Best AI chatbots and site assistants for Canadian small businesses

A Smithville shop does not need a bank’s “agentic CX” RFP. It needs a bot that answers hours and shipping without inventing a refund, an honest USD sticker, and a human the bot can hand to. “Just add ChatGPT to the site” is not a published product.

This comparison is the AI assistants Canadian SMBs actually open: Intercom Fin ($0.99 USD per outcome, seats in USD), Zendesk AI Agents on Suite (USD seats plus a USD resolution allowance), Tidio Lyro (USD-style conversation volume), HubSpot Live Chat (official free chatbot builder), Manychat (Instagram / Messenger, not a website bubble), and ChatGPT Business / OpenAI custom-GPT honesty. AI chatbot and site-assistant prices checked against public vendor pages, 6 September 2026.

Who this page is for

• A Canadian SMB quoted “Intercom + Fin” or “Zendesk AI” who needs the official USD math, not a blog’s CAD conversion.
• A Shopify or brochure site that wants after-hours FAQ answers — and a human when the answer is a refund.
• Someone who wants to paste a custom GPT on Squarespace. Official OpenAI Help says that is not how GPTs work.
• Not a contact-centre RFP. Not legal advice on PIPEDA, CASL, or Quebec language law.

Snapshot (public pages, 6 September 2026)

Intercom Fin — USD seats, $0.99 per outcome

Official intercom.com/pricing (6 September 2026): Essential $29/seat/mo on the billed-annually cards — Fin AI Agent, Messenger, shared inbox and ticketing, pre-built reports, public help center. Official FAQ: Essential starts at $29/seat/month on annual billing; 1 full-seat minimum Advanced $85/seat/mo billed annually — multiple team Inboxes, Workflows builder, round-robin assignment, private and multilingual Help Center, 20 free Lite seats Fin AI Agent from $0.99 per Fin outcome on every listed plan. Official FAQ: charged once per conversation; an outcome is a confirmed resolution, no further help after Fin responds, a completed Procedure (including handoff), qualification, or disqualification. Not charged when the customer asks for a human or Fin escalates. Fin-only on an existing helpdesk: $0.99/outcome, no seats, minimum commitment (FAQ example: 50 outcomes). Official FAQ: 14-day free trial, no credit card, all features plus Fin and add-ons. There is no free plan. Early Stage program markets up to 93% off for eligible startups. intercom.com/pricing prints unlabelled $. Official Pricing FAQs: “Intercom is billed in United States Dollars (USD) only. This applies across our whole platform, including seat pricing, additional usage charges, add-ons, and Premier Services. Right now, we can’t bill in any other currencies.” Do not invent a CAD Intercom SKU. Sources: https://www.intercom.com/pricing; https://www.intercom.com/help/en/articles/8344190-pricing-faqs.

Official help: website prices do not include tax. Intercom R&D Unlimited Company collects transaction taxes in Canada (among other jurisdictions). Tax follows the company address. Accepted Canadian tax ID format is a federal GST/HST number. Official exception: in most places Intercom is not required to collect on B2B if you submit a tax ID — British Columbia and Saskatchewan are called out as exceptions. Not tax advice. Source: Intercom sales tax and VAT.

Essential at $29 USD/seat/month annual is the floor if a human still owns Messenger. Fin-only on Zendesk or Freshdesk ($0.99/outcome, no seats, FAQ example 50-outcome minimum) is a bot bolted onto a help desk, not a replacement for one. There is no free Intercom plan.

Zendesk AI — Suite seats plus a USD allowance

zendesk.com/pricing Suite Team ($55/agent/month paid yearly) lists AI Agents with the knowledge base, Action Builder, messaging and live chat. Support Team ($19) is email/ticketing without that AI Agents line. Suite Professional ($115) adds Admin Copilot and writing tools. CAD is not a supported billing currency. Official help “Managing resolution allowances”: Suite Team includes a default resolution allowance of $2 per agent seat per month; Suite Professional $5; Suite Enterprise $10. The dashboard total budget is shown in US dollars. Monthly unused allowance does not roll over. Yearly allowance cap on that page: $5,000. Official help: if you exceed the allowance you can buy more allowance (better per-resolution cost than overage, per Zendesk) or allow pay-as-you-go overages billed monthly, or pause AI agents. The public pricing card used here does not print a per-resolution overage dollar. This page does not paste a competitor blog’s $1.50 as Zendesk’s list. Sources: https://www.zendesk.com/pricing/; https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/10479587390106-Managing-resolution-allowances.

A two-agent Suite Team shop is $55 USD × 2 plus a $4/month default allowance ($2 × 2). That allowance is a currency pool in US dollars, not a Canadian region and not a promise the bot speaks French. When the allowance is gone, either the bot pauses or you pay overage — you pick in Admin Centre. The ticket queue those failures land in is still help desk software.

Tidio Lyro — USD conversations, French on the language list

Official tidio.com/pricing (6 September 2026): Free $0/mo — 50 billable conversations/month, 10 seats, live chat and ticketing. First 50 Lyro conversations are free (lifetime). First 100 Flows visitors reached are free. 7-day trial of paid features, no card; then the account drops to Free unless you upgrade. Starter $24.17/mo on the Annually (2 months free) display — 100 billable conversations, 50 one-off Lyro conversations, 100 Flows visitors, live chat and ticketing, live visitors list, operating hours, basic analytics Lyro AI Agent standalone starts at $32.50/mo from 50 Lyro conversations (7-day trial). Flows standalone starts at $24.17/mo from 2,000 visitors reached. Remove Tidio branding: 16.67 USD/mo add-on on the compare table. tidio.com/pricing prints $24.17 / $49.17 / $300 with no CAD prefix. The compare table labels the no-branding add-on “16.67 USD/mo.” Treat the list as USD. Confirm currency and tax at checkout. Do not invent a CAD Tidio SKU or convert $24.17 into loonies. Source: https://www.tidio.com/pricing/.

Official Tidio Help “Lyro Multilanguage support” lists French among the supported languages and says Lyro detects the visitor’s language if you allow it in the project. That is a language pack, not a Quebec Charter legal review, and not a promise a bot replaces a French-speaking human. Source: https://help.tidio.com/hc/en-us/articles/12643043611036-Lyro-Multilanguage-support. A language toggle is not a human in Brossard. If the visitor is angry in French, escalate to a person — that is the live chat page.

HubSpot chatbot — official free builder, paid hubs are USD

Official hubspot.com/products/crm/live-chat: “Free Live Chat Software.” FAQ: “You can get started with HubSpot’s live chat and chatbot builder for free with no credit card required.” No-code chatbot builder is included. Conversations land in HubSpot’s free CRM inbox — chats, notes, emails, tickets. The same FAQ: advanced automation and scale sit on premium Starter, Professional, and Enterprise editions of Marketing Hub (the FAQ links Marketing Hub Starter). This page does not invent a Service Hub seat dollar from a 2026 blog. Confirm the live hub card at checkout. The official live-chat product page does not print a CAD widget price because the tool is marketed as free. Paid HubSpot hubs on hubspot.com/pricing still bill in USD; GST/HST/PST/QST is added for Canadian addresses (existing HubSpot honesty). Do not invent a CAD chat SKU. Free chat is a widget on the free CRM — not a standalone help desk. Montreal NA3 is a paid-account hosting option, not a promise the bot stays in Ontario. Source: https://www.hubspot.com/products/crm/live-chat.

HubSpot’s public pricing page bills in USD. GST/HST/PST/QST is added for Canadian addresses. HubSpot announced a Montreal data centre (NA3) on 4 February 2025. Paid accounts can see hosting location under Privacy & Consent → Data hosting. If you already live in HubSpot, start here before you buy Fin. The pipeline those chats become is still CRM.

Manychat — Instagram and Messenger, not the site footer

Official Help (updated 27 August 2026): five plans after 2 March 2026 — Free, Essential, Pro, Business, Advanced. Availability may vary by region. Default for accounts created on or after that date. AI-powered automation is listed on Pro, not on Free/Essential in that overview. Free — up to 25 Active Contacts and basic automations. Essential $14/month billed yearly (18% savings vs month-to-month) — up to 250 Active Contacts, unlimited automations, lead capture. Pro $29/month billed yearly (25% off; $348 billed annually on the public pricing page) — up to 2,500 Active Contacts, AI-powered automation, more channels including WhatsApp, extra Inbox seats. Business $69/month billed yearly (30% off; $828 billed annually) — up to 7,500 Active Contacts, unlimited channel connections, lead routing. Advanced $139/month billed yearly (30% off; $1,668 billed annually) — up to 25,000 Active Contacts, API, expanded team access manychat.com/pricing and official Help print unlabelled $. Help’s payment article talks about cards in a currency other than USD. The public cards retrieved for this research do not print CAD. Treat as USD. Confirm currency and tax at checkout. Do not invent loonies. Manychat is Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, and similar DMs. It is not Intercom Fin on a Squarespace footer. A comment-to-DM flow is not a help-desk ticket. Sources: https://manychat.com/pricing; https://help.manychat.com/hc/en-us/articles/25800347122716-Manychat-subscription-How-to-choose-the-right-one-for-you.

Buy Manychat if the shop already sells in Instagram comments and WhatsApp. Do not buy it because a US “best chatbot 2026” list put it next to Intercom. The website bubble is still live chat or Tidio / HubSpot on this page.

Custom GPTs — official: not a website embed

Official OpenAI Help “GPTs in ChatGPT”: GPTs are designed to work in ChatGPT. They are not a way to embed ChatGPT in an external website or application. To build an assistant into a product, use the API. Official Help “ChatGPT Business”: Standard seat $25/user/month monthly or $20/user/month billed annually for most countries, USD. Help notes pricing may vary by country and currency — confirm the live Business pricing page. Premium seat $125 monthly / $100 annual. Business starts at 2 users. GPTs live inside that workspace, not as a shop footer. A site assistant that answers from your FAQ is an API (or a vendor widget). Token bills are usage, not a printed CAD chatbot SKU. This page does not invent an embed sticker. Enterprise marketing copy lists data residency in multiple regions. That is not a published Canadian pin on ChatGPT Business, and it is not PIPEDA advice. Sources: https://help.openai.com/en/articles/8554407; https://help.openai.com/en/articles/8792828-what-is-chatgpt-business; https://openai.com/business/pricing/.

A contractor who pastes a ChatGPT share link in your footer has not installed a shop assistant. They have installed a login wall. If you need answers from your FAQ on the public site, use Tidio, HubSpot, Intercom, or an API build you actually budget — not a GPT you use internally.

When a human live-chat queue is still better

• You get a handful of chats a week and you are already at the desk. A $0.99 outcome fee plus a $29 seat is theatre.
• The question is a refund, a warranty, a price that changes the job, or a customer who is already angry.
• The visitor writes in French and you have a person who can answer. A language pack is not that person.
• The answer has to be right because money or health sits behind it. Bots invent shipping windows.
• You do not have a knowledge base yet. Fin and Lyro need something true to read. A three-page site with no FAQ is a human widget job first.

A practical pick

1. Already on HubSpot and just need after-hours FAQ: official free chatbot builder. Paid hubs are USD plus Canadian tax. Montreal NA3 is a paid hosting option, not the free widget.
2. Brochure or Shopify site, low volume: Tidio Free (50 billable conversations, 50 lifetime Lyro chats) or Lyro standalone from $32.50 USD/mo for 50 Lyro conversations. Confirm tax. French is on Lyro’s language list — still escalate the hard ones.
3. You were sold Messenger + Fin and will pay USD: Intercom Essential at $29/seat/month annual plus $0.99 per Fin outcome. Official FAQ: USD only. Add the GST/HST number in billing.
4. Already on Zendesk Suite: you already paid for AI Agents on Team+. Watch the USD resolution allowance ($2/agent /month on Team). Do not invent a CAD Zendesk SKU.
5. The conversations are Instagram comments and WhatsApp, not the website: Manychat Pro at $29/month billed yearly on the official card if you need the AI-automation line. Still not a site bubble.
6. Someone said “embed a GPT”: read OpenAI Help. GPTs are not a website embed. Use a vendor widget or budget the API.
7. The thread needs a human now: live chat software for Canadian small businesses. The thread needs assignment tomorrow: help desk software for Canadian small businesses.