Which ChatLLM alternative should you switch to?
ChatLLM bills each user you invite $10 a month from the day you invite them, with no cap on team size. That's a seat price no team plan on this list beats. Switch to ChatHub Pro if ChatLLM's credits are the problem. Pick Claude Team or ChatGPT Business if your team needs admin seats, TypingMind or OpenRouter if you hold API keys, and Open WebUI if your data must stay on your own server. Stay on ChatLLM if $10 a seat for GPT-6 Astra, Claude Fable 5.1 and an app building agent is why you pay. This page covers ChatLLM Teams from Abacus.AI. Prices were read on each vendor's own page on 3 October 2026, in US dollars, unless the row says otherwise.
| Alternative | Price, as of 3 October 2026 | How usage is counted | Pick it when |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatLLM (stay) | Basic $10 a user a month ($7 first month); Pro $20 | 20,000 credits on Basic, 30,000 on Pro; no rate per model published | you want 100+ models, image and video, and the agent for $10 a seat |
| ChatHub | Pro $19 a month or $14.99 billed yearly; Unlimited $39 or $24.99 | 1,500 Advanced queries a month on Pro, one per answer | you want a fixed count of frontier answers |
| Claude Team | $25 a seat a month or $20 billed yearly, teams of 2 to 150 | Claude usage limits per seat | your team writes and codes in Claude |
| ChatGPT Business | $25 a seat a month or $20 billed yearly, 2 seat minimum | OpenAI usage limits per seat | your team works in ChatGPT |
| Poe | Premium $19.99 a month (UsagePricing; Poe's page refuses automated reads) | 660,000 compute points a month since July 2026 | you want creator bots and a wide catalogue |
| Perplexity Pro | $20 a month or $200 a year (Perplexity's pricing page, via search listing) | Pro limits on search and research | most of your questions need cited sources |
| T3 Chat | $8 a month (its own site's search listing; the pricing page blocks automated reads) | not read | you want the cheapest hosted plan |
| Anakin AI | Basic $9.90, Pro $19.90, Premium $39.90 a month | 9,000, 19,000 or 39,000 credits | you want no code AI apps and workflows |
| TypingMind | Standard $39, Extended $79, Premium $99, each paid once | your own API keys at provider rates | you hold keys and want to own the client |
| OpenRouter | pay as you go, with a 5.5% fee on credit purchases | per token at each provider's rate | you want 500+ models and pay only for what you send |
| Open WebUI | free and open source; you run the server | your own keys or local models | your data must stay on your own hardware |
| Whizi | Starter $15.99, Pro $29.99, Powerhouse $49.99 a month | 800, 2,500 or 10,000 credits; every model's credit cost published | you want 280+ models and the price of a message before you send it |
Eleven made the list because each one replaces a reason people leave ChatLLM: unpredictable credits, team admin, API keys or data location. The directory that ranks first for this query, Vantaige's ChatLLM alternatives, pads its ten with Zhipu GLM, MiniMax and AWS Bedrock. Those are model makers and a developer platform, and none of them is a place to chat. Anakin AI is the one directory pick kept here, with a caution. Its pricing page still listed GPT-3.5, GPT-4 and Claude-3 as the supported models on 3 October 2026, so open its model picker before you pay. The wider map of hosted, API key and self hosted options is in the best all in one AI platforms.
What are ChatLLM's limits, and why do the credits run out?
ChatLLM Basic gives 20,000 credits a month, and only 15,000 of them are open before your final week. Abacus.AI's billing FAQ, read on 3 October 2026, explains the 75% usage message this way: "the idea is to spread it for the entire month," and "You can use the last 25% on the last week of your subscription." Use it hard in the first fortnight and you'll stop at 15,000 credits with seven or more days to wait, unless you buy more.
The second problem is that no one can tell you what a message costs. The same FAQ says credits measure "our entire service", from the agent to video. It also says Abacus changes model rates often: "This is why you can only see credits after usage." What it does publish is a ceiling and a floor. The ceiling is up to 15M input tokens a month on expensive models such as Claude Sonnet 4.5 and GPT-5.2, and 70M on others. The floor is eleven models that keep working after the credits are gone: RouteLLM, GPT-5.4 Mini, Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite, GLM 5.3, GLM 5.3 Flash, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, DeepSeek V4 Flash, DeepSeek V4 Pro, Kimi K2.7 Code, Muse Spark 1.3 and MiMo V2.6 Pro. Claude Opus 4.5 and o3-pro are named as the models that "may consume more credits per task".
The prices in that FAQ also show where the value sits. Basic's 20,000 credits cost $10, which is $0.50 per 1,000. Pro's extra $10 adds 10,000 credits, which is $1.00 per 1,000. The FAQ's reason for the 75% limit is that "the 10K credits cost $10". It says "you can always buy more" without listing a price for extra credits. So Pro is worth buying for its unrestricted Abacus AI Agent, Studio and SuperComputer, never for cheaper credits. If you're leaving because the credits run out, the fix is a plan that counts answers in a unit you can see: ChatHub's 1,500 Advanced queries, Whizi's published per model credits, or your own API key on OpenRouter or TypingMind.
Which ChatLLM Teams alternative works for a whole team?
Claude Team and ChatGPT Business are the team alternatives with real admin seats. Both cost more than ChatLLM Teams: $25 a seat a month, or $20 billed yearly, against ChatLLM's $10 a user. If you need the cheapest seat, nothing on this page beats ChatLLM.
| Team plan, as of 3 October 2026 | Per seat a month | Seats | What the team gets |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatLLM Teams | $10 ($7 first month); Pro $20 | "no limit to the number of users you can invite", each billed on invite | 100+ models, image and video, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Google Drive and SharePoint connectors |
| Claude Team | $25, or $20 billed yearly | 2 to 150 | Claude models only |
| ChatGPT Business | $25, or $20 billed yearly | at least 2 | OpenAI models only, in one managed workspace |
| TypingMind Bulk | $395 once, not monthly | up to 10 users on 50 devices | Premium features on a shared API key you fund |
| Whizi | no team plan | one account per person | individual Starter, Pro or Powerhouse plans (team accounts) |
The trade is breadth for control. Claude Team and ChatGPT Business each give one lab's models from the lab that trains them. ChatLLM's $10 seat spans OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, xAI and open models, and it states SOC 2 Type 2 and HIPAA on its product page. A team that uses both GPT and Claude every day pays $50 a seat to get them from the two labs directly. A team that uses one of them should buy that one.
Is there a free ChatLLM alternative?
Yes for the software, no for frontier models. Open WebUI is free to self host with your own keys or local models. OpenRouter's free tier opens 25+ free models at 50 requests a day, and Anakin AI's free plan gives 30 credits a day on a Gemini model. You won't get GPT-6 Astra or Claude Fable from any of them without a card or an API key.
The single lab free plans are the other route. ChatGPT Free lists unlimited text chats with GPT-5.6 Luna, subject to abuse guardrails, and Claude has a $0 plan. ChatLLM itself doesn't have a free tier. The cheapest way in is the $7 first month, which comes with 14,000 credits rather than 20,000, because Abacus scales promotional credits to the price paid.
ChatLLM vs Poe, Perplexity and OpenRouter: what is different?
ChatLLM is a $10 bundle of chat, media and an agent. Poe, Perplexity and OpenRouter each do one of those jobs. Poe meters every message in compute points. Its $19.99 Premium plan dropped from 1,000,000 to 660,000 points a month on 28 July 2026 at the same price, per UsagePricing's tracker. Perplexity Pro, at $20 a month, is an answer engine built around cited web results. It's the better pick when sourced research is the job (Perplexity alternatives covers the other direction).
OpenRouter is the developer gateway: one key, 500+ models at provider rates plus a 5.5% fee on credit purchases, and no workspace around it. Abacus sells its own version of that, the RouteLLM API, billed from the same ChatLLM credits. If you mostly used ChatLLM for API calls, OpenRouter is the like for like move.
Where does Whizi beat ChatLLM, and where does it lose?
Whizi, which publishes this page, loses to ChatLLM on price and on team features. It wins on one thing: you know what a message costs before you send it. ChatLLM is read from Abacus.AI's pages on 3 October 2026, Whizi from its plan docs.
| ChatLLM | Whizi | |
|---|---|---|
| Cheapest plan with GPT-6 Astra and Claude Fable | $10 Basic | $49.99 Powerhouse, at 100 credits a message (100 a month) |
| Models | 100+ | 280+ |
| Price of one message | shown after usage | published per model in the Model Cost Index |
| Team seats | $10 a user, no seat cap | none |
| Agent that builds and hosts apps | yes | no |
| Delete the account | by email to support@abacus.ai | in Settings, with a two step confirmation (delete your account) |
Where Whizi loses: ChatLLM gives the frontier models for a fifth of Whizi's Powerhouse price, sells team seats, and builds apps. Whizi doesn't do any of those. If those are your reasons, stay on ChatLLM. Take ChatHub Pro if the credits are what pushed you out. Whizi is the pick when you want every message priced in advance across 280+ models, from 1 credit for GPT-5.6 Luna to 10 for Claude Sonnet 5. Pro, where Claude Sonnet, ChatGPT Sol and Kimi K3 start, opens with a $1.99 first week.
- Open ChatLLM's credit usage log and note the day you hit the 75% message last month
- List the models you actually used; if they are among the eleven unlimited ones, the credit limit is not your problem
- For a team, price seats at $25 on Claude Team or ChatGPT Business against $10 on ChatLLM before you move anyone
- Export or copy the ChatLLM chats you want to keep before cancelling; your plan stays active to the end of the paid month
- Email support@abacus.ai to remove a card, since Abacus deletes cards only by deleting the account
Frequently asked questions
How much is ChatLLM per month?
ChatLLM Basic is $10 per user a month and Pro is $20, as of 3 October 2026, with a $7 first month on Basic. Basic includes 20,000 credits and three Abacus AI Agent conversations a month. Pro raises that to 30,000 credits and unrestricted agent use.
What happens when ChatLLM credits run out?
Eleven models keep working. Abacus lists RouteLLM, GPT-5.4 Mini, Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite, GLM 5.3, the DeepSeek V4 family, Kimi K2.7 Code and others as usable "even after hitting the credit limit". Everything else, including Claude and GPT frontier models, waits for extra credits or your renewal date, when the 20,000 reset. Abacus's billing FAQ doesn't price those extra credits.
How do I cancel ChatLLM?
Cancel from your profile in ChatLLM. Abacus says "Cancel Subscription" sits at the bottom right of the Profile page on desktop, and the plan stays active for the month you paid. Cancelling doesn't remove your card. That takes deleting the account by email to support@abacus.ai.
Is ChatLLM worth it?
ChatLLM is worth it if you want many labs' frontier models, image and video for $10, and can live with credits you only see after use. It isn't if you need a predictable count of frontier answers, where ChatHub Pro's 1,500 Advanced queries for $19 is clearer, or one lab's models for a team.
