Sendbird
Push notification software
Bot platforms software
Live chat software
Communication platform as a Service (cPaaS) platforms
Agentic AI software
AI agents
AI customer support agents software
Conversational intelligence software
- Features
- Ease of use
- Ease of management
- Quality of support
- Affordability
- Market presence
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$349 per month
Free TrialFree version
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Medium
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- Arts, entertainment, and recreation
- Retail and wholesale
- Media and communications
What is Sendbird
Sendbird is a communications platform that provides APIs and SDKs for adding in-app chat, messaging, and related real-time communication features to web and mobile applications. It is used by product and engineering teams to build customer support chat, marketplace messaging, community chat, and other conversational experiences inside their apps. The platform includes managed infrastructure, moderation and administration tooling, and options for automation and AI-assisted workflows. Sendbird also offers packaged components and integrations intended to reduce implementation effort compared with building messaging infrastructure in-house.
Robust in-app chat APIs
Sendbird provides developer-focused APIs and client SDKs to embed real-time messaging into applications across common platforms. It supports typical chat primitives such as channels/rooms, message history, attachments, and user management. This makes it suitable for product-led teams that need in-app communication rather than primarily outbound marketing messaging. Compared with engagement suites in the reference set, it is oriented more toward in-product conversations than campaign orchestration.
Operational tooling for moderation
The product includes administrative controls to manage users, channels, and content without requiring custom back-office development. Moderation and governance features help teams handle abuse, spam, and policy enforcement in user-to-user or user-to-business chat contexts. These capabilities are important for marketplaces, communities, and support use cases where conversation quality affects trust and safety. This operational layer can reduce the need to build internal tooling around the messaging stack.
Packaged support chat options
Sendbird offers components and solutions aimed at customer support chat, including agent-facing workflows and integration patterns. This can shorten time-to-value for teams that want a support chat experience embedded in their product rather than deploying a separate helpdesk UI. It also supports automation patterns (including bot-style flows) that can deflect or route conversations. In contrast to tools in the reference set that emphasize multichannel marketing, this is centered on conversational support inside applications.
Not a full engagement suite
Sendbird focuses on in-app messaging and conversational experiences, not end-to-end customer engagement across email, SMS, and marketing automation. Organizations looking for unified campaign management, segmentation, and omnichannel outbound orchestration may need additional systems. This can increase integration work when teams want both in-product chat and broader lifecycle messaging. Buyers should validate how far Sendbird goes on push notifications and outbound channels versus specialized engagement platforms.
Engineering effort still required
Although Sendbird provides SDKs and prebuilt components, implementing a production-grade chat experience still requires client integration, backend configuration, and ongoing maintenance. Teams must design conversation models, permissions, retention, and compliance behaviors appropriate to their domain. Custom UI/UX and analytics instrumentation typically remain the customer’s responsibility. This can be heavier than adopting a turnkey live chat widget for simple website support scenarios.
AI/agent capabilities vary by use case
Sendbird positions AI-assisted and automation capabilities, but the practical scope depends on the specific product modules adopted and the customer’s integration choices. Organizations may still need to connect external LLM providers, knowledge sources, and ticketing/CRM systems to achieve end-to-end AI agent workflows. Governance requirements (hallucination control, escalation, auditability) can add implementation complexity. Buyers should confirm which AI customer support agent features are native versus delivered through integrations and configuration.
Plan & Pricing
Chat (tiered plans):
| Plan | Price | Key features & notes |
|---|---|---|
| Free (Developer) | Free — up to 1,000 MAU (no overages) | All pro features for evaluation, no credit card required, community support, up to 1,000 MAU and up to 20 peak concurrent connections (soft caps). Messages retained 6 months. |
| Starter (5K) | $349 per month (billed annually) or $399 per month (billed monthly) | Includes ~5,000 MAU, messaging essentials, basic moderation, ticketed support. Platform offer: includes Business Messaging — 30K free in‑app messages. Overages may apply. |
| Pro (5K) | $499 per month (billed annually) or $599 per month (billed monthly) | Includes ~5,000 MAU, all Starter features plus translation, data export, image moderation, Supergroup channel. Platform offer: includes Business Messaging — 30K free in‑app messages. Overages may apply. |
| Enterprise | Custom pricing (contact sales) | Custom pricing for large volumes (millions of MAU). Options: dedicated/shared servers, extended retention, advanced moderation add‑ons, premium SLAs and support. Platform offer: includes Business Messaging — 30K free in‑app messages. |
Usage-based / Pay-as-you-go products (official pages):
Sendbird Calls (voice & video) — Usage-based Pricing model: Pay-as-you-go (prepaid credit/voucher model). Free tier/trial: "Start a free trial" is shown on Calls pricing page. Example costs (standard USD, volume discounts apply):
- Voice (per minute per user for communication): Peer-to-peer $0.0010 / min; Server-relayed $0.0015 / min.
- Voice cloud recording: $0.0014 / min.
- Video (per minute per user for communication): Peer-to-peer $0.0014 / min; Server-relayed $0.0035 / min.
- Video cloud recording: $0.0059 / min. Notes: Calls uses a prepaid credit voucher model (credit = $1.00 standard, can purchase vouchers; auto-recharge available). Official page: volume discounts apply.
Business Messaging / Notifications — Quote / Contact sales Pricing model: Request a quote / contact sales (omnichannel channels such as SMS, WhatsApp, KakaoTalk, push, in‑app messaging). No public per-unit pricing on official Business Messaging pricing page. Free tier/trial: Not published (page requires requesting a quote). Chat plans include a platform offer of 30K free in‑app Business Messaging messages on paid tiers.
Seller details
Sendbird, Inc.
San Mateo, CA, USA
2013
Private
https://sendbird.com/
https://x.com/sendbird
https://www.linkedin.com/company/sendbird/
