Sohay — RAG AI Chatbot for WordPress

Sohay is a WordPress chat plugin that answers your visitors' questions from your own content — not from whatever the model happened to memorise. It uses RAG (retrieval-augmented generation): before it replies, it searches the articles you've published in its built-in Knowledge Base, then writes the answer from what it found. If nothing matches, it says so instead of inventing something.

On a WooCommerce store it goes further and shops with your visitors — searching your catalog, reading live stock and prices, and filling the cart inside the conversation.

How it works

1. Paste an OpenAI or Google Gemini API key into AI Settings.

2. Write a few articles in the Knowledge Base, then click Sync All Articles.

3. The chat widget appears on your site. Ask it something your articles cover.

No coding, no external dashboard, no account with us.

Key features

• RAG answers grounded in your Knowledge Base, with the source article shown as a chip under the reply

• Your choice of model — OpenAI or Google (Gemini), switchable any time; each provider's key and model are stored separately, so switching back costs nothing

• A real inbox — every conversation is saved under Sohay → Conversations, where you can search, filter by status, assign a chat to a teammate, reply, pin, and close

• Spend protection — set a daily token cap and the plugin stops calling your provider for the rest of the day once it's hit. A runaway loop or a hostile bot can't drain your account overnight

• Diagnostics page showing today's token usage and the most recent plugin logs

• Custom welcome message (280 characters) and custom system prompt (4,000 characters), with {site_name} and {current_date} placeholders

• Five granular capabilities, so a support agent can read and reply to chats without getting access to your API keys

• Multisite-ready — every site keeps its own conversations, Knowledge Base and settings

On a WooCommerce store (optional)

The shopping tools switch themselves on when WooCommerce 7.0+ is active, and stay completely hidden when it isn't. Shoppers can:

• Search and browse your catalog — "waterproof jackets under $100", "what's on sale?" — with results coming back as product cards carrying photo, price and stock

• Open one product in detail and pick a size or colour without leaving the chat

• See live stock and prices, read from your store at the moment they ask

• Ask about shipping, returns, refunds and payment — answered from your own store pages first, then from Knowledge Base articles you've tagged policy or faq

• Add an item, change a quantity, or remove a line from their cart, each with an Undo button

The chatbot never takes payment or places an order — when the shopper is ready it hands them to your normal WooCommerce checkout. HPOS and Cart & Checkout Blocks compatibility are declared, so your store won't show an "uncertified plugin" banner.

Built for production

• Fast — a roughly 8 KB launcher loads on every page; the full chat code only downloads when a visitor actually opens the chat, so most never download it

• Private — conversations live in custom tables in your own database. No analytics, no telemetry, no third-party fonts or CDN assets, no phone-home

• GDPR-friendly — signed-in visitors' chats flow through WordPress's own Export and Erase Personal Data tools; guest chats are deleted from the inbox and permanently purged after a retention window, 30 days by default

• Secure — API keys are AES-256-GCM encrypted at rest, masked in the admin UI after the first save, and excluded from the REST API

• Extensible — 48 filters and 12 actions, including one that strips a tool from the request entirely, so the chatbot is never told it exists and its data never reaches your AI provider

• Theme-proof — the widget renders inside an isolated container, so your theme can't break the chat and the chat can't restyle your site

Requirements

• WordPress 6.6 or later, on PHP 8.1 or later

• An API key from OpenAI or Google (Gemini). You pay that provider directly for model usage — Sohay does not resell access. A small support site typically stays in single-digit dollars per month, and the daily token cap keeps it predictable.

• Knowledge Base indexing and search always run on OpenAI, whichever provider answers the chat. If you pick Gemini and want the Knowledge Base, keep an OpenAI key saved as well.

• WooCommerce 7.0 or later, only if you want the shopping tools. Everything else works without it.

Great for

Support sites and documentation hubs. WooCommerce stores losing sales to unanswered sizing and shipping questions. Membership sites and course platforms. Agencies rolling the same support chat out across client sites. And any site where "do you ship here?", "what's your return policy?" and "is this in stock?" arrive ten times a day.