Eva vs ManyChat: which one fits your business?

ManyChat publishes a free plan and its price list. Its site says more than a million businesses have chosen it. TechCrunch reported a 140 million dollar Series B led by Summit Partners in April 2025.

It also documents limits: the comment trigger fires only on a person's first comment, and Meta controls the messaging window. The reviewed pages do not describe quoting from the buyer's catalog, booking, in-chat payment or CFDI.

ManyChat turns social activity into automated replies; Eva carries the commercial conversation from the question through a verified quote and follow-up with the CRM built in, plus, with your tools connected, the payment and the invoice for your customer.

Eva searches your file or API catalog, returns up to 25 candidates and pulls the verified record before replying. It uses only the fields you marked visible.

It also matches a photo against catalog images and returns candidates with evidence and a confidence level. Price, currency and availability are checked against the product record.

ManyChat publishes automations, broadcasts, AI-powered conversations from Pro and a shared Inbox. Its separate Inbox costs $99 USD monthly and lists Product Catalog; on 28 July 2026 it did not describe searching or quoting a buyer's catalog.

Instagram triggers require a professional Business or Creator account before any of this works.

Eva API catalog sources sync every 24 hours, and file sources refresh when re-uploaded. Document search uses PostgreSQL full-text rather than embeddings; the payment links Eva sends your customers are SPEI bank transfers, with no card option yet.

An Active Contact interacts during the billing month and counts once even after forty messages. The counter resets every cycle, including annual subscriptions.

The published ladder is 25 on Free, 250 on Essential, 2,500 on Pro, 7,500 on Business and 25,000 on Advanced. Overage bills monthly.

You can disable overages or set a cap. ManyChat charges $0.10 USD on Essential and $0.05 USD on Pro; at the cap, only contacts already active that cycle continue.

Eva bills credits: each agent reply uses one; customer and team messages use zero; a campaign uses one per ten sends. Plans include 5,000, 9,000 and 15,000; a 1,000-credit top-up costs $49 USD and never expires.

For a broad audience that writes little, ManyChat's meter can cost less. For long commercial conversations, the relevant comparison is how much work the agent completes inside the thread.

Both products run on Meta's rails. ManyChat blocks scheduled automated messages outside Meta's window and permits manual Inbox replies for up to seven days under the human-agent rule.

Eva requires an approved template outside WhatsApp's window. On Messenger and Instagram it skips the send with a visible event, because no compliant reactivation path exists.

Each delivered WhatsApp template records one wallet transaction, priced by the destination market. On 28 July 2026 ManyChat documented messages outside templates within the service window, utility templates within the 24-hour window and templates inside an open free entry point window as not charged. From 1 October 2026, under Meta’s official rate card, utility templates inside the 24-hour window cost USD 0.0085 per delivered message in Mexico and service messages are free up to 1,000 per phone number per month; the free entry point window stays free while it is open.

ManyChat says it uses official APIs and is an official Meta Business Partner; it also says it cannot reverse bans, override spam detection or control Meta's enforcement decisions.

Its Follow to DM trigger is a Meta-gated beta: one message per follower, and Meta allows one message weekly per person across participating accounts.

On 28 July 2026, neither ManyChat nor Eva published an export or cancellation clause. Get both into the contract, including the format for contacts, conversation history and automations.

Its AI page sells a monthly add-on while Pro, Business and Advanced say AI is included. The page shows four channels and current Help says the feature is Instagram-only.

Its pricing comparison and Essential article disagree on the annual extra-contact rate. It publishes neither the legacy table above 500 contacts, Elite, nor the custom plan above Advanced.

Its scale claims publish no measurement date, methodology or audit: over one million businesses, one billion conversations, 170 countries and 100,000 Instagram accounts.

Its case studies publish campaign returns and dollar sales without the spend, the attribution window or the raw data, and one describes a 2021 beta deployment.

On 28 July 2026, the public web archive confirmed only the main pricing page; other sources returned errors. We retain their links and read dates, and you should open each link before deciding.

Eva also has no public sign-up or trial, and the payment links it sends your customers do not take cards yet. Single sign-on and audit logs are built when Enterprise is signed; request data, cancellation and a catalog demonstration in writing.