8 Best Tidio Alternatives in 2026 (With Pricing)
The 8 best Tidio alternatives with flat-rate pricing, unlimited seats, and self-updating knowledge bases.
Stonly Pricing in 2026: Pricing Plans, Hidden Costs & the Best Alternative
We explain Stonly pricing beyond the demo wall - actual costs, feature restrictions.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Stonly looks simple at first. You see two plans on the site, along with a list of features. But the real story sits behind sales calls, usage limits, and custom pricing. If you’re trying to understand Stonly pricing, it often takes more time than it should.
Most Stonly pricing plans are not fully public. Some sources indicate starting prices of around $199 per month, while others offer different tiers and custom quotes based on usage, team size, and specific features. On top of that, limits like guide views, seats, and AI features can change what you actually pay.
This guide breaks down Stonly pricing in 2026 in plain terms. You’ll see how the plans work, what the real costs look like, and where hidden limits show up. It also covers a strong alternative if you want more clarity and control over your budget.
What is Stonly?
Stonly is a knowledge management and interactive guide platform designed for customer service teams. Its core concept is replacing static help articles with branching, step-by-step guides that adapt to the user's choices. Instead of reading a 1,500-word FAQ, a customer clicks through a guided flow and only sees steps relevant to their situation.
Key features include the following:
- Interactive guides and decision trees - branching workflows that walk customers through troubleshooting or onboarding
- Knowledge base - a self-service help center that customers can search
- AI Answers and AI Agents - on Enterprise plans, AI that leverages guide content to respond to queries automatically
- Widget - an embeddable pop-up that serves help content inside your product or website
- Integrations - connects to Zendesk, Salesforce, Freshdesk, HubSpot, Segment, and Zapier (some integrations are Enterprise-only)
- Analytics - tracks where users drop off in a guide, so teams can improve content over time
Stonly is rated positively on review platforms, with users frequently praising its ease of implementation and the quality of its customer support team. It's a legitimate tool for mid-market and enterprise support organizations.
But here's the tension: the pricing model creates real friction for growing teams.
Stonly’s Pricing Page: What It Actually Shows
Stonly’s pricing page looks simple. It shows two plans under the line “Choose the plan that works for you.” But the key detail is missing: there are no prices. To understand what you’re really getting, you have to read both what’s shown and what’s left out.
Small Business Plan
The small business plan is aimed at teams with fewer than 100 employees. It includes unlimited guides and tours, multi-language support, one knowledge base, 4,000 guide views per month, and five team members. You also get analytics, versioning, custom branding, targeting, SEO controls, PDF exports, file attachments, and integrations with tools like Segment and Zapier.
What you don’t get is the price. Instead of showing a cost, Stonly pushes you into a signup flow. There’s no clear way to see what you’ll pay before entering their system.
Enterprise Plan
The Enterprise plan builds on everything in Small Business. It adds help desk integrations like Zendesk and Salesforce, AI agents, automations, SSO, private and unlimited knowledge bases, unlimited views, and unlimited team members. It also includes auto-translation, advanced permissions, white-labeling, priority support, a dedicated success manager, security review, and surveys.
Again, there is no pricing. The next step is “Schedule a call,” which means you can’t evaluate cost without talking to sales.
The “Basic” Tier After Trial
The only mention of a third tier appears in the FAQ. New users get a 14-day trial of the Small Business plan. If they don’t upgrade, the account drops to a Basic tier.
This Basic tier is heavily restricted. It allows 400 guide views per month, five guides, one language, and one team member. It’s not a usable plan for any real support team.
Stonly does not offer a truly free plan. The Basic tier is just a limited fallback after the trial, even though some review sites label it as free.
Stonly Pricing Numbers: What Third-Party Platforms Report
Stonly does not publish pricing on its website. The only way to understand real costs is through third-party platforms that track actual buyer data and contracts.
The small business plan is reported at about $249 per month on monthly billing, or $199 per month when billed annually. That’s roughly a 20% discount for an annual commitment. For a five-person team, the yearly cost comes to around $2,388 on annual billing or $2,988 on monthly billing. This places Stonly’s entry plan on the higher end of the help center software market. The limits are also tight: 4,000 guide views, five team members, and one knowledge base, so growing teams will likely outgrow it quickly.
The Enterprise plan is fully custom and negotiated per customer. Data from Vendr shows an average contract value of about $39,000 per year. This reflects what companies actually pay after negotiation, not a list price. Final costs depend on team size, usage volume, and required features. For companies using Stonly at scale, with AI features, integrations like Zendesk, and SSO, this figure is a realistic baseline for budgeting.
The Hidden Cost Problem with Stonly
The real issue with Stonly isn’t just the price-it’s what you don’t get unless you pay for Enterprise.
The small business plan looks affordable at first. But the tools most teams rely on, like Zendesk and Salesforce, are locked behind higher tiers. That means even after paying, your setup may not connect to your actual support workflow.
AI features are enterprise-only. Features like automation and AI agents-arguably the main reason to consider a modern support tool-aren’t included in the base plan. So the real starting price isn’t $199/month. It’s whatever Enterprise quotes you.
Then there’s usage-based pricing. The 4,000 guide view limit sounds reasonable until traffic grows. A product launch or sudden spike in users can quietly push you into higher billing, without any change in your plan or team size. Costs become reactive instead of predictable.
Finally, the product itself is built around interactive guides, not a full knowledge base. You only get one knowledge base on the Small Business plan. If your support depends on a structured, searchable help center, the tool doesn’t fully support that use case.
What Should You Be Paying for in 2026?
Support tools have changed. In 2026, a help center is not just a place to store articles.
Good tools keep documentation updated as your product evolves. They reduce incoming tickets before they reach your team. They learn from past conversations and improve their answers over time.
So the better question is not just what Stonly costs, but whether it solves the right problem for you.
If your docs go out of date often, or your team spends more time maintaining help content than building your product, something is off. If users keep asking questions that are already documented, your system isn’t working. And if you want AI to handle repetitive queries, not just display static answers, you need more than a basic setup.
If you also rely on tools like Zendesk or Salesforce but need to avoid enterprise-level pricing, then the gap becomes even clearer.
BunnyDesk: The AI-Native Alternative That Publishes Its Prices
.png)
BunnyDesk is an AI-native help center and knowledge base built for teams that can’t justify Stonly’s opaque pricing, fast-growing SaaS companies, lean support teams, and product orgs that need docs to stay accurate without constant manual work.
The core difference is architectural. Stonly focuses on making documentation interactive. BunnyDesk keeps documentation up to date. It connects to your support inbox, GitHub, Slack, Jira, Linear, and Intercom.
When product changes or support tickets expose missing information, it detects the gap and generates an updated article draft. Teams review and approve it in one click. Documentation stays current without separate update cycles.
Its AI widget answers customer questions directly from the knowledge base before tickets are created. This reduces incoming volume over time instead of just managing it. The platform also tracks unresolved searches, repeated ticket topics, and weak sections in your docs, so teams fix what users actually struggle with.
BunnyDesk Pricing: Transparent, Flat-Rate, and Inclusive of AI
BunnyDesk shows its pricing upfront-no demos or sales calls.
The Starter plan is $29/month (annual) for up to three users, with full AI features, a custom domain, and core tools included. Pro is $79/month (annual) for up to ten users, adding automation, gap detection, integrations, and inbox syncing. Enterprise uses custom pricing for advanced needs.
.png)
Pricing is per workspace, not per seat. No usage caps, forced upgrades, or locked AI features.
Stonly vs. BunnyDesk: Side-by-Side Comparison
Feature | Stonly Small Business | BunnyDesk Pro |
Published price | Not disclosed - demo required | $79/month (billed annually) |
Team members | 5 | 10 |
Knowledge bases | 1 | Unlimited |
Pricing model | Per workspace + view cap | Per workspace, flat rate |
AI features included | No - Enterprise only | Yes - all plans |
Zendesk integration | No - Enterprise only | Yes - included |
Slack integration | No | Yes - included |
GitHub integration | No | Yes - included |
Auto-updating documentation | No | Yes - core feature |
Ticket deflection AI | No - Enterprise only | Yes - included |
Documentation gap alerts | No | Yes - included |
Monthly view cap | 4,000 guide views | None |
Auto-upgrade trigger | Yes - at 2 consecutive overages | Not applicable |
SSO | Enterprise only | Enterprise plan |
Custom branding | Yes | Yes |
Free trial | 14 days | Available |
Conclusion: What Stonly Pricing Tells You
Stonly’s pricing is opaque by design. No public rates, mandatory sales calls, and key limits hidden in FAQs. It controls the buying process instead of informing it.
The details that are visible matter more. In 2026, all meaningful AI features and major integrations sit behind Enterprise contracts averaging around $39,000/year. The $199/month plan is a guide builder with a knowledge base, and a view cap that increases cost as usage grows.
For large enterprises, the product can justify its price through interactive guides and deep integrations. For most teams, it doesn’t.
Teams getting better ROI are using AI-native tools that keep docs updated automatically, reduce ticket volume, and expose gaps early. That’s the model BunnyDesk AI follows, without requiring an enterprise contract.
👉 Start your free BunnyDesk trial at bunnydesk.ai - published pricing, AI included on every plan, no guide view limits, no sales call required.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How much does Stonly cost per month?
Third-party data puts the Small Business plan at ~$199/month (annual billing) or ~$249/month (monthly). Stonly does not publish pricing. Enterprise plans are custom, averaging ~$39,000/year based on Vendr data.
- Does Stonly have a free plan?
No. Stonly offers a 14-day trial. After that, accounts drop to a limited Basic tier with 400 guide views/month, 5 guides, 1 language, and 1 team member.
- What happens if you exceed the guide view limit?
The Small Business plan includes 4,000 views/month. Exceeding it for two consecutive months triggers an automatic upgrade to a higher plan. Pricing for the upgraded tier is not disclosed.
- What is the best alternative to Stonly for small and mid-sized teams?
BunnyDesk offers transparent pricing, built-in AI, and no usage caps. The Pro plan starts at $79/month for up to 10 users and includes integrations like Zendesk and Slack.
Related Posts
10 Best Crisp AI Alternatives in 2026 (Ranked, Reviewed & Compared)
We ranked 10 best crisp AI alternatives by AI depth, pricing, and knowledge base quality
10 Best Zoho Desk Alternatives in 2026 (Reviewed & Ranked)
We ranked & reviewed the 10 best Zoho Desk alternatives in 2026
Made with Bullet