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AI Chatbot Cost in Singapore: 2026 Prices for SMEs

Cortex Lab AI · · Updated

An AI chatbot for a Singapore SME (small or medium-sized business) costs anything from nothing to well over S$100,000. The price depends on which of three tiers you buy. Ready-made subscription tools list at about US$24 to US$500 a month. A chatbot a vendor configures on an existing platform is usually quoted at S$5,000 to S$20,000 up front. Custom builds are quoted from about S$15,000 to more than S$200,000. If the bot runs on WhatsApp, Meta, which owns WhatsApp, charges per message on top. From 1 October 2026 that includes the replies your bot sends.

Every price below was checked against the vendor's or regulator's own page on 30 September 2026 and re-checked on 5 October 2026. Each one is linked where it appears. The one-off build ranges come from Singapore vendors quoting their own work, so treat them as ranges. We build chatbots for SMEs, so we have a stake in this. There's a section below on when you shouldn't hire anyone at all.

To keep the numbers concrete, we'll follow one example through the article. It's made up, and it isn't a client. It's an eight-person aircon servicing company that gets about 40 WhatsApp enquiries a day, mostly "how much for a chemical wash of three units?" and "are you free on Saturday?"

How much does an AI chatbot cost in Singapore?

Most SMEs land in one of three tiers. Vendors don't use the word "configured". The middle column is the low end of what they quote for FAQ (frequently asked questions) bots and lead-qualification bots, which check whether an enquiry is a likely sale. That's the work a configured build covers.

Off-the-shelf subscription Configured on a platform Custom build
What you get A tool you set up yourself from your FAQs and website A vendor sets up a platform you pay for. It connects the platform to your calendar, customer database (CRM) or documents, and writes the rules for passing chats to a person Software written for you. It has its own servers and its own connections to your other systems
One-off cost S$0 plus your own time About S$5,000 to S$20,000 About S$15,000 to S$200,000+
Monthly cost US$24 to US$500 list price, plus usage Platform subscription, usage, and any monthly support fee S$650 to S$4,300 for FAQ and support bots (Kaopiz) or S$750 to S$2,150 (&7)
Time to launch Days 3 to 6 weeks 6 to 23 weeks
Fits One channel, answers from a short fixed list, few enquiries Answers depend on your own data or bookings, and you have no tech team Systems built only for your business, several languages, many enquiries, and IT staff to look after it

Where those numbers come from:

  • Subscription. Tidio lists its Starter plan from US$24.17 a month and its Lyro AI add-on from US$32.50 a month. Chatbase charges US$40 a month for 700 message credits and US$500 for 15,000. respond.io runs from US$79 to US$279 a month. Intercom charges from US$29 a month for each staff seat, billed annually, plus US$0.99 for each "outcome" its Fin AI agent resolves. AIConvo puts the local subscription range at S$50 to S$500 a month.
  • Configured and custom. &7 quotes S$8,000 to S$12,000 for a simple FAQ bot, S$15,000 to S$22,000 for customer support and S$20,000 to S$35,000 for enterprise, with timelines of 3 to 12 weeks. Kaopiz quotes S$8,000 to S$20,000 for a rule-based FAQ bot (one that follows set scripts), S$45,000 to S$90,000 for customer support and S$100,000 to S$200,000+ for enterprise, across phases that add up to 12 to 23 weeks. AIConvo's custom range starts at S$5,000.

One vendor starts its "customer support bot" at S$15,000 and another at S$45,000, so the term means different things to different vendors. Ask what is in the scope before comparing totals.

How much does WhatsApp charge per message in 2026?

Meta charges per message for the WhatsApp Business Platform (often called the WhatsApp Business API, the version of WhatsApp that connects to other software). That's separate from whatever your chatbot platform charges. Voltade, a Singapore WhatsApp provider, reports Meta's Singapore dollar rates from 1 July 2026 as S$0.0937 per marketing message and S$0.0205 per utility or authentication message. Utility messages are updates such as booking reminders, and authentication messages carry one-time login codes. Meta's own pricing page confirms that Singapore moved to its own rate card on 1 July 2026, with higher utility and authentication rates than before. We couldn't open the Singapore dollar rate card itself, so check the current figure in your provider's dashboard.

Keep the two bills apart when you compare quotes:

Fee Who charges it Example
Platform subscription Your chatbot or inbox vendor respond.io, US$79 to US$279 a month
Per-message fee Meta, usually billed to you through the vendor S$0.0205 per utility message (Voltade's figure)
AI usage The platform or the AI company respond.io includes AI on its Growth plan and above, then charges US$15 per 1,000 extra credits

respond.io states plainly that "WhatsApp fees are not included in any respond.io subscription". Ask every vendor the same question.

The free WhatsApp Business app is a different product. It costs nothing to download and has no per-message fees. It runs on one phone number. Meta's features page lists linking up to 10 devices and agents to an account as part of Meta Verified, its verification badge for businesses. Meta puts chatbot features and connections to other systems on the Business Platform, which you reach through a developer or a messaging provider.

Are chatbot replies to customers still free?

Not from 1 October 2026, according to Meta. Its page on pricing for non-template messages says that from that date Meta will charge per message for service messages, which are replies to a customer who messaged you first. It will also charge for utility messages sent inside an open 24-hour customer service window, the 24 hours after a customer's last message. Both are charged at the same rate as utility and authentication messages. Non-template messages are free-form messages, as opposed to templates Meta approves in advance. Meta also says it "will not offer volume tiers for service messages."

There is a free allowance. Meta's main pricing page says it "provides every business phone number with a free tier of 1,000 service messages per month." Meta starts charging from the 1,001st reply. Unused free messages don't carry over, and the count resets every month.

Ads that open a WhatsApp chat (click-to-WhatsApp ads) get a longer free period. When you reply to someone who came through one, Meta opens a free entry point window that "may remain open for up to 7 days", and it doesn't charge for marketing, utility, authentication or service messages while it's open. If you use Meta's own Business AI agent rather than a third-party bot, Meta bills that separately at US$2.00 per million tokens (the small chunks of text an AI model reads and writes), which it estimates at 4 to 5 US cents a message.

In the example: 40 enquiries a day is about 1,200 a month. If the bot sends four replies per enquiry, that's 4,800 service messages. The first 1,000 are free, so Meta's fee is 3,800 × S$0.0205, about S$78 a month. Add 600 booking reminders sent outside the 24-hour window as utility templates (600 × S$0.0205, about S$12) and WhatsApp costs this business roughly S$90 a month before any platform fee.

What ongoing costs should you budget for?

Plan for four running costs, only two of which appear on a vendor's quote.

  1. Message and AI usage. Meta's fees above, plus model usage. &7 estimates AI model usage at S$200 to S$800 a month for a custom bot. On a subscription, usage is capped by credits or conversations, and you pay more when you go over.
  2. Hosting and maintenance. For custom builds, &7 puts hosting at S$50 to S$150 a month and maintenance at S$300 to S$800.
  3. Keeping answers current. Every price change, new service or holiday closure has to reach the bot's knowledge base. Someone has to own that, you or the vendor. Write it into the contract.
  4. Reviewing bad answers. A chatbot will occasionally get something wrong. Someone needs to read a sample of transcripts every week and fix the source of each error. An hour a week is 52 hours a year, and that's your own staff cost.

Owners without a tech team tend to miss the last two. They're why a bot that worked on launch day quietly gets worse. MIT NANDA's review of more than 300 public AI initiatives found 95% of organisations were getting zero return from generative AI, and put most failures down to "brittle workflows, lack of contextual learning, and misalignment with day-to-day operations" (MIT Project NANDA, The GenAI Divide: State of AI in Business, 2025). A small business with nobody maintaining its bot is exposed to the same thing.

What happens when the chatbot doesn't know the answer?

It should hand over to a person, and you pay for that hand-off in design time and staff time. Before you buy at any tier, decide what the bot does when:

  • A customer asks something outside its knowledge base, such as a quote for an unusual job. It should say it will pass the question on, and route it to a named person.
  • The enquiry arrives at 11pm. It should say when a person will reply, then make sure one does.
  • A customer sends a photo or voice note of a leaking unit. Many bots can't read these, so they need a rule that sends them to a person.
  • The customer writes in Mandarin or mixes languages. Kaopiz lists multilingual support as one of the reasons to pay for a custom build over a subscription tool.
  • You need to message a customer more than 24 hours after their last message. That requires a pre-approved template, which Meta charges for.

Some subscription tools include a way for a person to take over. Intercom, for example, bundles live chat with its AI agent on every plan. Configured and custom builds cost more partly because these hand-off rules are written for your business.

When is a S$50 to S$500 a month chatbot enough?

A subscription tool is enough when the answers come from a short list that rarely changes, the bot doesn't need to look anything up in your systems, and it runs on one channel. If most questions are opening hours, prices and service areas, try the free tiers on Tidio or Chatbase before you speak to anyone who charges for setup, us included.

If you get fewer than about ten enquiries a day, you may not need a chatbot at all. The WhatsApp Business app's away messages and quick replies cost nothing.

In the example: the aircon company's price questions could run on a subscription tool. The "are you free on Saturday?" questions can't, because the answer lives in a job calendar. That's the point where it moves into the configured tier.

What pushes a chatbot build past S$20,000?

Connecting the bot to your other systems raises the price more than the AI model does. In Kaopiz's published breakdown the integration phase has the widest range of any phase, at S$7,000 to S$70,000 on its own. Costs rise with:

  • each system the bot reads from or writes to (calendar, CRM, inventory, payments)
  • each extra channel beyond the first
  • each additional language
  • custom hosting, or rules about which country your data is stored in
  • a larger or messier set of documents for the bot to answer from

Adding scope also adds risk. Start with the one enquiry type that takes most of your team's time, measure it, then add the next.

Can a grant pay for part of an AI chatbot after PSG?

Yes, if you buy a pre-approved package. Under the new EDGE grant from Enterprise Singapore, the government agency that runs it, the GenAI Customer Engagement Chatbot category pays up to 50% for SMEs, to a maximum of S$7,500, on a cost capped at S$15,000. It covers software costs only, capped at 12 months, and not GST or maintenance. The vendor and package must come from the pre-approved list on SMEs Go Digital, a programme run by IMDA, the government agency for Singapore's digital industry. Non-SMEs get up to 30%, or S$3,500.

A custom bot doesn't fit that category. It can be funded only as part of a Large-scale Digital Transformation project, which pays up to 50% for SMEs, with no published dollar cap and a vendor of your choice. That project has to "involve integration and/or standardisation efforts across systems such as business, sales, and procurement", and Enterprise Singapore doesn't support "Automation of isolated tasks without broader business transformation". A standalone FAQ bot from a vendor that isn't listed is unlikely to qualify under either route.

As of 30 September 2026, Enterprise Singapore has closed PSG, EDG and MRA and replaced them with EDGE. Those are the Productivity Solutions Grant, the Enterprise Development Grant and Market Readiness Assistance, and they ceased on 29 September 2026. Projects already submitted under PSG or EDG continue to be processed.

Other EDGE rules that affect a chatbot budget:

  • no work, payment or deposit before you apply: businesses "must not have started work or made any payment or deposit to a supplier, vendor, or third party prior to application submission" (EDGE FAQ)
  • you may pay after submitting, but that payment is supported only if the application is approved
  • the chatbot grant counts toward the S$30,000 annual Automation & Digitalisation cap, within S$100,000 per company per year, refreshed on 1 April
  • paid as reimbursement after the activity is completed and fully paid
  • at least 30% of the company owned by Singapore citizens or permanent residents (PRs)
  • you apply yourself, since "Third-party companies are not permitted to apply for or manage the grant on behalf of the applicant company"

In the example: if a listed package can read the aircon company's job calendar, a S$15,000 package gets at most S$7,500 back, and only against software. A configured build from a vendor that isn't on the list gets nothing from the chatbot category, and a bot on its own is too narrow for Large-scale Digital Transformation.

Ask any vendor, us included, which EDGE activity their work would fall under and whether they are listed for it. Our guide to AI grants for SMEs after PSG covers both routes, the application sequence and the 400% AI tax deduction.

Does PDPA compliance add to the cost?

It adds planning time, mostly in deciding where customer data goes under the PDPA, Singapore's privacy law. A chatbot that reads bookings or order history handles personal data, so you need to know which vendor stores it, where, and whether it's used to train a model. Subscription tools set these terms for you. Configured and custom builds let you choose, which takes time to specify. Our PDPA checklist for AI chatbots and ChatGPT covers what to check.

What should you ask a chatbot vendor before you sign?

Get written answers to these nine questions:

  1. What is the one-off fee, and what is the monthly fee after launch?
  2. Are Meta's WhatsApp fees included, passed through at cost, or marked up?
  3. Who pays for AI model usage, and is there a monthly cap?
  4. Who updates the answers when our prices change, how quickly, and is that included?
  5. What happens when the bot can't answer, and who receives the hand-off?
  6. Can we read every transcript, and who reviews wrong answers?
  7. Where is customer data stored, and is it used to train any model?
  8. If we leave, do we keep the knowledge base, the transcripts and the phone number?
  9. Is this package on IMDA's SMEs Go Digital list for EDGE's GenAI Customer Engagement Chatbot category, and if not, which EDGE activity, if any, would it fall under?

A vendor who can't answer questions 2, 4 and 8 in writing is quoting you a partial price.

Where Cortex Lab AI fits

We work in the configured tier, and our WhatsApp chatbot service shows how we set one up and keep tuning it. We're a Singapore consultancy, and we build inside tools you already pay for, such as Microsoft, Google Workspace, Notion, Salesforce and HubSpot, so your data stays in systems you control. We set up each connection so your data isn't used to train AI models, and we follow the PDPA. We've delivered customer-service chatbots and a RAG (retrieval-augmented generation) knowledge-base system, which answers questions from a company's own documents. We're not on the SMEs Go Digital list, so our builds don't qualify for the EDGE chatbot category.

If a subscription tool covers your enquiries, we'll tell you so. Bring last month's enquiries to a free 30-minute consultation and we'll tell you which tier you're in.

Frequently asked questions

How much does an AI chatbot cost per month in Singapore?

Subscription tools list at about US$24 to US$500 a month. Custom FAQ and support bots carry running costs that Singapore vendors quote at S$650 to S$4,300 a month. WhatsApp message fees come on top of both.

Is a WhatsApp chatbot free if the customer messages first?

Not from 1 October 2026. Meta now charges for service replies at the utility rate, which Voltade reports as S$0.0205 in Singapore. The first 1,000 replies a month on each business number are free.

How long does it take to set up a chatbot?

A subscription tool can be live within days. &7 quotes 3 to 4 weeks for a simple FAQ bot and 8 to 12 weeks for enterprise builds. Kaopiz's phases add up to 12 to 23 weeks.

Will a chatbot let us reduce staff?

We don't sell it on that basis, and it rarely works out that way. A chatbot takes the repeat questions. Your team still owns the hand-offs, the hard enquiries and keeping the bot's answers correct.

Sources checked 30 September and 5 October 2026: Meta WhatsApp pricing and non-template message pricing; Enterprise Singapore EDGE grant, EDGE FAQ, EDGE GenAI Customer Engagement Chatbot, EDGE Large-scale Digital Transformation and PSG; vendor pricing pages for Tidio, Chatbase, respond.io and Intercom; Voltade, &7, Kaopiz and AIConvo as linked; MIT NANDA, The GenAI Divide: State of AI in Business 2025 (July 2025).