How chatbots work
A chatbot is a chat window you build once, share as a link or a website widget, and answer with a workflow.
What a chatbot is
A chatbot is a chat window for a website. You build it once, give it a greeting and a few suggested questions, and share it in two ways that work at the same time:
- A chat link. A full-page chat, ready to share in an email, a QR code, or a button.
- A chat widget. A chat bubble in the bottom-right corner of a website. You paste one line of code into the site.
A chatbot is its own object, like a form. It has its own page in the sidebar, under Chatbots, where you create, open, and delete chatbots. You can build a chatbot before any workflow exists, and deleting a workflow does not delete the chatbot or change its link.
A chatbot can belong to a client
Each chatbot has a Client setting in the builder's header.
| Client | Whose brand visitors see | Where the chat link lives |
|---|---|---|
| All clients (agency brand) | Your agency's logo, colors, and name. | Your agency's address. |
| A client | That client's logo, colors, and name. | The client's own domain when it has one, otherwise your agency's address. |
The look is automatic. A chatbot has no colors or logo of its own: it wears the brand of its client, or your agency's brand when it has no client. To serve chats on your own domain, set up a custom domain.
Draft and live
A new chatbot is a Draft. Visitors cannot reach a draft: its chat link shows "Chat not found" and its widget shows nothing.
Click Publish in the builder and the status changes to Live. The link and the embed code work from that moment. You can keep editing a live chatbot; each Save applies to the next page load.
To take a chatbot offline, open More actions in the builder's header and click Unpublish. It goes back to Draft.
Visitors accept a notice first
Every chatbot opens on a consent notice that tells visitors an AI answers and that their messages are recorded. They click Accept and start chat before they can type. See Ask visitors for consent before a chat.
A workflow answers it
A chatbot does not answer anything by itself. A workflow does: every message a visitor sends starts one run of that workflow, and the workflow's reply is shown to the visitor.
You connect the two from either side:
- In the chatbot builder, click Create workflow under Answered by. You get a ready-made workflow with a Chat trigger, an AI Agent that remembers the conversation, and a Respond node.
- In any workflow, add the Chat message received trigger and pick the chatbot in its panel. See the Chat trigger.
One chatbot is answered by one workflow. Both must be switched on for visitors to get replies: the chatbot must be Live, and the workflow must be published.
What visitors see when no workflow answers
A live chatbot with no published workflow behind it still opens, with your brand and its title, and shows one line:
Chat is unavailable right now.
Visitors cannot type a message in that state. The same happens when the workflow is unpublished, or when the chatbot is moved to a client other than the one the workflow belongs to.
What a chatbot costs
Each visitor message is one workflow run. Runs are counted against your plan in the same way as every other run, and your spend cap applies to them. Per-visitor and per-chatbot message limits stop one visitor from running up your usage.