ManyChat Pricing in 2026: What It Actually Costs

Is ManyChat free?

Yes, there is a permanent free plan. It is small: 25 active contacts a month, up to 4 live automations, 2 channels and 1 user seat.

What it does not include: AI features, broadcasts, WhatsApp, SMS and email. Messages carry "Powered by Manychat" branding. There is no overage on the free plan, so once you pass 25 contacts the answer is an upgrade.

For a comment to DM funnel, 25 contacts is roughly one post that gets a little traction. Treat it as a test, not a plan.

What an active contact is, and why it drives the price

ManyChat does not bill by messages or by automations. It bills by active contacts: every person who interacted with your account through ManyChat during the current billing month.

A person who commented once on a reel and never came back counts exactly like a buyer. The same person writing five times still counts as one. The count resets at the start of each billing cycle.

So the number that sets your bill is how many different people engaged with you this month. The better a post performs, the higher that number goes.

Where the price jumps

The price moves in two ways, and both depend on your audience rather than on you.

• Tier steps. Essential covers 250 contacts, Pro 2,500, Business 7,500, Advanced 25,000. Growing from one band to the next is a step from $17 to $39 to $99 to $199.
• Overage inside a tier. Pass your included contacts and, per ManyChat's help centre, your automations keep running and the extra contacts are added automatically to your next bill. ManyChat sends notices at 70%, 90%, 100% of the quota, but nothing stops the meter.

Overage on the lower tiers is the expensive part. On Essential every extra contact costs $0.10, which is why a single busy month on the entry plan can cost more than a year of it.

What the example shows

On Pro, 3,000 commenters is 500 contacts past the 2,500 included, at $0.05 each: $25 on top of $39, so $64 for the month.

On Essential the same month is 2,750 extra contacts at $0.10: $275 of overage and a $292 bill on a $17 plan.

At 10,000 contacts, Pro reaches $414, and Business at $161.50 becomes the cheaper choice. In other words you have to guess next month's audience to pick the right tier, and the reel that went well is the one that costs you.

How SocialFlow prices the same job

SocialFlow answers people who comment on your Instagram and Facebook posts, with a public reply and a private message containing your link. It bills on a different meter.

• Per private message sent, not per person. The meter is what the system did for you. If the same person comments five times and gets one message, that is one message.
• It stops at the limit instead of billing overage. When you reach your monthly allowance, sending pauses and you get an alert. No line appears on next month's invoice that nobody approved.
• Shekels or dollars. In Israel you pay in shekels, VAT included, with a local invoice. Everywhere else you pay in US dollars.
• A free plan that fits a real test. 300 private messages a month, no card.

The same month on SocialFlow

3,000 commenters who each get one private message is 3,000 messages. That fits in Creator, which includes 3,000 a month, at $12. Pro includes 20,000 messages at $24, so even the 10,000 month is Pro at $24, the same bill as a quiet month.

Pro also carries the parts that are not about price: a built-in MCP server so you can run automations from Claude or ChatGPT, publishing posts and reels from the chat, and 5 connected accounts. New customers can try Pro for 30 days for $1.

For the full side by side, see SocialFlow as a ManyChat alternative. To see what an automation looks like before you sign up, read the setup guide, or the Instagram auto responder page.