Bookbag vs Chatwoot at a glance
| Feature | Bookbag | Chatwoot |
|---|---|---|
| Licence and hosting | Proprietary, hosted | MIT-licensed open source, cloud or self-hosted |
| Data ownership | Vendor-hosted with Enterprise DPA | Complete, if self-hosted — a genuine advantage |
| Pricing basis | Flat plan, seats included | Per agent — $19 / $39 / $99 per month, billed annually |
| Free tier | Free plan, 50 credits | Hacker plan — 2 agents, 500 conversations/month |
| AI allowance | 5,000 credits on $110 Growth, 15,000 on $350 Scale | Captain AI credits: 300 / 500 / 800 by plan; $20 per extra 1,000 |
| Native order actions | Track, return, exchange, refund, subscriptions | Built via API or community integrations |
| Shared inbox | Included on Growth and above | Core product — mature and well liked |
| Channels | Chat, email, WhatsApp, IG, Messenger, Slack; voice higher up | Omnichannel; voice on Business and above |
| Product recommendations & cart recovery | Built in | Not an ecommerce-specific capability |
| Infrastructure burden | None | Yours, if self-hosted |
| Best fit | Stores automating the order queue | Teams that need data ownership or a general-purpose inbox |
Why ecommerce teams choose Bookbag over Chatwoot
Seats included rather than billed per agent
Chatwoot's cloud plans are $19, $39, and $99 per agent per month. Bookbag's Growth plan is $110 flat with five seats and Scale is $350 with fifteen, so growing the human team does not grow the bill.
AI sized to resolve, not just assist
Bookbag's Growth plan includes 5,000 message credits — about 1,250 conversations at one credit per reply — so the agent can attempt the whole queue rather than assisting a human on selected replies.
Native ecommerce actions
Order tracking, returns and exchanges with label generation, refunds inside merchant-set caps, subscription changes, product recommendations, and cart recovery work across Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce as soon as the store is connected.
No infrastructure to run
Self-hosting buys data ownership and costs upgrades, patching, backups, monitoring, and on-call time. Bookbag is hosted, so that maintenance is not your team's problem.
Ecommerce reporting out of the box
Resolution rate, CSAT, and revenue influenced are reported by default, rather than general conversation metrics you interpret into ecommerce outcomes.
Pricing compared
Flat monthly plans: Free ($0, 50 credits), Starter $30 (600 credits), Growth $110 (5,000 credits, 5 seats, help desk and all messaging channels), Scale $350 (15,000 credits, 15 seats), Enterprise custom. One credit is one AI reply on any model. Seats are included per tier rather than billed per agent.
As published in July 2026, Chatwoot's cloud plans are billed per agent per month with annual billing: Hacker $0 (up to 2 agents, 500 conversations/month, live chat only), Startups $19 (unlimited conversations, all channels except voice, 300 Captain AI credits), Business $39 (voice, teams, automation, 500 credits), Enterprise $99 (SSO/SAML, audit logs, 800 credits). Additional Captain AI credits are $20 per 1,000. Self-hosting is available under the MIT licence, and the Startups plan is free for open-source projects. Confirm current figures on chatwoot.com/pricing.
Chatwoot's cloud pricing is fair for a human-led help desk and self-hosting is genuinely free of licence cost. The pressure points for a store are per-agent billing, which grows with headcount, and modest AI credit allowances relative to a busy queue. Bookbag trades data ownership for bundled AI volume, included seats, and native ecommerce actions.
Choose Bookbag when
- You run a Shopify, WooCommerce, or BigCommerce store and want order actions natively
- You expect support headcount to grow and do not want per-agent pricing
- You want the AI to resolve the queue rather than assist selected replies
- You do not want to run, patch, and monitor support infrastructure
- You report on resolution rate, CSAT, and revenue influenced
Choose Chatwoot when
- Data ownership or residency is a hard requirement rather than a preference
- You want to self-host and already run infrastructure competently
- Avoiding vendor lock-in is a deliberate architectural choice
- Your business is not ecommerce, or the inbox serves several unrelated teams
- You are an open-source project eligible for the free Startups plan
Switching from Chatwoot
Moving from Chatwoot to Bookbag is straightforward on the content side and needs a decision on the data side. Export your knowledge base articles and canned responses, import them into Bookbag's training panel, connect your store with OAuth, route your support address, and swap the widget snippet. Order actions work immediately, so any Shopify integration you built against Chatwoot's API is retired rather than ported. The question to settle first is why you self-hosted: if it was for data ownership, review Bookbag's Enterprise terms — DPA, SSO and SAML, audit logs — before deciding. If it was to avoid subscription cost, compare the hosted plan against the infrastructure and engineering hours you are currently spending.
Frequently Asked Questions
Ready to switch from Chatwoot?
Join the ecommerce teams resolving more tickets, answering 24/7, and turning support into a revenue channel with Bookbag.