Better Messages Pricing
Better Messages is a free WordPress plugin — install it from WordPress.org and the AJAX version works right away. Real-time messaging via polling, chat rooms, file sharing, group chats, and 38 integrations are all included at no cost, on any WordPress hosting.
To upgrade to the WebSocket version — instant delivery up to 200x faster than AJAX, dramatically reduced WordPress server load, voice and video calls, Better Messages Cloud AI services (moderation, translation, transcription), end-to-end encryption, and your own branded iOS and Android apps — buy a license. The WebSocket version is delivered as a separate plugin download from your Freemius account, and once activated it replaces the free version inside WordPress automatically. All your messages, threads, files, settings, and integrations stay intact through the swap.
Pricing summary#
| Plan | Monthly price | Annual price | Annual total | Sites |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AJAX (Free) | $0 | $0 | $0 | unlimited |
| WebSocket | $14.99 / month | $11.99 / month | $143.88 / year | 1 to 100, from $9 a site |
| WebSocket Self-Hosted | — | $25.00 / month | $299.99 / year | 1 to 100, $21 a year per extra site |
Prices above are for one site. A license can cover any number of sites from 1 to 100, and each extra site costs less. Pick yours on the pricing page. The annual option is 20 % cheaper than monthly. Self-hosted billing is annual only.
WebSocket version
Instant messages, calls and your own app
Voice and video calls, Cloud AI, typing and read status, web push and a branded iOS and Android app, on top of everything in the free version.
$11.99 / month
$143.88 billed yearly for one site, or $14.99 monthly. More sites cost less each.
Payments are processed through Freemius, the same checkout used by thousands of premium WordPress plugins. Credit and debit cards plus PayPal are accepted. Each paid license includes a 7-day money-back guarantee — see the refund policy for full terms.
Which plan should I pick?#
- AJAX (Free) — start here to evaluate the plugin on a real site. Messaging, chat rooms, file sharing, group chats, AI chat bots, and 38 integrations all work out of the box. Upgrade to the WebSocket version when you're ready to add instant delivery, dramatically reduced WordPress server load, voice and video calls, Better Messages Cloud AI services, end-to-end encryption, and your own branded mobile apps.
- WebSocket (monthly) — same plugin, but messages arrive instantly. Pick this if you want to try the paid version risk-free for a month, or if your site's revenue is not yet ready to commit a year in advance.
- WebSocket (annual) — recommended for production sites. Same features as monthly, but ~20 % cheaper, and you don't have to think about renewals each month.
- WebSocket Self-Hosted — only relevant if you must run the WebSocket relay on your own infrastructure (GDPR Article 9, HIPAA-adjacent, jurisdictional sovereignty, internal corporate policy). Includes everything in the WebSocket plan plus the self-hosted relay build and a one-time installation service. Note: you also need to provide a dedicated cloud instance or VPS to host the relay on — that infrastructure is billed by your hosting provider separately and is not part of the $25/mo plan. Most sites do not need this.
What's included in each plan#
AJAX (Free) — $0#
Available on WordPress.org. Uses AJAX polling for message delivery — no separate server infrastructure required. Runs on any WordPress hosting, including shared hosts.
- Realtime chatting via AJAX polling
- Modern design
- Easy customization — colors, light or dark mode, message styles, corners, spacing and fonts in the Appearance settings, with a live preview
- Mobile friendly — full screen on phones, swipe to go back, a bottom tab bar and an optional floating chat button
- Chat rooms — public or members-only
- Guest chat — visitors chat without an account, in chat rooms open to guests and in private conversations started from Live Chat buttons
- Offline sending — messages written without a connection are sent once it returns
- File sharing with EXIF stripping and proxy-protected URLs
- Location sharing — a place picked on a map, with search, nearby suggestions and the current position
- Reworked email notifications
- Emoji selector
- Stickers and GIFs (GIPHY / KLIPY)
- Sound notifications
- On-site notifications
- Embedded link previews and media players for YouTube, Vimeo, Spotify, SoundCloud and more
- Multi-participant conversations
- Group messages for BuddyPress, BuddyBoss, PeepSo and Ultimate Member groups and FluentCommunity spaces
- Course chats for LearnDash, LearnPress, Tutor LMS, MasterStudy LMS and FluentCommunity courses — students join the course chat when they enroll
- Favorited messages
- Conversation subjects
- Conversations muting
- Message formatting with markdown syntax (bold, italic, lists, code, blockquotes)
- Mass messaging tools for admins
- Edit, delete, reply to and forward messages
- Message reactions
- Search, pinned messages, @mentions, an unread filter and saved drafts
- Moderation and safety — report and block users, a bad-words filter, pre-moderation, site moderators, role-based rules, transcript export and AI moderation with your own OpenAI key
- Charge myCRED or GamiPress points for new conversations and messages, with a price per role
- Mini widgets — friends, groups, users, AI bots and chat rooms in a bottom bar or a floating bubble on every page
- Privacy and GDPR tools — personal data export and erasure, auto-delete of old messages, no cookies or tracking
- Shortcodes, blocks, the REST API, hooks and MCP for AI assistants
- AI chat bots — OpenAI, Anthropic Claude, and Google Gemini (via the included AI add-on, using your own provider API key)
- White-label — no Better Messages branding shown to end users
- 38 native integrations (BuddyPress, BuddyBoss, PeepSo, WooCommerce, Dokan, LearnDash, and many more)
- Voice and video messages — via the separate Voice and Video Messages add-on (works on both versions)
- Email, forum, and help-center support
WebSocket — $14.99 / month, or $11.99 / month annually#
Everything in the AJAX plan, plus an instant WebSocket relay (hosted for you as part of the license) and the WebSocket-only features below.
- Instant message delivery — up to 200x faster than AJAX. Messages typically arrive in under 200 ms instead of waiting for the next 3–10 second check
- Dramatically reduced WordPress server load — AJAX polling fires a request from every active user to your WordPress REST API every few seconds. WebSocket offloads that traffic entirely to the Better Messages cloud relay — your WP server only handles initial page loads and database writes when messages are sent. Often the single biggest practical benefit for sites on shared hosting, entry-level VPS, or with many concurrent chatters
- Unlimited members, messages and connections — no per-member, per-message or connection fees, the same price at 100 members or 100,000
- HD video calls — one-on-one inside any thread
- HD audio calls — one-on-one inside any thread
- HD group video chats — up to 32 people, in group conversations and chat rooms
- HD group audio chats — up to 50 people, in group conversations and chat rooms
- Screen sharing during calls
- Call controls — call buttons on BuddyPress, BuddyBoss, PeepSo, FluentCommunity and SureDash profiles and member directories or anywhere with a shortcode, calls between friends only, roles that cannot start calls or join group calls, and myCRED or GamiPress points charged per minute of a 1-to-1 call
- Your own iOS and Android apps — branded messenger apps built, signed and published to the App Store and Google Play from WP Admin, with push notifications and calls that ring like a phone call
- Web push notifications — browser push for desktop and mobile web
- Better Messages Cloud AI — message translation into 69 languages, AI moderation and voice transcription, with no third-party API key needed. Transcription needs the Voice and Video Messages add-on, and Cloud AI needs PHP 8.1 or newer
- End-to-end encryption — opt-in per thread, keys never leave the participant browsers
- Encrypted before the relay — message text, subjects and sender details are AES-256 encrypted on your WordPress server, with a key the relay never gets
- Messages stay in your database — the relay stores no message content, so export and migration are ordinary WordPress work
- Encrypted browser storage — messages cached in the browser for fast loading are stored encrypted
- Presence indicator — see who is online, and let members set Online, Away or Do Not Disturb
- Typing indicator — see who is typing, recording or uploading
- Message status — sent, delivered and read, per person in group chats
- Mini chats — chat windows that stay open while members browse the site
- Mini conversations list — recent conversations pinned to the bottom of every page
- Realtime BuddyPress notifications — friend requests, group invitations and membership requests appear instantly on BuddyPress sites
- Seamless plan change — upgrade or go back to the free version at any time and keep every message. End-to-end encrypted conversations and a published mobile app need an active license
- Priority support
Email, forum, and help-center support (same channels as the free plan, prioritized).
WebSocket Self-Hosted — $25 / month billed annually#
Everything in the WebSocket plan, plus the relay runs on your own infrastructure.
Note: the self-hosted plan covers the relay build, the installation service, and the license — it does not include the server the relay runs on. You need to provide your own dedicated cloud instance or VPS (DigitalOcean, Hetzner, Linode, AWS EC2, Google Cloud, your private datacenter, etc.), billed by your hosting provider separately.
- All WebSocket plan features
- Self-hosted relay build — the relay shipped as a deployable bundle
- Installation service — I set up the relay on the cloud instance or VPS you provide (one-time, included)
- Data transmitted through your servers only — no third-party relay, useful for GDPR Article 9 data, HIPAA-adjacent workloads, or jurisdictional rules about which servers may transit user data
- Dedicated cloud instance / VPS required — you supply the server, billed separately by your hosting provider (DigitalOcean, Hetzner, Linode, AWS, etc.)
- Priority email, forum, and help-center support
Full feature comparison#
| Feature | AJAX (Free) | WebSocket | WebSocket Self-Hosted |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $0 | $14.99 / mo, or $11.99 / mo annual | $25 / mo annual |
| Sites per license | unlimited installs | 1 to 100 | 1 to 100 |
| Relay infrastructure | not needed (AJAX uses your WP hosting) | included (hosted for you) | you provide a dedicated VPS / cloud instance, billed separately |
| Realtime chatting | yes (AJAX polling) | yes (instant push) | yes (instant push) |
| Chat rooms | yes | yes | yes |
| File sharing | yes | yes | yes |
| Voice and video messages add-on | works | works | works |
| Email notifications | yes | yes | yes |
| Emoji, stickers, GIFs | yes | yes | yes |
| Sound + on-site notifications | yes | yes | yes |
| Group messages and conversations | yes | yes | yes |
| Course chats (LearnDash, LearnPress, Tutor LMS, MasterStudy LMS, FluentCommunity) | yes | yes | yes |
| Easy customization and mobile-friendly layout | yes | yes | yes |
| Location sharing and forwarding | yes | yes | yes |
| Edit, delete, reply, react | yes | yes | yes |
| Markdown message formatting | yes | yes | yes |
| Mass messaging | yes | yes | yes |
| 38 integrations | yes | yes | yes |
| AI chat bots (OpenAI / Anthropic / Gemini, your API key) | yes | yes | yes |
| Guest chat and offline sending | yes | yes | yes |
| Search, pins, mentions | yes | yes | yes |
| Moderation tools (reports, pre-moderation, site moderators) | yes | yes | yes |
| Mini widgets and floating bubble | yes | yes | yes |
| Points for messages (myCRED / GamiPress) | yes | yes | yes |
| White-label | yes | yes | yes |
| WordPress server load from messaging | scales with active users | minimal (relay handles it) | minimal (your relay handles it) |
| Instant WebSocket delivery | — | yes | yes |
| Unlimited connections | — | yes | yes |
| HD 1-on-1 voice + video calls | — | yes | yes |
| HD group voice + video calls | — | yes | yes |
| Screen sharing | — | yes | yes |
| Call buttons on profiles, call permissions, call pricing with points | — | yes | yes |
| Web push notifications | — | yes | yes |
| End-to-end encryption | — | yes | yes |
| Message text encrypted before the relay (AES-256 on your server) | no relay involved | yes | yes |
| Encrypted browser storage | — | yes | yes |
| Better Messages Cloud AI (moderation, translation, transcription) | — | yes | yes |
| Mini chats and mini conversations list | — | yes | yes |
| Typing + presence + read status | — | yes | yes |
| Realtime BuddyPress notifications | — | yes | yes |
| Your own iOS / Android app | — | yes | yes |
| Priority support | — | yes | yes |
| Self-hosted WebSocket relay | — | — | yes |
| Installation service | — | — | yes (included) |
Add-ons#
- Voice and Video Messages — record and send audio messages, and video messages, in conversations. Works on both the AJAX (free) version and the WebSocket version. One site costs $11.99 a year, or $39.99 once for a lifetime license. The price per site drops with every site you add: 10 sites cost $41.99 a year or $140.99 lifetime, and 100 sites $152.99 a year or $499.99 lifetime. Choose the number of sites on the pricing page.
Frequently asked questions#
Is there a free version?#
Yes. The free version is published on WordPress.org under the slug bp-better-messages. It uses AJAX polling for realtime delivery and includes all the core messaging, chat-room, file-sharing, and integration features. No license required.
Why is the WebSocket version paid?#
The WebSocket version includes a hosted relay infrastructure (servers in multiple regions, TURN relays for calls, monitoring, scaling) plus access to the Better Messages Cloud AI services (moderation, translation, transcription). The subscription pays for that infrastructure and ongoing development.
Are prices per-site?#
Each license covers the number of sites you pick, from 1 to 100, and every extra site costs less. WebSocket goes from $11.99 a site a month for one site down to $9 a site at 100 sites, billed yearly. Self-hosted starts at $299.99 a year and adds $21 a year per extra site. The Voice and Video Messages add-on goes from $11.99 a year for one site to $152.99 a year for 100, with a lifetime license at every size. Choose the number on the pricing page. For more than 100 sites, talk to support.
Do you provide staging licenses?#
Yes — staging licenses are available on annual plans only. They let you activate the same WebSocket license on a separate staging or development site alongside your production site, so you can test plugin updates and configuration changes without buying a second license. Monthly billing does not include a staging license. Contact support after your annual purchase to enable staging activation.
Can I switch between monthly and annual?#
Yes. Freemius lets you switch billing cycles from your account dashboard.
What happens if I cancel the WebSocket subscription?#
The license keeps working until the end of the period you have paid for. After that the plugin reverts to AJAX behavior — messages, threads, history, files, integration data, and AI chat bots stay intact, but WebSocket push, calls, Better Messages Cloud AI, the mobile apps, and the other WebSocket-only features stop working, and end-to-end encrypted conversations cannot be read until you reactivate. You can reactivate at any time.
Is there a refund policy?#
Yes — 7-day money-back guarantee. If during the first 7 days you experience an issue that makes the plugin unusable and support is unable to resolve it, you get a full refund. Renewal payments are not refunded. To ask for a refund, email support@better-messages.com. See the full refund policy for terms and eligibility details.
Does pricing scale with my user count?#
No. WebSocket version pricing is flat per site, regardless of how many users, messages, or concurrent connections you have. A site with 100,000 active users pays the same as one with 100. See no limits on connections or volume.
How does this compare to other realtime / chat-as-a-service platforms?#
The pricing model is fundamentally different. Most realtime / chat-as-a-service platforms — the SaaS providers that sell WebSocket pub/sub infrastructure as a building block — charge per concurrent connection, per monthly active user (MAU), or per delivered message, sometimes a combination of all three. Entry tiers start cheap, but the bill scales linearly (or worse) as your community grows. A WordPress site with a few thousand concurrent chatters can easily cost hundreds or thousands of dollars per month on those services, and even modest active communities routinely outgrow free tiers within weeks.
Better Messages WebSocket is flat-rate per site, regardless of size: $14.99/mo monthly, $11.99/mo billed annually. 100 concurrent users or 100,000 — same bill, same features, same performance. That works because the relay is purpose-built for messaging on WordPress (not a general-purpose pub/sub channel rented by anyone for anything), and nothing is billed per delivered event.
And the comparison isn't apples-to-apples — those services usually sell only the WebSocket relay layer. The Better Messages WebSocket plan includes a lot more on top of WebSocket messaging:
- Voice and video call infrastructure — relay servers for peer-to-peer connections, fallback for users behind restrictive networks, and call signaling. Standalone realtime call services typically add a separate per-minute or per-participant bill.
- Group voice and video calls — multi-participant calls inside any conversation, with no per-minute charge regardless of session length or attendee count.
- Better Messages Cloud AI — content moderation, real-time message translation, and voice transcription, all running on Better Messages servers with no separate API account, per-token billing, or third-party rate limits.
- Web push and mobile-app push delivery — included, with no separate push-as-a-service subscription.
Compared on like-for-like infrastructure (messaging + calls + AI + push), the savings widen significantly. If your community has growth ambitions, flat-rate pricing avoids the unpleasant surprise where success suddenly becomes expensive. See no limits on connections or volume for the full breakdown.
Will the WebSocket version reduce my WordPress server load?#
Yes — significantly, and this is often the biggest practical reason production sites upgrade. The AJAX (free) version uses polling: every active user fires a request to your WordPress REST API every few seconds to check for new messages. With many concurrent chatters this adds up to meaningful CPU and database load on your WP server, and grows linearly with active user count. The WebSocket version routes all messaging traffic to the Better Messages cloud relay instead — your WordPress server only handles initial page loads and the database write when a message is sent. For sites on shared hosting, entry-level VPS, or with hundreds of concurrent users, the load reduction is dramatic and often pays back the subscription cost in hosting savings alone.
Do I need the self-hosted plan?#
Only if you have strict data-sovereignty rules — GDPR Article 9 (special-category personal data), HIPAA-adjacent workflows, internal corporate policy forbidding third-party relays, or jurisdictional requirements about which servers user data may pass through. For the vast majority of community, marketplace, LMS, and membership sites, the standard WebSocket plan is the right pick. The cloud relay receives message text AES-256 encrypted, stores no message content and is GDPR-compatible by default.
Also keep in mind that the self-hosted plan does not include hosting infrastructure. You need a dedicated cloud instance or VPS (DigitalOcean, Hetzner, Linode, AWS, etc.) to run the relay on, billed separately by your hosting provider. Most teams underestimate this when comparing the $25/mo self-hosted price against the standard $11.99/mo WebSocket plan — by the time you add the hosting cost and the operational overhead of running it yourself, the standard plan is usually meaningfully cheaper unless you have a hard requirement that forces self-hosting.
What payment methods are accepted?#
Credit and debit cards and PayPal through the Freemius checkout. Wire transfer and invoicing are available for annual and self-hosted plans on request.
Where do I buy?#
You have three options, all using the same Freemius checkout:
- Right here on this page — click Get WebSocket in the box above. The checkout opens in a secure overlay and you stay on this page through the purchase. Toggle between monthly and annual inside the modal.
- From the better-messages.com homepage — the plan cards on the homepage open the same checkout.
- From the WordPress admin — after installing the free plugin, open Better Messages → Upgrade.
All three routes land you on the same Freemius checkout, with the same prices and the same 7-day money-back guarantee.
Is there a lifetime license?#
No, for two reasons:
1. Hosted infrastructure costs money every day. The WebSocket version isn't just code — it includes the cloud WebSocket relay, TURN servers for voice and video calls, push-notification gateways, and Better Messages Cloud AI services (moderation, translation, transcription). Every active license keeps those servers running.
2. Continuous updates and support cost money every day. Better Messages has been actively developed since 2017. WordPress evolves, browsers change, the 38 integrated plugins ship new versions, security patches go out regularly, new features land in every release, and customer support questions need real human answers. A one-time payment can't fund ongoing development and support indefinitely.
A lifetime model can work for finished products that ship once and walk away. It can't work for a plugin that is hosted, deeply integrated with the rest of the WordPress ecosystem, actively maintained, and supported. Plenty of plugin shops have sold lifetime deals, run out of runway, and either stopped updating, stopped supporting, or shut down — leaving "lifetime" customers stranded. I'd rather charge a fair subscription and stay around than over-promise and break it later.
If recurring billing is the friction point, the free AJAX version on WordPress.org has no expiration and no license — it works forever, no strings attached.
The Voice and Video Messages add-on is the exception and is also sold with a lifetime license.
See also#
- What is Better Messages? — features overview and how the two versions differ
- Installation guide — how to install the plugin
- No limits on connections or volume — why the WebSocket plan stays flat-priced regardless of site size
- Integrations directory — the 38 plugins Better Messages plugs into
- End-user license agreement — full license terms