--- title: "wacrm vs respond.io: an honest open-source alternative comparison" description: "respond.io is a polished omnichannel conversation platform on flat plans from $79/month, with the API gated to its $159 tier and contact-based overage on top. wacrm is a free, open-source, self-hosted WhatsApp CRM with a free public API. An honest side-by-side." canonical: https://wacrm.tech/blog/wacrm-vs-respond-io datePublished: 2026-08-12 dateModified: 2026-08-12 author: "Arnas Donauskas" license: "content © wacrm; product is MIT-licensed" --- # wacrm vs respond.io: an honest open-source alternative comparison respond.io is one of the most polished omnichannel customer-conversation platforms on the market, and it is priced like it: flat plans from $79/month, with the automation and API most teams actually want starting at $159/month. wacrm is a free, MIT-licensed, self-hosted WhatsApp CRM with no per-seat cost and a free public API. They are not the same product. This compares them honestly, including the cases where respond.io is clearly the better buy. > **Disclosure:** wacrm publishes this comparison. Pricing below comes from > respond.io's own pricing page and was checked in August 2026 — plans change, > so verify before you commit. ## The short version - **Choose respond.io** if you need several channels in one inbox (WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, TikTok, email, SMS), want a mature product with support behind it, or need AI agents and advanced reporting out of the box. - **Choose wacrm** if WhatsApp is your channel, you want to own the data and the code, and you would rather not pay a platform fee that grows with your team and your contact count. ## At a glance | | wacrm | respond.io | | --- | --- | --- | | Licence | MIT open source | Proprietary SaaS | | Software cost | Free | $79 / $159 / $279 per month | | Included seats | Unlimited | 5 (Starter), 10 (Growth/Advanced) | | Extra seat | — | $12–24 per user per month | | Contact limits | None | Unlimited on Starter; 1,000 MACs on Growth+ | | Contact overage | — | $12–15 per 100 monthly active contacts | | Public API | Included, free | Growth tier and above ($159/mo) | | Webhooks | Included, free | Advanced tier ($279/mo) | | Channels | WhatsApp only | WhatsApp, IG, Messenger, TikTok, email, SMS, more | | Hosting | You self-host | Fully hosted | | Data ownership | Your own Supabase project | respond.io's infrastructure | Meta's WhatsApp Business API messaging is billed by Meta and costs the same whichever of these you run on top. ## The pricing shape is the real difference respond.io does not charge purely per seat, which makes it look cheaper than per-user CRMs at a glance. The cost actually arrives on three axes at once: 1. **The plan.** $79 Starter, $159 Growth, $279 Advanced. 2. **Seats beyond the included count.** $12/user on Starter, $20 on Growth, $24 on Advanced. 3. **Monthly active contacts.** Growth and Advanced start at 1,000 MACs, then $12–15 per additional 100. That third axis is the one teams underestimate. A monthly active contact is any contact you exchange messages with in the billing month, so the bill scales with how successful your outreach is. Run a broadcast that wakes up 3,000 contacts on the Growth plan and you have added roughly $240 in MAC overage to a $159 base. wacrm has no plan fee, no seat count, and no contact ceiling. Your costs are hosting (a few dollars a month) and Meta's messaging — which you pay on respond.io too. ## Where the API sits matters respond.io gates the **Developer API** to Growth ($159/month) and **webhooks** to Advanced ($279/month). If you want to trigger a WhatsApp message from your own backend, or push conversation events into your warehouse, that is the price of entry. wacrm ships a [public REST API and outbound webhooks](https://wacrm.tech/docs/public-api) on the free, self-hosted app: scoped API keys and endpoints for messages, contacts, conversations, and broadcasts. For a team whose main requirement is "let our system send and receive WhatsApp programmatically", this is the single largest cost difference between the two. ## Feature by feature **Shared inbox.** Both do the core job — assignment, notes, collision handling. respond.io's is more refined and handles many channels in one view; wacrm's is focused on WhatsApp and covers assignment, internal notes, tags, and real-time updates. **Automation.** respond.io's Workflows builder is genuinely strong, with AI Agents on Growth and above. wacrm has a visual [automations](https://wacrm.tech/docs/automations) builder plus branching [Flows](https://wacrm.tech/docs/flows) — triggers, conditions, waits, and actions — and an [AI assistant](https://wacrm.tech/docs/ai-assistant) that is bring-your-own-key, so you pay OpenAI or Anthropic directly at cost rather than buying AI credits at a markup. **Sales pipelines.** wacrm ships kanban [pipelines](https://wacrm.tech/docs/pipelines) with deal values and stage totals. respond.io is conversation-first and typically sits next to a separate CRM for pipeline management, which is an extra subscription. **Reporting.** respond.io wins here. Advanced Reports, multiple workspaces, and SSO are real enterprise features. wacrm gives you a live dashboard — conversations over time, first-response time against target, pipeline value — and that is the extent of it. ## Where respond.io is the better choice Plainly: often. - **You need omnichannel.** respond.io unifies WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, TikTok, email, and SMS. wacrm is WhatsApp only. If your customers reach you on four channels, this comparison ends here. - **You want someone to call.** respond.io has support, SLAs, and an onboarding team. Self-hosting means you are the operations team. - **You need SSO, multiple workspaces, or masked contact details.** Compliance features on the Advanced tier that wacrm does not have. - **Nobody on the team wants to run infrastructure.** wacrm deploys in about 30 seconds on [Hostinger Managed Node.js Hosting](https://wacrm.tech/docs/deployment-hostinger), but it is still a thing you own and patch. ## Migrating from respond.io Export your contacts from respond.io as CSV and import them into wacrm. Conversation history and workflow definitions do not transfer between the two — plan to carry your contact list, rebuild your automations (usually an afternoon), and start fresh on threads. Your WhatsApp number moves with you: it belongs to your Meta account, not to respond.io. The practical sequence is to stand up wacrm alongside respond.io, rebuild your highest-volume automations, then move the number once you are satisfied. ## The honest bottom line respond.io is a better *product* than wacrm in most dimensions that a large team would list — breadth of channels, reporting, support, polish. It costs $948–$3,348 a year before seats and contact overage. wacrm is free, WhatsApp-focused, and yours. If your requirements fit inside "WhatsApp, done properly, with an API and no growing platform bill", the value gap is enormous. If they do not, pay respond.io — it is a good tool and this guide is not going to pretend otherwise. Start with [Getting started](https://wacrm.tech/docs/getting-started), or read the [wacrm vs Kommo](https://wacrm.tech/blog/wacrm-vs-kommo) and [wacrm vs Trengo](https://wacrm.tech/blog/wacrm-vs-trengo) comparisons for the other hosted options. For the wider open-source field, see the [roundup of open-source WhatsApp CRMs](https://wacrm.tech/blog/best-open-source-whatsapp-crm).