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Sinch

Also known as: Sinch Chatlayer, Chatlayer, chatlayer.ai, Sinch Agent Builder, sinch.com

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Entry priceNo public price for Chatlayer. Plans are sized by conversations per month, with prices shown inside the platform after sign up. Sinch Functions, for agents customers build themselves, costs $0.10 per compute hour after one free hour a month.Full pricing detail

The global communications platform behind SMS, RCS, WhatsApp, voice and email for more than 190,000 businesses, selling Chatlayer, a flow based builder for multilingual chat and voice bots that call outside systems, answer from a knowledge base and hand off to live agents, plus Voice Relay, Functions and an MCP server for agents customers build themselves.

Sinch is a Stockholm based communications platform carrying SMS, RCS, WhatsApp, voice and email for more than 190,000 customers through its APIs and the Conversation API, with Mailgun and Mailjet for email, Sinch Engage for business texting and Contact Pro for contact centers. For AI agents it sells two things. One is Chatlayer, a builder for chat and voice bots now sold as Sinch Agent Builder. The other is a developer layer for agents customers build and run themselves, made up of Voice Relay, Sinch Functions, an MCP server, Skills and a CLI.

Chatlayer bots are built on a visual canvas of flows and blocks. A natural language engine trained on the customer's own intents and expressions, in more than 100 languages, decides which flow runs, and Action blocks call outside systems through REST requests with basic or bearer authentication, JavaScript code actions, and native steps that create and update Zendesk tickets or create Salesforce contacts, accounts and cases. Knowledge base AI answers questions from uploaded PDFs, CSV files and crawled websites with the sources attached, and an OpenAI step can generate replies with GPT models.

Session variables persist per user for 30 days by default, events fire on variable changes or user silence, and conversations hand off to Sinch Contact Pro, Genesys Cloud, Salesforce Service Cloud, Zendesk Chat and others with the transcript. Bots move from a draft to a live version with rollback, run on WhatsApp, RCS, SMS, Messenger, Instagram, Telegram, web chat and the phone, and are tuned through an NLP dashboard that rates the intent model and a Train tab fed by real customer messages. The language model never decides on its own which system to call. Every action sits where a designer placed it in a flow.

Chatlayer has no public price list. Plans are sized by conversations per month and priced inside the platform. Single sign on over SAML 2.0, team roles, the activity log and custom data retention come with the Enterprise pack, and knowledge base AI is free up to 50 questions a month.

Chatlayer holds ISO 27001 certification, and Sinch carries a SOC 2 Type II report along with PCI and HIPAA compliance for specific products. Bots run on Google Cloud in Belgium, Virginia or Mumbai, with moves between regions on request.

For agents built elsewhere, Voice Relay puts a text based agent on a live call with Sinch handling speech recognition and synthesis, and Functions hosts the code at $0.10 per compute hour after a free hour each month.

It fits enterprises in banking, insurance, retail and mobility that want governed, multilingual customer service bots designed flow by flow, close to Sinch's own messaging and voice network, and developers who want carrier channels for an agent they run themselves. It fits less well for a team that wants an agent that plans its own steps and picks its own tools, a choice of model beyond OpenAI, or a public price to compare.

Vendor details

Canonical URL

https://sinch.com

Category

Customer support agent

Subcategory

Flow based chat and voice bot builder (Chatlayer, sold as Sinch Agent Builder) on a global CPaaS, with Voice Relay, Functions and an MCP server for agents customers build

Funding status

Public company, listed on Nasdaq Stockholm (XSTO: SINCH). Founded in 2008 and headquartered in Stockholm, with $3 billion in net sales in 2025 and more than 4,000 employees in over 60 countries. Chatlayer joined Sinch through an acquisition in 2020.

Company status

independent

Use cases & customers

Primary use cases

customer service chat and voice bots across WhatsApp, RCS, SMS, Messenger and web chatanswers grounded in uploaded documents and website contentticket and case creation in Zendesk and Salesforce from a conversationhandover to live agents with the transcript attachedputting a custom LLM agent on phone calls through Voice Relay

Target customers

enterprise customer service teamsbanks and insurers automating claims and account questionsretail and ecommerce brands on WhatsApp and web chatcontact centers handing off from bots to Contact Pro, Genesys or Salesforcedevelopers connecting their own agents to Sinch voice and messaging

Deployment options

SaaSRegional hosting in the EU, US or Asia

Integrations

Chatlayer action steps connect to Zendesk Support, Salesforce, Freshdesk, Topdesk, Gmail, Mailgun and Intercom, call any REST endpoint with basic or bearer authentication, and run JavaScript code actions. Live agent handover works with Sinch Contact Pro, Genesys Cloud, Salesforce Service Cloud, Zendesk Chat, Help Scout, #Interact and Sparkcentral, or any platform through an offloading webhook. Channels arrive through the Sinch Conversation API, covering WhatsApp, RCS, SMS, Messenger, Instagram, Viber, Telegram and LINE, plus the web widget, a webhook channel and phone lines for voicebots. For agents built elsewhere, the Sinch MCP server, Skills and plugins for Cursor, Claude Code, VS Code and JetBrains reach messaging, email, numbers, verification and voice.

In practice

An insurer runs first notice of loss through a Chatlayer bot on WhatsApp. The bot collects the policy number and damage details, posts the claim to the insurer's back end through an API step, and hands unusual cases to a Genesys agent with the transcript attached.

A retailer loads its returns policy PDFs and help center pages into knowledge base AI. When a shopper asks about a return window, the bot answers from those sources with a link to the page, and opens a Zendesk ticket when the shopper wants a refund.

A utility builds its own outage agent on Claude and connects it to a Sinch phone number through Voice Relay. Sinch transcribes the caller, passes the text to the agent over a WebSocket, and speaks the agent's reply back on the call.

Agentic Index coverage score

12.0 / 14 capabilities · 86%

Integrations & Tool Calling Full

Action blocks connect a bot to outside systems in three ways. An API step sends requests to any HTTPS endpoint with any of the five standard HTTP methods, authenticates with basic auth or a bearer token, passes session variables in the query or body, and can route the conversation to the next block named in the response. Code actions run JavaScript that calls external services and writes the results back to the session.

Native app steps create, find and update Zendesk tickets and users, create Salesforce contacts, accounts and cases or run SOQL queries, and connect Freshdesk, Topdesk, Gmail and Intercom. In a banking bot, an API step can post a money transfer's amount, destination and account type to the customer's back end in the middle of a conversation.

Sourcedocs.chatlayer.ai/integrateandcode/custom-back-end-integrations/configure-your-api-integrationread 2026-10-11

Workflow Orchestration Full

Bots run as flows on a visual canvas, where each block sends a message, collects input, checks a condition or runs an action, and go to connections move the conversation between blocks and flows.

Condition blocks branch on variables, an API response can name the next block, events start a flow when a variable changes or the user goes quiet, and delay and pause steps hold the conversation. Flows can be reused across a bot and published one at a time. The intent engine picks the flow and the designer sets every step inside it, so the sequence is fixed when the bot is built. Running two bots in one conversation takes the web widget or a custom proxy over the webhook channel.

Sourcedocs.chatlayer.ai/navigation/bot-builder/flowsread 2026-10-11

Knowledge Grounding & RAG Full

Knowledge base AI keeps a store of the customer's content and generates short answers from it. Content goes in as PDF files, CSV question and answer files, single web pages or entire domains, and tags limit which content a given flow searches.

Each answer comes back with the retrieved passages, the source file or URL and the specific page it came from, so a bot can offer a link to the source. When nothing matches, a no findings path sends the user to another block instead of inventing an answer, and a non generative mode replies only with the exact answers in a CSV file. The feature is free up to 50 questions a month, with higher volumes through sales.

Sourcedocs.chatlayer.ai/navigation/knowledge-base-airead 2026-10-11

Human Oversight & Guardrails Partial

A Send to offload provider step hands a conversation to a person in Sinch Contact Pro, Genesys Cloud, Salesforce Service Cloud, Zendesk Chat, Help Scout or any platform behind an offloading webhook, with the transcript and collected variables passed along. The bot keeps answering until an agent accepts, then pauses until the agent sends the user back.

Designers choose where handover happens, typically on request, after repeated not understood turns or after two unsatisfactory knowledge base answers. Generative features can be switched off per bot, and a split between draft and live versions keeps unpublished changes away from customers. No step lets a person approve an action or a reply before the bot sends it.

Sourcedocs.chatlayer.ai/integrateandcode/human-offloading-live-chatread 2026-10-11

Security, Identity & Governance Full

Sign in runs through Sinch ID, and SAML 2.0 single sign on with Azure Active Directory, Okta, OneLogin or Ping Identity comes with the Enterprise pack. Admins see every bot and manage the team, members see open bots plus the restricted bots they are granted, and each restricted bot gives a member one of five permissions, Edit, Read only, NLP only, Bot Builder or Copywriter.

Legacy password accounts lock after 10 failed sign ins. Chatlayer is ISO 27001 certified, and across its products Sinch holds ISO 27001:2022 and a SOC 2 Type II report, with PCI and HIPAA compliance covering specific products. Security reports and 343 answered questionnaire items sit in the Sinch Trust Center behind an access request.

Sourcedocs.chatlayer.ai/support/access-controlread 2026-10-11

Observability & Auditability Full

Conversation history keeps a turn by turn transcript of every conversation with the intents triggered along the way, voice recordings where recording is on, and tags and filters by user, channel, campaign and date.

Execution logs record each app integration run with its input and output payloads, status, account and the block that triggered it, plus failed API and code actions with the request, status code and response, tracking events and voice speech to text failures. An activity log on the Enterprise pack shows who accessed or changed a bot, what they did and when, and every published live version is kept for rollback. A conversation flow view, labeled beta, traces a conversation's path through blocks for debugging.

Sourcedocs.chatlayer.ai/navigation/history/execution-logsread 2026-10-11

Memory & State Persistence Full

Each user's session holds what the bot has learned about them, including variables it collected, API results and the last intent, and one session can span several conversations. Sessions expire after 30 days without activity by default, a period Enterprise customers can change per bot and separately for the draft and live versions.

Through the REST API a team can read a session, write to it, delete it for one conversation or delete all data for one user. Bots use saved variables to recognize returning users and reuse earlier answers, such as a traveler's usual route. Persistence depends on the channel, and the web widget keeps variables for one visit unless users are identified. Variables marked sensitive stay out of conversation history.

Sourcedocs.chatlayer.ai/bot-answers/sessionread 2026-10-11

Deployment & Data Residency Full

Bots run in one of three regions on Google Cloud, each with its own app URL and sign in endpoint, in St. Ghislain, Belgium for the EU, Ashburn, Virginia for the US and Mumbai, India for Asia. Moving bots between regions goes through support, and fixed ingress and egress IP ranges per region let customers allowlist Chatlayer in their own networks.

Sinch's subprocessor register adds Brazil and India as Chatlayer hosting locations, and the Tables API has a South America endpoint, so some data can sit outside the three bot regions. Generative replies through the OpenAI integration send conversation data to OpenAI services in the United States.

Sourcedocs.chatlayer.ai/support/saas-regions-and-ip-rangesread 2026-10-11

Prebuilt Agents / Templates / Packs Full

New bots can start from templates built by Chatlayer's conversation design team, each a working bot for one job.

The set covers a banking assistant that makes payments, checks balances and card limits and reports lost cards, ecommerce returns, an electric bike shop that books test rides and checkups, shared scooter support, a bilingual gym assistant that books and cancels classes, job applications, lead generation, NPS surveys, restaurant and retail bots, a nearest location finder and a knowledge base AI bot.

Most work as soon as they load, while those using an integration need an account connected first. Smaller templates add a single function, such as feedback collection, to a bot that already exists.

Sourcedocs.chatlayer.ai/start-quickly/bot-templatesread 2026-10-11

Triggers & Channel Coverage Full

Conversations arrive through the Sinch Conversation API on WhatsApp, RCS, SMS, MMS, Messenger, Instagram, Viber, Telegram and LINE, through the Web V2 widget, through a webhook channel for any custom front end, and through phone lines for voicebots.

Inside a conversation, events start a flow when a variable changes, when the user stays silent for anywhere from 1 to 1,440 minutes, or when a WhatsApp Flow is completed.

Outside systems can also push into a live conversation through the REST API, sending messages, setting session data or triggering a specific block for a given user, so a back end event can move a conversation forward.

Sourcedocs.chatlayer.ai/channels/all-channelsread 2026-10-11

Model Flexibility & Routing Partial

An OpenAI action lets a builder pick GPT-3, ChatGPT or GPT-4 for a generated reply, using Chatlayer's own key for the first 100 messages per bot and the customer's OpenAI key after that.

The other generative features, knowledge base AI, the AI intent booster and expression generation, run on unnamed models Chatlayer picks, with OpenAI and Microsoft Azure as Chatlayer's machine learning subprocessors. Intent recognition runs on Chatlayer's own language engine, trained on each customer's expressions.

OpenAI is the only model provider in the integration catalog, and the model list in the OpenAI action still reflects the GPT-3 era.

Sourcedocs.chatlayer.ai/integrateandcode/app-integrations/openai-gpt-3-chatgpt-and-gpt-4read 2026-10-11

APIs / SDKs / MCP Extensibility Full

A public REST API with an OpenAPI 3.0 specification covers messaging, conversations, bots and NLP.

It sends messages through the webhook channel with asynchronous callbacks, lists conversations and messages, reads and deletes session data, deletes a user's data, executes actions in a live conversation, lists bots and channels, creates webhook channels and returns the NLP result for any expression. Calls authenticate with bearer tokens generated under Settings.

A separate Tables API, with basic authentication and regional base URLs, loads and queries the built in tables that bots read and write, and whole bots export and import as files.

Sourceapi.chatlayer.ai/v1/docsread 2026-10-11

Testing, Debugging & Optimization Full

An NLP dashboard rates each language's intent model from 0 to 100 percent, shows how that rating moved since the last training, and flags intents with too few expressions, misclassified expressions and overlaps between intents.

After launch, the Train tab collects real customer messages with the suggested intent and a confidence score, and the team corrects them and adds them to the model ahead of the next release. An emulator with a debugger shows session data turn by turn, voicebots and a WhatsApp sandbox can be tried before going live, and a bad release rolls back to an earlier live version. Saved test cases that replay flows, actions or knowledge base answers are not part of the product.

Sourcedocs.chatlayer.ai/navigation/natural-language-processing-nlp/dashboardread 2026-10-11

Browser / Computer-use Not documented

Bots work through API calls, JavaScript code actions and native app integrations, and voicebots handle phone calls with speech recognition and synthesis. Knowledge base AI crawls a page or a whole domain when content is added, which builds the answer store before any conversation takes place. Chatlayer has no hosted browser, remote desktop or screen control, and Sinch's tools for agents built elsewhere work the same way, since the MCP server, Functions and Voice Relay all act through Sinch's own APIs.

Sourcedocs.chatlayer.ai/buildabot/flow-logic/dialog-state/action-bot-dialogread 2026-10-11

The Agentic Index coverage score grades every vendor Full, Partial or Not documented against the same 14 buyer facing capabilities, from public evidence only. Each capability links to how all vendors in the index score on it. How this evidence is graded

Pricing

No public price for Chatlayer. Plans are sized by conversations per month, with prices shown inside the platform after sign up. Sinch Functions, for agents customers build themselves, costs $0.10 per compute hour after one free hour a month.

Conversations per month on Chatlayer, where a conversation ends after 15 minutes without interaction and a switch of channel starts a new one. Channel messages and calls are billed separately at Sinch rates.

Trial available

Included quota

Each plan includes a number of conversations per month and of team members. Knowledge base AI answers up to 50 questions a month at no charge. Generated replies use Chatlayer's OpenAI key for 100 messages per bot. Conversations in the test window do not count, while conversations in the draft version and conversations where only the bot speaks do.

What is public

The billing unit and how a conversation is counted, which features sit on Pro and Enterprise, the free knowledge base AI allowance, the included OpenAI messages per bot, and full list prices for Sinch Functions.

Billing mechanics

Chatlayer bills a plan with a monthly conversation allowance, chosen and changed from the Billing and usage screen inside the platform, with Enterprise through sales. Usage in billing follows GMT, so totals can differ slightly from analytics shown in local time. Functions bills compute by the second and storage per GB month on one monthly bill per project.

Cost watchouts

Draft version conversations and conversations where the bot speaks and the user never replies both count toward the monthly allowance. A customer who moves from WhatsApp to web chat mid issue uses two conversations. Generated replies past the 100 included messages bill to the customer's own OpenAI account, and channel delivery is a separate Sinch bill.

Variable cost rationale

A Chatlayer plan sets a monthly conversation allowance, so the platform bill is predictable until volume passes it. Several costs around it scale with traffic. Sinch bills channel fees for WhatsApp, SMS and voice, OpenAI usage runs on the customer's own key once the 100 included messages are spent, and knowledge base AI above 50 questions a month goes through sales.

Additional watchouts

The Chatlayer plan, channel delivery and any OpenAI usage arrive as three separate costs. Single sign on, the activity log and custom data retention sit on the Enterprise pack.

Overage / add-ons

No public overage rate. Options past the monthly conversation limit depend on the plan and are handled with a customer success manager. Knowledge base AI beyond 50 questions a month goes through sales.

Sales call required

Mixed (some tiers require a call)

Free / trial

Try for free sign up for Chatlayer. Knowledge base AI is free up to 50 questions a month, and generated replies run on Chatlayer's OpenAI key for the first 100 messages per bot. Sinch Functions includes one compute hour, 100 MB of file storage and 100 MB of database storage free per project each month.

Lowest paid plan

None public. Chatlayer plan prices appear only on the Billing and usage screen inside the platform.

Commercial notes

Sinch is listed on Nasdaq Stockholm and reported $3 billion in net sales for 2025. Chatlayer joined Sinch through a 2020 acquisition and is sold alongside Sinch's messaging, voice and email products.

Key ambiguities

Plan names and prices appear only inside the product after sign up, and Chatlayer refers to Pro and Enterprise plans without figures. Its own help material places team roles on the Enterprise pack in one place and on Pro and Enterprise in another.

Missing data

Chatlayer plan prices and conversation allowances, whether Try for free is a trial or a lasting free plan, Enterprise pack pricing, and a price for Voice Relay.

Agentic Index verified 2026-10-11

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