Chat-to-build website tools all promise the same opening move: message an AI, get a live site in minutes. That part is genuinely true across the category now. The part nobody puts on the pricing page is what happens in month two, when you need to change a headline, add a product, or take a payment. That is where these tools split into two very different categories, and it is the question worth answering before you pick one.
I am Marco, and I built Schmitdy, so read the comparison below with that in mind. I have tried to be accurate about what competitors do well, and I have named where they are cheaper or a better fit than we are.
Quick answer: most chat-based builders (Durable, ChilledSites, VPS.org) get you a live site fast by chat, then hand you off to their own dashboard or editor for every change after that. A smaller group (Sonara, Repaint, Schmitdy) let you keep editing by message after launch too. Within that smaller group, Schmitdy is the only one built specifically so pages can carry a working checkout and are structured for AI answer engines to cite, and you own what gets built.
What do all of these tools actually have in common?
Every tool here starts the same way. You open a chat window, WhatsApp thread, or text message, describe your business, and an AI drafts a working site in under a few minutes. Durable says 30 seconds. ChilledSites says 60 seconds. Sonara and Repaint both frame it as a short back and forth rather than a form.
That first-draft speed is no longer a differentiator. Nearly every tool in this category can do it now. The differentiator is everything that happens after you have a live URL and a real business depending on it.
How do you edit the site after it is built?
This is the split that actually matters, and it is the one buyers miss because every homepage leads with the build demo, not the edit flow.
Durable gets you a professional site fast, then moves you into its own dashboard. Durable lists a Launch plan at $25/month ($22/month billed annually) and a Grow plan at $49/month ($41/month annually), each with a cap on AI chat messages per month (1,000 on Launch, unlimited on Grow). Editing beyond that first draft happens in Durable's no-code site editor, not by continuing to chat.
ChilledSites is explicit that the chat is for creation, not maintenance. You message their WhatsApp number, get a live site in 60 seconds, then, per ChilledSites' own page, "open the ChilledSites editor to tweak text, colours, images, and layout whenever you need." The Pro plan is £9/month, with pay-as-you-go from £8. ChilledSites markets itself as built on Claude for the WhatsApp build step. The editing step is a standard web editor.
VPS.org offers an AI Site Builder from $4.99/month as part of a broader VPS hosting business, with a three-tier structure ($4.99, $9.99, $24.99 a month). VPS.org's own pages describe the WhatsApp build flow clearly, but do not publicly detail how you edit a site after it is live, so I will not guess at that part.
Sonara stays in the chat channel for edits too. It is SMS-based rather than WhatsApp: you text a description, the AI designs, writes, and hosts the site, and changes after launch happen the same way, by text. At $29/month, Sonara includes something the others in this list do not emphasise: a real backend database, so a site can handle bookings, reservations, and form submissions without bolting on a separate tool. Sonara also processes payments through Stripe and will export your code on request.
Repaint, a Y Combinator company, also keeps you in chat after launch. Its pitch is that it "writes real code," so it can build custom animations, interactive components, and calculators that template-based builders cannot. Repaint's pricing is flat monthly: $20/month (Plus) or $40/month (Pro), billed annually at $240 or $480, with a set weekly edit allowance rather than metering every edit as a credit (optional pay-as-you-go top-ups are available for usage beyond that allowance). Edits happen by chatting with the AI: restyle the site, add a page, update info everywhere at once.
Schmitdy works the same way, but across WhatsApp, Slack, or Teams rather than a single channel. You message us with a page you want, a rewrite, or a full redesign, and it ships in minutes. There is no dashboard to learn. Schmitdy's pricing starts at £150 setup plus £50/month for the AI Search Website tier, which includes unlimited copy and design changes through chat, hosting, SSL, and an answer-first structure with schema and FAQ blocks built in from the start.
Which of these can actually take a payment?
If your site needs to sell something, not just describe it, this narrows the field fast.
Sonara processes payments through Stripe and backs it with a real database, which makes it a genuine option for a business that takes bookings or deposits. Repaint's own billing runs through Stripe, though its marketing does not focus on customer-facing checkout as a headline feature. Durable's plans are built around leads, CRM, and bookings rather than product checkout. ChilledSites and VPS.org do not publish checkout details on the pages I could verify.
Schmitdy is built so a page request can go all the way to a working checkout: message us a product page, and it ships with payment already wired in, not as a separate integration project. That is the piece we lean on hardest, because most small businesses that want a chat-built site eventually want to sell through it.
Do you own the site, or are you renting it?
Ownership means different things across this category, and it is worth reading the fine print rather than the tagline.
Sonara is the most explicit: you run the site by text and Sonara hosts it, but if you want the code, support will export it to you. Durable and ChilledSites do not advertise code export; you are building inside their platform, and your site's portability depends on their terms, not a codebase you hold. VPS.org sits differently because it is fundamentally a hosting company, so the underlying infrastructure question is less relevant, but its AI Site Builder does not publish ownership terms either.
Schmitdy hosts the site for you, and you own the content and changes made through the chat interface, with no lock-in contract structure tying you to a long minimum term. It is not a raw code export like Sonara offers, so if full source portability is your top priority, Sonara is worth a look. If what you actually want is a site you can keep shaping by message without ever learning a dashboard, ownership of your changes matters more than ownership of a zip file.
Which of these is actually built for AI search, not just Google?
This is the newest axis in the category, and most builders here do not address it directly yet. Durable, ChilledSites, Sonara, VPS.org, and Repaint are all judged on how fast and flexible the build is. None of their public marketing makes a specific claim about structuring pages so ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, or Google's AI Overviews can find and cite them.
That is the gap Schmitdy was built to close. Every site ships with an answer-first structure, schema markup, and FAQ blocks from day one, because a page that reads clearly to an AI crawler is usually also a page that converts a human faster. If your growth plan depends on showing up when someone asks an AI assistant a question, this is worth checking before you commit to a builder that has not addressed it.
Comparison table
| Tool | How you build | How you edit after launch | Ownership / export | Payments / checkout | Built for AI search | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Durable | AI chat, about 30 seconds | Durable's own dashboard editor | Platform-hosted; no export mentioned | Not the focus; CRM and leads instead | Not a stated feature | $25 to $49/mo ($22 to $41/mo annual) |
| ChilledSites | WhatsApp message, about 60 seconds, built on Claude | ChilledSites' own web editor | Platform-hosted; no export mentioned | Not detailed publicly | Not a stated feature | £9/mo, PAYG from £8 |
| Sonara | SMS text description | By text, in the same channel | You own it; code export on request | Yes, via Stripe, with a real backend database | Not a stated feature | $29/mo |
| VPS.org | WhatsApp message | Not publicly detailed | Not publicly detailed | Not publicly detailed | Not a stated feature | $4.99 to $24.99/mo |
| Repaint | AI chat interview; writes real code | By chat, in the same channel | Not publicly detailed | Yes, via Stripe (billing) | Not a stated feature | $20 to $40/mo |
| Schmitdy | WhatsApp, Slack, or Teams message | Same channels, no dashboard | You own content changes; Schmitdy hosts, no lock-in | Yes, pages can ship with working checkout | Yes, answer-first structure, schema, FAQ blocks by default | From £150 setup + £50/mo |
So which one should you actually pick?
If you want the cheapest possible way to get a business online today and you are comfortable learning a dashboard for future edits, ChilledSites at £9/month or VPS.org from $4.99/month will do that.
If you need real booking or reservation logic behind the site and want the option to export your code later, Sonara's $29/month with its backend database is a strong, honest fit.
If you want custom interactive components and do not mind an editor built around chat but not around commerce, Repaint's flat $20 to $40/month is worth a look.
If you want a site that keeps evolving by message on WhatsApp, Slack, or Teams, that can carry a real checkout when you are ready to sell, and that is structured from day one so AI answer engines can find and cite it, that is the specific gap we built Schmitdy to fill, from £150 setup plus £50/month.
None of these are wrong answers. They are built for different second months.
Frequently asked questions
Do all of these tools let me keep editing by chat after the site is live? No. Durable and ChilledSites build the first draft by chat or AI prompt, then move you into their own dashboard or editor for changes after that. Sonara, Repaint, and Schmitdy keep the chat channel open for edits indefinitely, so you never have to learn a separate interface.
Which of these tools can take payments out of the box? Sonara processes payments through Stripe and includes a real backend database for bookings and sign-ups. Repaint bills through Stripe but does not market customer-facing checkout as a core feature. Schmitdy is built so a requested page can ship with a working checkout included. Durable, ChilledSites, and VPS.org do not make checkout a headline capability in their public materials.
Is Schmitdy actually cheaper than the alternatives? Not always, and I would rather say that plainly than dress it up. ChilledSites (£9/month) and VPS.org (from $4.99/month) are cheaper if all you need is a basic site with dashboard-based edits. Schmitdy starts at £150 setup plus £50/month for a site that includes unlimited chat-based changes, checkout capability, and AI-search structure from day one, which is a different scope, not just a different number.
What does "structured for AI search" actually mean, and why does it matter? It means pages are written and marked up (schema, FAQ blocks, answer-first structure) so tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google's AI Overviews can parse and cite them directly, not just so Google's classic search index can rank them. None of the other five tools in this comparison make a specific public claim about this. It matters increasingly because a growing share of buying research now starts inside an AI chat rather than a search results page.
If I outgrow a cheaper builder, can I move to something like Schmitdy later? Generally yes, though the friction depends on the platform. Sonara explicitly offers code export, which makes migration easiest. Durable and ChilledSites do not publish export terms, so moving off them likely means rebuilding rather than porting. If you think you will want checkout or AI-search structure within the next year, it is usually less work to start with a tool built for that than to migrate into it later.
