Best Free Chatbot Plugins for WordPress (2026)

Short version: Yes, you can put an AI chatbot on WordPress for free. But "free" means three different things: a free plugin where you pay the AI provider per message, a hosted service with a free monthly allowance, or a free rule-based bot where the AI part costs extra. Which one is cheapest depends on your traffic, not on the price tag of the plugin.

Is there a free chatbot for WordPress?

Yes. Every plugin in this comparison can be installed from WordPress.org at no cost, and each one can run a chatbot without a paid plan. The catch sits one layer below the plugin: an AI chatbot needs a language model, and somebody pays for every answer it writes.

There are three ways plugins solve that:

• Bring your own API key. The plugin is free, you connect your own account at OpenAI, Anthropic, Google or another provider, and the provider bills you per message. AI Engine and AI Puffer work like this.
• Hosted service with a free allowance. The plugin connects your site to a chat service that runs the AI for you. The free plan comes with a cap on AI conversations or messages. Tidio and WebChatAgent work like this.
• Rule-based core, AI on top. Buttons, FAQ answers and forms cost nothing; natural-language answers need a connected AI service. WPBot's free version starts here.

Best free AI chatbot plugins for WordPress compared

Install counts and ratings come from the WordPress.org plugin directory, free-plan details from the plugin listings and the vendors' pricing pages. All figures as of October 2026; they change, so check the linked sources before you decide.

Yes, the last row is us, and yes, we are by far the smallest plugin in this table. We list ourselves with the same columns as everyone else so you can judge the trade-off yourself.

AI Engine: the most installed, if you have an API key

AI Engine by Jordy Meow is the heavyweight: more than 90,000 active installs and a 4.9 rating from 870 reviews. The plugin connects to OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Mistral and others, including self-hosted models. Its own description is blunt about the money: the plugin is free and "you pay your AI providers directly, at their price".

The limit that matters for a customer-service bot: building a knowledge base from your posts and PDFs, and letting the AI use your page content as context, are listed as Pro features. The free chatbot talks well, but it does not automatically know what is on your website.

Tidio: live chat first, AI as a taster

Tidio is a live chat tool with an AI agent called Lyro. The free plan includes live chat, chatbot templates and an inbox for chat, Messenger, Instagram and email. According to Tidio's pricing page, the first 50 Lyro conversations are free once, not per month. Tidio branding stays on the widget in the free plan.

That makes Tidio a good free choice if you mainly want to chat with visitors yourself. As a free AI chatbot it runs out quickly.

AI Puffer (formerly AI Power): the all-in-one toolbox

AI Puffer was called AI Power until its rename; the WordPress.org slug is still gpt3-ai-content-generator. The free plugin includes unlimited chatbots with a knowledge base, a content writer, AI forms and scheduled posts. The AI itself runs on your own provider keys or on AI Puffer Cloud credits, of which eligible accounts with a verified email get 25 per month.

If you want a chatbot and AI content tools in one plugin and do not mind managing API keys, this is the one to try.

WPBot: buttons and forms, AI optional

WPBot by QuantumCloud starts as a guided chatbot: text answers you write in the backend, an FAQ menu, conversational forms and a callback request with phone number. For free-text questions you connect Dialogflow, Gemini or OpenRouter with your own key. Messenger, Instagram, Telegram and WhatsApp bots are part of the Pro versions.

Good if you know the ten questions your visitors ask and want predictable answers.

WebChatAgent: hosted, no API key

Our plugin, "AI Chatbot & Live Chat – WebChatAgent", only shows the chat widget. The chatbot itself lives in the WebChatAgent dashboard, where you add your website as a source and the crawler reads your pages. In WordPress you paste one chatbot ID; there is no API key to manage and no per-token bill from a third party. The widget appears as a floating button, inline via the shortcode [webchatagent_inline] or as a Gutenberg block.

The Free plan is deliberately small: 1 chatbot, 70 messages per month, 100,000 characters of knowledge (roughly 35 to 50 typical pages), 1 domain, visible branding and no live chat. It is enough for a small site or a test. Details on the WordPress plugin page and in the pricing.

What "free" really means for WordPress chatbots

The price of the plugin tells you little. Three questions tell you more:

• Who pays for the AI answers? With your own API key, you do, per message, and the bill grows with traffic. Set a monthly budget limit in your provider account before the bot goes live. With a hosted service, a monthly allowance is included and the service stops or asks you to upgrade when it is used up.
• Does the bot know your website? A chatbot that answers from general AI knowledge sounds smart and gets your opening hours wrong. Check whether the free version can learn from your pages and documents. For AI Engine that is a Pro feature; AI Puffer and WebChatAgent include it for free.
• Where do the conversations go? With own-key plugins, chats usually stay in your WordPress database and the questions travel to the AI provider. With hosted services they are stored by the service. For a site with EU visitors, check where that processing happens and whether you get a data processing agreement.

How to add a chatbot to a WordPress website

The installation takes five minutes with any of these plugins. The work starts afterwards, when you teach the bot what it should know.

1. Install the plugin. In WordPress, go to Plugins, Add New, search for the plugin name, click Install and Activate.
2. Connect the AI. Own-key plugins ask for an API key from OpenAI, Anthropic or Google. Hosted plugins ask for an account and an ID. With WebChatAgent you create a free account, copy the chatbot ID and paste it into the plugin settings.
3. Give it your content. Add your website or documents as a knowledge source, depending on what the plugin supports. Without this step, the bot guesses.
4. Choose where it appears. A floating button on every page is the default. Most plugins also offer a shortcode or block to place the chat inside a page.
5. Test with real questions. Ask the ten questions your customers ask by phone. Fix the content where the answer is wrong, not the prompt.

Step-by-step guides with screenshots: install an AI chatbot on WordPress and add the chatbot to WordPress with the plugin.

Which free WordPress chatbot fits your site?

• You have an OpenAI or Anthropic account and like to tinker: AI Engine. The largest community, the most providers, and the free version is generous as long as you do not need answers from your own content.
• You want to chat with visitors yourself and try a little AI: Tidio.
• You want chatbot plus AI writing tools in one plugin: AI Puffer.
• You want fixed answers and forms instead of free text: WPBot.
• You want a bot that answers from your website without touching an API key: WebChatAgent, as long as 70 messages a month are enough to start.