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ManyChat Reviews: 4.6/5 — Highly Rated
ManyChat is a cloud-based chatbot platform that helps small businesses drive chat marketing campaigns through social media platforms and text messaging. Among its notable features, ManyChat stands out for its efficient message broadcasting, drip marketing, A/B testing, audience segmentation, and lead conversion tools. Its drag-and-drop interface also allows businesses to create custom chatbots with predefined templates and access to advanced tools that let agents prevent incoming bot messages while still communicating with key subscribers.
| Capabilities |
AI
API
|
|---|---|
| Segment |
Small Business
Mid Market
Enterprise
|
| Deployment | Cloud / SaaS / Web-Based, Mobile Android, Mobile iPad, Mobile iPhone |
| Support | 24/7 (Live rep), Chat, Email/Help Desk, FAQs/Forum, Knowledge Base, Phone Support |
| Training | Documentation |
| Languages | English |
Every paid ManyChat plan says “included, then pay per contact” — and the rate you pay for going over varies by a factor of 29 across the range. Extra contacts cost $0.082 each on Essential and $0.0028 on Advanced. More usefully: on Pro an extra contact costs 3.3× what your included ones work out at, while on Advanced it costs half. Pro is the worst plan to overrun and Advanced is the only one where overage is cheaper than the base rate.
- What it is: Chat marketing automation for Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, TikTok, Telegram, SMS and email — filed under live chat.
- Best for: Creators and brands automating social DMs, with the plan chosen on contact volume.
- Pricing: Free $0; Essential $168, Pro $348, Business $828, Advanced $1,668 a year. Verified July 2026.
- The honest catch: Annual plans still meter contacts monthly, and cannot be downgraded mid-term.
What Is ManyChat?
ManyChat automates conversations across Instagram, Facebook Messenger, TikTok, Telegram, WhatsApp, SMS and email — auto-replying to comments and DMs, running broadcasts and drip sequences, segmenting audiences and capturing leads. It is an Official Meta Business Partner and, unusually, also a TikTok partner. It holds a 4.5-star average across more than 140 Findstack reviews.
The meter is the Active Contact: “a real person you interact with during a monthly billing period… It doesn’t matter how many messages you exchange. One person = one Active Contact for the month.”
How ManyChat Works
- Active Contacts are the meter, counted monthly.
- Five tiers, from a free plan to $1,668 a year.
- Overage is charged, not cut off.
- Overage rates fall 29-fold across the range.
- Channels scale — 2, 2, 3, then unlimited.
- Prices exclude tax.
ManyChat Pricing
Captured from ManyChat’s pricing page in July 2026 in US dollars, reading both billing toggles. Prices exclude tax.
| Plan | Monthly | Annual/mo | Per year | Saving | Contacts | Users | Channels |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 | $0 | — | 25 | 1 | 2 |
| Essential | $17 | $14 | $168 | 17.6% | 250 | 2 | 2 |
| Pro | $39 | $29 | $348 | 25.6% | 2,500 | 3 | 3 |
| Business | $99 | $69 | $828 | 30.3% | 7,500 | 5 | Unlimited |
| Advanced | $199 | $139 | $1,668 | 30.2% | 25,000 | 10 | Unlimited |
| Overage per extra contact | Monthly | Annual | vs your included rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Essential | $0.10 | $0.082 | 1.5× dearer |
| Pro | $0.05 | $0.038 | 3.3× dearer |
| Business | $0.025 | $0.018 | 2.0× dearer |
| Advanced | $0.004 | $0.0028 | half the price |
What actually decides your cost:
- The overage table is the most important thing on the page, and it is easy to miss. Essential charges $0.082 per extra contact on annual billing, Pro $0.038, Business $0.018 and Advanced $0.0028 — a 29-fold spread. Compare each against what your included contacts actually cost and the picture sharpens: Essential’s included contacts work out at $0.056 each, so overage is 1.5× dearer. On Pro, included contacts cost $0.0116 and overage costs $0.038 — 3.3 times more. On Advanced the relationship inverts: included contacts cost $0.0056 and extras cost $0.0028, or half.
- Pro is therefore the plan to avoid overrunning. It has the widest gap between what you have paid for and what you pay next. If you are consistently exceeding 2,500 contacts, Business at $828 is likely cheaper than Pro plus overage — and it brings unlimited channels with it.
- The per-plan discount badges are accurate, which the headline alone is not. “Save up to 30%” sits above the toggle, and only Business (30.3%) and Advanced (30.2%) reach it — Essential saves 17.6% and Pro 25.6%. But ManyChat prints each plan’s own figure on its own card (“18% off”, “25% off”, “30% off”), so the specific claims hold up even though the summary is an “up to”. That is more honest than most.
- Annual billing does not pool your contacts. ManyChat states it plainly: “On annual plans, Active Contacts are still calculated monthly, and any overages are billed monthly, too.” So a busy month on an annual plan still triggers overage — the discount applies to the subscription, not the meter.
- The overage handling is genuinely customer-friendly. You get “multiple notifications as you approach your monthly Active Contact limit, both by email and through the platform”; you can set an overage threshold controlling whether overages are allowed at all; and if you exceed and then upgrade within the same cycle, “any overage fees incurred so far will be forgiven”. Very few metered products in this survey forgive overage on upgrade.
- The free plan is a real starting point. 25 active contacts, two channels, four automations, one user and no credit card required — with ManyChat branding. Enough to build one automation and see whether it converts.
Who Should Use ManyChat
- Creators automating Instagram DMs. The clearest case, and where ManyChat is strongest.
- Ecommerce brands on WhatsApp. Unlimited channels from Business upward.
- Anyone with predictable contact volume. The meter rewards knowing your numbers.
- High-volume operators. Advanced’s overage rate is a thirtieth of Essential’s.
It fits poorly for businesses with spiky monthly traffic on Pro, where overage bites hardest; for teams needing to downgrade an annual plan mid-term, which is not permitted; and for anyone wanting a general-purpose website live chat rather than social messaging.
Honest Pros and Cons
Strengths
- A genuinely free plan, no credit card required.
- Overage fees forgiven if you upgrade in the same cycle.
- An overage threshold you can set yourself.
- Per-plan discount badges that are individually accurate.
- Seven channels, including TikTok and WhatsApp.
- 14-day free trial on Essential and Pro.
Limitations
- Overage costs 3.3× your included rate on Pro.
- Annual plans still meter contacts monthly.
- Annual plans cannot be downgraded until the term ends.
- “Save up to 30%” is reached by only two of four plans.
- Two channels on Essential, the same as Free.
- Prices exclude tax.
ManyChat Alternatives and How It Compares
- Tidio covers website live chat alongside social channels.
- Landbot builds conversational flows with a visual editor.
- Chatfuel is the closest direct competitor on Instagram and Messenger automation.
- Intercom and Drift target B2B website conversation rather than social DMs.
- Tawk.to is the free website live chat option.
For a broader survey, browse our live chat software directory.
The Verdict
ManyChat is the strongest tool in its niche, and the niche is specific: automating conversations where your audience already is — Instagram comments and DMs above all, plus WhatsApp, Messenger, TikTok, Telegram, SMS and email. Being both an Official Meta Business Partner and a TikTok partner matters here, because platform access is the whole product. The free plan needs no credit card and covers 25 active contacts, which is enough to build one automation and find out whether it converts before spending anything.
Choosing a tier is really a question about one number, and it is not the subscription price. Every paid plan reads “included, then pay per contact”, and the overage rate varies 29-fold across the range — $0.082 per extra contact on Essential against $0.0028 on Advanced, on annual billing. The comparison that actually matters is against what your included contacts cost. On Essential they work out at $0.056 each, so overage is 1.5× dearer. On Pro they cost $0.0116 and extras cost $0.038 — 3.3 times more, the widest gap on the page. On Advanced the relationship reverses entirely: extras cost half what included contacts do. So if you are regularly pushing past 2,500 contacts on Pro, Business at $828 a year will likely cost less than Pro plus overage, and brings unlimited channels with it.
Two things deserve credit and one warrants care. ManyChat prints each plan’s own annual discount on its own card — 18%, 25%, 30%, 30% — rather than leaning on the “up to 30%” headline, and all four check out against the monthly prices. Its overage handling is also unusually fair: multiple warnings as you approach the limit, a threshold you can set to block overages entirely, and overage fees forgiven if you upgrade within the same billing cycle. The care point is that annual billing does not pool your contacts — ManyChat is explicit that “Active Contacts are still calculated monthly, and any overages are billed monthly, too” — and annual plans cannot be downgraded until the term ends. Size the plan for your busiest month, not your average one.
FAQ
How much does ManyChat cost?
In US dollars captured July 2026, excluding tax: the Free plan is $0 with 25 active contacts. Essential is $17 per month or $168 a year, Pro $39 or $348, Business $99 or $828, and Advanced $199 or $1,668. Those include 250, 2,500, 7,500 and 25,000 active contacts per month respectively, after which per-contact overage applies.
What is an Active Contact in ManyChat?
ManyChat defines it as “a real person you interact with during a monthly billing period — whether that happens through messages or automations. It doesn’t matter how many messages you exchange. One person = one Active Contact for the month.” A contact counts as active when messages are sent or received via automations, AI, broadcasts or the Inbox.
What happens if I exceed my ManyChat contact limit?
Your automations keep running and you are charged an overage fee per additional contact — $0.082 on Essential, $0.038 on Pro, $0.018 on Business and $0.0028 on Advanced with annual billing. ManyChat sends multiple warnings by email and in-platform as you approach the limit, lets you set an overage threshold, and forgives overage fees already incurred if you upgrade within the same billing cycle.
Which ManyChat plan is best value?
It depends on contact volume, and specifically on how often you exceed it. Pro has the harshest overage relative to its own rate — extras cost 3.3× what included contacts work out at — so consistently exceeding 2,500 contacts makes Business at $828 a year the better buy, with unlimited channels included. Advanced is the only plan where extra contacts cost less than included ones.
Does ManyChat’s annual billing save 30%?
On two of four plans. Business saves 30.3% and Advanced 30.2%, matching the “up to 30%” headline, but Essential saves 17.6% and Pro 25.6%. ManyChat prints each plan’s own figure on its card — 18%, 25%, 30% and 30% — and all four are accurate against the monthly prices. Note that annual billing does not change how contacts are metered: they are still counted monthly.
Compare ManyChat with other popular tools in the same category.
1) It directly integrates with your eCommerce store like Shopify & you can take orders, receive payment on the chatbot itself by using PayPal/stripe. Although, you cannot integrate with WooCommerce, but through integration with the Zapier, it problem could be solved. 2) Free templates available for those who don't have much technical knowledge 3) Simple & Easy to user interface
As far as analytics is a concern, it needs to update & advanced. As there is no one single in-depth analysis, rather, it has been distributed over multiple sections like broadcast, sequences, etc. Further, if a user filled in the keyword that didn't get a response, you cannot get this information to improve it.
The most important thing that it helps me to improve customer interactions without being invested my time & effort, especially when you don't want to spend money in hiring someone. Also, it acts like a funnel where you can direct the user on different responses which ultimately helps to improve the conversions on the store.
Very user friendly and easy to navigate. I have a good experience during I log in. Multiple FB page management as well, it is great for social media managers who have multiple accounts and are managing multiple account for other businesses.
To be frank non so far. If it could have funnels that competes against click funnels then that would be a big plus.
TIME management, it solves. I don't have to answer the same questions from different clients. It saves a lot of time on all the basic FAQ's while it is a bot but it also look likes you have been talknig to a live person.
It’s great being able to get deals out to our subscribers on a social platform whose inbox they check regularly.
Many times messages come through as closed even if not seen before by the team. (If outside of scope of help from bot)
Easy customer communication
I love the fact that this software allows you to custimize your responses and speak to clients on your behalf.
I wish the flowcharts were more interactive. It feels like the templates are too rigid.
Capturing customers. I've gained 5 new clients that I probably would have lost if not for manychat
nice interface with lots of options. moderately easy to use
can be difficult to navigate and all the useful features require a monthly fee
customer acquisition on facebook
Manychat allows us to create ad campaigns using Facebook messenger that reach directly to our customers inbox. We are able to constantly gain subscribers and reach out to existing subscribers!
Manychat has a large learning curve to use successfully and alot of it has to do with the facebook integration. Facebook has limits to what your allowed to do and the manychat configuration can be confusing.
Manychat is allowing our company to reach new customers and constantly engage with existing customers. Its a must for small business and I would recommend it to anyone in the field.
Many Chat is incredibly easy to use and learn. You'll be building and testing your first bot in a matter of minutes. The free version is of great value to any business. If you really want to engage the power of Many chat and messenger marketing you'll want to pay for the pro version which is only 10.00 per month.
There seems to be some controversy about third-party tools on Facebook. Many chat was shut down for a few weeks in 2018. Integrations for other messengers like livechat, etc would be great.
Autoresponder for facebook messages to our page. This gives you a 100% response rate and the highest rating for response time even if you aren't able to respond to Facebook message right away!
Very easy to spin off a chat bot integrated with facebook messenger and it has got scheduled posting, analytics, broadcasting.
It has limited AI capabilities and no natural language processing.
Easy to broadcast messages to group and its very easy to chat with subscribers individually which helps a lot for our tech group to discuss things and share info.
How easy it is to learn how to use their tools and the flexibility they allow.
I haven't launched yet so at the moment there is nothing I have picked up.
Making it easier for customers to reach my clients.
ManyChat has a very simple UI that makes it very easy for the user and also it comes with a lot of free features.
Sometimes it takes a lot of time to show messages in the inbox.
It makes communication so easy with its automated chat feature.
ManyChat is very user-friendly and perfect for small to mid size companies to create chat bot functionality at a low cost. Content lanes are easy to map, create and edit in real time while reporting and customization features are readily available.
There are certain limitations to ManyChat, the major one being it's reliance on Facebook messenger. While most of our target audience were Facebook members, some people were unable to use this feature due to its reliance on Facebook messenger.
ManyChat allowed us to communicate with our end-user in a succinct tool. ManyChat's ability to provide automated content while also allowing live operators to step in at any moment is very appealing. It also solved for budgetary restrictions with its low price point options.
I like that the page is so colorful. I really like the octopus Icon. I like that you can use emoji’s and it’s pretty user-friendly.
I think it’s a downfall of it the only thing you can connect to his Facebook. Some people use Twitter and Snapchat and if you’re really old-school my space.
I think it’s a downfall of it the only thing you can connect to his Facebook. Some people use Twitter and Snapchat and if you’re really old-school my space.
Keywords, flow, automation, comment responses all great except
I think it's okay that your service disables pro features when a subscription expires or there's a payment issue, but this is the first time I've used a software service that keeps pro features disabled even after restoring the payment! My store Seek Shine (https://manychat.com/fb365177/dashboard) was disabled last July 2022 because of a problem with my card but I immediately resolved it. How was I supposed to know that I had to turn all of my keywords and flows back on??? That's such a poor user experience! As for my other store CLN (https://manychat.com/fb141662582646965/cms/), I checked back now and it expired for some reason on December 22. It's still on the PRO plan with all keywords and flows turned off as well. That means I've been paying $200+ for Seek Shine for the last 10 months and $500+ per month for CLN for the last 5 months with absolutely NONE of the PRO features enabled. That's just absolutely absurd. PLEASE give me a refund for these months because I was essentially paying the PRO plan (totaling $4500) for NOTHING! Your software practice is borderline fraudulent. If you automatically turn off pro features when the subscription terminates then you should also automatically turn them back on when the subscription resumes!
Repetitive questions
It has nice automation features and marketing features
It is a bit laggy and thus not very fast to use
I helps me in marketing my services
Possibilities and menu , free options for my beginning steps
I don't like my connection with Messenger in my page 😒 Клиника Образцова
I 've a problem with my last broadcast sending
I like their social tools for chatbots and their flow editor is an interesting way to organize chatbot management, but it can be a little clunky.
I do not like their NLU support, and lack of ability to integrate third-party NLU product. I dislike that they limit what you can do with Facebook Messenger, as there are some features not available on the platform that Facebook supports. Companies do not own their customer data, so if/when they want to move away from Manychat they will lose data.
Building PoC and demos. We built our first marketing chatbot with Manychat but ultimately moved to something custom.
The interface and that's about it. They have an easy setup (but don't get fooled by that).
The fact that current social followers who are not the go-to-market can't be deleted with automation prior to syncing to other tools. Any touch from socials ends in contacts and in HubSpot later, etc. Real deal breaker.
So far, it only wasted my time.
Fantastic UI and very easy to understand.
The primary feature to reach your list is 'Paid Messages' - the only way offered to contact the people in your 'list' - asides from 'messenger tags' which don't apply to the majority of companies. Unfortunately, when we use Paid Messages, we only reach 20-30% of our total contacts. We queried this with our Facebook Ads contact and they stated that despite the list being uploaded containing over 5,000+ contacts, they could only match the information with 1,500 contacts. When I contacted ManyChat for a potential solution, they refused to offer support and said "Unfortunately, I can't provide that info to you, as we don't have enough insight into the Facebook Ads Manager processes. Please, make sure to address it to Facebook support." We will likely have to involve legal services due to the lack of support. We have no access to the information being uploaded to Facebook, no access to OUR contacts. Yet we are charged each week for the services of building a list that we can never use.
Still attempting to get some support. Disappointing to have built such a large list only to find that there is no way to contact them. We've spent thousands and it appears to be to no benefit.
The tool looks smart.. but you will eventually need support.
That they lead you to believe that it comes with support... No one has even answered my multiple emails with many questions.
managing FB flows
It has a lot of options. I needed it to quickly create a bot for responding to leads. Chatfuel was easier to use but Manychat had a pricing model that fitted my needs better.
As opposed to Chatfuel which was so easy to use, I found Manychat extremely complicated to create bots with. Maybe it was like this for me since I was used to Chatfuel, but I just couldn't figure out Manychat's 'Flows' options, despite reading their online material. I built several flows and published them but wasn't able to get my leads to trigger them. The 'highlight' of it all was after I created a flow I wanted to later change and clicked the 'Revert to Published' button, thinking all my recent changes will be reverted. It completely deleted my entire work (not only the latest changes) and I couldn't reproduce it. The worse thing was their customer service - I titled my ticket as urgent (I have huge marketing budgets bringing leads to this bot) but they responded over a week later. Then it became even more frustrating since they gave me numerous solutions which had NOTHING to do with my issue. They just couldn't understand what I'm talking about, suggesting that they themselves don't use their product. Exhausted, I asked them to cancel my subscription. They did refund my money for that month, but a month later I found out they actually didn't cancel my subscription and kept on charging me! I went ahead and canceled my subscription myself, and there - surprise, surprise - found out that cancellation is only valid from the upcoming month. So you need to pay for another unused month. This awful experience cost me time and money and only rewarded me back with frustration. Go with Chatfuel.
Creating bots quickly (allegedly)