AI search & GEO

What Is a Chatbot? How to Add One to Your Website or WhatsApp

The three types in one table, the free options that exist today for your site and your WhatsApp, the laws that say when you must admit it's a bot, and a real test: we built the same chatbot on four AIs and two of them made up the answer.

The Notablia editorial team

13 min read
Published October 27, 2026

What is a chatbot? It's a program that talks with your customers by text or voice and answers on its own, at any hour, on your website, in WhatsApp or inside an app. It can follow a fixed script or use AI to understand whatever people type.

You've probably already used one. A Pew Research Center survey found that 34% of U.S. adults had used ChatGPT by early 2025, about double the share in 2023. And «what is a chatbot» gets around 6,600 Google searches a month in the U.S. (DataForSEO, October 2026).

Here are the types, how to add one to your site or WhatsApp without code, and what almost nobody tells you: what they make up and what the law requires. It's one of the basics in our AI search and GEO guides.

On this page

What is a chatbot, and what is an AI chatbot?

A chatbot is a program that holds a conversation by text or voice; an AI chatbot understands whatever you type in your own words.

The chatbot meaning is right in the name: chat plus bot (robot). A chatbot is software that answers messages automatically. Classic ones follow a decision tree and keywords. An AI chatbot uses a large language model, like the one behind ChatGPT, to understand free-form questions and write replies from the information you give it.

What it isn't: a person covering for you, or a search engine that knows everything about your business. It only knows what you teach it, and what it doesn't know, it sometimes invents.

Is a bot the same as a chatbot?

Not quite. If you're asking what is a bot, the answer is broader: any program that does an automated task, like Google's crawler or a bot that posts on social media. A chatbot is the kind of bot that talks.

Types of chatbots: rule based chatbot vs AI chatbot vs AI agent

There are three types: a rule-based bot follows a script, an AI chatbot understands free text, and an AI agent also takes action.

	Rule-based chatbot	AI chatbot	AI agent
How it works	Buttons, menus and keywords	A language model understands and writes	Understands, decides and runs tasks in other tools
Example	«Press 1 for store hours»	«Are you open Saturday afternoon?»	Books the table and texts you the confirmation
Best part	Never goes off script	Handles questions you didn't plan for	Saves real work
The risk	Frustrates when the question isn't on the menu	Can make up facts	A mistake becomes an action

That's the ai agent vs chatbot difference in one row: a chatbot answers, an agent acts. Most tools mix the first two, buttons for the usual and AI for the rest. Agents are a different league and will get their own guide.

Chatbot for customer service and lead generation

A business chatbot mostly does two jobs: answers repeat questions around the clock and collects contact details from interested buyers.

Three chatbot examples that work for a small business:

A dental office in Austin: hours, the price range of a cleaning and appointment requests after hours.
A skincare store on Shopify: order status, returns and which moisturizer suits dry skin.
A real estate agent in Phoenix: budget, neighborhood and a phone number for a call back.

That last one is lead capture. Not sure what counts as one? Start with what are leads and how to get them. A good chatbot for customer service asks only what it needs and hands it to your team. To sell something expensive or calm an angry customer, use a person.

How to create a chatbot for your website without code

To add a chatbot for website visitors without coding, pick a platform with a free plan, feed it your FAQs and paste a snippet.

Pick one job to start

Bookings, hours or quotes. A bot that tries to do everything answers everything badly.
Write down the 20 questions you get most

With the exact answer: prices, hours, lead times, delivery area. That's its knowledge base.
List what you don't do

«We don't ship», «no quotes over chat». If you don't write it, the AI fills it in.
Choose the platform

Check the free plans below. On WordPress or Shopify, look for an official plugin or app.
Write its instructions

Who it is, how it talks, what it won't answer and when to hand off to a person. That's prompt engineering for your business.
Add the disclosure and the human handoff

First message: «I'm the automated assistant for [your business]. Type HUMAN to reach the team.»
Test it with 10 weird questions, then publish

Ask for things you don't sell and type in a test card number. If it holds up, paste the code or install the plugin.

Copy-paste prompts

You are the automated assistant for [business] in [city]. You only know this: [hours, prices, services, area]. We don't: [what you don't do]. In your first message, say you're an automated assistant and that they can type HUMAN to reach the team. If something isn't here, say you don't know and alert the team; never guess. Don't ask for card numbers, SSNs or health details. Answer in 2 or 3 friendly sentences.

Can you get a chatbot for free?

Yes, to start. These are the plans we checked in October 2026, on each pricing page:

Platform	Free plan	Watch out
Tidio	50 conversations a month and 50 with its AI (Lyro), one time	Starter from $24.17 a month
HubSpot	Chatbot builder, no card, tied to its CRM	Makes sense if you already use HubSpot
Crisp	Live chat for 2 seats	No AI on the free plan
Chatbase	None	From $32 a month, billed yearly

If nobody writes to it in a month, the bot wasn't the problem. Where you put it was.

Botpress and Landbot: pricing and which one to choose

Landbot is built for marketing and sales teams, and Botpress for customer support. Both have a free plan with 100 conversations or chats a month.

	Landbot	Botpress
Built for	Marketing and sales: lead capture and bookings	Customer support
Free plan	100 chats a month, no AI chats	100 conversations a month and 3 AI agents
First paid plan	Starter: €32 a month billed yearly (€40 monthly), 500 chats	Plus: $150 a month billed yearly, 250 conversations
WhatsApp	Your own number: a €100 a month add-on, or the Professional WA plan at €160	Listed as a Plus feature
Going over	€0.05 per extra chat	A pack of 100 conversations costs $65

Each one counts its quota differently, so ask how a «chat» or a «conversation» is defined before you compare. Landbot lists prices in euros, before tax.

To capture leads with a guided flow and push them to your CRM, Landbot is cheaper to start (€32 against $150) and uses a visual builder. Its site talks about roughly 15 minutes to a first agent. If you already have a team answering through Zendesk, Intercom, HubSpot or Salesforce, Botpress connects to them and hands the chat to a person with its history. To decide, count how many people wrote to you last month: under 100, and either free plan is enough to test.

WhatsApp chatbot: three ways to get one

When people search «WhatsApp chatbot» they mean three different things: a link with a message, free auto-replies or a real bot.

A link with the message prefilled. A wa.me link that opens the chat with «Hi, I'd like to book a table». Not a bot, but it organizes what comes in. Make one in a minute with our WhatsApp link generator.
The free WhatsApp Business app. Greeting message, away message, quick replies and a catalog. Automated messages, not conversation. Meta also has its own AI agent for the app, but only in «select markets», and we couldn't confirm it's live in the U.S.
The WhatsApp Business Platform through a provider. This is where real bots live, menu-based or AI. On WhatsApp Business API pricing, Meta charges per delivered message and customer messages are free. Since October 1, 2026, service messages get 1,000 free a month per number, per Meta's developer pricing page. Add your provider's fee.

WhatsApp's business messaging policy (updated September 2026) allows automation as long as there's a clear path to a person, and bans asking for full card numbers, bank accounts or ID documents.

One myth to kill: when we asked ChatGPT how a small business can add a WhatsApp chatbot, it said Meta's January 2026 rule may make it «not feasible». Wrong. That rule targeted general-purpose AI assistants from other companies, not a business's own support bot.

Manychat: what it is, pricing and how it works on Instagram

Manychat is a platform for automating conversations on Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp, best known for the direct message that goes out when someone comments a keyword. «Manychat» gets about 110,000 searches a month in the U.S. (DataForSEO, October 2026).

The classic setup: you post a reel, write «comment GUIDE» and everyone who does gets the guide in their DMs. It's a lead funnel that needs no one at the keyboard. On WhatsApp it works as a message channel, not a comment trigger, because WhatsApp has no public comments.

It bills by active contacts: people you exchange messages with in a month, not your whole list. Per its help center:

Free: 25 active contacts, 1 user, up to 2 channels and 4 live automations at a time.
Essential: 250 active contacts, from $14 a month billed yearly.
Pro: 2,500 active contacts, $29 a month billed yearly ($39 month to month), with AI included.

If you go over on a paid plan, your automations keep running and you pay per extra contact. The final price changes with your billing country, so confirm it before you pay. To pick a plan, estimate how many different people would message you in a month: under 250, Essential; more, Pro.

AI chatbot laws: when you must say it's a bot

There's no federal bot disclosure rule, but California and Utah have laws, and the EU requires it if you serve European customers.

California: under Business and Professions Code §17941, it's illegal to use a bot online to mislead someone in California about its artificial identity to push a sale. A clear, conspicuous disclosure takes you off the hook.
Utah: if a customer clearly asks whether they're talking to AI, you must say so. Regulated professions must disclose up front in high-risk interactions, with fines up to $2,500 per violation.
European customers: since August 2, 2026, the EU AI Act requires telling people they're talking to an AI, at the latest in the first message.

The cheapest compliance in history: one line in the greeting.

Do you need a HIPAA compliant chatbot?

If you're a clinic, therapist or any covered entity and the bot handles patient information, yes: choose a vendor that will sign a business associate agreement. Otherwise, keep health details out of the chat entirely.

What data should a chatbot never ask for?

Card numbers, passwords, full Social Security numbers and health details. Payments go through a secure checkout. For a quote, name, contact and what they need is plenty.

We tested it

Tested in October 2026gpt-4.1-mini, Gemini 2.5 Flash, Claude Haiku 4.5 and Perplexity Sonar via the DataForSEO API; web search off, except Perplexity, which always searches

We built the same chatbot on four AIs (in Spanish) for Horno Lucía, a made-up bakery in Valencia, Spain, with its hours and a €24 king cake. The rule: if something isn't in its data, say so and alert a person.

Off-script question («do you have a gluten-free one, and can you deliver it?»): ChatGPT and Gemini invented a «no» to both. Claude and Perplexity admitted they didn't know, but Perplexity searched the web and brought back ten competing bakeries.
Sensitive data (a test card number and another customer's phone): all four refused to charge or share the number. Only Claude and Perplexity told the customer not to type card details in the chat.
«Are you a person?»: ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude said they were a chatbot. Good, but only because we asked.

Frequently asked questions about chatbots

Is ChatGPT a chatbot?

Yes. ChatGPT is an AI chatbot, but a general-purpose one: it answers almost anything using what it learned in training and what it finds on the web. A business chatbot should do the opposite and answer only from your own facts, like prices, hours and shipping times. That's why «just put ChatGPT on the site» doesn't work. It needs instructions, your information and clear limits, or it fills the gaps with guesses.

How much does a chatbot cost?

Anywhere from $0 to thousands. Free plans cover a small business testing the idea; paid website plans start around $24 to $32 a month on the platforms we checked. On WhatsApp you also pay Meta per delivered message, plus your provider's fee. A custom chatbot built by a developer on an AI API costs the build plus usage. Budget for the hidden cost too: someone has to review conversations and update the answers every week.

What is an example of a chatbot?

The famous ones are general-purpose AI chatbots: ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Microsoft Copilot. In business, think of the chat bubble on an airline or bank website that tracks a booking or answers account questions, or a pizza place that takes orders on WhatsApp. The simplest example is a rule based chatbot that asks «Track my order or talk to sales?» and sends you down the right path.

Is Alexa a chatbot?

Alexa is a voice assistant, which is a chatbot you talk to instead of type to, plus the ability to act: play music, set timers, control smart devices or place an order. So yes, in the broad sense, with a twist. A website chatbot only converses; Alexa converses and does things. That «does things» part is what pushes it toward what the industry now calls an AI agent.

What to never say to AI?

Never type anything you wouldn't put in an email to a stranger: passwords, card numbers, your Social Security number, health details or your customers' data. What you write stays in the chat history and, depending on your settings, may be used to improve the model. If you paste a contract or a spreadsheet, anonymize it first. And double-check anything an AI tells you about law, health or money against the official source.

How do chatbots work?

A rule based chatbot matches buttons or keywords to prewritten answers. An AI chatbot sends your message, plus its instructions and your business information, to a large language model, which writes a reply. Most business tools combine both: a script for the common questions, AI for free-form ones, and a knowledge base the answers come from. Better tools also hand off to a human when the bot isn't sure.

What are the four types of chatbots?

There's no single official list. IBM names six: menu or button-based, rule-based, AI-powered, voice, generative AI and hybrid. For a small business, three working types cover it: a rule-based chatbot follows a script, an AI chatbot understands free text, and an AI agent also takes actions in other tools. Choose by the risk you can accept. Scripts never go off topic, AI answers more questions, and agents change things, so a mistake becomes an action.