Elk vs Chatbase: Which AI Support Agent Fits Your Team? (2026)

Elk vs Chatbase comes down to this: pick Elk if you want lower prices, several agents on one plan, and support across your website, WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger and Slack without paying for add-ons. Pick Chatbase if you need native Shopify, Stripe or Salesforce integrations, voice and phone support, or audited compliance such as SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA today.

Both tools do the same core job. You point them at your website and documents, they train an AI agent on that content, and the agent answers customer questions in a chat widget and other channels. The differences are in pricing structure, how many agents you get, which integrations ship natively, and how much enterprise paperwork each one can hand your security team.

This comparison uses each company's public pricing and product pages as of October 4, 2026. Prices change often, so check the linked pages before you buy.

Elk vs Chatbase at a glance

Pricing: what you actually pay

Both products bill in message credits, and both charge more credits for stronger models. So the useful comparison is credits per dollar at the plan you would actually buy.

Elk (pricing), billed annually:

• Hobby: free, 50 chat credits/month, 1 agent, 1 plugin
• Starter: $16/month, 1,000 credits, 2 agents, 4 plugins, all AI models, analytics
• Growth: $80/month, 5,000 credits, 5 team members, 10 plugins, auto-retrain of your knowledge base, knowledge gap reports
• Scale: $200/month, 20,000 credits, 20 agents, 10 team members, 20 plugins

On Elk, a message costs between 1 and 10 credits depending on the model. Small, fast models such as mini and flash tiers cost 1 credit. Top flagship models cost more.

Chatbase (pricing), billed monthly (Chatbase advertises 20% off yearly):

• Free: 50 message credits/month, 1 agent, 1 MB of training content
• Hobby: $40/month, 700 credits, integrations, basic analytics
• Standard: $150/month, 4,000 credits, helpdesk, voice, API access, auto-resync, advanced integrations such as Stripe and Zendesk
• Pro: $500/month, 15,000 credits, advanced analytics, tickets as a source

Chatbase add-ons matter for the real total. Removing "Powered by Chatbase" is $99/month. Each extra agent is $25/month. Extra credits are $40 per 1,000.

What this means in practice. Say you run two brands and need two agents with your logo only. On Chatbase Standard that is $150 + $25 (second agent) + $99 (branding), or $274/month before any yearly discount. On Elk Growth both agents fit in the plan. Branding removal is a toggle in the widget settings, though it is marked as a paid feature, so check which plan includes it.

Credit burn depends on your model choice on both platforms. If you plan to run a top-tier model for every answer, test real conversations in each product's playground and count the credits used. Don't rely only on list prices.

Training data and answer quality

Both products use retrieval-augmented generation. They split your content into chunks, find the parts relevant to each question, and have the model answer from them. Answer quality depends far more on your source content and system prompt than on the platform.

Elk sources:

• Website: crawl a whole domain, add individual links, or import a sitemap. Up to 500 pages per scrape.
• Files: PDF, DOCX, PPTX, XLSX, CSV, Markdown, HTML, JSON, TXT and more.
• Notion, Google Drive and Dropbox connectors.
• Q&A pairs and plain-text articles for answers that aren't written down anywhere else.
• A knowledge playground for searching your knowledge base and seeing which chunks the agent would retrieve.
• Manual retraining of any website source. Automatic retraining is on Growth and above.

Chatbase says it connects to your data sources, and its higher plans add auto-resync, source suggestions, and past support tickets as a source. Tickets as a source is a real advantage if you have a large helpdesk history. Elk lists Jira and Intercom tickets as sources only in beta on its integrations page.

If you want a step-by-step setup that applies to either tool, read our guide on how to train an AI chatbot on your website content.

Channels

Both cover the main messaging channels:

• Elk: website widget, WhatsApp, Instagram DMs, Facebook Messenger and Slack. You connect each from the agent's Integrate tab. Telegram and Discord are listed as beta.
• Chatbase: website, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram and Slack, plus email, voice and telephony, with up to 20 concurrent calls on Pro.

If phone support is part of your plan, Chatbase is the only option of the two today. If you mainly need chat and messaging, the two are about even. Elk includes the messaging channels without a plan upgrade.

See how to connect an AI agent to WhatsApp for what the WhatsApp setup involves.

Actions, plugins and handoff

This is where an AI agent stops being an FAQ bot and starts doing work.

Elk plugins:

• Custom Action: calls your own API (GET/POST/PUT/DELETE) with inputs the agent collects from the user. For example, it can look up an order by email.
• Cal.com: lets visitors book meetings in the chat.
• Zendesk Ticket and Intercom Ticket: create a ticket for your human team when the agent can't resolve something.
• Slack Notify: posts a summary and a link to the chat in a Slack channel when a topic comes up, such as "refund" or "enterprise pricing".
• Custom Forms, Custom Buttons, Google Maps, Video Embed and Web Search (via Exa).
• Built-in lead collection with fields you choose.

Chatbase offers AI Actions (5 to 12 per agent depending on plan), interactive widgets, and a built-in helpdesk where people and the AI work in the same conversation. It also has a much longer native integration list: Stripe, Zendesk, Salesforce, HubSpot, Intercom, Zoho Desk, Freshdesk, Help Scout, Gorgias, Odoo, Zapier, Twilio, Shopify, Calendly and WordPress.

Where Chatbase is better: native integrations. If you need the agent to read Shopify orders or Stripe subscriptions without writing any API glue, Chatbase does that today. Elk's Shopify and Stripe plugins are marked coming soon. Until they ship you would use a Custom Action pointed at your own endpoint.

Where Elk is better: handoff to the helpdesk you already use. You don't move into a new inbox. The agent opens a Zendesk or Intercom ticket with the conversation context, and your team keeps working where they are.

Models

Both let you choose the model behind each agent. Elk's paid plans include models from OpenAI (GPT), Anthropic (Claude), Google (Gemini), xAI (Grok), Meta (Llama), DeepSeek and Moonshot (Kimi). The free Hobby plan has a limited set. Chatbase's site also lists Claude, Gemini, GPT, DeepSeek, Grok and Kimi models in its playground, and its free plan has "limited access to models".

Neither platform has a real edge here. The useful habit on both is to start with a cheap, fast model and only move to a flagship model if answers fall short in testing.

Security and compliance

Chatbase publishes SOC 2 Type II, GDPR compliance and HIPAA support on its site, and offers SSO, custom roles, audit logs and SLAs on Enterprise. If your buyer needs a SOC 2 report before signing, Chatbase can provide one.

Elk offers rate limiting, an allowed-domains list for the widget, custom domains, and audit logs on Enterprise. Elk does not currently publish third-party compliance certifications, so ask before you buy if you're in a regulated industry.

Who should choose which

Choose Elk if:

• You're a founder or small team and price matters
• You need more than one agent, for several brands, languages or products, without paying per agent
• You want WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger and Slack on an entry-level plan
• Your team already lives in Zendesk, Intercom or Slack and you want the AI to hand off there

Choose Chatbase if:

• You need native Shopify, Stripe, Salesforce or HubSpot integrations right now
• You want voice or phone support alongside chat
• Your procurement process requires SOC 2 Type II or HIPAA
• You want a built-in helpdesk instead of using your existing one

How to try both fairly

1. Pick 20 real questions from your inbox, including a few hard ones and a few the bot shouldn't answer.
2. Train both tools on the same sources, such as your website plus your help docs.
3. Use the same model tier in both, for example a mini or flash model.
4. Ask all 20 questions in each playground and score each answer: correct, partly correct, wrong, or refused.
5. Note the credits used, how long setup took, and how each tool handles "I don't know".

This takes an afternoon and tells you more than any comparison article, including this one.

Frequently asked questions

Is Elk cheaper than Chatbase?

On list price, yes. Elk's paid plans start at $16/month billed annually, and Chatbase's start at $40/month. Elk also includes more than one agent on paid plans, while Chatbase charges $25/month per extra agent. Both use message credits that are consumed faster by premium models, so compare at your expected volume and model choice.

Does Elk have a free plan like Chatbase?

Yes. Both have a free tier with 50 message credits per month and one agent. Chatbase notes that agents on its free plan are deleted after 14 days of inactivity.

Can I move my Chatbase agent to Elk?

There is no one-click importer. In practice you re-add the same sources in Elk (your website URL or sitemap, files, Notion, Google Drive or Dropbox), paste your system prompt, and re-create any actions. For most teams that is under an hour of work.

Which is better for Shopify or Stripe stores?

Chatbase today. It lists native Shopify and Stripe integrations, while Elk's Shopify and Stripe plugins are marked coming soon. You can connect Elk to your own order or billing endpoints with Custom Actions in the meantime.

Which AI models do Elk and Chatbase support?

Both let you choose between models from several providers. Elk supports models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, xAI, Meta, DeepSeek and Moonshot on paid plans. Premium models cost more credits per message on both platforms.

The bottom line

Chatbase is the more established product. It has the deeper integration catalog, voice, and enterprise compliance. Elk costs less, includes more agents and messaging channels in its plans, and hands off to the helpdesk you already use. For most small support teams and founders, Elk covers what you need for a fraction of the price. If you depend on native e-commerce integrations or need a SOC 2 report this quarter, Chatbase is the safer pick.

If you're still comparing options, see our list of Chatbase alternatives or the full Elk pricing breakdown.