{
 "schema_version": "1.0",
 "id": "cometchat",
 "name": "CometChat",
 "research_status": "researched",
 "vendor_domain": "cometchat.com",
 "category": "Communication & Voice",
 "task": "Chat inside my own app",
 "summary": "In-app text, voice and video chat infrastructure to embed into your own software — secure and scalable, with a free developer plan and, via the new Air release, fully on-prem or air-gapped deployment for regulated enterprises.",
 "best_for": "product teams that want proven in-app text/voice/video chat with SDKs for every major framework, without building messaging infrastructure themselves",
 "skip_if": "your app is pre-revenue with growing users (the free-to-paid cliff will hit mid-growth), or chat is peripheral enough that a support widget covers it",
 "honest_knock": "The pricing cliff is the honest headline: from a 100-MAU free tier straight to ~$239/mo is a brutal jump for an early-stage app, and users report plan structures changing under them. Model your MAU growth curve and the overage math before you architect around it. Chat infrastructure is sticky by nature; the time to compare vendors is before launch, not after.",
 "pricing": {
  "status": "public",
  "entry_price": "$239",
  "entry_price_terms": "a month at 1,000 MAU billed yearly ($298.75 monthly)",
  "from_price_usd_month": 239.0,
  "plans": null,
  "plans_source": null,
  "notes": "(re-verified 2026-08-17 and 2026-10-07 against CometChat's own machine-readable pricing reference, which they publish for AI agents and last verified themselves on 2026-05-20, and on 2026-10-07 also against the live pricing page; USD) Build is free for development: all features, up to 100 users and 25 concurrent connections, no card. Paid Chat plans are priced by monthly active users. Billed yearly, shown as a monthly equivalent: at 1,000 MAU Basic is $239 and Advanced $359; at 10,000 MAU Basic $299, Advanced $399 and Enterprise $999; at 25,000 MAU $699 and $949; at 50,000 MAU $1,349 and $1,649. Paying monthly costs 25% more — $298.75 and $448.75 at 1,000 MAU; the 'Save 20%' on the toggle is the same gap measured from the monthly price. Above 50,000 MAU everything is quote-only. Concurrency is included at 5% of your MAU on Basic and Advanced and 10% on Enterprise. On overage CometChat charges $0.10 per extra MAU (falling at higher tiers) or $1 per extra concurrent connection — and where both are exceeded it bills the higher of the two, not both. Enterprise has no listed overage; usage above the plan is upgraded to the appropriate plan instead. Messages and storage are unlimited on every plan, and message retention is 6 months across the board, extendable at extra cost.",
  "verified_at": "2026-10-07",
  "source_url": null,
  "schema_offer": null,
  "source_quotes": [
   {
    "field": "price",
    "plan": "Basic — 1000 MAU",
    "quote": "$239",
    "source_url": "https://www.cometchat.com/pricing",
    "read_on": "2026-10-23"
   },
   {
    "field": "price",
    "plan": "Advanced — 1000 MAU",
    "quote": "$359",
    "source_url": "https://www.cometchat.com/pricing",
    "read_on": "2026-10-23"
   }
  ]
 },
 "free_plan": true,
 "free_plan_evidence": "The pricing cliff is the honest headline: from a 100-MAU free tier straight to ~$239/mo is a brutal jump for an early-stage app, and users report plan structures changing under them.",
 "cost_traps": [
  {
   "id": "usage_metered",
   "label": "Usage-metered",
   "evidence": "On overage CometChat charges $0.10 per extra MAU (falling at higher tiers) or $1 per extra concurrent connection — and where both are exceeded it bills the higher of the two, not both.",
   "verified_at": "2026-10-07",
   "source_url": null
  },
  {
   "id": "addons_extra",
   "label": "Key features are paid add-ons",
   "evidence": "Messages and storage are unlimited on every plan, and message retention is 6 months across the board, extendable at extra cost.",
   "verified_at": "2026-10-07",
   "source_url": null
  }
 ],
 "compare_with": {
  "name": "Stream or Sendbird",
  "why": "the premium chat-SDK peers — all three are MAU-priced; compare at YOUR projected MAU including overages, not at the entry tier"
 },
 "links": {
  "record": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/api/v1/products/cometchat.json",
  "review": "https://zerotouchsupport.com/cometchat-review.html",
  "marketplace": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/marketplace/cometchat/",
  "vendor_site": "https://cometchat.com"
 },
 "purchase": {
  "seller": "the vendor",
  "how": "AIBuilder Marketplace does not sell this software. Sign up, start a trial or buy on the vendor's site.",
  "handoff_url": "https://try.cometchat.com/155dumgioc1q",
  "affiliate": true,
  "disclosure": "Where purchase.affiliate is true, purchase.handoff_url is an affiliate link: AIBuilder Marketplace may earn a commission at no extra cost to the buyer. Commission never changes what a record says, and products are not ranked by commission. Where it is false the link is the vendor's plain site."
 },
 "provenance": {
  "research": "hand-researched dossier, read on the vendor's own pages",
  "researched_since": "2026-07",
  "method": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/how-we-review/",
  "license": "CC BY 4.0. Credit 'AIBuilder Marketplace' with a link to https://aibuildermarketplace.com/atlas/.",
  "note": "A rebuild is not a new measurement: pricing.verified_at is the date that matters."
 },
 "cost": {
  "status": "not_yet",
  "engine": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/agents/#cost",
  "rules": null,
  "growth": null
 },
 "unknowns": [
  "Plan-by-plan prices are not structured in this record yet; pricing.notes has the full text.",
  "Contract terms (cancellation, data export, data location, minimum seats) are not researched as separate fields; pricing.notes mentions them only where the vendor's pricing page does.",
  "Being verified: free trial and refund terms are not yet matched to a verbatim line on the vendor's own pages. Not matched does not mean there is none.",
  "No computable price rules yet: cost at a given team size cannot be calculated for this product."
 ],
 "verification": {
  "price": "quoted",
  "free_trial": "being_verified",
  "refund": "being_verified"
 },
 "task_evidence": {
  "structured_checks": [],
  "sessions": [
   {
    "source": "session",
    "product_name": "CometChat",
    "product_id": "cometchat",
    "run_date": "2026-10-23",
    "session_type": "hands_on",
    "what": "Tested by our team on 23 October 2026 in CometChat's public UI Kit Builder (preview.cometchat.com), without an account: our AI assistant ran the test in Daan's browser. We set our own layout, brand colour and theme, switched read receipts and all calling features on and off, and tried to export the code. No code was run or deployed and no messages were sent.",
    "findings": [
     "The builder opened without an account on a demo chat (Chats, Calls, Users, Groups) with sample conversations. Customize offers a layout with or without sidebar (default with) and the tabs Conversations, Call Logs, Users and Groups, all on by default.",
     "Setting the brand colour to #663399 with the colour picker recoloured our own chat bubbles at once. In Dark the brand colour stayed; the primary and secondary text colours switched automatically (#FFFFFF and #989898, against #141414 and #727272 in Light).",
     "Exporting is not possible from the preview. Embed/Export Code offers React, Angular and no-code targets (WordPress, HTML, PHP, Laravel, Shopify, Webflow, Wix, Squarespace and others), but choosing one shows 'Sign in to get your Embed Code': sign in or create an account, create an app in the dashboard, open the Chat Builder there and export. The preview settings do not come along, so the configuration has to be made again.",
     "Chat Features has about 20 switches (among them typing indicator, photo, video, audio and files, editing, deleting, delivery and read receipts, presence, threads, quoted replies, pin, AI user copilot and moderation). With read receipts off, the double ticks disappeared from the bubbles and the conversation list, and came back when switched on. The typing indicator cannot be checked in a static preview.",
     "Turning off all four call switches (one-on-one voice and video, group voice and video conference) removed the call and video buttons from the chat header. The Calls tab at the bottom stayed: it belongs to the separate Call Logs layout setting."
    ],
    "not_tested": [
     "The exported code and whether it carries the settings (export needs an account and an app)",
     "Real message delivery, syncing, SDK integration and your own backend",
     "MAU billing and the 100-user limit on Build",
     "The mobile kits (the Android and iOS views were only seen as a switch)"
    ],
    "report": null,
    "disclosure": null,
    "evidence_status": null,
    "result": "reported",
    "note": "Findings as written up after the session; no pass/fail per task was scored.",
    "in_catalog": true
   }
  ]
 },
 "open_questions": [
  {
   "question_id": "cometchat:cancellation_terms",
   "key": "cancellation_terms",
   "question": "Can a customer cancel at any time, and what happens to an annual plan that is cancelled mid-term?",
   "status": "open"
  },
  {
   "question_id": "cometchat:data_export",
   "key": "data_export",
   "question": "Which data can a customer export, in which formats, on which plans?",
   "status": "open"
  },
  {
   "question_id": "cometchat:data_location",
   "key": "data_location",
   "question": "Where is customer data stored, and can a customer choose the region?",
   "status": "open"
  },
  {
   "question_id": "cometchat:minimum_seats",
   "key": "minimum_seats",
   "question": "Is there a minimum number of seats or users on any plan?",
   "status": "open"
  }
 ],
 "vendor_answers": [],
 "agent_channels": {
  "vendor_mcp": null,
  "agent_checkout": {
   "status": "not_found",
   "detail": "No explicit support for purchases by AI agents on the vendor's own pages.",
   "checked_at": "2026-10-07",
   "method": "homepage, /pricing and the pricing page we cite, read as plain HTML (no JavaScript) and searched for explicit support of purchases by AI agents: Agentic Commerce Protocol, Instant Checkout, Agent Payments Protocol, buy in ChatGPT, agentic checkout"
  }
 }
}