BYO vs Hosted Answers

Answers has the same ladder as Feedback and Chat: Free local/test, BYO $9.99, Hosted $19.99. Pick where knowledge and visitor logs live, then match publishable keys and entitlements.

Mode	Price	What Bootstrapware stores
Local / test	Free	Nothing for knowledge. Local sample and test keys only.
BYO	$9.99 / workspace / mo	App config only. Knowledge, retrieval, the model, and visitor logs stay on your backend.
Hosted	$19.99 / workspace / mo	Config plus approved sources, the derived index, visitor questions, optional conversations, unanswered items, and citations.

Live entitlements

Call	Requirement
Test keys	No paid Answers entitlement
Live config fetch	BYO ($9.99) or Hosted ($19.99)
Live Hosted writes (including URL sources)	Hosted ($19.99) only

Stack discount is company-wide: second product is 25% off that product's list, third and later are 35% off list. See pricing.

When to choose BYO

You already run retrieval / a model / logs.
Compliance prefers customer-owned knowledge.
You will return answered or unanswered yourself.

BYO backend, adapter, and modes.

When to choose Hosted

You want Bootstrapware to store approved sources and serve cited answers.
You accept published Hosted limits. Hosted includes 2,500 answers per workspace each month, 1 GiB of knowledge and index, 2,000 sources, 4,000 indexed chunks per app, 20 MiB per file, and 30 days of conversation history.

Cancel Hosted: writes freeze; export Hosted JSON for 30 days; then those Hosted rows are deleted. Moving Hosted to BYO keeps the rows and does not start the 30-day clock.

Resolve order

Explicit ask adapter, or a BYO backend, when you pass one.
Hosted ask is that adapter posting to POST /api/v1/ask with the app id and publishable key. A publishable key without an adapter does not send the question.
Else the local sample, when both the adapter and the publishable key are omitted.

More detail: modes and the React component.

Related: Modes · Adapter · Environments · BYO backend · Privacy · Pricing