Last updated: April 2026
SiteGPT is a solid AI chatbot - but it starts at $39/month, doesn't include email campaigns, and has limited live chat features. Grivo gives you the same AI chatbot trained on your website, plus a full email campaign builder and shared inbox, starting at $0 forever.
SiteGPT pioneered the "AI chatbot trained on your website" category. It works well for what it does. But as the market matures, users cite three consistent pain points - visible in G2 reviews and Reddit threads:
SiteGPT's Starter plan is $39/month for just 2,000 message credits. For indie hackers and early-stage startups validating a product, paying $39/month for a chatbot before you even have significant traffic is a hard sell. Users report that message credits run out faster than expected, forcing upgrades to the $99 Growth plan or beyond.
SiteGPT captures leads through the chatbot widget, but those leads sit in SiteGPT's dashboard with nowhere to go. To actually nurture those leads with email campaigns, you need a separate email tool - Mailchimp, Brevo, ConvertKit, or similar. That means two subscriptions, two dashboards, and manual data syncing (or a Zapier integration). Grivo solves this natively: leads captured in chat flow directly into your email campaign tool.
SiteGPT focuses on AI-only interactions. When the bot can't answer, it sends an email notification for human follow-up - but there's no real shared inbox for your team to pick up the conversation in real time. For teams that want both AI automation and human live chat in one widget, SiteGPT's handoff workflow feels incomplete. Grivo includes a full shared inbox where conversations transfer seamlessly from AI to human.
| Feature | Grivo | SiteGPT |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $0 (free forever) | $39/mo |
| Free plan | Yes - unlimited chatbot | No free plan |
| AI chatbot trained on website | ✓ | ✓ |
| Train on PDF uploads | ✓ | ✓ |
| Train on documentation | ✓ | ✓ |
| Train on Notion / custom sources | Coming soon | ✓ |
| Email campaigns included | ✓ (drag-and-drop builder) | ✗ |
| Live chat inbox | ✓ (shared team inbox) | Limited (escalation only) |
| Lead capture in widget | ✓ (name + email) | ✓ (email only) |
| Chat widget customization | Colors, position, avatar, welcome msg | Colors, logo, welcome msg |
| AI model | GPT-4o | GPT-4 |
| Chatbot analytics | ✓ | ✓ |
| Number of chatbots | 1 (free) / 3 (Pro) | 1 (Starter) / 3 (Growth) |
| Message credits (monthly) | Unlimited (fair use) | 2,000 (Starter) / 5,000 (Growth) |
| Setup time | ~2 minutes | ~10–15 minutes |
| Human handoff | ✓ (seamless inbox transfer) | ✓ (email notification) |
| API access | Coming soon | ✓ |
| Ideal for | SaaS, indie hackers, SMBs | Enterprise, agencies |
This is the single biggest difference between Grivo and SiteGPT - and the reason most founders switch.
SiteGPT is a chatbot. A good one. But it stops at the chatbot. When a visitor gives their email through the SiteGPT widget, that email sits in a dashboard. To actually do something with it - send a welcome sequence, a product update, a promotion - you need Mailchimp ($20/mo), Brevo ($25/mo), or ConvertKit ($29/mo). That's $69–$78/month minimum for chatbot + email. And you're managing two separate tools with manual syncing.
Grivo includes a full drag-and-drop email campaign builder. Leads captured by your AI chatbot flow directly into your email lists. Create campaigns, choose templates, schedule sends, track opens and clicks - all from the same dashboard. One tool, one subscription ($0 or $19/mo), zero data sync headaches.
If you think of your marketing funnel as attract → capture → nurture → convert, SiteGPT handles capture. Grivo handles capture and nurture.
SiteGPT offers no free plan. Their cheapest option is the $39/month Starter plan, which includes 2,000 message credits. If you want to test whether an AI chatbot works for your website, you're committing $39 up front.
Grivo is free forever. Not a 14-day trial. Not "free with a catch." The free plan includes an AI chatbot trained on your website, live chat, lead capture, and 100 email sends per month. No credit card required. You can run Grivo for months, validate that it works for your business, and upgrade to Pro ($19/mo) only when you need higher limits.
For an indie hacker with 500 monthly visitors, the free plan is more than enough. And even when you do upgrade, $19/month vs. $39/month saves $240/year - before accounting for the email tool you no longer need.
SiteGPT is designed as an AI chatbot that handles conversations autonomously. When it can't answer, it notifies your team via email. But there's no real-time shared inbox where your team can pick up the conversation and respond live.
Grivo combines AI chatbot + live chat in one widget with a shared team inbox. The AI handles routine questions. When it encounters something it can't resolve, the conversation seamlessly transfers to your team - same chat thread, no context lost, no email back-and-forth. Your team sees the full conversation history and can respond in real time.
This matters because not every customer interaction should be handled by AI. Pre-sales questions, billing issues, and complex support tickets often need a human. Grivo lets AI handle the 70% and your team handle the 30% - all in one place.
Here's a direct pricing comparison as of April 2026:
For a SaaS founder with one product and moderate traffic, Grivo Pro ($19/mo) replaces SiteGPT Starter ($39/mo) and an email tool ($20-30/mo). That's $40-50/month in savings - $480-600/year. And if you're just getting started, Grivo's free plan lets you validate without any cost at all.
SiteGPT positions itself as an "AI support agent" - the emphasis is on removing humans from the loop entirely. For some use cases, that's fine. But for SaaS products where customer conversations drive revenue - pre-sales questions, onboarding help, feature requests - you want both AI efficiency and human connection.
Grivo gives you both. The AI chatbot handles repetitive questions (pricing, setup, basic troubleshooting). When a high-value conversation happens - a potential customer asking about enterprise features, or a user reporting a critical bug - the conversation transfers to your team's inbox instantly. The visitor sees a seamless experience; your team gets full context.
Think of it as the best of both worlds: the efficiency of AI-first support with the warmth of human backup when it matters. SiteGPT gives you one. Grivo gives you both.
We're not going to pretend Grivo is perfect for everyone. Here's when SiteGPT wins:
For everyone else - SaaS founders, indie hackers, small teams who want AI chatbot + email in one tool without enterprise pricing - Grivo is the better fit.
Switching is straightforward. You don't need to export data - just retrain on the same sources.
Create your account at grivo.io. No credit card required. Takes 30 seconds.
Give Grivo the same URL(s) you used for SiteGPT. Grivo crawls your pages and builds the knowledge base automatically.
If you trained SiteGPT on PDFs, upload those same files to Grivo. Drag and drop, done.
Set your brand colors, welcome message, and chatbot name. Preview it live before deploying.
Remove the SiteGPT script tag and paste Grivo's one-line snippet. Your new chatbot is live immediately.
Now that leads are flowing into Grivo, create a welcome email campaign. Something SiteGPT couldn't do.
Grivo is our recommendation, but here are other tools in the AI chatbot space:
Another AI chatbot builder with strong GPT integration. More customization options than SiteGPT, but still no email marketing. Starts at $19/mo.
Read full Chatbase vs Grivo comparison →Focuses on training ChatGPT on custom data. Good for technical teams who want API-first deployment. No live chat or email features.
Read full CustomGPT vs Grivo comparison →A live chat platform that recently added AI features. Better for teams focused on live chat, but the AI chatbot trained on docs is less mature than SiteGPT or Grivo.
Read full Crisp vs Grivo comparison →The enterprise standard for customer messaging. Excellent product but starts at $39/seat/month - overkill and overpriced for small teams and indie hackers.
Read full Intercom vs Grivo comparison →Popular with e-commerce stores. Has AI chatbot features and email, but the AI is less capable on custom docs compared to dedicated tools like Grivo or SiteGPT.
Read full Tidio vs Grivo comparison →