Free alternatives · Customer support and knowledge
CustomerReplies
An AI support agent that learns your website and documents, answers customers on your site with citations, and hands over to your team when it can't help.
A free alternative to Chatbase, built by Surge Software. Free. You pay only what third-party services cost us, at cost.
Live at customerreplies.com
The problem
What it solves for a business
For: Small and mid-size businesses, online shops and SaaS teams that get the same customer questions every day.
- Customers ask the same questions all day, and our team spends hours typing the same answers.
- AI chatbots charge per credit, add fees to remove their branding, and stop answering when the credits run out.
- We can't risk a bot making up links, prices or policies.
How it works
CustomerReplies, step by step
- 01
Add your content
Point it at your website, upload PDFs, Word files or CSVs, paste text and Q&A, or link public Notion pages and Google Docs.
- 02
Set how it behaves
Add saved answers, step-by-step procedures (for refunds or bookings) and hand-off rules.
- 03
Test it
Ask questions in the playground and see each answer with its sources.
- 04
Go live
Add the widget to your site with a script tag, iframe, share page or the WordPress plugin.
- 05
Hand over
When it can't help or the customer is upset, your team gets an email alert and takes over from the inbox.
- 06
Improve
Analytics show topics, honest resolution rates and answer gaps, so you know what content to add.
Comparison
CustomerReplies vs Chatbase
| CustomerReplies | Chatbase | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free. You pay only what third-party services cost us, at cost. | $40/month Hobby ($32 annual); Standard $150, Pro $500 (24 Oct 2026) |
| When the allowance runs out | Fair use of 40,000 AI replies a month; past it, a fallback message and hand-off, and owners are emailed at 80% and 100% | Agent stops at 0 credits unless auto-recharge is on (third-party, 24 Oct research) |
| Remove 'Powered by' branding | Included | $1,188/year add-on |
| Helpdesk inbox and hand-off | Included, with SLA timers and routing | Standard plan ($150) and above |
| Extra agents | Included | $300/year per extra agent |
| Guard against invented links | Link and fact guards check every answer | Users report invented URLs on their own domain (Capterra, 24 Oct research) |
| SSO, audit log, white-label | Included | Enterprise only |
Chatbase details are taken from its public website and may have changed since (Hobby $40/month ($32 billed annually), 700 message credits, 1 agent; no free plan (checked 24 Oct 2026 on chatbase.co/pricing)).
Why switch
Advantages over Chatbase
No credits to run out
Every feature is free during launch on Surge's own AI server. Optional add-ons are charged at the provider's price, and only once their rates are set.
Built not to make things up
Answers cite their sources, and link and fact guards check URLs and numbers against your content before the answer is shown.
Scripted where it matters
Procedures handle refunds, bookings and similar flows step by step, without AI guesswork or AI credits.
Everything included
Inbox, branding removal, multiple agents, SSO and white-label are not paywalled the way the research shows they are at Chatbase.
Features
What it does today
- Learns from your website (crawl), PDF/DOCX/TXT/MD/HTML/CSV files, text, Q&A, public Notion pages and public Google Docs/Sheets/Slides, with automatic re-sync
- Answers with citations and follow-up suggestions; link and fact guards stop invented URLs and figures
- Saved answers and a visual procedure editor (ask, validate, branch, hand off) that use no AI credits
- Website widget (script, iframe, share page) that opens full screen on phones, plus a WordPress plugin
- Inbox with take over / hand back, SLA countdown, routing rules, round-robin, priorities, saved replies and email alerts
- Lead capture and custom API actions
- Analytics: topics, sentiment, honest resolution, answer gaps, ROI, CSV export and A/B tests
- Roles, workspaces, API keys, webhooks, audit log, PII redaction and white-label branding with custom domain
Use cases
How teams use CustomerReplies
Online shop FAQ
A shop trains the agent on its shipping and returns pages so it answers delivery questions on the site, day and night.
Refund requests
A procedure asks for order number, email and reason step by step, then hands the case to a person.
SaaS help desk
A SaaS team uploads its docs and gets an email alert to take over when a customer is stuck.
Finding content gaps
A support lead checks answer gaps each week and adds the missing Q&A.
Under the hood
Where AI is used, and where it is not
The model
Qwen3.8-27B on Surge's own AI server first, in every language; Claude only when pinned or as a paid at-cost add-on (no Claude key set today). Answers are in English by default. Retrieval is Postgres full-text search with BM25 re-ranking; embeddings optional.
Rules and code
Code runs saved answers and procedures before any AI, checks links and figures in answers against sources, enforces the fair-use limit, routing, SLA timers, round-robin assignment, PII redaction and the WhatsApp 24-hour window.
People in the loop
Hand-off rules and the inbox let a teammate take over any conversation; teammates can revise an answer; the business decides what content and procedures the agent uses.
Book a working session
A working session with our architects on one of your use cases. You bring a process and sample documents; we leave you with a scoped plan: model, hosting, integrations, timeline and cost range.