Trengo Alternative: Trengo Pricing, Trengo Competitors and What a Conversation Really Costs
Trengo bills a 7 day conversation thread, not a message. Every comparison page ranks the features and skips the arithmetic that decides whether you are overpaying: 500 conversations on a 349 euro plan, with broadcasting sold separately.
Every figure on this page is quoted from Trengo's own published pricing pages or Meta's developer documentation, both checked September 9, 2026.
Trengo conversation calculator
No sign inCost per contact reached on Trengo
$0.2712
That is about 32x the cost of delivering the same message at pass through rates.
Plan prices, allowances, overage and seat rates are Trengo's own published figures, checked September 9, 2026. The conversation count assumes one billable conversation per distinct contact inside a 7 day window, which is the reading Trengo's own definition supports. Broadcasting is a paid add on whose price Trengo does not publish, so it is not included here and your real bill will be higher.
Trengo is a shared inbox that meters conversations, where a conversation is a 7 day thread with one customer. Boost costs 349 euros a month for 10 users and 500 conversations, Pro costs 599 euros for 20 users and 1,500, and broadcasting is a paid add on on every tier including Enterprise. The right Trengo alternative depends entirely on whether your volume is agents replying to customers or campaigns going out to a list, because conversation metering prices the first job well and the second one at roughly twenty times what delivery costs.
Trengo pricing: every published number in one table
Trengo publishes its plans openly, which already puts it ahead of most of the category. What gets lost in the comparison articles is that the plan price is only one of four things on the invoice. The allowance, the seat count, the overage rate and the add ons all move independently, and three of them are bundled rather than chosen.
| Plan | Monthly | Annual | Users | Conversations | Extra user |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boost | €349 / mo | €299 / mo | 10 | 500 / mo | €30, or €25 annual |
| Pro | €599 / mo | €499 / mo | 20 | 1,500 / mo | €50, or €40 annual |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Custom | Custom | Not published |
| Extra conversations | €18 per 100 | €15 per 100 | Billed as an add on once the plan allowance runs out | ||
| AI surcharge | €0.30 / conv | €0.25 / conv | Applies to every conversation the AI touches, on top of the allowance | ||
One number that comparison pages routinely get wrong: several currently ranking articles quote a Trengo "Essentials" tier at 125 euros a month for 5 users and 100 conversations, along with lower Boost and Pro allowances. No such tier appears on Trengo's current pricing page, which starts at Boost. If you are budgeting from a third party summary, you may be planning around a price list that Trengo has replaced.
The conversation, not the message, is the unit that decides your bill
Trengo states the definition on its own pricing page: a conversation is any reply to an inbound or outbound message with a customer that occurs within a 7 day window, and any messages outside that window start a new conversation. Read that twice, because it is the whole page. A back and forth support thread lasting four days is one conversation. A single template sent to one customer is also one conversation. The two cost exactly the same.
For a support team that is a good deal. Agents can exchange thirty messages resolving a complaint and the meter moves once. For anyone sending campaigns it inverts. Reaching 5,000 distinct contacts with one template consumes up to 5,000 conversations, because each contact is a separate thread, and none of the depth that makes conversation pricing generous is being used. You are buying a unit designed for dialogue and spending it on delivery.
Put the numbers side by side. Trengo's cheapest marginal conversation is 15 euros per 100 on annual billing, which is 15 cents, roughly 18 cents at an exchange rate of 1.17 dollars to the euro. Delivering a US utility template through the WhatsApp Business Platform costs Meta's own rate plus whatever your provider charges to handle it, which lands near eight tenths of a cent all in. The same customer reached, the same message delivered, and a gap of roughly twenty times.
This is not a markup, and calling it one misreads the product
Trengo is not charging twenty times Meta's rate for delivery. It is selling something else: an inbox, a team, routing, AI handling and a workflow around each thread. The price is rational for the job it was built for. The mistake is buying it for a job it was not built for, which is what happens when a company signs a shared inbox contract and then discovers that its actual WhatsApp volume is outbound. If more than half of your monthly conversations are one message out and no reply back, you are paying inbox prices for a delivery problem.
Broadcasting is an add on, on every plan, including Enterprise
This is the detail worth checking before you sign, and it does not appear in any of the alternative roundups currently ranking. On Trengo's published pricing, broadcasting sits in the add on column alongside voice calling, extra conversations and extra users. It is not bundled into Boost, it is not bundled into Pro, and it is not bundled into Enterprise. The plan buys you the inbox; sending to a list is priced separately, and Trengo does not publish what that costs.
What is included is genuinely substantial: the unified omnichannel inbox, the WhatsApp Business API connection itself, the AI agent, AI journeys, the website widget, auto replies and quick replies. If your team lives in an inbox all day, that bundle is most of what you need and the seat maths works out. If you came to Trengo because you wanted to send WhatsApp campaigns, the feature you came for is the one behind the paywall, and its price arrives in a quote rather than on the website.
There is a related trap in Trengo's own documentation. Its help center article on WhatsApp conversation based pricing still describes Meta not charging for the first 1,000 user initiated conversations each month. Meta retired that allowance on November 1, 2024 and replaced it with service conversations being free for all businesses, which we re checked against Meta's live pricing documentation on September 9, 2026. If you build a cost model from that article you will be modelling a scheme that ended almost two years ago. The same stale allowance still appears on other providers' pages, which is why WhatsApp Business API pricing is worth reading against Meta's own categories rather than any vendor's summary.
Trengo competitors, compared on the thing that actually differs
Feature grids are not useful here, because every product in this category has an inbox, templates and automation. What separates them is the billing unit, and that is what decides whether you are overpaying. Prices below are each vendor's own published figures, checked September 9, 2026. Where a vendor does not publish a number, the table says so rather than guessing.
| Provider | Entry price | Billing unit | Meta fees | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trengo | €299 / mo annual, 10 users | 7 day conversation thread | Markup not published | Multi channel support teams with steady inbound |
| respond.io | $79 / mo, 5 users | Seats plus monthly active contacts | States WhatsApp fees are not included in any subscription | Sales teams that want routing without a seat floor |
| Twilio | No platform fee | Per message, $0.005 in and out | Pass through, listed separately | Developers who already have their own front end |
| 360dialog | €49 / mo per number | Per phone number, flat | States no markup on Meta fees | High volume senders who want throughput, not an inbox |
| Wati | USD plan price not published | Seats, with strict per plan caps | Not published | Small teams that only need WhatsApp |
| Zoko | $49.99 / mo | Per conversation markup on top of a plan | Publishes its own markup per conversation | Shopify stores selling in chat |
Two of these deserve a caveat rather than a score. Wati publishes seat limits and the price of extra seats but not a US dollar plan price, so it cannot be ranked on cost honestly. Trengo does not publish whether it marks up Meta's fees, and several articles claiming it passes them through at cost are asserting something Trengo's own pricing page does not state. Ask for both numbers in writing before you compare quotes, and read how the cheapest WhatsApp API provider changes with volume before you assume the lowest sticker wins.
Who should stay on Trengo, and who is paying for the wrong product
Stay on Trengo if
- You have eight or more agents who spend the day replying to customers.
- Real conversations are the point, and threads run several messages deep.
- You need email, live chat, Instagram, Facebook and voice in the same inbox, not just WhatsApp.
- Your monthly thread count sits comfortably inside 500 or 1,500 without overage.
- You want AI handling built in and are willing to pay the per conversation surcharge for it.
Look at a Trengo alternative if
- Most of your volume goes out to a list rather than coming in from customers.
- You are regularly buying overage conversations at €18 or €15 per 100.
- Your team is smaller than the bundled 10 or 20 seats you are paying for.
- Broadcasting is the feature you came for and it is quoted separately.
- You want the Meta fee and the provider fee on separate lines so you can audit them.
There is a middle case worth naming, because it is the most common one. Plenty of businesses genuinely need both: an inbox for the replies and a campaign tool for the sends. Splitting them is not a compromise, it is usually cheaper than either product doing both jobs badly. Keep the helpdesk your agents already know, run the outbound side on a platform billed per message, and connect the two. That is the same reasoning behind running WhatsApp next to an existing helpdesk in a Zendesk WhatsApp integration or a WhatsApp shared inbox rather than replacing your whole support stack to get one channel.
Questions buyers ask before switching
How much does Trengo cost?
Trengo publishes two plans. Boost is 349 euros a month billed monthly, or 299 euros a month billed annually, and includes 10 users and 500 conversations a month. Pro is 599 euros a month billed monthly, or 499 euros annually, and includes 20 users and 1,500 conversations. Enterprise is custom. Extra conversations cost 18 euros per 100 monthly or 15 euros per 100 annually.
What is a conversation in Trengo?
Trengo defines it on its own pricing page as any reply to an inbound or outbound message with a customer that occurs within a 7 day window, and states that any messages outside that window start a new conversation. It is a thread with one customer over seven days, not a single message. That matters for outbound campaigns, because reaching 5,000 distinct contacts maps onto up to 5,000 billable conversations.
Is broadcasting included in Trengo?
No. Trengo lists broadcasting as a paid add on across all three tiers, including Enterprise. Voice calling and additional conversations are add ons on every plan too. The unified inbox, the WhatsApp Business API connection, the AI agent, the website widget, auto replies and quick replies are the parts included in the plan price.
What is the best Trengo alternative?
It depends on which half of Trengo you actually use. If you need a shared inbox where agents reply to customers all day, a per seat helpdesk is the like for like swap. If your volume is outbound campaigns to a list, the swap is a campaign tool billed per message on top of Meta's pass through rates, because conversation metering charges inbox prices for delivery.
Does Trengo charge a markup on WhatsApp fees?
Trengo does not state a markup percentage on its published pricing page. It says WhatsApp, voice and SMS usage beyond what is included is charged per usage, without separating Meta's fee from its own. Third party comparison articles claiming Trengo passes Meta fees through at cost are asserting something Trengo's own pricing page does not say, so treat it as unconfirmed until you see it on a quote.
Is Trengo good for WhatsApp bulk messaging?
It is built for the opposite job. Trengo is a shared inbox priced per conversation thread, and broadcasting is an add on rather than the core product. At the annual overage rate of 15 euros per 100 conversations, each extra contact you reach costs roughly 18 cents, against roughly eight tenths of a cent to deliver the same US utility template at pass through rates.
Does Trengo have a free plan?
No free plan appears on Trengo's published pricing. The entry point is Boost at 299 euros a month on annual billing, which also carries a 10 user minimum. There is no per seat starter tier below that on the current pricing page, so the smallest commitment Trengo publishes is roughly 3,600 euros a year before any add on.
How many users are included in Trengo?
Boost includes 10 users and Pro includes 20. Extra users are charged on top: 30 euros a month each on Boost billed monthly, 25 euros annually, and 50 euros a month each on Pro billed monthly, 40 euros annually. Because the seat count is bundled rather than chosen, a team of four still pays for ten.
What happens if I go over my Trengo conversation limit?
Extra conversations are billed as an add on at 18 euros per 100 on monthly billing and 15 euros per 100 on annual billing. There is no free buffer published. Because a conversation is a 7 day thread with one customer, a single campaign sent to more contacts than your allowance converts directly into overage at those rates.
Does Trengo price in dollars?
Trengo's pricing page offers a currency toggle for euros, US dollars and British pounds, so a dollar figure is displayed. The plans are built around euro amounts, which is worth checking on the contract itself, because a euro denominated agreement leaves a US buyer holding exchange rate risk on a bill that renews every month.
Is Trengo cheaper than Wati or respond.io?
At the entry tier, no. Trengo's cheapest published plan is 299 euros a month on annual billing, around 350 dollars. Respond.io publishes Starter at 79 dollars a month for five users and states that WhatsApp fees are not included in any subscription. Wati publishes seat counts but no US dollar plan price. The comparison flips at scale, because Trengo bundles 20 seats into Pro where others charge per head.
Stop buying conversations to send campaigns
If the job is bulk WhatsApp templates, scheduling, personalization and delivery reporting, you should be paying per message on the official WhatsApp Business Platform, not per thread on an inbox licence.
See WaBulkSend pricing →Keep comparing
respond.io alternative
Seats plus monthly active contacts, and where that model gets expensive.
Wati alternative
Seat caps, the price of extra users, and the plan price Wati does not publish.
Cheapest WhatsApp API provider
Why the cheapest provider flips at a volume instead of being a fixed ranking.
360dialog pricing
Every published plan in euros per number, and where it beats Twilio.
WhatsApp customer service platform
What an omnichannel inbox is actually for, and when you need one.
WhatsApp broadcast tool
Sending to a list on the official platform, priced per message.