Respond.io starts at $79/mo billed yearly, plus per-user, per-contact and AI-credit fees. WhatsGrow AI is a flat-plan WhatsApp CRM with AI. Free trial.
Connect WhatsApp → AI replies in under 5 min.
Updated October 2026
Respond.io's Starter plan is $79/mo billed yearly ($99/mo billed monthly) and includes 5 users and 5,000 AI credits. AI Agents are listed from Growth: $159/mo billed yearly ($199/mo monthly), 10 users, credits starting at 10,000. If AI first-response is the reason you are shopping, your real entry price is the Growth plan.
Starter has unlimited contacts. On Growth and Advanced you choose a monthly-active-contacts tier starting at 1,000, and the page lists overage at $12 per 100 contacts on Growth and $15 per 100 on Advanced. A lead-gen ad burst can push you over without your team size changing at all.
Starter includes 5 users; Growth and Advanced include 10. Each additional user is $12 (Starter), $20 (Growth) or $24 (Advanced) per month on yearly billing, and $15, $25 or $30 on monthly billing. A support team of 14 on Growth pays for four extra seats on top of the plan.
AI credits are included at 5,000 (Starter), 10,000+ (Growth) and 20,000+ (Advanced), with extra credits listed at $15 per 1,000. That makes AI cost variable: a busy month costs more. WhatsApp message fees are also separate, billed by Meta and topped up as credit in the platform.
Respond.io is built omnichannel: WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, Telegram, email and web chat. That is the right call if you use four of them. If 90% of your volume is WhatsApp, a large part of the product and its per-user structure goes unused. Its 7-day trial also excludes broadcasts.
If WhatsApp is where your revenue is, you do not need six channels in the bill.
Starter: 3 agents, 1,000 contacts. Growth: 10 agents, 25,000 contacts. Pro: 50 agents, 100,000 contacts. No monthly-active-contact meter and no AI-credit meter, so the ceiling is known before you start.
A Kanban board with deal values, owners and tasks in the same workspace as the inbox, with 1, 5 or 20 pipelines by plan. Respond.io tracks lifecycle stages; a deal board is a different job.
Send Stripe or Razorpay links inside the conversation and let the deal move when payment lands. Growth adds calls via Twilio or RingCentral; Pro adds call recording.
Answers from your uploaded documents (knowledge base from Growth), updates CRM fields, creates tasks, moves stages, sends payment links, and hands over to a human. Replies in the customer’s own language, including Arabic, Hindi, Roman Urdu and Spanish.
Separate client workspaces and white-label branding come with the Enterprise plan, which is quoted on request.
7 days, no card required. Import contacts and test the AI agent on real conversations before paying anything.
| Feature | Respond.io | WhatsGrow AI |
|---|---|---|
| Shared team inbox | ✓ | ✓ |
| Channels | WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, Telegram, email, web chat | WhatsApp-first; email and SMS connections; Instagram and Messenger in limited access |
| AI agents | Growth plan and above | Every plan |
| How AI is billed | Credits: 5,000-20,000+ included, $15 per 1,000 extra | Plan usage limits |
| How contacts are billed | Unlimited on Starter; MAC tiers from Growth, $12-$15 per 100 overage | Flat limit per plan |
| Users included | 5 / 10 / 10; extra $12-$24 each | 3 / 10 / 50 agents |
| Workflow / flow builder | ✓ | ✓ |
| Kanban deal pipeline with deal values and tasks | Lifecycle stages | ✓ |
| Payment links inside WhatsApp | Not on pricing page | Stripe + Razorpay from Growth |
| Agency client workspaces | Serves agencies; terms vary | Enterprise plan |
| WhatsApp message fees | Meta fees, topped up in platform | Meta bills directly |
| Free trial | 7 days, no card; no broadcasts | 7 days, no card |
| Starting price | $99/mo monthly ($79/mo billed yearly) | See pricingStarter: 3 agents, 1,000 contacts |
Competitor pricing checked 2026-10-17.Verify at each vendor's website before purchasing.
Want the full breakdown with worked pricing examples? Read WhatsGrow AI vs Respond.io.
We would rather you pick the right tool. Stay with Respond.io if any of these describe you.
Your WhatsApp Business API number can move between providers and keeps its display name. Templates usually need re-submitting, and chat history does not transfer automatically.
For a WhatsApp-only team, usually yes. Respond.io Growth with AI Agents is $199/mo billed monthly ($159 billed yearly) before extra users, contact overage and AI credits. WhatsGrow AI uses flat plans with stated limits and no contact or credit meter. If you need Instagram, Telegram and email in one inbox, Respond.io's breadth justifies its price.
The tools most often compared are Wati, Interakt, Gallabox, AiSensy, SleekFlow and WhatsGrow AI. Respond.io is omnichannel and priced per user plus monthly active contacts; Wati and Interakt are WhatsApp-first; WhatsGrow AI adds a built-in Kanban pipeline, payment links and calling on flat plans. Pick by channels and team size.
On Growth and Advanced, yes. You choose a monthly-active-contacts tier starting at 1,000, and the pricing page lists overage of $12 per 100 contacts on Growth and $15 per 100 on Advanced. Starter has unlimited contacts. WhatsGrow AI gives each plan a fixed contact limit instead: 1,000 on Starter, 25,000 on Growth and 100,000 on Pro.
Yes. Disconnect the number from Respond.io, connect it through WhatsGrow AI's Embedded Signup and re-submit templates. Lifecycle stages, workflows and conversation history do not transfer, so export contacts with their lifecycle stage and map each stage to a pipeline stage on import. Pick a quiet hour for the cutover.
Respond.io tracks contacts, lifecycle stages and conversation status, and can feed an external CRM through integrations. It is not a deal board with values and tasks. WhatsGrow AI includes a Kanban pipeline with deal values, owners and tasks on every plan, so a manager sees stage and revenue without leaving the inbox.
A simple setup is done in two days. Allow closer to a week if you run many branching workflows and HTTP steps; rebuild the two or three that carry the most chats first. Running both tools on separate numbers for a few days lets you test before you move the main number.
Not as a general feature. WhatsGrow AI is built on the official Meta WhatsApp Cloud API. Email and SMS can be connected, Instagram and Messenger are in limited access while Meta reviews our app, and Telegram is not supported. If those channels carry a meaningful share of your leads, Respond.io is the better fit. Some teams keep Respond.io for social channels and run WhatsApp sales in WhatsGrow AI.
Connect WhatsApp → AI replies in under 5 min. No credit card.
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