What Is respond.io? One Inbox for Chats, Calls and Email
By Joris van Huët · respond.io's own site
The short answer: if one person answers your WhatsApp, respond.io's Starter plan at $99 a month on monthly billing is plenty; once a team needs an AI agent, automated routing or HubSpot, all three begin on Growth, which costs $199 a month for 1,000 monthly active contacts and $299 for 2,500 (pricing page, checked on 26 October 2026). respond.io is a customer conversation platform: WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, TikTok, email and calls land in one team inbox with AI agents, workflows and lifecycle stages, built for consumer businesses whose sales happen in chat.
Disclosure: I may earn a commission through some links on this site. It does not change what this page says.
How the bill is built:
- Contacts you talk to, not contacts you store. A monthly active contact is anyone you message or who messages or calls you in the billing month, per the pricing FAQ. For example, 2,300 contacts on Growth's 1,000 tier is 1,300 over at $12 per 100: 13 x $12 = $156, so $199 + $156 = $355, against $299 for the 2,500 tier. Pick the tier, not the overage.
- The Meta account you already hold. Connecting needs admin access to a Meta Business Manager with a public business website, and the WhatsApp account set to USD, per the WhatsApp quick start.
- One measure of progress. The Dashboard shows a card per lifecycle stage, per the lifecycle article. Stages that move say more than message volume.
What respond.io does
AI agents built from templates answer from your documents, assign conversations, change lifecycle stages and update contact fields, per the AI agent guide. Workflows automate assignment and events sent back to Meta. Calls sit in the same thread as the chat. Integrations include HubSpot, Salesforce, n8n, Zapier, Make and a hosted MCP server for Claude or ChatGPT.
It fits consumer businesses where several people sell over messaging: clinics, travel agencies, schools, dealerships. It fits less well a team that will not staff the inbox, since the product assumes people take over from the agent.
Prices, and what Meta adds
Checked on 26 October 2026 on the pricing page, in USD, at the 1,000-contact tier:
| Plan | Monthly billing | Billed yearly, per month | Users included | Extra user | Active contacts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $99 | $79 | 5 | $12 | Unlimited |
| Growth | $199 | $159 | 10 | $20 | 1,000, then tiers |
| Advanced | $349 | $279 | 10 | $24 | 1,000, then tiers |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Unlimited | Custom | Custom |
Growth rises to $299, $399 and $559 a month at 2,500, 5,000 and 10,000 contacts. No plan includes WhatsApp fees: Meta charges per delivered message, and respond.io's pricing calculator says it adds nothing on top. Meta's USD rate card, effective 1 October 2026, lists $0.1597 per marketing message to a Dutch number and $0.05 per utility or service message, with service replies free only for the first 1,000 a month per number (Meta pricing).
Both of respond.io's "built-in safeguards" are on by default: past your tier, extra contacts are charged at $12 per 100 on Growth at the end of the cycle, and AI credits at $15 per 1,000 up to twice the allowance. The conversations never stop, and the cost of a busy month arrives on the next invoice.
Against Manychat, Wati and SleekFlow
- Manychat is priced for automations that reach many people with few agents; respond.io is priced for teams. Choose respond.io when the number of people answering is the constraint.
- Wati is WhatsApp-first; its Growth plan allows three users and no more, per its pricing page, and bills messages at its own rate card, where respond.io passes Meta's through.
- SleekFlow also prices by active contacts: Pro is $139 a month on monthly billing for 500 contacts and 10 users, plus $15 a month to host a WhatsApp number and conversation rates from its own rate card, per its pricing page. Ask for that rate card before comparing totals.
Getting started
How to use respond.io builds a sales agent that qualifies chat leads and routes them to reps.
FAQ
Is there a free trial?
Seven days with Growth features for 5 users and 1,000 contacts, without broadcasts and without a card, per the pricing page.
Do AI agents cost extra?
On Growth and above, AI usage is included under a fair-use policy, drawn from credits that grow with the contact tier.
Can I cancel at any time?
Yes. Cancelling in Billing keeps the plan's features until the cycle ends, per the pricing FAQ.