Chatvia vs HubSpot: keep HubSpot, drop the meter
HubSpot's AI customer agent needs a Professional plan, and every chat it resolves uses credits at about $0.50 each. Chatvia is the free, self-hosted AI agent platform I built. It has no fee per answer, and it can still use HubSpot as a tool. I compare the two on price, knowledge, data, models and channels, and I say when HubSpot's own agent is the better pick.
My short answer
Chatvia, if you want to own your agent: data on your server, any model, no fee per answer, and HubSpot one click away.
HubSpot, if you run your whole business on HubSpot, already pay for a Professional plan, and want every part in one place.
What HubSpot's customer agent is
HubSpot is a CRM with tools for marketing, sales and service. Its AI customer agent, part of Breeze, answers chats from your HubSpot data and knowledge. Everything runs on HubSpot's servers.
You pay twice. The agent needs a Professional plan or higher. Then each chat it resolves uses HubSpot credits, at about $0.50 per resolved chat.
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.
First the plan, then the meter
With HubSpot, the AI agent starts with a plan upgrade. If you are on a lower plan, you move up to Professional first. Then the credits start. At about $0.50 each, 1,000 resolved chats a month is about $500. At 10,000, about $5,000 a month, on top of the plan.
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.
Agents, teams and replies have no limit, with or without a key. A Pro license key adds more workspaces, the API, capabilities and forms and hides the "Powered by Chatvia" line, for $199 a year.
Your CRM stays
Picking Chatvia does not mean leaving HubSpot.
Chatvia has a ready-made HubSpot connector. Your agent can use HubSpot as a tool, next to 23 other connectors like Salesforce, Zendesk, Notion and Google Drive, 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.
Chatvia also collects leads on its own. An agent can show a form in the chat to take contact details or bookings. Every answer is stored as a lead, and there is a CSV export.
Knowledge outside the CRM
HubSpot's agent works mostly from what is inside HubSpot.
A Chatvia agent answers from your files (PDF, Word, Excel and PowerPoint), from whole websites that refresh on a schedule, and from Q&A pairs you write. Audio and video work too: their speech is turned into text. Hybrid search and a reranker find the best passages, and each answer shows the sources it came from.
Where your data sits
HubSpot keeps your chats, contacts and documents on its own servers. For many companies that is fine. For others it is a hard no.
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 or a tool you picked.
The model
HubSpot 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.
Channels
HubSpot's agent covers web chat, email, Messenger and WhatsApp.
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.
HubSpot is stronger on email. Chatvia adds Slack, Teams, Telegram, Instagram and voice.
Guardrails and handoff
The two are close here. Both have guardrails, and both hand a chat to a person.
HubSpot sets its guardrails for you. In Chatvia you see them and set them yourself: they catch prompt injection, mask personal data like card numbers, keep the agent on topic, and stop abusive language. When a person should answer, your team takes over a widget chat live from the dashboard.
When I would pick HubSpot's agent
- You run your whole business on HubSpot and want it all in one place.
- You already pay for a Professional plan.
- You need the agent to answer email too.
Verdict
HubSpot's agent is handy when all your data already lives in HubSpot. The price is a bigger plan plus a fee for every chat it resolves. Chatvia gives you an agent that answers from all your knowledge, uses HubSpot as a tool, and hands over to a person, with no meter. You keep your data, you pick the model, and the cost stays flat as the chats grow.
| Chatvia | HubSpot | |
|---|---|---|
| Runs on your own server | Yes | No |
| Source code | Yes | No |
| Price of the software | Free | Needs a Professional plan or higher |
| AI answers | You pay your AI provider at cost | Credits, about $0.50 per resolved chat |
| Choice of AI model | Any, including local models | Chosen by HubSpot |
| Works with HubSpot data | Yes, through a connector | Yes |
Install Chatvia next to your HubSpot account. It takes a few minutes, and your first agent can be answering today.
Prices are from HubSpot's pages and public reviews in October 2026. They change often, so check them before you choose.