specificationVersion: '1.0'
id: chatwoot-finops
name: Chatwoot FinOps Framework
description: >-
  FinOps guidance for managing Chatwoot API and platform costs across
  cloud-hosted and self-hosted deployment models. Covers cost visibility,
  optimization, and governance aligned to the FinOps Framework FOCUS
  specification for customer support platform expenditure.
url: https://www.chatwoot.com/pricing/
framework: FinOps Framework 1.0
focusAligned: true
deploymentModels:
  - name: Cloud Hosted (SaaS)
    description: >-
      Chatwoot-managed cloud instance at app.chatwoot.com. Billing is
      per-agent per month with plan-based feature gating.
    costDrivers:
      - name: Agent seats
        description: >-
          Primary cost driver. Each agent seat is billed at the plan rate
          per month (annually). Adding agents scales cost linearly.
        unit: agent/month
        billingModel: per-unit
      - name: Captain AI credits
        description: >-
          AI feature consumption (compose, summarize, auto-respond) billed
          against monthly credit allocations. Overages charged at $20 per
          1,000 credits.
        unit: credits
        billingModel: consumption
        overage:
          price: 20
          currency: USD
          per: 1000 credits
      - name: Data retention
        description: >-
          Higher plans include longer data retention (30 days to 3 years).
          Upgrading plans to meet data retention compliance needs drives
          incremental cost.
        unit: months
        billingModel: included-in-plan
  - name: Self-Hosted (Open Source)
    description: >-
      Self-managed deployment on own infrastructure. No Chatwoot licensing
      cost; costs are infrastructure, operations, and maintenance.
    costDrivers:
      - name: Infrastructure compute
        description: >-
          Server or cloud VM costs for running the Rails application,
          Sidekiq workers, and ActionCable server.
        unit: compute hours
        billingModel: infrastructure
      - name: Database storage
        description: >-
          PostgreSQL storage costs scale with conversation volume, contact
          records, and message history retained.
        unit: GB
        billingModel: infrastructure
      - name: File storage
        description: >-
          Object storage (S3-compatible) for attachments, avatars, and
          conversation media files.
        unit: GB
        billingModel: infrastructure
      - name: Engineering operations
        description: >-
          Staff time for deployment, upgrades, monitoring, and incident
          response. Often the dominant cost for self-hosted.
        unit: hours
        billingModel: labor
costVisibility:
  cloudHosted:
    - Chatwoot does not currently expose a usage/cost API or dashboard
    - Monitor agent seat count via the Agents API endpoint
    - Track Captain AI credit consumption through account settings
    - Billing managed through the Chatwoot subscription portal
  selfHosted:
    - Use infrastructure provider cost allocation tags to track Chatwoot spend
    - Monitor database size growth via PostgreSQL metrics
    - Instrument Sidekiq queues to assess worker compute utilization
optimization:
  cloudHosted:
    - name: Right-size agent seats
      description: >-
        Regularly audit active agent accounts. Remove or deactivate seats
        for agents who no longer need access to reduce per-agent billing.
    - name: Monitor AI credit consumption
      description: >-
        Track Captain AI credit burn rate against monthly allocations.
        Evaluate whether feature usage justifies overage costs vs. plan
        upgrade.
    - name: Annual vs monthly billing
      description: >-
        Chatwoot plans show lower per-agent prices when billed annually.
        Commit annually for predictable, lower-cost spend where agent
        count is stable.
    - name: Plan right-sizing
      description: >-
        Audit feature usage by plan tier. Avoid paying for Enterprise if
        SSO and audit logs are not required. Downgrade to Business or
        Startups if advanced features are unused.
  selfHosted:
    - name: Container right-sizing
      description: >-
        Profile Rails and Sidekiq worker memory usage under production load
        and right-size containers to avoid over-provisioning.
    - name: Storage lifecycle policies
      description: >-
        Implement S3 lifecycle rules to move older attachments to cheaper
        storage tiers (e.g., S3 Glacier) for archival.
    - name: Database connection pooling
      description: >-
        Use PgBouncer to reduce PostgreSQL connection overhead and allow
        smaller database instance sizes.
governance:
  cloudHosted:
    - Define agent provisioning/deprovisioning process tied to HR onboarding
    - Set alerts for agent count thresholds approaching budget limits
    - Include Captain AI credit budgets in quarterly planning cycles
    - Review Chatwoot subscription annually at renewal against usage data
  selfHosted:
    - Tag all Chatwoot infrastructure resources with cost center and project
    - Establish runbook for upgrade cadence to avoid security debt
    - Include infrastructure costs in total cost of ownership vs. SaaS
      comparison annually
budgetGuidance:
  smallTeam:
    agentCount: '1-10'
    recommendedPlan: Startups
    estimatedMonthlyUSD: '19-190'
    notes: Annual billing; free Hacker plan viable for 2-agent pilots
  midMarket:
    agentCount: '11-50'
    recommendedPlan: Business
    estimatedMonthlyUSD: '429-1950'
    notes: Teams and automation features justify Business plan cost
  enterprise:
    agentCount: '50+'
    recommendedPlan: Enterprise
    estimatedMonthlyUSD: '4950+'
    notes: >-
      SSO, audit logs, and dedicated support are cost-effective at scale;
      evaluate self-hosted for very large deployments