AI chatbots

Every ai chatbots we've tested, with pricing, models, and an honest verdict.

Ahrefs Brand RadarSEO professionals and brand managers who want to know if their brand is showing up in AI chatbot and AI search answers, and who are trying to compete for visibility in the emerging 'answer engine' landscape. Specifically useful for brands in competitive niches where AI assistants are actively recommending products or services.
Brand Radar is an add-on or feature within Ahrefs paid plans; exact standalone pricing is not fully publicized as of early 2025 — Ahrefs has been rolling it out to existing subscribers, and pricing details should be confirmed directly with Ahrefs.
Microsoft CopilotMicrosoft 365 business users who want AI woven directly into their existing Office workflow — drafting emails in Outlook, summarizing meeting transcripts in Teams, generating formulas in Excel, or producing first drafts in Word. Also useful for casual users who want a free, search-augmented chatbot with image generation built in.
Free tier exists; paid plans range from $20/month for consumers to $30/user/month for full Microsoft 365 business integration.
Grok by xAIX/Twitter power users who want a chatbot with live social media context; developers or analysts who need real-time web and X data baked into responses without paying for a separate search plugin; people who already pay for X Premium and want a bundled AI assistant at no extra cost
Free tier available; paid access bundled with X Premium ($8/month) and X Premium+ ($16/month); standalone SuperGrok subscription at $30/month for heavier usage
DeepSeekDevelopers and researchers who want near-frontier model performance without paying frontier model prices — especially for coding, math, and reasoning tasks. Also useful for anyone who wants to run a capable LLM locally or on cheap cloud infrastructure without licensing headaches.
Free chatbot tier available; API is usage-based and dramatically cheaper than OpenAI equivalents — roughly $0.14 per million input tokens for DeepSeek-V3 as of early 2025.
Character.aiCasual entertainment, creative writing practice, roleplay, and people who want an interactive fictional companion. Not suitable for factual research, professional work, or anyone who needs accurate, cited information — the models hallucinate freely and prioritize engagement over truth.
Free tier available; paid plan (Character.AI+) runs $9.99 per month.
Andi SearchPeople who are tired of sifting through SEO-spam results and want a direct answer with cited sources. Particularly useful for research, fact-checking, and anyone who wants to read content ad-free via its built-in reader mode that strips pages of clutter.
Free tier available; Andi Plus paid plan exists but exact current pricing is not publicly confirmed on their main page — verify directly on site before committing.
NotebookLM by GoogleStudents, researchers, and knowledge workers who need to rapidly understand, summarize, and cross-reference large collections of documents — think dense research papers, legal filings, lengthy reports, or course materials — without the AI making things up from its general training data.
Free for personal use; NotebookLM Plus is available via Google One AI Premium at $19.99/month or through Google Workspace add-ons.
GeminiPeople already inside the Google ecosystem who want AI woven into Gmail, Docs, Drive, and Search; developers who want multimodal API access with competitive pricing; users who need real-time web search baked into their AI responses without a plugin.
Free tier exists; Google One AI Premium plan is $19.99/month for consumers; API pricing is usage-based and varies by model.
ClaudeProfessionals who need a reliable AI for reading and summarizing long documents, writing and editing, coding assistance, and nuanced reasoning — especially where tone control and instruction-following matter. Also well-suited for developers building apps via the API who want a capable model with strong safety characteristics.
Free tier available; Claude Pro costs $20/month; API pricing is usage-based per token, ranging from roughly $0.25 to $75 per million tokens depending on the model.
ChatGPTGeneral-purpose writing assistance, coding help, summarizing documents, brainstorming, and answering complex questions in plain English. Power users get the most value from the Plus or Team tiers where access to the best models and features like file analysis, image generation, and memory is consistent and unthrottled.
Free tier exists but is limited; Plus is $20/month per user; Team is $30/user/month; Enterprise is custom pricing; API is separate and usage-based.
LLMrefsContent marketers, SEO professionals, and SaaS founders who want to know whether AI chatbots are recommending their site — and who want data to help them show up more often in AI-generated responses.
Freemium model with a free tier and paid plans; exact plan pricing was not fully confirmed at time of writing — check the official site for current rates.
Grok by xAIX (Twitter) power users who want real-time social data in their AI responses; developers accessing a capable LLM via API at competitive pricing; users who want a capable general-purpose assistant bundled into an existing X Premium subscription
Free tier available with usage limits; full access via X Premium+ ($40/month) or standalone xAI API with pay-per-token pricing for developers
Janitor AIPeople who want to build or chat with fictional characters — including adult-themed ones — without the content restrictions imposed by tools like Character.AI. Also useful for writers doing character development or anyone wanting persistent, personality-driven chatbot companions.
Free to use the platform itself, but you must supply your own API key (OpenAI, Claude, or others) and pay those providers directly; a Janitor AI subscription unlocks a built-in API so you do not need your own key.
Character.aiCasual roleplay and entertainment, practicing conversations in a foreign language, interactive storytelling, and fans who want to chat with AI versions of fictional or historical figures. It is not designed for serious productivity, factual research, or professional work.
Free tier available; Character.ai+ subscription costs $9.99 per month for priority access and extras.
Andi SearchPeople who want direct, sourced answers to factual questions without wading through SEO-stuffed articles or ad-heavy results pages; particularly useful for research, quick fact-checking, and reading full articles ad-free via its built-in reader mode.
Andi offers a free tier with no account required; a paid Pro plan exists but exact public pricing has not been consistently published and may vary — check the official site for current rates.
ChatGPTGeneral-purpose writing assistance, coding help, research summaries, brainstorming, and everyday question-answering for individuals and teams who want a capable all-in-one assistant without needing to use an API.
Free tier available; paid plans from $20/month for individuals up to $30/user/month for teams; enterprise pricing is custom and negotiated directly with OpenAI.