# Is Botpress Free? Free Plan Limits, Open Source and v12

> Botpress Free costs $0 with 100 conversations, 3 seats and no top-ups. What it covers, what still costs money, and the open-source and v12 answer.

_Source: https://professionalstoolkit.com/articles/is-botpress-free — The Professional's Toolkit · updated November 2026_

---

Yes. Botpress has a real free plan: it costs $0, and Botpress says no credit card is needed to try it. On Free you get 100 conversations, 3 seats and 3 AI agents, with Botpress Studio, Botpress Viber and Botpress Desk all unlocked, plus webchat and WhatsApp as channels. What it lacks is room to grow. Free has no packs, top-ups or overages, so a bot stops at the cap.[1] Botpress is also not open source in the sense most searchers mean. Its GitHub repository holds MIT-licensed developer tooling, while the platform itself runs only as Botpress Cloud.


**100** — Conversations on the Botpress Free plan, with no packs, top-ups or overages to extend it.



- **$0** — Free plan, no credit card to try (Botpress says)
- **3** — Seats and 3 AI agents on the Free plan
- **MIT** — License of the GitHub repo: integrations and dev tools, not the platform


## What $0 buys you on the Free plan

The Free plan is not a trial with a countdown. It is the Community tier in Botpress's Terms, and it carries most of the building surface the paid plans have. All four Botpress products share one plan and one price list, and the comparison table marks Studio, **Botpress Viber** and Desk as included on Free. A free workspace can therefore build visual workflows in Studio, describe an agent in plain language in Botpress Viber, or run a small ticket inbox in Desk. AI usage is included as well, and the AI usage meter works on Free, though the pricing page prints no dollar amount for that allowance.

One detail matters for planning. The pricing card and the comparison table print **100 conversations** for Free with no period attached, while Plus and Team carry a per-month label. Storage is hard-capped too: 1K table rows, 100MB of vector storage and 100MB of file storage, with no add-on to buy. Support is community-only, through Discord, the docs, Botpress Academy and YouTube, and Botpress's Terms give Free customers no service level commitment, with technical support at Botpress's discretion.



> **About these prices:** Prices shown are what Botpress lists for visitors in the United States, in US dollars. Your price can differ by country, currency and local taxes such as VAT. Check your current price — Botpress: https://api.colosus.site/go/botpress?to=pricing


| What you get | Free | Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0 | $150 a month billed annually, or $189 a month billed monthly |
| Conversations | 100 | 250 a month |
| Extra conversations | none | $65 per pack of 100 extra conversations, added automatically at 95% of the quota and billed each month the pack stays on |
| Seats / AI agents | 3 / 3 | 3 / unlimited |
| White-label webchat, Help Center custom domain | no | yes |
| Table rows / vector / file storage | 1K / 100MB / 100MB | 100K / 1GB / 10GB |
| Storage add-on | none | $40 a month |
| Support | community | live chat |

Plus is the first paid step, and the grid shows what the jump buys: unlimited AI agents, white-label webchat, a custom domain for the Help Center, live-chat support, and conversation packs that Botpress adds automatically at 95% of the quota, at $65 per pack of 100 extra conversations. That auto-recharge cannot be turned off, and a pack keeps billing each month until you remove it in billing settings. Seats do not change. Both Free and Plus include 3 seats, and unlimited seats start on Team. Teams and role-based access, routing and assignment, and the voice channel all sit on higher plans, so a free workspace is a place for a small group to build and test, not a staffed support desk with roles.


> 💡 **Budget your emulator tests:** Emulator conversations count toward the Free plan's 100 conversations, and their AI operations draw on AI usage, so test with a plan rather than at random.


## The 100-conversation wall, and what counts against it

Botpress counts conversations, not messages or seats. A conversation is any exchange with at least two messages from the end user in the billing month. A conversation that runs across two months counts in both, every anonymous session counts on its own, and AI-only and human-assisted conversations count the same. Emulator tests count too, and their AI operations draw on your AI usage, so heavy testing eats the free quota faster than most builders expect. Our [Botpress pricing guide](/articles/botpress-pricing) walks through each billing rule on the paid plans.

When the quota runs out, nothing is bought for you. Paid plans add a 100-conversation pack automatically at 95% of the quota, while Free has no packs, top-ups or overages at all. Webchat then shows a Quota exceeded screen when a bot reaches its usage limits. **That is a hard stop.** On a public website, the stop happens in front of visitors. Botpress Viber adds one more limit on Free: since September 2026, Community workspaces get a daily build allowance, followed by an in-product paywall.


> ⚠ **Free stops at the cap:** The Free plan cannot buy packs, top-ups or overages; when a bot reaches its usage limits, webchat shows a Quota exceeded screen to visitors.


In practice, treat Free as a space to build and prove an agent. Emulator runs, the hosted webchat link you share with colleagues (that link is already the production bot, so those conversations are saved) and a soft launch all draw from the same 100. A bot that answers real customers every day will reach the cap. How fast depends on your traffic, so count your own conversations during a pilot rather than guessing.

## Costs a free bot can still run up outside Botpress

A $0 Botpress plan does not mean every channel is free to run. WhatsApp is the clearest case. It is included on every Botpress plan, Free included, but the WhatsApp Business account behind it sits with Meta. Botpress's docs say a missing payment method in Meta's billing hub is a likely reason a bot receives messages and never replies. Meta must also verify the business before the bot can send anything, and Botpress cannot speed that up.

Other channels and tools bring their own bills. Twilio bills SMS separately from Botpress. The Apollo enrichment integration spends your own Apollo credits, and Gmail in manual mode runs on a Google Cloud project whose costs are yours. On the website side, the install guides say Wix and Webflow need a plan that allows custom scripts, and a self-hosted WordPress site needs a plan that allows plugins. None of this lands on a Botpress invoice. Each item can still stand between a free bot and a working one, and our [website chatbot guide](/articles/botpress-website-chatbot) covers the embed steps per platform.


> 💡 **Check Meta billing before launch:** WhatsApp is on every Botpress plan, but the WhatsApp Business account needs a payment method in Meta's billing hub, or the bot may receive messages without replying.


## Is Botpress open source? What the GitHub repo holds

Partly. The botpress/botpress repository on GitHub is MIT-licensed. It holds the public Hub integrations that Botpress maintains, the Cloud developer tools (the CLI `@botpress/cli`, the SDK `@botpress/sdk` and the API client `@botpress/client`) and example bots written as code. Developers use it to build their own integrations: `bp init` generates one from a template, and `bp deploy` pushes it to your workspace, where it stays private to that workspace by default. No fork of the repository is needed for that work.

What the repository does not hold is the platform. Botpress Studio, Botpress Viber, Botpress Desk and the runtime that answers your users are Botpress Cloud, a hosted service that Botpress describes as needing no self-hosting or infrastructure management.[2] The repo itself says building bots as code is not the recommended route and no replacement for Studio; it is aimed at experienced developers. **The tooling is open; the product is a cloud service.** Anyone searching for a free, downloadable Botpress server will not find one there.

The repository still has practical value for a free workspace. A team that needs a connector the Hub lacks can write it with the SDK and keep it private to its own workspace. Publishing it to all Botpress users is a separate step that needs Botpress's approval, and an integration version made public cannot be updated again afterward. That suits agencies and in-house developers. A support lead who never opens a terminal can skip GitHub entirely.

## Botpress v12 and self-hosting: sunset, not an option

Many GitHub searches for Botpress land on v12, and it explains the confusion. Botpress v12 was the older self-hosted open-source edition, which ran from a binary, an official Docker image or the sources. It was dual-licensed under AGPLv3 and the Botpress Proprietary License, and bots created in it were licensed AGPLv3 by default. Its repository is still public. Today it points newcomers to signing up for Botpress Cloud instead of running v12 themselves.

That edition is closed to new users. Botpress v12 and every self-hosted or locally installed version are officially sunset: no longer available for purchase, download or new deployments.[3] Existing v12 customers with active subscriptions are supported through their account manager, and everyone else is directed to Botpress Cloud. Botpress is not self-hostable today. If running the software on your own servers is a hard requirement, no current Botpress edition meets it.

## When Free stops being enough

The first paid step is Plus at $150 a month billed annually or $189 a month billed monthly, with 250 conversations a month. By our arithmetic, the annual option totals $1,800 a year, paid upfront for the term, against $2,268 for twelve monthly payments, a saving of $468 a year. The $1,800 a year is paid upfront with no refund for unused time after 7 days, so the annual option only comes out ahead if the bot stays live for nearly the whole year; for anything shorter, $189 a month billed monthly costs less. The 7-day refund covers the subscription portion once in any 12 months, and an annual term otherwise runs to its end.

Conversations are the other cost to plan for. Once a month reaches 95% of Plus's 250 conversations, Botpress adds a pack of 100 extra conversations for $65, billed each month the pack stays on. This auto-recharge cannot be turned off, the pack keeps billing until you remove it in billing settings, and unused pack conversations expire at month end. Watch the meter in the first busy months after launch.

Two other points shape the decision. Botpress for Good offers reduced pricing to nonprofits, educational institutions and open-source projects, by application, with no figure published. And the Terms are written for business use: the customer must be operating a business, not using the service for personal or household purposes. A hobby bot sits outside what the Terms describe. For a business, the sensible path is to build on Free, test inside the 100 conversations, then upgrade once real traffic arrives. Our [Botpress chatbot builder walkthrough](/articles/botpress-chatbot-builder) covers the build steps you can do before paying.


## FAQ

**Can I upgrade a free Botpress workspace without rebuilding my bot?**

Yes. Each workspace has its own plan, and upgrades are pro-rated and apply immediately, while downgrades take effect at the next billing cycle.

**Is Botpress Desk free?**

Desk is included on every plan, Free included, but Free and Plus cap seats at 3. Routing and assignment, Teams and role-based access start on Team.

**Can I remove Botpress branding on the Free plan?**

No. White-label webchat and a custom webchat footer are Plus or higher features, as is a custom domain for the Help Center.

**Does Botpress train AI models on my free bot's conversations?**

Botpress says it does not use conversation data or end-user personal data for model training, and content uploaded to a bot is used only to provide the service. That applies on every plan.


## Free to build, cloud to run

Botpress is free to start in a real way: $0, no card, every builder and both main channels, capped at 100 conversations with no way to buy more on that plan. It is open source only at the edges, through an MIT repository of integrations and developer tools, while the platform runs as Botpress Cloud and the self-hosted v12 is sunset. Use Free to build and prove an agent. Budget for Plus, or higher, before customers depend on it, because the free bot simply stops answering at the cap.



## Sources

[1] Botpress pricing — https://botpress.com/pricing (2026-11)
[2] Botpress documentation: tutorial introduction — https://botpress.com/docs/tutorial/introduction (2026-11)
[3] Botpress documentation: Botpress v12 (and self-hosted versions) — https://botpress.com/docs/studio/guides/advanced/v12 (2026-11)
[4] Botpress Refund Policy — https://botpress.com/legal/refund-policy
[5] Botpress documentation: Changelog — https://botpress.com/docs/changelog
[6] G2: Botpress reviews — https://ai.g2.com/product/botpress