Side by side
| Podium | Vellops | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Lead platform: unified inbox, reviews, payments, texting, plus AI Employee add-on | AI chatbot for your website — customer service + sales, lead capture, booking |
| Published plans | Core $399/mo · Pro $599/mo · Signature custom | Starter $397 · Standard $497 · Premium $597/mo |
| AI price | "Jerry" is an add-on — its price is published nowhere and is quoted on a demo | Included in every plan — the chatbot IS the product |
| Usage limits | Caps published by trackers: 1,500 AI messaging segments, 300 Voice AI minutes/mo; overage rates not on the pricing page | No meter — flat price, a busy month costs the same |
| Setup fee | Varies by quote | None |
| Contract | Third parties report a 12-month initial term with non-refundable fees | No contract — cancel by reply |
| Guarantee | None published | 30-day book-nothing refund + 60-day conversations guarantee, in written terms |
| Where the AI works | Podium's channels — inbox, texting, reviews flows | Your public website, in front of every visitor |
| Try it first | Sales demo | The product is live on this website — and a free 14-day trial runs it on yours, no card |
| Go-live | Platform onboarding | About 7 days, done for you, wording approved by you |
Podium details as published at podium.com/pricing and by third-party pricing trackers, October 2026. Podium's pricing page increasingly routes buyers to sales, and Jerry's price and current caps should be confirmed on your quote.
When Podium is the right call
If you need a full communications suite — review requests, payments, a team inbox, texting campaigns — and you'll actually use all of it, Podium is a serious platform and Jerry comes along for the ride. Plenty of larger shops are happy there.
When Vellops is the right call
If your actual gap is narrower and more expensive — visitors land on your website, have a question, get no answer, and leave — then a platform suite is a lot of money pointed at the wrong hole. Vellops does that one job, at a flat published price, with no setup fee, no contract, and a written guarantee — and it starts free for 14 days on your own website, so you can watch it work before you pay anything.
One more difference worth naming: you can test our product right now. The chat on this page is the actual product, trained on our business. Ask it our prices. Push on the guarantee. That's the demo.