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How to add a BigCommerce chatbot in Script Manager

Install a BigCommerce chatbot by pasting one script tag into Script Manager, which sits under Storefront in your control panel. Set the location to footer and the pages to all pages. There is no theme file to edit, no app to install, and nothing to redeploy when you later change the wording.

That is the whole job for most stores. The part that takes longer, and the part that decides whether the thing is any good, is what you feed it. An ecommerce chatbot is only as accurate as the delivery page, returns policy and sizing guide behind it, so this guide covers the install first and then the uploads.

What a BigCommerce chatbot should actually do

A BigCommerce chatbot is a chat window on your storefront that answers a shopper's question in the moment from your own delivery, returns, sizing and product information. It runs from a script tag, not a theme edit, and a good one says when your documents do not cover the question.

The questions worth answering are not exotic. Baymard Institute puts the average documented cart abandonment rate at 70.22% across 50 studies, and among shoppers who abandon during checkout rather than while browsing, 20% say delivery was too slow, 13% say the returns policy was unsatisfactory and 12% could not see or calculate the total cost upfront (Source: Baymard Institute, 2025). Every one of those is a written fact that already exists on your site. It is just three clicks deep, in a policy page nobody opens.

Worth knowing: the information a chatbot needs on a BigCommerce store is almost always already written. You are not authoring new content, you are moving existing content to where the question gets asked.

Where does a script tag go in BigCommerce today?

Script Manager, in the control panel. BigCommerce's own documentation gives the path as Storefront > Script Manager, where you create a script, name it, choose whether it is injected in the head or the footer, and choose which pages it applies to (Source: BigCommerce Docs, retrieved 4 September 2026). There is also a deep link at login.bigcommerce.com/deep-links/manage/script-manager if you prefer to jump straight there.

Two details decide whether this route is open to you at all:

  • Script Manager is the control panel counterpart of the Scripts API, and it is available in the channel settings for the storefront in question on non-Blueprint stores (Source: BigCommerce Docs, retrieved 4 September 2026). If you run multiple storefronts, you are adding the script to a channel, not to the account, so check which channel you are in before you paste.
  • Blueprint, the legacy theme engine, does not render scripts inserted through the Scripts API or Script Manager (Source: BigCommerce Docs, retrieved 4 September 2026). On a Blueprint store, Script Manager is not the answer and you are back to editing theme files or migrating the theme.

Each channel can hold 50 control panel created scripts, and an app using an app level API account can create up to 10 API scripts per channel (Source: BigCommerce Docs, retrieved 4 September 2026). You are unlikely to hit either ceiling with a chat widget, but it is worth knowing before you add your fifth analytics tag.

Route Use it when What it costs you
Script Manager (Storefront > Script Manager) Stencil or Catalyst storefront, you want the script listed and removable in one place Nothing. No theme edit, survives theme updates
Theme file edit Blueprint store, or you need the tag inside a specific template The edit is lost or conflicted on a theme update, and you need file access
Scripts API You are building an app that installs itself for merchants Development work, an API account, and the 10 script per channel limit

For a chat widget on a modern BigCommerce theme, Script Manager is the correct route. Editing a theme file to add a chat bubble is work you will have to redo, and it hides the tag from whoever inherits the store.

How do you install a chatbot on BigCommerce?

These steps assume chatfor.site, but the shape is identical for any tool that ships a single script tag. Budget ten minutes for the install and an hour for the uploads.

  1. Create the assistant. Sign up at chatfor.site. Sign-in is a magic link, so there is no password to store or share with a colleague. The free plan is $0 forever and covers 100 answers a month, one assistant and 25 documents, which is enough to see whether the answers are actually right.
  2. Upload what shoppers ask about. Your delivery page, returns and refunds policy, sizing guide and any care or compatibility notes. You can upload documents, paste text straight in as a source, add product entries, and write curated question and answer pairs for the questions you want answered in exact words.
  3. Set the launcher. Choose an icon or a text label, set your brand colour, and write the welcome message. Optional extras are a sound, a nudge, and a pre-chat contact capture with your own note above it.
  4. Copy the script tag. The dashboard gives you the snippet with your assistant's id already in it:
<script
  src="https://chatfor.site/widget.js"
  data-bot-id="YOUR_BOT_ID"
  defer
></script>
  1. Open Script Manager. In your BigCommerce control panel, go to Storefront > Script Manager. If you run more than one storefront, confirm you are in the right channel first.
  2. Create the script. Add a new script, give it a name you will recognise in a year ("chatfor.site widget" beats "script 4"), set the location to the footer, and set it to apply to all pages. Paste the snippet as the script contents. Set the consent category honestly: a support chat widget is normally functional rather than essential, and BigCommerce's script form asks you to categorise it so consent tooling can respect the answer.
  3. Save and load your storefront. The bubble appears in the corner. Ask it a question you know the answer to, and one you know is not in the documents.

Worth knowing: the defer attribute matters. It tells the browser to load the widget after the page has parsed, so the chat bubble never competes with your product images for the first paint.

If you would rather have the assistant sitting inside a support page than floating in a corner, the inline mode renders into a container you place, which is a Growth plan feature. The snippet gains data-mode="inline" and a data-target selector pointing at your div.

Running the same thing on other platforms is the same job with a different menu. The route on Shopify is a theme app embed or a snippet in theme.liquid, covered in our walkthrough for Shopify stores, and on WordPress it is a footer hook or a plugin that manages the tag, covered in the WordPress version of this install.

What to upload, in the order that pays

Do not upload everything you own on day one. Upload the four things people ask about, in this order, and check the answers after each one:

  1. Delivery. Options, prices, cut-off times, which countries, and what happens to a late parcel. This is the single most asked question on most stores and it maps directly to the 20% who abandon over slow delivery.
  2. Returns and refunds. The window, the condition, who pays postage, and the exchange process. Include the awkward cases: sale items, faulty goods, and anything you will not take back.
  3. Sizing and specification. Size charts, fit notes, materials, dimensions, compatibility. If it is a table on a page, paste the table.
  4. Product entries. Name, price and a description for the lines you want the assistant to be able to surface as cards under its answer.

Then add curated question and answer pairs for the handful of questions where you want the exact wording every time. A curated pair is what you decided should be said, so it takes precedence over the documents. It is also cheaper: a question that matches a curated pair closely enough never reaches the model at all.

How do you know it is telling the truth?

Because you can check. Every conversation is stored, and on plans with conversation history you can open a past chat, see which passages of which document an answer was drawn from, and overrule it by writing a curated answer.

The behaviour to test deliberately is the refusal. chatfor.site answers only from material you supplied, and is instructed to say plainly when your documents do not cover a question rather than fill the gap. Ask it who your chief executive is when you have uploaded nothing about your team. It should tell you it does not have that to hand and offer something it can help with.

This is a design decision, not a guarantee about how language models work. Restricting the source material to your own documents shrinks the surface for invention. It does not repeal the fact that the model is generating text, which is exactly why the source passages are visible to you and why you can overrule any answer.

Worked examples of this, with the question a visitor typed, the document behind the answer and the answer itself, are in our collection of real question and answer walkthroughs.

What a BigCommerce chatbot costs to run

Plan Price Answers per month Assistants Documents
Free $0 forever 100 1 25
Starter $29 / month 2,000 2 200
Growth $79 / month 6,000 5 Unlimited
Business $199 / month 20,000 Unlimited Unlimited

Every account starts free, so nothing needs a card until you choose a paid plan. The free plan carries a chatfor.site badge on the widget; paid plans do not. Billing runs through Polar.

The underlying cost of one answer is measured rather than estimated: an average of 1,794 input and 87 output tokens, which at Claude Sonnet 5's $2 per million input and $10 per million output tokens (Source: Anthropic documentation, 2026) is about $0.0045 per answer. That figure is why the plan tiers sit where they do, and it is a useful sanity check on any quote you are given for a chat widget priced per conversation.

Frequently asked questions

Does BigCommerce have a built-in chatbot?

No. BigCommerce gives you Script Manager, which is where third party chat widgets are installed, rather than a chat assistant of its own. You choose the tool, paste its script tag under Storefront > Script Manager, and the widget renders on your storefront pages.

Will a script tag slow my BigCommerce store down?

Not if it loads deferred and from the footer. A defer attribute tells the browser to fetch the widget after the page has been parsed, so the chat bubble is never in the way of your product images or your first paint. Set the location to footer in Script Manager.

Can I add a chatbot to a Blueprint theme store?

Not through Script Manager. BigCommerce's documentation states that Blueprint, the legacy theme engine, does not support rendering scripts inserted using the Scripts API or Script Manager. On a Blueprint store you either edit theme files directly or migrate the storefront to a Stencil or Catalyst theme first.

How many documents do I need before it is useful?

Four is usually enough to cover most of what shoppers ask: delivery, returns, sizing and your main product information. The free plan allows 25 documents, which is more than most single-brand stores need. Start with four, read the answers, and add the gaps you find.

What happens when a shopper asks something my documents do not cover?

It says so. The assistant is instructed to answer only from the material you uploaded and to state plainly, in one sentence, when that material does not contain the answer, then offer something it can help with. You will see the question in your conversation history, which tells you what to write next.

Sources

Try it on your own documents

Upload what you already have and ask it something. The free plan needs no card, and it will tell you when your documents do not cover a question.

Start free