Chatfuel SDK vs ManyChat
ManyChat vs Chatfuel SDK is a seat in their app against an app of your own. ManyChat meters active contacts, channels and inbox seats. Chatfuel SDK is the application: seventeen entry points, one balance, and the code is yours.
Side by side
| Feature | ManyChat | Chatfuel SDK |
|---|---|---|
| What you get | ||
What it is | An account on their platform, per client | The application itself, handed over |
Source you can read and change | ||
Licence | “A limited, nonexclusive, nontransferable, freely revocable, license to access and use the Services” | MIT |
Where it runs | Their platform; no self-hosting or source-code option is published | Vercel, your own server or Docker |
What leaves with you | A CSV of the answers to one question, a Google Sheet an automation writes, and a clone of the automations into another ManyChat account | The app, its source, and the deployment you already control |
Your data after you stop paying | “Your data cannot be recovered once your Account is terminated or canceled”; an account idle for 18 months is closed and deleted within 90 days | Nothing to retrieve — it never left your deployment |
Selling or transferring the account | “Your Account is not transferable to any other person or account.” | It is your codebase; it sells with the business |
| Your brand, your customer | ||
Their name in front of your customer | A “Powered by Manychat” message on the Free plan; none on a paid plan | Never — the app carries your name and your logo |
The app your customer signs in to | ManyChat, at their address; a white-label of it is not published | Yours, on your domain |
Your own sign-up and your own price | Not published — their partner programme pays a commission on their price | The auth module, on any plan |
What you keep on a sale | 30% to 50% of the subscription for the first 12 months, through PartnerStack | The price you set, in full |
Running several clients | A workspace per client under your main account, each billed separately | Client bots in one workspace, on one balance |
Who owns what you built for a client | Their terms: the agency keeps its rights in the “designs, templates, flows, sequences” it made; the client is the account’s representative | The repository, and everything in it |
| What one client costs you | ||
The plan a client needs | Free for 25 active contacts on two channels; Pro at $39 once WhatsApp or the AI is in play | Business at $20 for one bot; from $100 for an agency workspace |
Active contacts a month | 25, 250, 2,500, 7,500 or 25,000 included, then $0.10, $0.05, $0.025 or $0.004 each | Not metered |
Channels | Any 2 on Free and Essential, any 3 on Pro, all 7 from Business | All five, on every plan |
People answering the inbox | 1, 1, 2, 3 or 5 seats included; $25 a month for another, up to 1, 1, 3, 5 or 10 | No seat charge |
AI for a client | On Pro and up, inside the plan; their AI page still prints a $29-a-month add-on | Tokens off one balance the whole workspace shares |
WhatsApp for a client | Pro and up, plus a Wallet that pays their own rate card for every template message | Meta’s rate + 10%, out of the workspace balance, from 1 October 2026 |
On top of Meta’s per-message rate | Their card prints Brazil marketing at $0.0718 against Meta’s $0.0625 — about 15% over | 10% |
What is metered | Active contacts, inbox seats, and a Wallet for WhatsApp templates and email | AI tokens, and a cent a conversion event, from the plan’s balance |
| A month at your size | ||
250 active contacts | Essential, $17 | Business, $20 |
1,000 active contacts | Pro, $39 | Business, $20 |
5,000 active contacts | Business, $99 | Business, $20 |
10,000 active contacts | Business: $99 plus 2,500 × $0.025 = $161.50 | Business, $20 |
50,000 active contacts | Advanced: $199 plus 25,000 × $0.004 = $299 | Business, $20 |
| The AI, and the app around it | ||
An AI that answers the chat | ||
Where the AI answers | AI Replies and the knowledge base are Instagram only, and in beta | Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, TikTok and the web widget |
How much it is allowed to do | AI Goals, AI Comments, AI Replies, an AI Step and intent recognition, placed in an automation | Per entry point: fifteen settings on each of seventeen sources |
A knowledge base it answers from | Text and public links, up to 250,000 characters an entry | Files, links and the answers Copilot writes for you |
Shared inbox with human takeover | ||
Contacts you can filter and save views over | Tags and custom fields; a bulk export is an automation into a Google Sheet | |
Deals board by sales stage | ||
Bookings calendar | A use case in their templates; no calendar of their own is published | |
Conversions reported to Meta | A Conversions API connection per channel, against a Meta dataset | 14 names plus your own, on 7 triggers, 30 event sets a bot |
Broadcasts | On every channel except Instagram and TikTok | |
Instagram publishing | ||
A template library to start from | More than sixty | |
A mobile app for the inbox | ||
Telegram, SMS and email | ||
An analytics dashboard | Automation insights, top fans, inbox team analytics | |
An admin panel over every workspace and bot | ||
| Building on it | ||
Platform API | “Available on certain paid plans” — Pro and Advanced name it; 100 requests a second on reads, 10 on flows, and a 24-hour stop past the limit | The Chatfuel API through your own proxy, on every plan |
Custom code | External Request actions, and a Dev Program for apps | It is a React app; you write whatever you like |
What their developer terms take | A “perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, sublicensable … license” to your app for their Dev Program | Nothing — the code is yours under MIT |
Your own screen inside the app | Not published | A route in your own React tree |
A catalogue of named native integrations | Google Sheets, Zapier, Make, HubSpot, Klaviyo, Mailchimp, Stripe, PayPal and more, by plan | |
Standing a client up quickly | Clone the account: every automation copies into another account you manage | Deploy the same app again, and add the bot |
| Money and terms | ||
Published price | $0, $17, $39, $99 and $199 a month; $14, $29, $69 and $139 billed annually | $20 for one bot, $100 to $2,050 for an agency |
A free tier | ||
Trial | 14 days on Essential and Pro; none on Business and Advanced | A trial the wizard opens, and a promo code worth $100 of credits |
Contract | Month to month, or a year charged upfront; an annual plan cannot be downgraded until the term ends | Month to month, and the code is yours either way |
Refunds | Within 30 days of buying a plan; otherwise “You won’t be entitled to a refund from us under any other circumstances” | The SDK costs nothing; only the workspace is billed |
Going over | Overage billed automatically, with a cap you set; well past the plan’s cap “automations may eventually pause” | Top the balance up, or move up a plan |
Official Meta partner | An Official Meta Business Partner, and a TikTok partner | Chatfuel is an official Meta partner and WhatsApp BSP |
Support | Community and help centre on Free; email on Essential and Pro; priority on Business and Advanced | Discord and GitHub |
Where a conversation can start
ManyChat lists seven channels — Instagram, Facebook Messenger, TikTok, Telegram, WhatsApp, SMS and email — and documents a trigger for each surface it automates. Chatfuel SDK has five channels and seventeen entry points, each with its own rules for the AI. Here is every entry point on each side, including the ones only one side has.
| Entry point | ManyChat | Chatfuel SDK |
|---|---|---|
| The channel ManyChat is best known for. Their comment trigger replies publicly and by DM; their story and mention triggers are their own; a comment on an ad is not among the triggers they document. | ||
| Direct messages | ||
| Comments on a post | Posts and Reels, with a public reply and a DM | |
| Comments on an ad | Not published | |
| Story replies | ||
| ig.me links | On the Instagram mobile app only | |
| Click from an ad | Ads made in Meta Ads Manager; not boosted posts | |
| Story mentions | ||
| Live comments | ||
| A new follower | In beta; eligibility is set by Meta | |
| On ManyChat, WhatsApp starts on the Pro plan and the template messages come out of a separate Wallet. The entry points inside it: a direct message, a click-to-WhatsApp ad, and a referral link or QR code. | ||
| Direct messages | ||
| Click from an ad | ||
| Click from a post | Not published | |
| A link or a QR code into the chat | ||
| Messenger is where ManyChat started, and the four surfaces match. | ||
| Direct messages | ||
| Comments on a post | ||
| m.me links | ||
| Click from an ad | ||
| TikTok | ManyChat’s help centre lists three TikTok triggers — a message, a link and a QR code — and their pricing page adds TikTok Messaging Ads. A comment is not among them. | |
| Direct messages | ||
| Comments on a post | Not among the three TikTok triggers they list | |
| Click from an ad | ||
| A link or a QR code into the chat | ||
| Web widget | The web is not among the seven channels ManyChat lists; a website button of theirs opens a DM on another channel. | |
| Direct messages | ||
| Telegram, SMS and email | Three channels ManyChat lists and we do not have. | |
| Direct messages | ||
When to choose which
Choose ManyChat if
- You want a free tier. Theirs is $0 for 25 active contacts a month on two channels, no card; we do not have one.
- You want nothing to deploy: an account, a connected Instagram, and an automation live the same hour.
- Telegram, SMS or email is a channel you need. We have Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, TikTok and the web widget, and not those three.
- You want story-mention and live-comment triggers, a template library and a mobile inbox app. They ship all of it; we ship none of it.
- You want a catalogue of named integrations by plan — Google Sheets, Zapier, Make, HubSpot, Klaviyo, Stripe — and a dashboard over the automations.
Choose Chatfuel SDK if
- The product your clients log into should be yours down to the source, not a seat in theirs.
- A meter on active contacts is not something you want between a viral post and your margin.
- You run bots for several clients and want them on one balance, at a price you set, with no revenue share.
- The inbox, the contacts, the deals, the bookings and the knowledge base belong in one app, and the AI should answer on every channel, not only Instagram.
- You want the code under MIT, a coding agent that knows it, and nothing to retrieve if you stop paying.
Move a bot over
One command scaffolds the app and writes only the modules you pick. The automations you built in ManyChat become rules on entry points here — comments, story replies, ad clicks and links, each with its own keywords and its own answer — and everything downstream of them, the inbox, the contacts, the deals, is already in the app.
- Run the wizard, pick the modules, give it your name and your logo.
- Connect the bot; the WhatsApp number is approved through Chatfuel, an official Meta partner, with no Wallet to load.
- Set the AI per entry point — the comment automation, the story reply, the ad click — rather than once for the whole account.
- Deploy it on your own domain, and add the auth module when you want clients signing in to you.
Questions
ManyChat pricing on 3 September 2026, billed monthly: Free at $0 for 25 active contacts, Essential $17, Pro $39, Business $99 and Advanced $199 a month. Billed annually the same plans are $14, $29, $69 and $139 a month, charged upfront for the year. Each paid plan includes 250, 2,500, 7,500 or 25,000 active contacts, and each contact past that is $0.10, $0.05, $0.025 or $0.004. Their footnote adds that prices exclude tax and are determined by your billing country. The ManyChat price does not include WhatsApp template messages, which come out of a separate Wallet at their own rate card.