Developer SDK to add in-app chat, voice and video to your product
Verified: · By AIStack Editorial
CometChat is a developer-focused SDK/API for building text, voice and video chat directly into an app or marketplace — not a support widget you paste on a site. It's powerful and full-featured with a free tier for prototyping, but the jump from free to roughly $239/mo makes it a fit for real products at scale, not hobby projects.
[DRAFT — verdict pending hands-on retest of the current product version]
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| Plan | Price | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Low MAU cap, core chat & dashboard |
| Paid (entry) | ~$239–299/mo | 1,000 MAU |
| Mid-tier | Higher | AI moderation, notifications |
| Enterprise | Custom | Scale & compliance |
Verified 2026-07-10: MAU-based pricing. Free-tier MAU cap varies by source (25–100) — confirm on the live pricing page. Calling is pay-as-you-go ($0.001/min voice, $0.003/min video). Confirm at cometchat.com/pricing before a refresh.
CometChat is a developer SDK and API for building chat into your own product — text, voice and video messaging you embed inside a marketplace, social platform or community app. It is not a support widget you paste onto a website; it's infrastructure your engineers use to ship chat as a native feature.
That makes the audience clear: product and engineering teams who need users to message each other (or the business) inside an app they're building. If your goal is 'buyers and sellers should chat in our marketplace,' CometChat is built for you. If your goal is 'add a support chat to our website,' a ready-made tool like Tidio is the right shape instead.
CometChat is a broad chat platform delivered as building blocks:
The throughline is own the chat experience inside your product rather than bolt on someone else's widget.
CometChat is freemium, priced by monthly active users (MAU). The free tier is enough to prototype and test (its exact MAU cap varies across public sources, so confirm it directly). The catch is the jump to paid: the entry paid tier is roughly $239–299/mo for 1,000 MAU, which is a real step up from free and prices out hobby projects. Voice and video calling are billed pay-as-you-go per minute on top of the MAU plan.
| Plan | Price | Scale |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Low MAU (prototyping) |
| Paid entry | ~$239–299/mo | 1,000 MAU |
| Mid-tier | Higher | + AI moderation |
| Enterprise | Custom | High scale |
Two honest caveats. The free-to-paid cliff: going from a free prototype to roughly $239–299/mo is a big jump that doesn't suit small apps or side projects. Cost scaling: MAU-based pricing rises with your app's growth, which is fair but can be unpredictable to budget as you scale — model it early. And it demands developer time to implement; it's infrastructure, not a no-code widget. For teams building a real product at meaningful scale, that depth is exactly the point; for a simple website chat, it's the wrong tool.
Tidio combines live chat, chatbots and an AI support agent (Lyro) that can resolve tickets on its own, with a genuinely useful free tier and deep Shopify integration. It's a strong fit for ecommerce and SMB support teams. The weak spot is a big pricing gap between mid-tier and enterprise, and AI conversations are metered separately.
No — that's the key distinction. CometChat is a developer SDK/API for building messaging into your own app or product (marketplace, social, community). For a paste-on-your-website support chat, a tool like Tidio is the right shape instead.
Yes, a free tier for prototyping and testing, though it's capped at a low number of monthly active users (sources differ on the exact cap, 25–100 — confirm on the pricing page). Paid plans start around $239–299/mo for 1,000 MAU.
By monthly active users (MAU). The entry paid tier is roughly $239–299/mo for 1,000 MAU, scaling from there, with voice/video calling billed pay-as-you-go per minute on top. Model your active-user growth, as cost scales with it.
Different buyer intents. CometChat is for developers building chat as a feature inside a product; Tidio is a ready-made live-chat and AI support tool you add to a website. Choose CometChat to build chat into your app, Tidio to add support chat to your site.
Yes. Alongside text messaging, its SDK supports voice and video calling, billed pay-as-you-go per minute. That breadth — text, voice and video in one product — is a core reason product teams choose it.
CometChat
