Last updated: April 2026
CustomGPT.ai is a strong RAG chatbot platform - their tagline "knows when to say I don't know" captures the citation-grounded approach well. Customers like MIT, Adobe and the UN trust it. The trade-off: $99/month Standard caps you at 10 agents and 1,000 queries; $499/month Premium for 25 agents and 5,000 queries. There is no live chat or email campaigns. Grivo gives you the AI support agent plus live chat plus email campaigns at $0 forever or $19/month Pro.
The average SaaS team runs 5 separate tools for chat, email, and contact management - typically $80 to $200 per month combined. Grivo replaces them with one inbox at a fraction of the combined cost.
CustomGPT does one thing exceptionally: turning your documents into a citation-grounded chatbot. The reasons teams shop around:
CustomGPT is an AI support agent platform. There is no human handoff, no shared inbox, no email marketing. The moment a visitor asks something the bot cannot answer, you are out of product. Grivo bundles AI support agent + live chat + email campaigns in one workspace.
Standard at $99/month is 1,000 queries. Premium at $499/month is 5,000. Extra queries are $375/month for 2,500. Extra storage is $300/month for 300M words. A growing site with one viral landing page blows through 1,000 queries quickly. Grivo Pro is unlimited fair-use at $19/month.
CustomGPT's "Powered by" watermark is removed only on Premium ($499/month). Grivo Pro removes branding at $19/month - 96% cheaper for the same brand-clean experience.
| Feature | Grivo | CustomGPT |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $0 free forever | $99/mo Standard ($89 annual) |
| Free plan | ✓ unlimited chatbot | 7-day free trial |
| Most popular paid plan | Pro $19/mo | Standard $99/mo |
| Number of agents (chatbots) | Unlimited | 10 (Standard) / 25 (Premium) |
| Queries / conversations per month | Unlimited fair use | 1,000 (Standard) / 5,000 (Premium) |
| Documents / pages indexed | Unlimited fair use | 5,000 docs/agent (Standard) |
| Storage (words) | Unlimited fair use | 60M (Standard) / 300M (Premium) |
| Live chat / shared inbox | ✓ | ✗ pure chatbot |
| Email campaigns | ✓ | ✗ |
| Citations in answers | ✓ | ✓ (their core feature) |
| RAG API access | Roadmap | ✓ Standard+ |
| OpenAI-compatible API | Roadmap | ✓ |
| MCP server | Roadmap | ✓ |
| 1,400+ file type support | Web + common docs | ✓ |
| Auto-sync content | Manual + scheduled | Premium plan only |
| Remove branding | Pro $19/mo | Premium $499/mo only |
| Team seats | Unlimited | 3 (Std) / 5 (Premium), $100/mo for 5 more |
| Ideal for | SaaS support + sales | Document-heavy enterprise |
CustomGPT is purely a chatbot product. When the AI cannot answer, the conversation ends. For real customer support, you need a human-in-the-loop. Grivo's shared inbox catches every escalation - the AI hands off cleanly to a teammate, with full conversation context.
For SaaS teams that combine AI deflection with human support, this is the difference between a demo toy and a production support stack.
CustomGPT does not include email marketing. Lead capture happens in chat, then you manually export and import to a separate ESP. Grivo bundles email campaigns with drag-and-drop builder, scheduled sends, list segmentation, and open/click tracking - all in the same workspace.
A lead captured by the chatbot becomes a campaign subscriber automatically. One tool, one bill, no Zapier.
CustomGPT pricing is essentially three meters: number of agents, queries per month, and storage in words. The $99/month Standard caps you at 10 agents and 1,000 queries. Add-ons: $375/month for 2,500 extra queries, $300/month for 300M extra words. Three medium-size knowledge bases on Standard means one of them runs out of capacity.
Grivo Pro is $19/month flat with no agent count limit and unlimited query/storage on fair-use limits.
CustomGPT's differentiation is broad file-type support (1,400+ types), but in practice most SaaS teams point a chatbot at a website URL and a docs URL. Grivo handles those two cases in 2 minutes: paste your URLs, the crawler indexes the pages, the chatbot is live.
If you have a 5,000-PDF legacy archive, CustomGPT is built for you. If you have a marketing site and a docs.* subdomain, Grivo will be live before CustomGPT's onboarding email arrives.
Honestly: if you need a RAG-as-a-service backend, an OpenAI-compatible endpoint, an MCP server, and ingestion of 1,400+ file types including audio and video transcripts, CustomGPT is purpose-built. The MIT, Adobe, UN and Medtronic case studies on customgpt.ai all lean on this depth.
Grivo is a customer-facing AI support agent + live chat + email tool, not a model-as-a-service. If you are embedding RAG inside a separate product, CustomGPT is your tool.
Honest answer:
For SaaS teams that want AI support agent + live chat + email in a single workspace at SMB pricing, Grivo is the cleaner fit.
Most teams move in 2-3 hours.
CustomGPT lets you export sources. Pull URLs and PDFs you indexed.
grivo.io. No credit card. Invite teammates - no per-seat fee.
Point Grivo at your website + docs URL. Re-upload PDFs. Index runs in 1-5 minutes.
Configure team and saved replies. Set escalation rules from the bot.
Remove the CustomGPT script tag. Paste the Grivo one-liner. Customise.
Use the lead list captured by the chatbot. Build a welcome sequence in the drag-and-drop editor.
Pure AI support agent. $32-$400/mo. Used by OpenAI, Sage. No live chat or email.
Read full Chatbase vs Grivo comparison →Per-message AI support agent. $49-$199/mo. Closest CustomGPT alternative.
Read full SiteGPT vs Grivo comparison →Developer-first AI agent platform. Pay-as-you-go AI Spend.
Read full Botpress vs Grivo comparison →Per-seat $29-$132 + Fin AI per outcome. Full-suite, enterprise priced.
Read full Intercom vs Grivo comparison →Lyro AI from $32.50/mo. Strong on Shopify.
Read full Tidio vs Grivo comparison →