FAQ
The general questions we hear on demo calls: pricing, setup, integrations, the Agency tier, security and the rest of the suite. Industry questions (real estate, healthcare, salons, restaurants, fitness, home services and political campaigns) are answered on the industry pages linked at the bottom. If yours is not here, a real person reads every message sent through contact.
Most owners have a working chatbot collecting leads in under 30 minutes. Pick a template for your industry, change the wording to suit your business, and paste the one-line widget snippet (the code that adds the chat window to your site) onto your website. The bot is live once the page reloads. There is no setup project, onboarding fee or kick-off call.
No. The flow builder, where you arrange the chatbot's questions, is a drag-and-drop canvas: add a question, connect it to the next step, set a condition. Installing the widget means pasting one line of JavaScript into your site's footer or theme, usually in a "header/footer scripts" box. You do not need technical staff to set it up.
It works on any site where you can paste a JavaScript snippet. That includes Squarespace, Wix, WordPress, Webflow, Shopify, Showit, GoDaddy and custom HTML, which covers nearly every modern website builder and any hand-built site. If your platform has a "header" or "footer" box for adding code, the widget works.
Sign up with an email address, browse the 145 industry templates, and click "Use this" on the one that matches your business. The flow opens already built. Adjust the questions to fit your business (your services, hours and area), publish, and paste the widget onto your site. Most accounts go from choosing a template to publishing in under 30 minutes.
Yes. The trial lasts 14 days and needs no credit card. You sign up with an email address, build bots and collect real leads. When the trial ends, your chatbot stops answering visitors on your site until you choose a plan. Your dashboard, flows and leads stay in your account, and the bot starts answering again as soon as you subscribe.
A subscriber is anyone who completes a conversation with one of your bots and is saved as a contact, with a name, phone number, email, or whatever details the flow asked for. People who start a conversation but leave before finishing do not count. You can archive old subscribers at any time to free up room without losing the conversation transcript.
Your bots keep running, and we never stop a conversation partway through. You will see a warning in the dashboard at about 80% of your allowance and again at 100%. Any extra messages are billed after each calendar month ends, on a separate invoice, at your tier's per-message rate: $0.006 on Starter, $0.004 on Growth and $0.002 on Agency. If you regularly go over, moving up a tier is usually the better choice, and the upgrade is prorated the same day.
Upgrades take effect immediately, and the charge is prorated for the rest of your billing cycle. Downgrades take effect at the next billing date, so you keep the limits you have paid for. Switching from annual to monthly billing, or the reverse, works the same way: the current cycle finishes at your current rate.
Both prices are on every tier card. Annual billing saves about 17%, with one payment and one invoice for the year. Monthly billing needs less commitment, and you can switch to annual at any renewal. Both include the same product, templates and support.
Yes. You sign up with an email address, build bots and collect real leads. When the trial ends, your chatbot stops answering visitors on your site until you choose a plan. Your dashboard, flows and leads stay in your account, and the bot starts answering again as soon as you subscribe. Because there is no card on file, there is no unexpected charge on day 15.
The refund policy is published at helloalma.chat/refund. In summary, monthly plans are paid as you go and stop when you cancel. Annual plans receive a prorated refund for unused months, minus the annual discount you received. If something is wrong, email alma@huntercreativemedia.com with "Refund Request" in the subject, and a real person will respond.
For the full tier breakdown (Starter $29, Growth $79, Agency $199, Enterprise), see the pricing page.
Paste it anywhere your site lets you add a script, such as the header or footer code box, or just before the closing body tag. Alma gives you the snippet when you publish a bot. You copy it, paste it, save, and reload the page, and the chat bubble appears. On WordPress, the place to paste it is usually a theme option or a header and footer plugin. Squarespace, Wix and Shopify each have a site-wide code panel that does the same job.
The bot appears on whichever pages contain the snippet. If you paste it into a site-wide code box, the bubble appears on every page. If you paste it into one page's own code block, it appears only there. People do this when they want the bot on their services and contact pages but not on checkout. Each bot has its own snippet, so different pages can show different flows.
The widget adjusts to the screen size. On a phone, the bubble sits in the corner and the conversation opens to fit the screen, so visitors do not need to zoom in to read a reply. The script loads after your page content, so it does not delay the page from appearing. You control the display name, main color, welcome message and which corner it sits in. Every widget shows a small "Powered by Alma" line. Contact us about removing Alma branding.
Alma is a chatbot for your website. Texting is a different tool, covering outgoing campaigns, two-way replies, carrier compliance and 10DLC registration (registering a local number with the carriers for business texting), and it is CampaignCNX+'s job in the suite. Alma does not send text messages itself, and it does not send leads to CampaignCNX+. On the Growth plan and up, when your Alma account is linked to CoreCNX, the suite's CRM, each new lead goes to CoreCNX, and your team sends follow-up texts from CampaignCNX+. Bought together as part of the CNX Suite, both products are on one bill, and each keeps its own login. If compliance is your main concern, CampaignCNX+ has published a guide to what TCPA-compliant texting actually requires.
The trial lasts 14 days, needs no credit card, and includes every template, with the Starter plan's limits. Using the product for an afternoon is the quickest way to answer your remaining questions.
Email (SMTP) is included on every tier. Zapier, and CoreCNX contact and timeline entries once your account is linked to CoreCNX, start on Growth. General outbound webhooks start on Agency. A webhook is an automatic message that sends a lead's details to another system. Alma's webhooks are signed with a secret key for each destination and do not create duplicates when resent. The list is short on purpose because we do not claim integrations we do not have.
Not directly. There are no built-in connections to HubSpot, Salesforce, Follow Up Boss, Pipedrive, GoHighLevel, ActiveCampaign or other named CRMs (customer relationship management software). You connect them through Zapier or, on the Agency tier and up, a webhook your technical contact sets up. Both are documented, and almost every modern CRM can receive data this way. If you use CoreCNX, the suite's CRM, Alma sends contacts and timeline entries to it directly on the Growth plan and up.
The answer is the same. There are no built-in connections to Calendly, Mindbody, Acuity, Square Appointments, Boulevard, Vagaro, Dentrix, Eaglesoft, Open Dental, Athenahealth, ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro or similar systems. You connect them through Zapier or, on the Agency tier and up, an outbound webhook. The bot collects the request, and your existing system remains the official record. Alma is a marketing chatbot, not a patient chart system (EHR) or a calendar.
Yes. REST API access, which lets your own software work with Alma, is included on the Agency and Enterprise tiers. It covers workspace management (GET /api/v1/agency/workspaces, POST /api/v1/agency/workspaces), adding templates (POST /.../deploy-template), retrieving leads, and webhook settings. The Starter and Growth tiers do not include API access. Those tiers include the dashboard, the templates, the integrations panel and Zapier.
Every outbound webhook is signed with a secret key that you set for each destination. Your receiving system checks the signature before it trusts the data. If your system does not respond in time and we send the webhook again, you will not get a duplicate record. This is a standard method, and it is documented in the integration panel.
Yes. Each completed conversation can go to several destinations at once, for example an email to your front desk, a Zapier step that adds the lead to another app or a contact in CoreCNX (both on the Growth tier and up) and, on the Agency tier and up, a webhook to your internal tool. Destinations are set per flow rather than per account, so different bots can send leads to different places.
It is for businesses running Alma for several clients, such as agencies, consultants, part-time marketing directors and teams managing several brands. It includes one main account, a workspace for each client (our team turns these on when your account is set up), and the REST API for automating client setup. It costs $199/mo for 20 active bots shared across all client workspaces.
It is 20 active bots total across the whole agency account, shared across workspaces, not 20 per workspace. For example, if Coastal Realty needs three bots, Mindful Yoga needs one and Coastal HVAC needs two, you have used six of your twenty. The same rule applies to the 50,000 subscribers and 100,000 messages, which are shared across every workspace in your agency account. If you need more, the Enterprise tier raises the limits.
Yes. You can give your client's marketing contact a login that opens only their own workspace. When they sign in, they see only their workspace, and they cannot see the main agency account or any of your other clients. The login is optional: you can also manage the workspace yourself and pass the new leads to the client.
Removing Alma branding is not a self-serve setting on any plan, and every widget shows a small "Powered by Alma" line. You can set each client bot's name, welcome message, colors and position so the widget matches the client's website. Contact us about removing Alma branding.
Yes. If a client no longer wants you to manage Alma for them and prefers to run it on their own, we will convert the client workspace into a separate Alma account on whichever tier matches their volume. The conversation history, lead exports, flows and widget settings all move with the workspace. Nothing needs to be rebuilt or deleted, and the agency stops paying for that workspace.
Yes. REST API access is included with every Agency-tier account at no extra cost. You can create a workspace, add a template, retrieve leads and set up webhooks from your own scripts.
For a full explanation of the Agency tier (setup steps, pricing and widget settings), see the agency page.
Conversations are kept separate for each workspace, and no other account can see your data. Data is encrypted when stored and protected with TLS encryption while it travels. Data export and deletion are available on request. You decide how long data is kept and which details each flow collects. Deleted data can remain in our encrypted backups for up to 90 days. The industry pages explain the details for healthcare and political use.
No. Alma is a chatbot for your public website, it is not HIPAA compliant, and we do not sign Business Associate Agreements. Protected health information (PHI) belongs in your practice management system or electronic health record, not in a website chat. The healthcare page explains how to keep the chat to scheduling and first contact.
Data export and deletion are available on request, which covers the main operational requirements of both laws. Because conversations are kept separate for each workspace, a deletion request applies cleanly to one account. If you operate under either law and need a Data Processing Addendum, that is handled as part of an Enterprise plan; email sales and we will route your request.
Your data is hosted in the United States on standard cloud infrastructure. If your organization must keep data in a specific region (EU, Canada, UK), we discuss data-region options as part of the Enterprise tier, so please talk to sales. We prefer to give you a specific answer for your situation rather than promise a region we cannot guarantee for every account.
No. The full answer is in the privacy policy: see privacy.html. Every bot runs on a visual flow by default: you write the questions and branches, and the bot follows them. AI answering is an optional paid monthly add-on for typed questions a flow cannot anticipate. You give the Alma team what the bot should know, as text, and the team loads it into your bot. On the Agency and Enterprise plans, a bot's JSON file can also carry it, loaded with Import or Update from JSON. Claude, the AI model, answers from that text. Alma does not accept document uploads, crawl your website or search your files. Your customer conversations are not used to train AI models. For a question about a specific setup, email alma@huntercreativemedia.com and we will answer plainly.
No. Alma works on its own. The other suite products (Beacon for door-to-door canvassing from $59/mo, CampaignCNX+ for texting from $0.06/message, CoreCNX as the CRM from $49/mo for 5,000 contacts, and DeadVault for client files from $19/mo) are independent products, each with its own account and login. Bought together as the CNX Suite, the products you choose are billed on one subscription. You can choose one product or several, and you are billed only for the products you turn on.
CoreCNX connects the products. When it is turned on, it holds the shared contact timeline, and on the Growth plan and up Alma sends each new lead to that timeline as it happens. CampaignCNX+ records texts and replies, and Beacon records door knocks and other field activity, on the same timeline. DeadVault is billed with the suite but keeps client files to itself and sends nothing to the timeline. Without CoreCNX, each product runs independently and sends data wherever you choose (email, Zapier or your own CRM).
Yes. Alma does not require CoreCNX. The lead from a chatbot conversation can go to your existing CRM through Zapier or, on the Agency tier and up, a webhook, and Alma does not use CoreCNX on that account. The same is true for the other suite products, and each one can work with your own CRM.
Yes. The CNX Suite bundle always includes CoreCNX and holds 2 to 5 products in total. The highest-priced product is billed at its list price, and every other product in the bundle is 25% off. You buy the bundle on CoreCNX's suite page.
For how the suite's products fit together, see the suite page.
145 templates across 15 categories: lead qualification (17), internal operations & HR (15), e-commerce (14), fitness, wellness & beauty (12), agency operations (12), restaurants & hospitality (11), political campaigns (10), healthcare & medical (10), education & coaching (10), home services (10), professional services (10), retargeting & follow-up (6), lead generation (5), customer service (2) and booking & scheduling (1). Every template is included on every plan, and no templates are reserved for higher tiers.
Yes, completely. A template opens as a starting flow in the flow builder, and you can edit every step, branch and action. You can change the wording, add a question, remove a step, change where leads are sent, or redirect a branch. The template is a starting point that you can reshape as needed.
Yes. Open a blank flow, add a START step, add question and action steps, and connect the branches. You can also start from a template and edit it. Both methods produce the same kind of bot and are published the same way.
Yes, inside an Agency account. Agencies can copy a flow they built for one client into another client's workspace in two clicks. Sharing templates between separate accounts (one Alma account publishing a template another account can install) is planned but not yet available. For now, you can export the flow as a JSON file and import it through the API.
Still didn't answer your question?
If your question is specific to your industry or situation and this general FAQ does not cover it, visit the industry page below or send it through contact. The same small team that builds Alma reads the inbox. You will have a reply by the next business day, and it will be a real answer rather than a standard thank-you message.
Start free
Sign up, pick a template, and add the widget to your site. Most owners have a working chatbot in about 30 minutes, ready to collect their first qualified lead.