# Manychat pricing explained

> Manychat's published plans, exactly what the vendor counts and bills for, what the free plan allows, and the cheapest plan at three monthly volumes.

Published: September 18, 2026 · Updated: September 18, 2026 · Prices verified: September 18, 2026 · By the chatbots.reviews team

Researched and drafted with AI assistance from the sources listed on this page. We have not built or tested bots on these platforms yet. Method: [How we review](https://chatbots.reviews/en-us/how-we-review)

Manychat's pricing page lists five plans. Free costs $0 and includes 25 Active Contacts a month. Essential is $17 a month, or $14 a month when billed yearly, with 250 Active Contacts, 2 channels and no AI. Pro is $39 a month, or $29 on annual billing, with 2,500 Active Contacts, any 3 channels including WhatsApp, SMS and email, Manychat AI and API access. Business is $99 a month, or $69 on annual billing, with 7,500 Active Contacts and unlimited channels. Advanced is $199 a month, or $139 on annual billing, with 25,000 Active Contacts; above that Manychat quotes a custom plan. Each extra Active Contact costs $0.10 on Essential, $0.05 on Pro, $0.025 on Business and $0.004 on Advanced when you pay monthly, and a little less on annual billing. Pro includes 2 Inbox seats, Business 3 and Advanced 5; each additional seat is $25 a month. Annual plans are charged upfront, for example $348 for Pro, and the help center says you cannot switch to monthly billing until the term ends. Three costs sit outside the plan fee: WhatsApp message fees, which Manychat passes through from a prepaid wallet; email beyond the plan's monthly allocation at $0.003 per email, charged in blocks of 5,000; and SMS, which runs through your own Twilio account. Prices are in US dollars, exclude tax, and the pricing page says the final price depends on your billing country.

- **Paid plans from:** $17 per month
- **Pricing model:** By number of contacts
- **Free plan:** Yes
- **Channels:** Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, TikTok, SMS, Email

## What you are billed for

Manychat bills on Active Contacts, not on messages or conversations. The [Active Contacts article](https://help.manychat.com/hc/en-us/articles/25800323349020-Active-Contacts) defines an Active Contact as a contact who sent or received a message through Manychat during the current billing month, whether the message came from an automation, Manychat AI, a broadcast or a person replying in the Inbox. The same person counts once per month, however many messages are exchanged. Contacts who stay silent are stored for free. The counter resets at the start of each billing cycle, and it resets monthly on annual plans too. Two details raise the count faster than most buyers expect. First, receiving a message is enough: a broadcast makes every recipient an Active Contact for that month, and imported contacts become active the moment you message them. Second, the documentation says the same person on two platforms, for example Instagram and TikTok, may be counted separately depending on how the accounts are connected. At the limit, automations keep running. Each extra Active Contact is billed automatically on the next invoice at your plan's rate: $0.10 on Essential, $0.05 on Pro, $0.025 on Business and $0.004 on Advanced with monthly billing. Manychat sends alerts at 70%, 90% and 100% of the allowance. You can set an overage threshold, or allow no overage at all. Once that threshold is reached, automations keep running only for contacts who are already active in that cycle, so new people who message you get no automated reply until the next cycle or an upgrade. If you upgrade within the same billing cycle, the pricing page says overage fees charged so far are forgiven. The pricing page lists no overage price for the Free plan. One more thing to check before you compare bills: accounts created before March 2, 2026 that Manychat has not yet migrated are still billed the old way, on every contact stored in the account. That legacy Pro plan starts at $15 a month for up to 500 contacts, the number never resets, billing is monthly only, and the Billing FAQ says payments cannot be capped. Our guide to [what counts as a conversation](https://chatbots.reviews/en-us/guides/what-counts-as-a-conversation) compares this unit with what other vendors count. [Source](https://help.manychat.com/hc/en-us/articles/25800323349020-Active-Contacts)

## Published plans

| Plan | Billed monthly | Billed annually | Included each month | Source |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Free | $0 per month | — | 25 contacts | [Source](https://help.manychat.com/hc/en-us/articles/25800197498652-Free-plan) |
| Essential | $17 per month | $14 per month | 250 contacts | [Source](https://help.manychat.com/hc/en-us/articles/25800276116508-Essential-plan) |
| Pro | $39 per month | $29 per month | 2,500 contacts | [Source](https://help.manychat.com/hc/en-us/articles/25800228332572-Pro-plan) |
| Business | $99 per month | $69 per month | 7,500 contacts | [Source](https://help.manychat.com/hc/en-us/articles/25800254159900-Business-plan) |
| Advanced | $199 per month | $139 per month | 25,000 contacts | [Source](https://help.manychat.com/hc/en-us/articles/25800308984988-Advanced-plan) |

## What the free plan really allows

The Free plan does not expire and the pricing page says it needs no credit card. It includes 25 Active Contacts a month, 1 user, 1 Inbox seat, up to 2 channels chosen from Instagram, TikTok, Messenger and Telegram, and up to 4 live automations at once. It excludes WhatsApp, SMS, email and Manychat AI, and the first message carries Manychat branding. The help center itself describes the plan as an option for testing and experimenting, and the allowance supports that reading: an account that gets one new DM a day would use it up before the month ends. Every Free account was moved to this plan on March 2, 2026, including older accounts that used to have 1,000 stored contacts. Essential and Pro have a 14-day free trial; Business and Advanced have none. The help center says a first purchase can be refunded within 30 days.

## What it costs at three volumes

The cheapest published Manychat plan that covers three monthly volumes of contacts, on monthly billing. It is arithmetic on the vendor's price list, not a quote.

| Product | 100 contacts a month | 1,000 contacts a month | 5,000 contacts a month |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Manychat | $17 (Essential) | $39 (Pro) | $99 (Business) |

_List prices on monthly billing, verified on the date shown on this page. Extra seats, add-ons, taxes and third-party channel fees (for example Meta's WhatsApp charges) are not included._

The worked examples take the cheapest plan whose Active Contact allowance covers the volume on monthly billing and leave out per-contact overage, which differs by plan and at these volumes always costs more than the next plan up; extra Inbox seats, WhatsApp message fees, email overage and Twilio SMS costs are excluded too.

[How is chatbot software priced?](https://chatbots.reviews/en-us/guides/chatbot-pricing-models) · [What counts as a conversation in chatbot pricing?](https://chatbots.reviews/en-us/guides/what-counts-as-a-conversation) · [Chatbot finder](https://chatbots.reviews/en-us/tools/chatbot-finder)

> **Scored from public documentation, on a rubric you can read.** Scores come from five published criteria: pricing clarity, access, builder depth, reach and handoff, and data and trust. Every price and limit is stored once, in one product database, with a link to its source, so no two pages on this site can disagree. Rubric v1.0 · The reference-bot build test has not been run yet. Until it has, no page here says a product was tested. [Read the full method](https://chatbots.reviews/en-us/how-we-review) · [The reference-bot test](https://chatbots.reviews/en-us/reference-bot-test)

## Related pages

- [Manychat review](https://chatbots.reviews/en-us/reviews/manychat)
- [The best Manychat alternatives](https://chatbots.reviews/en-us/alternatives/manychat)
- [Best free chatbot builders](https://chatbots.reviews/en-us/best/free)

## Sources

- [Manychat pricing](https://manychat.com/pricing) — Manychat · September 18, 2026
- [Free plan](https://help.manychat.com/hc/en-us/articles/25800197498652-Free-plan) — Manychat Help Center · September 18, 2026
- [Essential plan](https://help.manychat.com/hc/en-us/articles/25800276116508-Essential-plan) — Manychat Help Center · September 18, 2026
- [Pro plan](https://help.manychat.com/hc/en-us/articles/25800228332572-Pro-plan) — Manychat Help Center · September 18, 2026
- [Business plan](https://help.manychat.com/hc/en-us/articles/25800254159900-Business-plan) — Manychat Help Center · September 18, 2026
- [Advanced plan](https://help.manychat.com/hc/en-us/articles/25800308984988-Advanced-plan) — Manychat Help Center · September 18, 2026
- [Active Contacts](https://help.manychat.com/hc/en-us/articles/25800323349020-Active-Contacts) — Manychat Help Center · September 18, 2026
- [Manychat subscription: How to choose the right one for you](https://help.manychat.com/hc/en-us/articles/25800347122716-Manychat-subscription-How-to-choose-the-right-one-for-you) — Manychat Help Center · September 18, 2026
- [Billing FAQ (legacy pricing)](https://help.manychat.com/hc/en-us/articles/14281409288604-Billing-FAQ) — Manychat Help Center · September 18, 2026
- [WhatsApp pricing guide](https://help.manychat.com/hc/en-us/articles/14281380243740-WhatsApp-pricing-guide) — Manychat Help Center · September 18, 2026
- [How to send emails with Manychat](https://help.manychat.com/hc/en-us/articles/14281215436188-How-to-send-emails-with-Manychat) — Manychat Help Center · September 18, 2026
- [How to send SMS/MMS through Manychat](https://help.manychat.com/hc/en-us/articles/14281249064092-How-to-send-SMS-MMS-through-Manychat) — Manychat Help Center · September 18, 2026
- [Understanding messaging windows](https://help.manychat.com/hc/en-us/articles/23358636027932-Understanding-messaging-windows) — Manychat Help Center · September 18, 2026
- [Power up your chat marketing with Manychat AI](https://help.manychat.com/hc/en-us/articles/14281227789468-Power-up-your-chat-marketing-with-Manychat-AI) — Manychat Help Center · September 18, 2026
- [Manychat AI Knowledge](https://help.manychat.com/hc/en-us/articles/25626595060124-Manychat-AI-Knowledge) — Manychat Help Center · September 18, 2026
- [Manychat AI Replies](https://help.manychat.com/hc/en-us/articles/23018283889180-Manychat-AI-Replies) — Manychat Help Center · September 18, 2026
- [ChatGPT integration](https://help.manychat.com/hc/en-us/articles/14281251371164-ChatGPT-integration) — Manychat Help Center · September 18, 2026
- [Deprecation of Send to Messenger website widgets](https://community.manychat.com/product-updates/deprecation-of-send-to-messenger-website-widgets-3988) — Manychat Community (Manychat team post) · September 18, 2026
- [Security and compliance](https://manychat.com/security) — Manychat · September 18, 2026
- [Service providers (sub-processors)](https://manychat.com/legal/service-providers) — Manychat · September 18, 2026
- [Manychat AI](https://manychat.com/product/ai) — Manychat · September 18, 2026
- [About Manychat](https://manychat.com/about) — Manychat · September 18, 2026
- [Manychat raises $140M to fuel the future of AI-driven customer engagement on social and messaging platforms](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/manychat-raises-140m-to-fuel-the-future-of-ai-driven-customer-engagement-on-social-and-messaging-platforms-302433976.html) — Manychat via PR Newswire · September 18, 2026
- [Messenger Platform policy overview](https://developers.facebook.com/docs/messenger-platform/policy/policy-overview) — Meta for Developers · September 18, 2026
- [WhatsApp Business Messaging Policy](https://whatsappbusiness.com/policy/) — WhatsApp · September 18, 2026
- [WhatsApp Business Platform pricing: non-template messages](https://developers.facebook.com/documentation/business-messaging/whatsapp/pricing/non-template-messages) — Meta for Developers · September 18, 2026

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