Overview
Save on your chatbot costs with a better pricing model
When comparing virtual agent platforms, you should consider if they deliver what you need and what they really cost. With API-based pricing, usage fluctuations can lead to unpredictable costs and ever-growing charges. With Watson Assistant, you only pay by MAU (monthly active user) so even as interactions increase, you only pay for each unique user. As your interactions become more complex, your pricing is more predictable and can be much lower.
Product plans
Explore IBM Watson Assistant pricing plans to create an omni-channel customer experience.
USD 0
Monthly
- – Everything you need to get started
- – World-class conversational AI with Watson
- – Create engaging user interactions using images, buttons and more
Starting at USD 140/month*
- – Phone and SMS integration
- – Starts at USD 140 and includes 1,000 MAUs
- – Additional MAUs are billed at USD 14 per 100 MAUs
Custom
Pricing for teams of all sizes
- – Scale and secure your assistant with enterprise-grade support and data governance
- – Set up a 1:1 meeting with our sales team to price out your use case
*Prices shown exclude any applicable taxes
Pricing details
Channels
| Lite |
Most popular
Plus
|
Enterprise | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Webchat | |||
| Telephony / Voice Add-on | |||
| SMS and MMS | |||
| Messaging channel integrations | |||
| Custom Channel API |
Features
| Lite |
Most popular
Plus
|
Enterprise | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly active users | Up to 1,000 | 1,000+ | 50,000+ |
| Assistants | 3 | 10 | 30 |
| Analytics data retention | 7 days | 30 days | Up to 90 days |
| Published versions per assistant | 1 version | 10 versions | 50 versions |
| Session timeout limit | 5 minutes | 24 hours | 7 days |
| Industry leading NLP (Natural Language Processing) | |||
| Customer service desk integrations | |||
| Search existing content | |||
| Ask clarifying questions | |||
| Change conversation topic | |||
| Analytics with problem identification | |||
| Autolearning | |||
| Intent conflict resolution | |||
| Intent recommendations | |||
| Export chat logs | |||
| Segment integration |
Phone and Voice features
| Lite |
Most popular
Plus
|
Enterprise | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Concurrent call capacity | 100 | 1,000 (higher limits available) | |
| Phone integrations | |||
| SMS / MMS | |||
| Support for SIP call transfers | |||
| Connectivity to existing IVRs | |||
| Multiple language support | |||
| Neural voice synthesis | |||
| Language, acoustic, and voice customizations |
Deployment and Security
| Lite |
Most popular
Plus
|
Enterprise | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Private endpoints | |||
| Activity tracker | |||
| Onboarding support | |||
| Data isolation | With Data Isolation Add-on | ||
| Leverage log data across instances | With Data Isolation Add-on | ||
| Number of instances | Billed per instance | Billed per instance | Up to 30 with Data Isolation Add-on |
| Disable analytics logging | With Data Isolation Add-on | ||
| Batch intent classification | With Data Isolation Add-on | ||
| HIPAA enabled | With Data Isolation Add-on | ||
| Uptime SLA | 99.5% | 99.9% | |
| Deploy on any cloud, including IBM, Amazon, Google, Microsoft or on-premises environments |
Contact us
|
||
| Get started using Watson |
Lite |
Plus |
Enterprise |
| Get started free | Try it at no cost for 30 days | Contact us |
Frequently asked questions
What qualifies as a meaningful interaction?
A meaningful interaction happens when an end-user sends a message to your assistant and receives a response. Welcome messages at the beginning of a new conversation are not charged.
How do I track MAUs for authenticated or known users?
If you’re using our REST API or web chat integrations, you need to provide us with a unique identifier (created by you) for each user that interacts with your assistant. We recommend a non-human identifiable database ID (such as a GUID) that doesn’t change throughout your customer lifecycle. If you’re using our Facebook, Slack or Intercom integrations, we pull the user ID from these sources automatically.
How do I track monthly active users (MAUs) for anonymous users?
If you’re using our REST API and you don’t have a userID because your user is anonymous, we recommend that you generate your own randomized IDs using something like UUID (link resides outside IBM).
If you’re using web chat and a user doesn’t have an identifier provided by you, we will generate one for your user and cookie them with the anonymous identifier in the event that they return to your site later in the month. That way you’ll only be charged once for that user.
What if an anonymous user logs in and becomes identifiable with a known ID? Are you going to charge me twice?
If messages are sent with two different userIDs then yes, you will be charged twice. We recommend either prompting users to log in prior to initiating a chat or using the anonymous value for that user throughout all of their sessions.
What if I don’t provide IBM with a userID for a given interaction?
We will charge based on the session identifier automatically, meaning that if this user returns a second time within the month after their session expires, they will be treated as two MAUs.
How many languages are supported?
Watson Assistant currently supports 13 languages and 1 in beta. However, support coverage differs from feature to feature. For a detailed view of the product’s support coverage by feature, go here.
*What are the details around Plus Plan pricing?
The Plus plan starts at USD 140 and includes up to 1,000 monthly active users (MAUs). Additional MAUs are billed at USD 14 per 100 MAUs. When a user connects on voice, there is an additional cost of USD 9 per 100 voice MAUs.
To learn more about the Plus Plan and user-based metering, please visit us here.
What is Enterprise with Data Isolation?
The Enterprise with Data Isolation plan provides a number of additional security and privacy capabilities, including deployment in a single-tenant environment, support for HIPAA compliance, an increased number of instances and a longer retention period of analytics data.