Frequently asked questions

A few minutes for most sites. Enter your website, check how the assistant answers, then add it to your site with one line of code, the WordPress plugin or the Shopify app. If you get stuck, ask for free setup help and we'll help you by email.

No. You paste one line into your site's settings, or install the WordPress plugin or the Shopify app. The install guide for your platform shows where it goes. If you'd like a hand, ask for free setup help and we'll walk you through it by email.

Yes. It works on any website where you can add one line of code: WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, Shopify, Webflow, GoDaddy or a custom site. WordPress has a plugin, Shopify has an app, and each platform has a step-by-step install guide.

No. BotDesk answers the chat on your website, not your phone line. It catches the people who never call: someone browsing at 11 PM, someone who would rather type, or someone who writes while you're with another customer.

Log into your dashboard and click the Manage billing button. That opens your Stripe billing portal where you can cancel your subscription or switch plans anytime. You can also email hello@botdesk.studio from the email on your account and ask us to cancel; we cancel it for you and reply to confirm. Cancellations take effect at the end of the current billing period, so your chatbot stays live until then. Plan upgrades are prorated, so you only pay the difference. On an agency plan: If you cancel, your clients' bots keep working for 14 days, and you can transfer any client's bot to their own account.

The assistant runs on OpenAI's GPT-4o mini. Your pages are stored as your own assistant's knowledge and are only used to answer your customers. We never sell them, and BotDesk doesn't train AI models on them. Payments go through Stripe, and your card is never stored on our servers. See our Privacy Policy for details.

7 days on any payment. If you’re not happy, email hello@botdesk.studio within 7 days of being charged and we’ll refund that payment in full. This covers subscription charges (including the first charge after a free trial, and renewals) and one-time purchases. First-month guarantee. On chatbot, online-store and agency plans, if your first paid month passes without a single customer conversation through your bot (or, on an agency plan, through the bots you set up), we refund that first month, even after the 7 days. You don’t have to ask, though you can always email us. A customer conversation means a real visitor chatting with your bot; test chats by you or by us don’t count. Refunds go back to your original payment method through Stripe; your bank may take 5–10 business days to show them. When we refund a subscription payment, that subscription ends at the same time.

Yes, automatically, and it's included free on every plan. Auto-Sync checks your website's key pages every few hours and re-learns your site when something changes, plus a full refresh every week. In a hurry? Press "Check my site now" or "Scan my site" in your dashboard and the bot updates on the spot. You never touch the embed code. Each plan reads up to a set number of pages: 5 on Free, 15 on Starter, 50 on Growth and 500 on Pro. Bigger plans keep more of each page's text to answer from.

There's a Free plan at $0 (no card, 50 conversations a month, answers questions and takes up to 10 leads a month). After the 10th lead in a month, it keeps answering and gives visitors your phone number and email instead of taking their details, until the 1st. Paid plans are $29/month (Starter), $59/month (Growth), or $99/month (Pro), with unlimited conversations. All paid plans include a 30-day free trial, one per business. You create an account, enter a card at checkout, and if you cancel before day 31 you won't be charged. Online stores have their own plans: Store $19, Store Pro $39 and Store Style $79 a month. Agency plans start at $79 a month.

From Starter up it takes booking requests: the customer's name, number and preferred time, emailed to you to confirm. It can also send them to your own Calendly, Acuity or Square booking page. From Growth up it can book real times in the chat, from your own hours and services, and it checks your calendar link (Google Calendar, Outlook or Apple iCloud) so it never books over your other appointments. Pro can also book into Cal.com or Calendly. It only books times you set up; it never guesses how long a job takes.

On day 31, your card is charged for your chosen plan and your chatbot keeps running. Cancel any time before the trial ends and you won't be billed. One free month per business: if this account, its card or its website already had one, the plan starts paid, and we say so before checkout.

It answers from your website and the facts you add, and it's told not to guess. If the answer isn't there, it says so and points the customer to your phone or email. You stay in control of what your bot says and can update its knowledge any time from your dashboard.

BotDesk (botdesk.studio) is an AI chat assistant for local business websites. It reads your own website, answers visitors' questions day or night in the language they write in, and emails you their name and number when they want a callback.

No. BotDesk at botdesk.studio is a separate company and product from botdesk.co. We make website chat assistants for local businesses such as plumbers, HVAC companies, salons and restaurants.

No. BotDesk is website chat only. It does not answer phone calls, has no mobile app and does not take payments. If you want something to pick up your phone, you need a voice tool instead.

No. It's built to stay out of advice. A dental or medical office's bot never gives medical advice. If someone describes chest pain, trouble breathing, fainting or bleeding that won't stop, its first words tell them to call 911; for severe pain or swelling, it tells them to call the office now, and 911 if it's an emergency. An accountant's bot never gives tax, legal or accounting advice; it takes the visitor's details so the accountant can answer. A restaurant's bot never promises a dish is safe for an allergy; it tells the guest to check with the staff and passes the question on.

You do. BotDesk bills only your agency: one flat monthly price for your plan, $79 for 3 client bots, $199 for 10 or $399 for 25. Your clients never get a BotDesk bill. What you charge them, and how, is up to you.

The bot lives in your agency account and runs on your plan. You set it up and change it. Your client can only look, and only if you turn on their view-only dashboard. To hand it over, click Transfer to client on their card: they accept on their own BotDesk account (Free is fine), the bot moves with its knowledge, settings, leads and chats, and the install code on their site keeps working. Full details: botdesk.studio/agency-handoff

When your plan ends, at the end of the period you paid for, your client bots keep working for 14 more days. The same 14 days start if a payment fails and your plan goes past due, and they don't restart if the plan is then cancelled. Your dashboard shows the date, and we email you on day 0, 7 and 12. Resubscribe or update your card in that time and everything carries on, or transfer any client's bot to their own account. After 14 days the bots stop answering, and visitors who open the chat see "This chat is temporarily unavailable. Please contact the business directly." Leads and chats are deleted 90 days after your plan ends, except for bots you transferred, which keep theirs. The free no-card pilot has no 14 days.

You can remove a client from your dashboard at any time. Their bot stops answering right away, their view-only dashboard stops working, and their spot on your plan frees up. You can't undo it, so export their leads first. To hand a client their bot instead, use Transfer to client: it moves to their own account with its leads and chats. Moving a bot to another agency isn't possible yet.

Your clients' visitors see the client's bot name and colors and no BotDesk badge. Lead and booking emails carry your brand name, with your email as the reply-to address. Some things still say BotDesk: those emails are sent from onboarding@botdesk.studio, the view-only client dashboard signs in on a BotDesk page at botdesk.studio/client, the chat code loads from botdesk.studio/widget.js, and the full-page chat link is on botdesk.studio. Anyone who reads the page source or the link can see it. There is no custom domain for any of these yet.

Expect the question. The $29 plan is the bot on its own, set up and looked after by the owner. What you sell is the work around it: setting it up from their site, checking and correcting its answers, reading the chats, keeping it up to date when their hours or prices change, and sending them a report. Price that service, not the software. You can also send them our plain-words explainer, which has no BotDesk prices or logo: botdesk.studio/for-clients/website-assistant

Your existing client bots keep working. You just can't add another one: the agency dashboard offers the next plan up (Freelancer has 3 spots, Agency 10, Agency Pro 25), or you can ask us by email. Demo bots you make to pitch a client don't use a spot. Need more than 25? Email hello@botdesk.studio and we'll set it up.

There's no free-forever agency plan. Every agency plan comes with a 30-day free trial, with a card at checkout and no charge until day 31. You can also try the Freelancer plan for 7 days with no card at all. It stops on its own unless you add a card, it is one per business, and only a few are given out each day.