Real Estate Chatbot Pricing: What Agents Pay for AI Lead Capture

A real estate AI chatbot costs an agent from $0 to about $500 a month at list prices. Self-built website bots run $0 to $40, adding human takeover pushes that to $100 to $200, built-for-you services charge $99 to $350 plus a $750 to $1,500 build, and brokerage set-ups start near $500. CRM-bundled AI is quote-only.

Those are the vendors' own sticker prices, read in November 2026, and the sticker is rarely the whole bill. Volume caps are counted in five different units, human takeover often sits on a higher plan, and the glue between bot, calendar and CRM adds subscriptions of its own. The sections below price each band, then work through a four-agent team's first year.

Follow me on Instagram@sagnikteaches

Self-built website bots: $0 to $200 a month

These tools learn from your website pages, PDFs and FAQs, and you paste a snippet into your site. They are general-purpose. None of the pricing pages below lists MLS or IDX listing search as a feature (IDX is the feed that lets a site show MLS listings), so the bot answers from whatever content you give it. BotPenguin's site links to a real estate template, and Hyperleap's real estate page describes a starting prompt for questions such as availability, fees, schools and viewings, not a listing search.

Connect on LinkedInSagnik Bhattacharya

Two readings matter more than the headline numbers. First, the units differ: BotPenguin counts messages, Hyperleap counts AI replies, Chatbase counts message credits and Tidio counts conversations, so a plan with a bigger number is not necessarily bigger. Second, the features that make a bot usable for leads, a person able to step in and a booking tool that books rather than just links, cost more than the cheapest tier. Chatbase puts its helpdesk inbox on Basic, and Hyperleap puts takeover on Pro. The first list price you see is often the version you cannot use. The Chatbase, Hyperleap and BotPenguin pages are worth opening yourself, because plans change.

Subscribe on YouTube@sagnikteaches

Built-for-you services: a build fee, then a monthly retainer

Two vendors that serve real estate publish prices for a bot they build and run for you. Their structures differ, and the difference is the point.

PropBot Studio sells the work in steps. A paid audit maps your channels, data sources and consent rules and ends in a written report you keep whether or not you proceed. A fixed-scope build follows, with acceptance tests, and an optional management plan from $99 a month covers monitoring and corrections. The page says there is no free trial, management is billed monthly in advance and not pro-rated, and you can cancel with 30 days' notice. It also says you own your data and accounts and keep the code and documentation created for you if you cancel management.

realestatechatbot.io publishes the whole price up front and says there is no per-conversation or per-lead billing. The monthly fee covers hosting, AI usage, monitoring and tuning, and Solo includes a monthly transcript review. After the build it is month to month with 30 days' notice, but the build fee is non-refundable once the bot is live. Extras are priced separately: each added channel needs its own approval and wiring, an unusual CRM needs custom work, and a site without an IDX feed, where listings have to be crawled, raises the build fee. The page says Follow Up Boss and kvCORE are quick to connect and that an unusual or in-house CRM takes custom work; the Solo plan sends leads to email or your CRM. It does not say who owns the bot if you leave, or who pays any third-party feed charge, so both go on your question list. The build fee buys real work, but you pay it before you can judge a month of live chats, which is why the demo test script comes before the contract.

CRM suites and AI assistants: price on request, mostly

The big real estate platforms rarely show a chatbot price, because the chatbot is one part of a bundle. What the pages do show:

• Follow Up Boss lists Grow at $69 per user a month ($58 on annual billing), Pro at $499 a month with 10 users included ($416 annually) and Platform at $1,000 with 30 users. Its page says there is no extra charge for AI features such as smart summaries, smart messages, suggested tasks and predictive lead prioritisation. That is AI inside a CRM, not a website chatbot. The Follow Up Boss pricing tutorial goes through what a small team really pays.
• Lofty shows "Request Pricing" on all four plans (Lofty Agent, Team, Broker, Enterprise) and on its add-ons. It says pricing depends on package, seat count, upgrades and lead-generation programmes.
• Ylopo lists Solo, Growing Team and Complete, with no sticker price. Its page says you pay for data, not seats, so price follows the size of your database, and the terms are covered on a demo.
• Structurely names Small Team, Large Team and Enterprise plans without prices, but its page lists usage rates "as low as" $0.07 a minute for voice (on your own phone carrier), $0.02 a text message and $0.02 an AI email.
• Per-outcome billing also exists outside real estate. Intercom's Fin charges $0.99 per outcome, a handoff to a person can count as one, and when it runs on top of another helpdesk a minimum monthly commitment applies (the page's example is 50 outcomes, about $49.50).

For quote-only vendors, ask for one number: the all-in monthly cost at your database size and expected leads, with every add-on listed. Rechat, which sells through brokerages and publishes no prices at all, gets its own breakdown in the Rechat and Lucy cost tutorial. For a side-by-side of the CRM options, see the CRM comparison for agents.

What the caps mean once you count your own chats

Vendors price by volume, but few agents know their volume. Here is a way to estimate it from your website analytics. Every figure below is an assumption to replace with your own numbers, not a benchmark: 3 percent of visitors start a chat, a chat averages 8 AI replies, and 30 percent of chats end with the visitor leaving contact details.

Two things stand out. The caps are rarely what binds a small agent: 1,440 replies a month fits inside Hyperleap Plus (3,000) and Chatbase Basic (4,000 credits), and 360 replies fits every entry plan. Check how the vendor turns a reply into a credit before relying on that, since the two are not necessarily one for one. What binds is the feature gate, since the plan with takeover and booking costs two to four times the entry plan. And cost per contact says nothing about the quality of the contact. A $1.85 contact who asked about a listing that sold last month is worth less than an $8.80 contact who booked a viewing.

When you do approach a cap, the rules differ. BotPenguin, for instance, sends a reminder at 90 percent of the message limit and sells top-ups at $5 per 1,000 standard messages or $15 per 1,000 AI messages. Ask every vendor what happens at 100 percent: the bot goes quiet, you pay overage, or the vendor pushes an upgrade. A bot that stops answering on the 28th of the month is a lead-loss problem, not a billing detail.

The costs that sit outside the subscription

The plan price covers the bot. Everything that makes it useful for leads can be billed elsewhere:

• Branding. Chatbase says no plan removes its "Powered By" label; removal is a $99 monthly add-on, close to the whole price of its Basic plan ($120 on yearly billing). Tidio sells branding removal as a $16.67 monthly add-on on its Growth plan.
• Booking. Hyperleap books in the chat through Calendly or Cal.com on Pro and Max. Calendly's own Standard plan shows $10 a seat a month on yearly billing, so a calendar can add a subscription.
• Automation glue. Where a bot names no CRM connection, as Hyperleap's pricing page names none, a tool such as Zapier moves the lead. Zapier's Free plan allows 100 tasks and two-step Zaps only, and its Professional plan starts at $19.99 a month on yearly billing ($29.99 monthly) for 750 tasks.
• The CRM seat. If the bot feeds Follow Up Boss, each user is $58 to $69 a month on Grow. That cost exists with or without the bot, but it belongs in the comparison.
• Feeds and texting. Ask who pays for the IDX or MLS connection and whether text messages and phone numbers are included. Neither realestatechatbot.io nor the other pages I read give a price for them.
• Your time. A self-built bot takes about six hours to set up and an hour a week to read transcripts and fix answers. Multiply by what an hour of your time is worth; at $30 an hour, the weekly hour alone is about $130 a month.

A $100 self-built bot therefore becomes roughly $130 in cash and $130 in time once Zapier and the weekly hour are counted. That is still cheap next to a built-for-you retainer, but it is not the headline number.

A four-agent team's first year, priced three ways

Take a four-agent team that wants website chat which books viewings and passes leads to Follow Up Boss. These are illustrative sums built from the list prices above, with the team's time valued at $30 an hour.

Route A costs about $2,820 once time is counted, Route C about $6,000, and Route B is unknown until the audit is quoted. Route B's $1,188 is only the retainer, so do not compare it with the others until you hold that number in writing.

Now the sum that decides whether any route is worth it. Assume a closing earns the team $7,500 after splits; use your own figure. Route A's cash cost of $1,080 equals 0.14 of a closing, and Route C's $5,700 equals 0.76. If the bot rescues one closing a year that would otherwise have gone cold, every route pays back. If it rescues none, Route A has wasted $1,080 and Route C $5,700. I can't promise a bot will rescue any, so treat the real difference between the routes as the size of the downside, and run the demo test script before paying for the larger one. The tutorial on website chatbot cost and payback asks the same payback question for any website chatbot, if you want a second angle.

Why annual billing is a bet, with the arithmetic

Annual plans look generous. Hyperleap Pro is $100 a month or $840 for a year, a saving of $360 if you stay twelve months. BotPenguin's yearly plan pays for ten months, which is a 17 percent saving, and Chatbase takes 20 percent off. But consider an agent who drops the bot after four months because it failed the handoff test. Paying monthly costs $400. Paying annually costs $840, so the discount has turned into $440 of waste. Check refund terms before you pay for a year or a build: PropBot Studio bills its management fee in advance without pro-rating, and realestatechatbot.io's build fee is non-refundable once the bot is live.

A practical order is to pay monthly for the first 30 to 90 days, run the bot live on your real site, read the transcripts weekly, then switch to annual billing once you are sure. With a built-for-you service the logic differs, because the build fee is a sunk cost either way and the monthly fee is cancellable on 30 days' notice at both vendors that publish terms.

Nine questions that expose the real monthly price

1. What counts towards my cap: visitor messages, bot replies, credits, conversations or leads? Do handoff chats and greetings count?
2. What happens at 100 percent of the cap: the bot goes quiet, I pay overage, or I am pushed to the next plan?
3. Which plan includes human takeover, in-chat booking, a CRM connection and branding removal?
4. Is the build fee refundable before go-live, and who owns the bot, the prompts and the data after I leave?
5. Are text messages and phone numbers included, who records consent, and who pays any carrier registration?
6. Who pays for the listing feed connection?
7. What does the monthly fee cover: monitoring, tuning, transcript review, content changes?
8. How is the price handled at renewal, and can I pay monthly for the first three months?
9. What do I receive when I leave, and by when is my data deleted?

Put the answers in an email, not a call, and compare them across vendors in one table. If you want to keep the two jobs apart, use this tutorial for the money and the chatbot comparison for a small agency for the shortlist.

What a solo agent and a brokerage should pay instead

A solo agent with a modest site, perhaps 45 chats a month, gets little from a $250 retainer plus a $750 build. A free or $40 plan, an hour a week and a booking link will answer most after-hours questions, and the money is better spent on whatever fills the site with visitors. The budget is $0 to $480 a year, and the main risk is your own time. If after three months the bot is catching leads you would have lost, move up to a plan with takeover.

A brokerage of 10 or more agents has a different problem: routing, consistency and compliance across many people. That is where realestatechatbot.io's Brokerage tier (from $500 a month and $2,500 for the build, with multi-agent routing and a compliance documentation pack) or a CRM suite with AI starts to make sense. Follow Up Boss Pro at $499 a month for 10 users ($416 on annual billing) is a CRM bill rather than a chatbot bill, so keep the two apart in your budget. Whatever the route, ask for the same written answers and give each shortlisted vendor the same test.

Real estate chatbot pricing questions

Is there a free AI chatbot for real estate agents?

Free tiers exist but are general-purpose and capped. BotPenguin's free plan allows 1,000 messages a month, and Tidio's free plan includes the first 50 AI conversations for life. Neither is built around listings, so expect to feed the bot your own FAQs and to upgrade once you need human takeover or higher volume.

Do real estate chatbots charge per lead?

Mostly no. Nearly every vendor above charges a flat monthly fee with a cap on messages, replies, conversations or leads. PropBot Studio caps leads at 500 or 2,000 a month on its two plans, and Intercom's Fin is the exception that bills per outcome at $0.99, so check which unit your vendor counts.

Why do some vendors charge a build fee?

A build fee pays for connecting your listing feed, writing the qualification script, wiring the calendar and CRM, and testing. Self-built tools skip it but cost you hours instead. Ask whether the build is yours to keep if you leave, and whether the fee covers changes in the first month.

Should I pay annually to save money?

Not for a first bot. Annual plans save roughly 17 to 40 percent on the pages checked, but they lock in a year of fees before you know whether the bot passes your tests. Pay monthly until it has run live for 30 days, then switch to annual if you are keeping it.

How much should a solo agent budget?

Between $0 and $40 a month for the software, plus about an hour a week reading transcripts and correcting answers. A built-for-you service of $250 a month plus a build fee only makes sense when your listing volume and lead flow are high enough that you would otherwise lose leads out of hours.

Further reads

• Real Estate AI Chatbot Features: A Checklist Before You Buy — Which features justify a higher plan
• Real Estate AI Chatbot Best Practices: Qualify, Then Hand Over — What to ask visitors before handing the lead over
• AI Receptionist for Realtors: Cost, Call Routing and Showing Cover — Phone cover for showings, priced alongside chat
• AI Automation Agency for Real Estate: Scope, Fees and Red Flags — What an automation agency charges for a custom build
• How to Measure Whether Your AI Chatbot Is Actually Working — Track leads, handoffs and wrong answers after launch
• What to Ask an AI Chatbot Vendor Before You Sign Up — Contract and security questions for any vendor
• AI Receptionist for Estate Agents: Cost, Call Flow and Handover — Cost bands for AI versus human phone cover, plus a call flow for valuations, viewings and applicants and clear handover rules.
• AI Voice Agent for Real Estate Follow-Up: Setup, Scripts, TCPA — Consent wording, a pre-dial gate, call windows, a sample script and per-minute costs for AI follow-up calls to real estate leads.
• Claude or ChatGPT for Realtors: Which Assistant Fits Your Day? — Five realtor tasks to run on both assistants, what each plan costs, how each reads a 90-page disclosure pack, and the privacy settings that matter.
• RealPage AI Leasing Agent vs a Standalone Chatbot for Small Portfolios — Knock's AI leasing agent versus a standalone chatbot for a small apartment portfolio: PMS fit, voice, price transparency and exit terms.
• Best AI for Real Estate Marketing: Ads, Email and Listing Video — Pick an AI tool by job for real estate marketing: ad copy, email nurture sequences and listing video, with fair housing and disclosure checks.
• Best AI for Real Estate Wholesalers: Underwrite a Deal Before You Call — Use AI to screen a wholesale deal before the seller call: comps, ARV and repair sanity checks, a maximum offer sum, and the checks you still do by hand.
• Claude vs ChatGPT for Real Estate Agents: Listings, Follow-Up and Limits — Three tasks in both tools: a listing description, a buyer follow-up and a vendor update, with a fair-housing wording check.
• Real Estate AI Chatbot Examples: Five Flows to Copy for Leads — Five property enquiry scripts show what the bot should ask, what it should record and when an agent must take over.
• Real Estate AI Chatbot Use Cases: Which Three to Start With — Build three narrow chatbot flows first, test the handovers and keep property claims and decisions with agents.
• AI Tools and AI Development: The Complete 2026 Guide — the AI hub, including every tutorial in the AI-for-business series.

Sources: vendor pricing pages for BotPenguin, Chatbase, Hyperleap, Tidio, PropBot Studio, realestatechatbot.io, Follow Up Boss, Lofty, Ylopo, Structurely, Intercom, Calendly and Zapier, all read 1 November 2026. Volume sums are illustrative.