Chatvia vs Ada: no contract, no sales call#

Ada sells AI customer service to large companies through a sales team, with contracts reported from about $30,000 a year. Chatvia is the free, self-hosted AI agent platform I built. You install it with one command and nobody calls you. I compare price, setup, data, models, channels and safety, and I say when Ada is still the right choice.

My short answer#

Chatvia, if you want a strong AI agent today, on your own server, with no contract, no sales call and no fee per chat.

Ada, if you are a very large company that wants a managed service, a signed contract and a vendor who runs it all for you.

What Ada is#

Ada is a hosted AI agent for customer service at large companies. It answers on the web, in mobile apps, by email, by voice and on social apps. When it cannot help, it hands the chat to your help desk. Everything runs on Ada's servers.

There is no public price list. You talk to sales and sign a contract. Public reports put those contracts at about $30,000 a year and up, and use is billed per conversation or per resolution.

What Chatvia is#

Chatvia is a free platform for AI chat agents. You install it on your own server with one command. An agent answers from your files, your websites and your Q&A pairs, and it works on your website, in Slack, in Teams, on WhatsApp and in more places.

You get the full source code. You can read it, change it and run it.

Five figures before the first chat#

With Ada, you pay before anyone has chatted with anything. Reported contracts start at about $30,000 a year, and the bill is tied to how many conversations or resolutions you have.

Chatvia's software is free. You pay your AI provider for what the model uses, at the provider's price, with nothing added on top. A typical answer from a fast model costs a fraction of a cent. Run an open-weight model on your own hardware and the AI cost can be zero.

Large companies usually need extra security controls, and I did not skip those. An Enterprise license key adds IP and country rules, a security audit log sent to your SIEM, and data retention rules, for $1,499 a year. That is about one twentieth of Ada's reported starting price.

Day one#

Ada begins with a demo, a quote and a contract. Your team cannot build anything until the deal is signed.

Chatvia begins with one command. The Docker installer sets everything up and walks you through the first steps. You can test your agent in a private playground the same day, before a single customer sees it.

If you would rather not touch the server, any license key can come with installation for $99. I install Chatvia on your server and turn on automatic updates.

Where your data sits#

Ada keeps your chats, contacts and documents on its own servers. Large companies often have strict rules about where customer data may live, and a hosted service makes those rules harder to meet.

Chatvia runs on a server you choose: your cloud account, your data center, or a machine in your office. Chats and documents never leave it, unless you send them to an AI provider you picked.

The model#

Ada picks the model behind its agent. You cannot switch it.

In Chatvia you choose any model: OpenAI, Gemini, Mistral, Groq, OpenRouter, or your own server with Ollama or vLLM. Each agent can run a different model, and you can switch at any time. If your rules say no data may leave your network, run a local model and nothing does.

Channels#

Ada covers web, mobile, email, voice and social apps.

Chatvia covers a chat widget, a hosted chat page, voice chats, Slack, Microsoft Teams, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, Telegram and a REST API. One agent works the same way in every place.

Ada is stronger on email. Chatvia is stronger inside your company's own tools. With protected agents, only signed-in people can use an agent, so one install can serve your customers and your own staff.

Tools, guardrails and handoff#

Feature for feature, the two are close. Both take actions, both have guardrails, both hand a chat to a person.

The difference is who holds the controls. Ada sets its own guardrails. In Chatvia you see and set every one: prompt injection, personal data, topics and toxic content, on from the start. Monitor mode shows what the guardrails would block before you let them block it.

Agents use 24 ready-made connectors, such as Salesforce, HubSpot and Zendesk, or any MCP server. For each tool you decide: it runs, it waits for a person's OK, or it never runs. Every call is logged with its input and its result.

Evaluations score your agent on test questions, so you can prove a change did not break it. When a person should answer, your team takes over a widget chat live from the dashboard.

When I would pick Ada#

• You are a very large company and want a vendor to run the whole service.
• You need the AI agent to answer email too.
• You want one signed contract, and the price fits your budget.

Verdict#

Ada is built for large companies and priced for them. Chatvia gives you the core of what Ada sells, an agent that answers from your knowledge, uses your tools and hands over to a person, with no contract at all. You keep your data, you pick the model, and you can start this afternoon.

No demo call needed: install Chatvia and build your first agent today.

Prices are from public reviews and reports in October 2026. Ada does not publish its prices, so check them with Ada before you choose.