 2026
  9. Metropolitan Stock Exchange of India RBI Reference Rate (Archives), USD to INR, 9 October 2026, 2026. Opened 12 October 2026

Related answers

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Scoped and quoted after the call. Not the right fit? We will say so.

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avinash@kanavulab.com LinkedIn Chennai, India.