One thing this page gives back before it argues anything
The product's own planning documents list product tours as a supported use case. Some buyers have already landed here after searching for them.
This page does not claim product tours. Arcade and Storylane capture a running application via a browser extension or desktop app and produce a replay of its actual screens. Branchly builds an authored branching graph that a respondent walks. These are a different artifact produced by a different mechanism. A comparison that included both would be asking Branchly to be evaluated on a technology it does not use, against vendors whose free tier does the thing and does it well. That is not a comparison anyone wins anything from — so we have taken it off the table before paragraph two.
Branchly is a visual node-canvas builder for branching quizzes, assessments, and interactive experiences — sold once as source you deploy and operate as a multi-tenant SaaS under your own domain. Your creators design the branching graph; respondents walk it anonymously; you configure the response quotas. This page covers the two meaningful comparisons: Typebot (self-hosted, same transaction shape, different licence) and involve.me (the closest functional silhouette in the rented market), then the four paths to owning a platform at all.
Typebot: the same transaction shape, a different licence
What each actually is
Typebot is a self-hostable visual node-canvas builder for conversational flows. Its README describes it as "a powerful chatbot builder that you can self-host." The canvas shows nodes and connections; an anonymous respondent walks the graph through a one-question-at-a-time interface; an embeddable widget puts the flow on any third-party site. It is a funded project with a cloud product behind it, 3,851+ commits on main as of 2026-08-07, and a measurable community. That is the same transaction shape and the same build shape as Branchly. The two products belong in the same sentence.
Branchly is a visual node-canvas builder for branching quizzes, assessments, forms, and guided experiences. Its canvas shows the full decision tree — nodes, edges, conditional paths — at once. An anonymous respondent walks the graph through a full-screen, keyboard-first player that delivers one question per screen with deliberate entrance motion. AI drafts a complete, playable experience from a text prompt and validates every node is reachable before publish. Multi-tenant organisation isolation is core to the architecture: each of your clients gets an isolated workspace with their own experiences, members, and response data, enforced at the Postgres row-security level.
The distinction between the two products is not features. It is a licence.
The Functional Source License
Typebot's code is under the Functional Source License (FSL — also called "Fair Source"). Typebot's own blog post, "Typebot is now Fair Source" (typebot.com/blog/typebot-is-now-fair-source), describes the model: each release converts to Apache 2.0 two years after its release date. Until that conversion, the licence does not permit using the software to offer a competing hosted service. The restriction appears in Typebot's own LICENSE file on GitHub and in its own published explanation.
This is not legal analysis — it is a description of what Typebot's own documentation says. A buyer making commercial decisions based on the licence should read it directly and, if the stakes require it, seek their own counsel. The relevant question is whether your intended use falls within the restriction as Typebot's own documentation describes it.
When Typebot is the right call (stated plainly)
Typebot is the right call if:
- The flows are for your own company and your own internal use, with no intent to offer the service to clients. Internal and personal use are outside the FSL's competing-service restriction.
- Budget is the primary constraint. Typebot is free to self-host with no response cap for that use case. Branchly is not cheaper than free, and this page will not imply otherwise.
- You need WhatsApp or Messenger integration. Typebot ships native messaging channel support. Branchly's player is web-embed only — no messaging channels.
- Project maturity matters. 3,851+ commits across active development, a funded cloud business, and a community are real signals that deserve to be named first.
When Branchly is the right call
Branchly is the right call if:
- You are building a business on top of the platform — running it as a service for your own clients, embedding quizzes on their websites, operating it as a multi-tenant SaaS under your own brand. That is the use case this product is sold for, and it is the use case the FSL's competing-service restriction is directly relevant to.
- You need per-client isolation baked into the database layer. Branchly ships multi-tenant organisation isolation with row-security enforcement from day one. Running Typebot as a multi-tenant service for many clients is an architecture you build yourself on top of a single-tenant self-hosted model.
- You want metering you control. The response quota in Branchly is the number in your admin panel — configurable per organisation, per period, enforced atomically in your own instance. Typebot's cloud tiers run Starter $39/month, Pro $89/month, Enterprise custom pricing, no annual billing, metered on chats per month (200 / 2,000 / 10,000; $10 per 500 extra chats on Starter — typebot.com/pricing, 2026-08-07). On Branchly, the meter belongs to you because the instance does.
Capability table
| Capability | Branchly | Typebot |
|---|---|---|
| Visual node canvas | Yes | Yes |
| Anonymous respondent player | Yes | Yes |
| Full-screen single-question player with entrance motion | Yes | No — conversational scroll format |
| Multi-tenant org isolation (row-security per client) | Yes — core architecture | No — single-tenant self-hosted; multi-tenancy is custom work |
| AI experience generation | Yes — plan-gated, paid tiers | Yes — cloud product, Starter tier+ |
| Embeddable widget with exit-intent / scroll / timer triggers | Yes | Yes — embed code |
| WhatsApp / Messenger channel | No | Yes |
| Email automation sequences after submission | No | No |
| FSL competing-service restriction | Not applicable — separate codebase | Yes — applies for 2 years post-release |
| Purchase model | $249 one-time | Free self-host (personal/internal) or cloud subscription |
| What Typebot does that Branchly does not | Messaging channels; free for personal/internal use with no response cap; more mature project; cloud support team |
involve.me: the live-funnel cap they don't put in the headline
involve.me's own homepage describes itself as "The AI Quiz Funnel Builder With Built-In Email Automation" (involve.me, 2026-08-07). It sells quizzes, assessments, calculators, product-recommendation flows, forms, and funnels with scoring and conditional logic. That is the closest functional silhouette to Branchly in the rented market, and it earns its place in this comparison.
The thing involve.me's own pricing page makes visible is the live-artifact cap. involve.me's Start plan is $29/month billed annually for three live funnels — per involve.me/pricing, 2026-08-07. Three published experiences for an entire team, for an entire month. An agency running one quiz per active client fills that before the month is two weeks old. The Grow plan removes the cap at $69/month annual ($99/month monthly). Scale allows 25 live funnels at $139/month annual. Enterprise starts at $499/month.
The response cap gets the press. The artifact cap runs the campaign.
Branchly ships unlimited published experiences from the Creator tier up. The response quota per organisation is the number in your admin panel; you set it per period, per org. Neither limit is imposed by someone else's pricing spreadsheet.
What involve.me does that Branchly does not. Built-in email automation sequences triggered after a submission. involve.me ships marketing-automation sequences downstream of the funnel — the email-to-nurture path from quiz result to campaign. Branchly records the response and its session data and stops there. Email campaigns are outside Branchly's scope by design: it is a quiz and interactive-experience builder, not a marketing-automation suite. If the email sequence is the core of the buyer's product, involve.me is the honest recommendation.
The ownership distinction is separate from the feature comparison. involve.me is a subscription to a hosted service someone else owns and operates. Branchly is a codebase you deploy on your own infrastructure. Branchly is not "involve.me at a one-time price" — it is the codebase to own the equivalent yourself, with the artifact cap set to whatever your admin panel says.
vs building it yourself
A buyer considering owning an interactive-experience platform has four paths to getting there. The comparison is at the platform-acquisition level — all four are the same purchase for the same buyer.
| Path | What you pay | What you own | Honest limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rent a white-label arrangement | $100–$800+/month ongoing | Brand only — the platform, pricing decisions, and uptime all belong to the vendor | Revenue share, platform-change risk, removal |
| Commission a custom build | $25,000–$100,000+ one-time (dev-market dependent, 2026 estimate) | Full code and IP | Typically six months to a usable product; carries significant execution risk |
| Generic SaaS boilerplate | $100–$500 one-time | Auth, billing, admin shell | No domain layer: no canvas, no anonymous player, no embeddable widget, no variable engine, no metering. The quiz product is entirely ahead of you |
| Buy Branchly | $249 one-time | Canvas + player + widget + AI generation + multi-tenant + metering | Your own infrastructure, a Node host, a Postgres/Supabase project, and an OpenRouter API key; ongoing hosting and maintenance costs |
The generic-boilerplate gap is worth being precise about. A good SaaS boilerplate ships authentication, billing, teams, and an admin panel — the common layer every SaaS needs. It does not ship a node-canvas graph editor, a full-screen anonymous player with entrance transitions, a variable-and-scoring engine across arbitrary branching paths, or an embeddable widget with exit-intent triggers. Building all of that from a boilerplate starting point is building the product. The boilerplate is what you would use after deciding what to build, not instead of deciding.
Decision guide
| If you need this | Go here |
|---|---|
| Forms and flows for your own company, free, no cap | Typebot — self-host under the FSL; personal/internal use is outside the competing-service restriction; no response cap, no charge |
| Quiz-to-email-sequence automation in a single hosted platform | involve.me — built-in marketing automation sequences; Start $29/month annual for three live funnels (involve.me/pricing, 2026-08-07); Branchly does not ship email sequences |
| WhatsApp or Messenger conversational flows | Landbot — Starter €32/month annual, WhatsApp Pro €160/month annual (landbot.io/pricing, 2026-08-07); Branchly has no messaging channels |
| A screen-capture replay of your own live application | Arcade — Growth $42.50/month annual, unlimited views (arcade.software/pricing, 2026-08-07); Branchly builds graphs, not screen recordings |
| Enterprise interactive content with a vendor support relationship | Riddle — $119–$799/month (riddle.com/pricing, 2026-08-07) or Dot.vu (quote-only); Branchly is a codebase; you are the support layer |
| A multi-tenant quiz and interactive-experience SaaS to operate for clients, no artifact cap, owned code | Branchly — $249 one-time; deploy to your own infrastructure; preview at https://branchly.saascode.ai; purchase at https://saascode.ai/products/branchly |
FAQ
Q: Can I use Typebot to build a SaaS I sell to my own clients?
Typebot's Functional Source License restricts using the software to offer a competing hosted service for two years after each release. Typebot's own "Typebot is now Fair Source" post at typebot.com/blog/typebot-is-now-fair-source explains the model: each release eventually converts to Apache 2.0, but until then the competing-service clause applies. If your intended use is internal-only, the restriction does not apply. If you intend to operate a platform for clients, read the licence text directly. Branchly is a separate codebase under different terms with no equivalent restriction.
Q: What is the live-funnel cap and how does it affect an agency?
Several quiz and funnel builders limit the number of experiences you can have published simultaneously. involve.me's Start plan allows three live funnels at $29/month billed annually. ScoreApp Starter allows three live scorecards. An agency running one quiz per active client can exhaust a three-funnel plan before the month is two weeks old, before any response limit becomes relevant. Branchly ships unlimited published experiences from the Creator tier up. The response quota per organisation sits in your admin panel; the artifact cap does not exist.
Q: Does Branchly support product tours?
No. Product tour tools like Arcade and Storylane capture a running application via a browser extension or desktop app and produce a replay of its actual screens. Branchly builds authored branching graphs — a different artifact, produced by a different mechanism. A buyer who needs to show prospects their own live product needs a screen-capture tool. Branchly cannot produce that artifact and does not claim to.
Q: What does Branchly not do that involve.me does?
Built-in email automation sequences after a submission. involve.me ships marketing-automation sequences downstream of the funnel; Branchly records the response and stops. Email campaigns are outside Branchly's scope by design. If the email sequence is the core of the buyer's use case, involve.me is the accurate recommendation.
Q: What does it actually cost to run Branchly?
One purchase at $249. Your own ongoing costs are a Postgres/Supabase project, a Node host, and an OpenRouter API key for AI generation. The AI generation feature is plan-gated to paid tiers inside your own instance; the canvas, anonymous player, and embeddable widget run without it. The infrastructure costs are yours to configure and yours to own.
Q: Why compare Typebot rather than Typeform?
Typeform is a subscription — $28 to $266/month for 100 to 10,000 responses, as of 2026, per typeform.com/pricing. A subscription and a codebase are not alternatives at the same level; they are different commercial decisions for different buyers. The accurate comparison to a subscription service is: rent it, commission a build, use generic boilerplate, or buy Branchly. Typebot belongs in this comparison because it is the same kind of transaction — source code you install on your own infrastructure — with a licence that draws a direct line between the two products' intended audiences.