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Our criteria: How we chose the best vendors
We take our research seriously and want to make sure we are presenting our readers with the very best solutions in a given software category. Here's how we select vendors to be in our buyer guides:
- Product: We want to have a deep understanding of a vendor's product before recommending it. This usually means getting a demo by a senior executive (their CEO, head of product, etc), and/or using the product ourselves to make sure it has a solid UI, intuitive workflows, and the features to make it a best in class offering.
- User feedback: We do our best to understand what users say when they experience this product. User input allows us to accomplish a more thorough due diligence of products, put new vendors on our radar, and generally make sure we are presenting the right products to our readers.
- Financial metrics: We are very much finance nerds and so use a product's retention rates, growth, profitability, and scale to understand whether or not it is truly best in class.
- Best for a use case: Sometimes the best solution is the cheapest, the best tool for international companies, or the best for startups. We try to include a diversity of solutions so that our readers can find the tool that is best for what they need.
Here's more detail if you want to read further on how we research vendors.
In this guide you'll find
- Top Chatbot Software
- What Is Chatbot Software and Why Is It Important?
- Pitfalls: Mistakes to Avoid When Buying Chatbot Software
- Benefits and ROI of Chatbot Software
- Pricing Models and Estimated Cost of Chatbot Software
- Features of Chatbot Software
- Questions to Ask During Your Chatbot Software Demos
- Implementing Chatbot Software
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) About Chatbot Software
- Final Advice on Buying Chatbot Software
Which is the best chatbot software that's worth your time and money? Chatbots have become an integral part of the business strategies for many organizations. ClickZ predicts that the global chatbot market could reach almost a billion dollars in 2024.
Chatbots allow businesses to gather information directly from their customers in real-time without human intervention, reducing cost and increasing efficiency. Customers also find chatbots useful because they provide 24/7 personalized customer service, enhancing satisfaction and trust in your brand. Here are some more stats about this essential software tool:
- According to a study by IBM, chatbots could save businesses up to 30% on customer support costs.
- Up to 34% of customers are willing to talk with a chatbot rather than getting assistance from a live person.
- At least 27% of users cannot distinguish between AI and human interaction.
However, finding a bot that makes the most worthwhile investment is challenging with the sheer variety available. To help you, we've compared the different chatbot software in the market so that you can identify the right one that matches your business goals. In this guide, we look at software features, pricing, ease of use, and more.
Featured in
Top Chatbot Software
We track thousands of HR Tech solutions. Here are the best chatbot software as of February 2022.
Why we love it
:
As the first AI-powered chatbot platform in the cloud, LivePerson is a well-graded global brand that provides tools for understanding customers, scaling designs, and improving conversions.
- LivePerson’s reporting dashboard provides advanced analytics to monitor and optimize customer support and restructure conversational flows that aren’t performing well.
- Unlike some other chatbot solutions, LivePerson allows you to have multiple chats open at the same time. Users can also highlight which chats need attention and which ones are idle.
- LivePerson has a very clean, easy-to-use, and intuitive interface.
- LivePerson supports over 35 different languages including Arabic, Italian, Chinese, Spanish, and Hebrew.
- LivePerson’s reporting dashboard provides advanced analytics to monitor and optimize customer support and restructure conversational flows that aren’t performing well.
- Unlike some other chatbot solutions, LivePerson allows you to have multiple chats open at the same time. Users can also highlight which chats need attention and which ones are idle.
- LivePerson has a very clean, easy-to-use, and intuitive interface.
- LivePerson supports over 35 different languages including Arabic, Italian, Chinese, Spanish, and Hebrew.
- LivePerson’s customer support is very poor.
- In order to cancel your LivePerson subscription, you must send them a 90-day notice during which you will continue to be billed.
- Users have complained about paying hundreds of dollars on cancellation and subscription fees despite repeated requests to close their accounts.
- Some users have encountered bugs while using LivePerson’s chatbot solution
- LivePerson’s customer support is very poor.
- In order to cancel your LivePerson subscription, you must send them a 90-day notice during which you will continue to be billed.
- Users have complained about paying hundreds of dollars on cancellation and subscription fees despite repeated requests to close their accounts.
- Some users have encountered bugs while using LivePerson’s chatbot solution
LivePerson
Review:
LivePerson provides the option of building custom chatbots to automate customer interactions on various channels, such as your own website, email, SMS, Facebook Messenger, Apple Messages for Business, Google RBM, Google's Business Messages, WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter, LINE, WeChat, and Voice.
LivePerson uses Intent Manager, their proprietary NLU engine that uses machine-learning algorithms to determine the best conversational flows to add to your chatbot. You can then use the Conversation Builder to build your custom chatbot and design conversations. The builder offers a point-and-click interface requiring no technical or coding expertise. They also provide an extensive library of pre-existing conversation templates for various industries and use cases, so you don't have to build one from scratch. You can evaluate the performance of different conversation flows using the MACS (Meaningful Automated Conversation Score), which assesses bot performance and highlights issues such as poor routing so you can fix them quickly.
All chatbots that you build can be run on multiple channels and integrated with a host of applications, CRMs, payment platforms, and more. Using the Conversation Cloud, live agents can monitor bot interactions and also label misunderstood intents. And when human interference is needed, the chatbot simply hands off the conversation to a live agent.
LivePerson
Customers:
Virgin Atlantic, David's Bridal, Bankwest, IBM, Vodafone, Sky, and RBS
LivePerson
Stats:
- Livechat powers 1B+ conversational interactions each month
- Businesses that have used Liveperson have experienced:
- 2x uptick in employee efficiency
- 10x conversions vs. traditional digital
- 20% boost in customer satisfaction
- 90% automation containment rates
- 50% decrease in agent attrition rates
LivePerson
Pricing:
LivePerson does not offer their pricing upfront. You can contact their sales team for a custom quote.
Best For:
LivePerson can be used by small, medium, and large-sized businesses in the telecommunication, healthcare, financial, retail, travel, and automotive industry.
Why we love it
:
MobileMonkey is a sales automation and conversational engagement tool that businesses, agencies, and social media influencers can use to discover new prospects, nurture leads, and engage their audience effectively. Their patent-pending Omnichat technology allows automated chat marketing across various messaging platforms.
- MobileMonkey's automation capabilities are a class apart. The ability to send bulk messages and sales campaigns across various communication channels is a valuable feature.
- MobileMonkey's chatbot provides live chat support, making it easy to transfer conversations to a live agent when human interference is needed.
- Users have reported that MobileMonkey has excellent customer support.
- MobileMonkey's automation capabilities are a class apart. The ability to send bulk messages and sales campaigns across various communication channels is a valuable feature.
- MobileMonkey's chatbot provides live chat support, making it easy to transfer conversations to a live agent when human interference is needed.
- Users have reported that MobileMonkey has excellent customer support.
- MobileMonkey does not allow users to create custom reports from the reporting dashboard.
- While you can create a chatbot in various languages, you cannot easily translate your chatbot to another language - it requires you to manually copy and translate your entire conversational flow.
- MobileMonkey does not allow users to create custom reports from the reporting dashboard.
- While you can create a chatbot in various languages, you cannot easily translate your chatbot to another language - it requires you to manually copy and translate your entire conversational flow.
MobileMonkey
Review:
MobileMonkey chatbot technology, called Omnichat, offers many great features, including an intuitive interface and visual builder, custom fields and tags for user segmentation, and keyword recognition. What's nice about Omnichat is that it is compatible with different messaging platforms such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, native web chat, and even SMS. You can either use the readymade templates/dialogues available or create your own conversational flows for different use cases. Omnichat also provides live chat support, making it easy to transfer conversations to a live agent when needed.
Another noteworthy feature of MobileMonkey's Omnichat is the analytics dashboard that provides valuable reporting data such as total contacts, daily sessions, number of active conversations, triggered keywords, most effective conversational flows, and more.
MobileMonkey
Customers:
Toyota, VMWare, Hush Puppies, Yoga Club, and Outdoorsy
MobileMonkey
Stats:
- MobileMonkey has processed over 1.1 billion GB worth of data
- MobileMonkey can be used to capture 7-15x more leads from top-of-funnel marketing activities
- MobileMonkey allows you to search and connect with over 100 million prospects using 10,000 interest-based signals
MobileMonkey
Pricing:
MobileMonkey offers three different chatbot products, each with its own pricing plans:
- Agencio is a chatbot designed for digital and creative agencies, franchises, and growing marketing and customer service teams. It offers a custom plan with pricing on request.
- FunnelPro is ideal for in-house marketers for 24/7 chat automation across SMS, web chat, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger. The pricing for this plan starts at $119 per month, billed annually.
- InstaChamp is created for SMBs, creators, and brands tailored for Instagram users. Pricing starts at $9.95 per month.
- The Startup Edition starts at $59 per month per user and includes 1,000 send credits, 3,000 contacts, and one multi-channel inbox.
- The Growth Edition is offered at custom pricing for an unlimited number of users, 10,000 send credits, 10,000 contacts, and one multi-channel inbox.
Best For:
MobileMonkey can be used by agencies, social media influencers, and businesses of all sizes. That being said, marketing and sales teams will especially find this tool helpful in discovering new prospects, nurturing leads, and engaging their customers.
Why we love it
:
Chatfuel is a no-coding platform for Facebook and Instagram that lets you build a chatbot in three minutes with its user-friendly interface perfect for beginners.
Pro: Even if you have no programming or coding knowledge, you can create, edit, and design chatbots using Chatfuel's visual flow builder or block builder.
Pro: Chatfuel offers analytics that users can leverage to understand their chatbot performance, customer satisfaction, chat volume, user retention, and more.
Pro: Chatfuel has all the features a chatbot must have to facilitate in-depth user interactions, including keyword detection, personalization, human takeover, the option to branch out into different conversational pathways, and various automations.
- Even if you have no programming or coding knowledge, you can create, edit, and design chatbots using Chatfuel's visual flow builder or block builder.
- Chatfuel offers analytics that users can leverage to understand their chatbot performance, customer satisfaction, chat volume, user retention, and more.
- Chatfuel has all the features a chatbot must have to facilitate in-depth user interactions, including keyword detection, personalization, human takeover, the option to branch out into different conversational pathways, and various automations.
Con: While you can create a chatbot in any language using Chatfuel, the process of translating the chatbot to different languages has to be done manually and can be quite cumbersome.
Con: Chatfuel cannot be used to build a chatbot on WhatsApp, Telegram, SMS, Slack, Skype, or email. The platform is limited to Facebook Messenger and Instagram.
Con: While you can use a Facebook messenger widget on your website, you cannot create a native website widget using Chatfuel. This is a limitation for businesses that want a chatbot only on their site.
- While you can create a chatbot in any language using Chatfuel, the process of translating the chatbot to different languages has to be done manually and can be quite cumbersome.
- Chatfuel cannot be used to build a chatbot on WhatsApp, Telegram, SMS, Slack, Skype, or email. The platform is limited to Facebook Messenger and Instagram.
- While you can use a Facebook messenger widget on your website, you cannot create a native website widget using Chatfuel. This is a limitation for businesses that want a chatbot only on their site.
Chatfuel
Review:
Chatfuel is a no-code chatbot platform with pre-existing templates and drag-and-drop elements that allow you to create your own AI chatbot on Facebook and Instagram within a few minutes. With a simple and clean interface, a robust reporting dashboard, many integrations, and an in-built CRM, Chatfuel is known as the world's leading chatbot platform for Facebook Messenger, with 46% of all messenger bots using the tool.
While a very versatile tool, it doesn't offer a lot of room for extensive customization and cannot be used on other platforms like your company website, WhatsApp, SMS, and Telegram.
Chatfuel
Customers:
Netflix, Nivea, Nissan, British Airways, Levi’s, and Visa
Chatfuel
Stats:
- Chatfuel has supported 7M+ clients since 2015
- Chatfuel automates 98% of customer inquiries
- Chatfuel channels over 1 billion conversations monthly
Chatfuel
Pricing:
Chatfuel offers three different pricing options. They are as follows:
- Free: This free trial plan allows you to build a bot to handle up to 50 conversations with users.
- Pro: Starting at $15/month, this plan offers up to 25,000 chats with users. This is a tiered pricing plan, meaning you will be charged a monthly fee based on the number of interactions with your bot, with a cap of 25,000 users. For example, if anywhere between 51-500 users interact with your chatbot, your monthly fee is $15. This plan also offers the option to manage your user and lead lists.
- Premium: Starting at $199/month, this plan offers unlimited user interactions. Apart from the basic features in Pro, Premium also offers a dedicated support manager, custom bot building by a Chatfuel expert, live onboarding, and consulting calls.
Best For:
Chatfuel is ideal for businesses that use Facebook and Instagram to generate leads from ads and comments, answer queries, recommend products and collect user feedback. If your target audience spends a lot of time of social media, then setting up a chatbot on your organization’s Facebook or Instagram page using Chatfuel is a good move.
Why we love it
:
Geared toward SMBs and enterprises, Freshchat is an omnichannel conversational engagement solution with no-code, easy-to-build chatbots and AI-powered messaging.
- Freshchat provides customers with an omnichannel experience where chatbots can be created on different communication platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, LINE, and Instagram.
- Freshchat offers an SDK that allows you to switch to live chat support at any point during a conversation. This leads to better resolution rates and increased customer satisfaction.
- Freshchat users can choose from 33+ languages to customize the messenger in the language of their choice.
- Freshchat provides customers with an omnichannel experience where chatbots can be created on different communication platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, LINE, and Instagram.
- Freshchat offers an SDK that allows you to switch to live chat support at any point during a conversation. This leads to better resolution rates and increased customer satisfaction.
- Freshchat users can choose from 33+ languages to customize the messenger in the language of their choice.
- While Freshchat has a free-forever plan that small companies can use, the plan is limited in features, doesn’t allow integration with third-party communication platforms, and provides no free bot sessions (interactions between the end-user and the chatbot).
- Some users have reported technical issues like a lag time between responses and the absence of notifications for new messages.
- While Freshchat has a free-forever plan that small companies can use, the plan is limited in features, doesn’t allow integration with third-party communication platforms, and provides no free bot sessions (interactions between the end-user and the chatbot).
- Some users have reported technical issues like a lag time between responses and the absence of notifications for new messages.
Freshchat
Review:
Freshchat's no-code chatbot solution allows you to build an AI-powered chatbot on a wide range of communication platforms. You can either choose from the pre-existing chatbot templates or use conversation APIs to build a bot from scratch and connect it to their messenger and team inbox.
You can evaluate your bot's performance and optimize different conversation flows to serve your customers better. At any point, if human interference is needed, the chatbot transfers the conversation to an agent seamlessly, with just one click.
Freshchat
Customers:
Freshchat is used by over 50,000+ companies including Klarna, Blue Nile, Dunzo, Harvey Norman, MakeMyTrip, and Travix.
Freshchat
Stats:
- Freshchat is used by 50,000+ global businesses.
- Freshchat offers users the option to customize their messenger in over 33 languages.
Freshchat
Pricing:
Freshchat has 4 pricing plans. When billed annually, they cost as follows:
- Free: This plan is free of charge for up to 100 agents and is limited to 100 campaign contacts and 10K unique visitors per month (MUV).
- Growth: At $15 per month, the Growth plan provides up to 2000 free bot sessions, 500 campaign contacts, 100K monthly unique visitors, a priority inbox, and a basic analytics dashboard.
- Pro: For $39 per month, the Pro plan comes with all the features of Growth plus added functionality like advanced automation, performance reports, 3000 free bot sessions, and 200K MUV.
- Enterprise: For $69, the Enterprise plan is Freshteam’s most premium offering, providing users with access to all features in previous plans with the addition of advanced customizations, up to 5000 free bot sessions, and 400K MUV.
Best For:
Freshchat is best suited for SMBs and enterprises in the retail, e-commerce, travel and hospitality, financial services, and education space.
Why we love it
:
Powered by Meta, Wit.ai is a no-frills API that developers can deploy, modify, and improve to create natural-language platforms that support chatbots, smart homes, and mobile apps and devices.
- Wit.ai currently supports 132 languages, allowing you to build apps and bots without language restrictions.
- Since Wit.ai is an open-source platform, it is free to use.
- Wit.ai uses an advanced NLP (Natural Language Processing) framework that allows you to build intent-driven chatbots, applications, and devices - the possibilities are limitless.
- Wit.ai currently supports 132 languages, allowing you to build apps and bots without language restrictions.
- Since Wit.ai is an open-source platform, it is free to use.
- Wit.ai uses an advanced NLP (Natural Language Processing) framework that allows you to build intent-driven chatbots, applications, and devices - the possibilities are limitless.
- Wit.ai isn't an easy-to-setup tool. It requires a degree of familiarity with open-source platforms and basic development skills.
- You need a Facebook account in order to authenticate your access to Wit.ai. If you delete your account, you will not be able to access any of the apps or chatbots you build.
- Wit.ai isn't an easy-to-setup tool. It requires a degree of familiarity with open-source platforms and basic development skills.
- You need a Facebook account in order to authenticate your access to Wit.ai. If you delete your account, you will not be able to access any of the apps or chatbots you build.
Wit.ai
Review:
Wit.ai acts as an open-source chatbot framework that uses NLP (Natural Language Processing) to help developers build chatbots for various platforms and use cases. One key advantage of using Wit.ai is that you don't always have to build your chatbot from scratch. For instance, if another developer has already used Wit.ai to create a bot that greets a website visitor, you can replicate it and integrate it into your conversational flows. However, bear in mind that basic development skills are required to use Wit.ai to its full potential.
Wit.ai
Customers:
Tutor Platform, FoodHero, Messenger Chatbot, Conversocial, and Tutorbot
Wit.ai
Stats:
- Wit.ai has a community of 200,000+ developers
- Users can build apps, bots, and virtual assistants on Wit.ai in 132 languages
Best For:
Wit.ai can be used by small, mid-sized, and large enterprises that have development teams with expertise in setting up applications and chatbots using open source solutions.
Why we love it
:
With small businesses in mind, Tidio allows entrepreneurs to harness customer service interactions to generate more sales, with fully customizable conversation tools that users can deploy in 5 minutes or less.
Pro: Tidio allows users to build a single multichannel communicator by connecting different channels like website live chat, email inbox, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger to their platform. This means that you can always respond to your customers' queries irrespective of which platform they reach out to you on.
Pro: Building a chatbot using Tidio is a fairly simple process. You can either use their existing templates or build one using their visual flow builder and drag-and-drop templates.
Pro: If you’re a small business that just wants to keep track of your chatbot performance, then Tidio’s analytics dashboard outlines that information very well. You can view the number of conversations, leads, and messages easily without having to dig too deep.
- Tidio allows users to build a single multichannel communicator by connecting different channels like website live chat, email inbox, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger to their platform. This means that you can always respond to your customers' queries irrespective of which platform they reach out to you on.
- Building a chatbot using Tidio is a fairly simple process. You can either use their existing templates or build one using their visual flow builder and drag-and-drop templates.
- If you’re a small business that just wants to keep track of your chatbot performance, then Tidio’s analytics dashboard outlines that information very well. You can view the number of conversations, leads, and messages easily without having to dig too deep.
Con: According to some users, chat notifications can sometimes be unreliable. This means that you may not always get notified when you get a message.
Con: While you can create a chatbot in a different language, translating messages based on a user’s input is extremely difficult and requires manual effort.
- According to some users, chat notifications can sometimes be unreliable. This means that you may not always get notified when you get a message.
- While you can create a chatbot in a different language, translating messages based on a user’s input is extremely difficult and requires manual effort.
Tidio
Review:
Building a chatbot using Tidio is a fairly simple, quick, and straightforward process. You can either choose one of their 20+ ready-to-use templates or easily create your own chatbot flow using an intuitive drag-and-drop visual editor. You can build conversational flows for virtually any function - from offering a discount code to stop your customers from abandoning their shopping cart to collecting and qualifying leads based on their behavior on your website. They also provide a reporting dashboard that has analytics like number of leads, live chat operator information, and number of messages sent and received.
What's nice about Tidio is that they allow users to build an omnichannel communication system by connecting different channels to the platform. This means that you can integrate your website live chat, email inbox, Facebook Messenger, and Instagram into a single multichannel communicator. However, Tidio does not allow you to build chatbots on platforms like WhatsApp, Telegram, and SMS.
Tidio
Customers:
Wicklewood, Mometrix, and Lily of the Valley
Tidio
Stats:
- Tidio is used by over 300K businesses
- Tidio’s chatbots have helped 3M businesses generate 20M leads and $400M in sales
- Tidio automates almost 40% of customer service conversations
Tidio
Pricing:
Tidio offers 3 different subscription plans. They are as follows:
- Free: The free plan offers 3 operators, 100 unique reachable visitors, unlimited chats, visitors' info, desktop, and mobile apps, third-party-app integrations, and the JavaScript API.
- Communicator Plan($15/month, $150/year): Users will get all the features under the Free plan plus live typing, viewed pages, live visitors list, permissions, notes, and up to 40 operator seats. This plan is billed on a per operator basis.
- Chatbots Plan ($30/month, $390/year): This plan includes all the features of the Free Plan, unlimited unique reachable visitors a month, unlimited active chatbots, chatbot templates, visual chatbot editor, and Zapier integration.
All paid plans include a seven-day free trial.
Best For:
Tidio is ideal for small to medium-sized companies that want a basic customer service tool that combines live chat and chatbot tools. However, if you're looking for an advanced tool with complex workflows and in-depth analytics, then we wouldn't recommend Tidio.
Why we love it
:
Ideal for small businesses, Snatchbot is a customizable, easy-to-use, no-code bot platform that can automate administrative tasks and enrich customer interactions online. It offers integration with a host of apps, live chat support, and advanced analytics that you can use to analyze your chatbot's performance.
- Snatchbot is a no-code chatbot solution which means that you do not require coding expertise to build and design conversational flows.
- Snatchbot is an omnichannel chatbot that can be connected to a variety of communication channels, including WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Viber, Line, Slack, and SMS.
- Users of the Pro plan can access valuable advanced analytics like the number of messages per user, popular interactions, and effective bot activity.
- Snatchbot is a no-code chatbot solution which means that you do not require coding expertise to build and design conversational flows.
- Snatchbot is an omnichannel chatbot that can be connected to a variety of communication channels, including WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Viber, Line, Slack, and SMS.
- Users of the Pro plan can access valuable advanced analytics like the number of messages per user, popular interactions, and effective bot activity.
- Users cannot fully maximize the potential of their chatbots unless they upgrade to the Pro Plan. However, even under the Pro Plan, they can only customize their integrations if they choose the Enterprise Plan.
- Snatchbot can get very expensive (anywhere between $500 to $1000 per month) based on the number of messages sent and received using the chatbot.
- Users cannot fully maximize the potential of their chatbots unless they upgrade to the Pro Plan. However, even under the Pro Plan, they can only customize their integrations if they choose the Enterprise Plan.
- Snatchbot can get very expensive (anywhere between $500 to $1000 per month) based on the number of messages sent and received using the chatbot.
SnatchBot
Review:
Snatchbot allows you to build an omnichannel chatbot on a range of communication platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Slack, and SMS. Since it is a no-code solution, conversational flows can be built using the library of pre-existing templates and customizing it to suit your use case. While the builder interface is not very intuitive, the option to test your chatbot before making it live is a definite advantage.
You can also use Snatchbot to send broadcast messages and create conditions within your conversational flows, making communication with your audience more engaging.
SnatchBot
Customers:
Whirlpool, Robert Half, Walmart Labs, Gameloft, and QuikSilver
SnatchBot
Stats:
SnatchBot
Pricing:
Pricing: Snatchbot has two plans. They are as follows:
- Free: This is a free-forever plan that includes detailed reports, live and export chat, custom and pre-trained models for NLP, and Snatchbot branding.
- Pro: The price depends on the limit of messages and cost per message and can range between $30 and $999 per month. It offers advanced features like customization of bot design, removal of the Snatchbot branding, premium support, and advanced analytics. Enterprise is the last tier under the Pro plan, which provides unlimited messages, custom integrations, a personal manager, and a reseller option. You can contact the Snatchbot team for a custom quote.
Best For:
Since the pricing of Snatchbot is based on the number of messages per month, it is ideal for small businesses that do not deal with a large volume of customer queries on a daily basis.
Why we love it
:
A trusted chatbot for big brands like IBM and Amazon, Intercom offers three conversational solutions for support, marketing, and sales for various kinds of enterprises.
- One of Intercom's biggest pros is its UI/UX. From their chat widget to the flow builder and the team inbox, every tool has been built with the end-user experience in mind.
- Intercom offers practically every feature that sales, marketing, and support teams would need, making it a holistic customer communication platform. Businesses do not need to invest in another customer engagement tool if they have Intercom.
- Intercom allows you to create three different chatbots based on your business requirements. You can build and connect custom chatbots to your existing tech stack, automate workflows, qualify leads, route conversations to live agents, and more.
- Intercom provides customer support in over 30 different languages
- One of Intercom's biggest pros is its UI/UX. From their chat widget to the flow builder and the team inbox, every tool has been built with the end-user experience in mind.
- Intercom offers practically every feature that sales, marketing, and support teams would need, making it a holistic customer communication platform. Businesses do not need to invest in another customer engagement tool if they have Intercom.
- Intercom allows you to create three different chatbots based on your business requirements. You can build and connect custom chatbots to your existing tech stack, automate workflows, qualify leads, route conversations to live agents, and more.
- Intercom provides customer support in over 30 different languages
- Intercom provides extremely poor customer support. According to users, it can take days and even weeks before your queries or issues are resolved.
- Intercom can become very expensive very quickly. With every add-on having its own price tag, you might end up paying hundreds per month, if not thousands, for features like product tours, advanced support, lead generation, and customer engagement.
- Intercom isn't transparent with their pricing. Many users are confused with their pricing model and fail to understand how they calculate the monthly fee.
- Intercom provides extremely poor customer support. According to users, it can take days and even weeks before your queries or issues are resolved.
- Intercom can become very expensive very quickly. With every add-on having its own price tag, you might end up paying hundreds per month, if not thousands, for features like product tours, advanced support, lead generation, and customer engagement.
- Intercom isn't transparent with their pricing. Many users are confused with their pricing model and fail to understand how they calculate the monthly fee.
Intercom
Review:
Intercom offers the option of setting up three different types of bots: Task bot, Custom bot, and Resolution bot.
Task bots are designed to automate simple tasks across Intercom and only interact with website visitors when they have something useful to contribute. They do not take over or interrupt live chat conversations nor send follow-up messages when a user doesn't engage with them. They can be used to route website visitors to support, send a conversation rating request, suggest relevant help articles, and collect contact details when visitors start a new conversation.
Custom bots are more advanced bots that interact with users based on predefined rules or flows. You can either use one of the pre-existing templates to set up a custom bot or build one from scratch using the flow builder. They can be used to start new conversations, ask follow-up questions, target specific users and leads, and route customers to the correct channels. You can also set goals to track the performance of your custom bot and how website visitors interact with it.
A resolution bot steps in when a visitor asks a question that matches one of the answers that you've already configured. The bot will provide the answer, offer additional information, or give your customers the option to chat live with your support team.
Intercom
Customers:
Amazon, Shopify, Facebook, Atlassian, Microsoft, Udemy, and Living Spaces
Intercom
Stats:
- Intercom is used by over 25,000 businesses
- 600M+ end users use Intercom every month, sending over 500M messages on average
- Companies can handle 1.6x more tickets when using the Intercom Messenger
Intercom
Pricing:
Intercom has a Starter subscription designed for very small businesses. Starting from $74 per month, this plan offers basic features like in-product messages, chat and email support, a conversation routing bot, a basic reporting dashboard, and 250+ integrations. This plan also has add-ons like product tours from $199 per month, WhatsApp integration from $9 per seat per month, and surveys from $49 a month.
Apart from this, they have 3 subscription plans for small, mid-sized, and large organizations. They are as follows:
- Support: This plan is designed for support teams and includes features like live chat, team inboxes, ticketing workflows, SLAs, workload management, conversational and resolutions bots, targeted messaging, and product tours.
- Engage: This plan is for businesses that want to onboard and engage with their customers. It includes features like outbound and in-product messaging, push messages, custom bots, mobile carousels, banner messages, multi-channel campaigns, A/B testing, customer segments, and integrations with tools like Salesforce and Marketo.
- Convert: Designed to help convert website visitors into paying customers, this solution offers features like conversational chatbots, live chat for sales, smart lead qualification, multiple team inboxes, automatic meeting booking, prospect data, revenue, and performance reporting, and reverse IP lookup.
The pricing for these plans is not disclosed upfront and varies depending on the number of seats, and the number of people reached. For a custom quote, you can contact Intercom's sales team.
Best For:
Intercom is a highly advanced customer engagement software ideal for large businesses and tech-forward enterprises looking to generate and capture leads for their sales and marketing teams.
Why we love it
:
Used by some of the biggest global brands, Dialogflow is a versatile natural conversation interface that developers and linguists can use to leverage the capabilities of the Google Cloud.
- Since Dialogflow can be integrated with over 14 different platforms, including Facebook, Telegram, Twitter, Slack, Skype, Viber, and Hangouts, it allows you to offer omnichannel support for your customers.
- Dialogflow supports over 30+ languages, so building a multilingual chatbot becomes easy.
- Dialogflow supports a range of programming languages, including C#, Go, Java, PHP, Ruby, Python, and Node.js. This allows you to program a chatbot in a language your developers are comfortable with.
- One of the main advantages of using Dialogflow is its AI and NLP capabilities that make it easy to train your virtual agent to understand user intent and keywords.
- Dialogflow allows you to easily manage your virtual agents with end-to-end CI/CD and flow-based modules that can scale up to 20 flows and 40,000 intents per agent.
- Building a chatbot and implementing and managing conversational flows requires developer expertise. Dialogflow is not a no-code platform that can be set up in a few minutes - it requires time and coding effort.
- Dialogflow has a steep learning curve because the platform isn't as flexible as other chatbot platforms available in the market.
Dialogflow
Review:
Dialogflow can be used to create a chatbot on 14+ platforms and applications, including Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, Skype, and SMS. You can build and manage conversational flows and use virtual agents for a variety of use cases, such as providing customer support, collecting feedback, or even engaging in small talk with customers.
With features like a visual flow builder, advanced AI and NLP capabilities, end-to-end management, and advanced analytics, you can use Dialogflow to set up sophisticated chatbots and complex workflows. However, since Dialogflow is a coding platform, you will need programming expertise to set up your chatbot.
Dialogflow
Customers:
Deutsche Bank, Twitter, Malaysian Airlines, Etsy, PayPal, P&G, Equifax, and Gojek
Dialogflow
Stats:
- Dialogflow has a community of over 1.5 million developers
- Dialogflow supports 30+ languages and variants
Dialogflow
Pricing:
Dialogflow's pricing depends on the edition and the number of requests made during the month. The tool offers two editions. They are:
- Dialogflow ES (Essentials): This edition is ideal for standard agents small to medium and simple to moderately complex use. It is priced at $0.002 per text request, $0.0065 per 15 seconds of audio input, and $4 per 1 million characters of audio output. The essentials edition also has a free trial option that offers 180 text requests per minute.
- Dialogflow CX: This edition is for advanced agents with functionalities for large or complex use. This plan is priced at $20 per 100 chat sessions and $45 per 100 voice sessions.
All new customers receive a $600 credit for a $0 trial of Dialogflow CX, activated upon using Dialogflow CX for the first time.
Best For:
While Dialogflow can be used by small, mid-sized, and large enterprises, it is best suited for companies that want to explore NLP and set up complex chatbot flows. Since it is primarily a coding platform, it is ideal for businesses with a development team that can help them build a sophisticated chatbot, create conversational flows, and program a solution to store user information.
Why we love it
:
Flow XO is an affordable, no-code artificial intelligence chatbot platform offering a wide range of marketing tools across multiple messaging platforms.
Pro: Flow XO has many marketing tools that you can leverage to drive campaigns and capture leads. These include Facebook ads, auto-reply to Facebook comments, custom URLs for your chatbot, native Facebook and website widgets, the option to create buttons, and more.
Pro: Because Flow XO is an omnichannel solution, you can build chatbot widgets and use them across different platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, SMS, and Telegram.
Pro: Flow XO requires no coding or programming skills. You can either use the pre-existing templates to build your flow or create your own conversational flows from scratch using the elements available.
Pro: Flow XO is beneficial for those who run an e-commerce business as they can accept payments through the chatbot by integrating it with Stripe.
- Flow XO has many marketing tools that you can leverage to drive campaigns and capture leads. These include Facebook ads, auto-reply to Facebook comments, custom URLs for your chatbot, native Facebook and website widgets, the option to create buttons, and more.
- Because Flow XO is an omnichannel solution, you can build chatbot widgets and use them across different platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, SMS, and Telegram.
- Flow XO requires no coding or programming skills. You can either use the pre-existing templates to build your flow or create your own conversational flows from scratch using the elements available.
- Flow XO is beneficial for those who run an e-commerce business as they can accept payments through the chatbot by integrating it with Stripe.
Con: While most chatbots today offer integration with Zapier and Integromat, Flow XO does not, limiting the number of third-party applications you can connect to your chatbot.
Con: Unlike other chatbots that send notifications to live agents when human intervention is needed, Flow XO requires agents to monitor conversations and manually take over when required. This somewhat defeats the purpose of an automated chatbot.
Con: While Flow XO can recognize keywords entered by the user, it does not understand intents or entities. This means that you'll have to integrate your chatbot with Dialogflow to make it more "intelligent".
- While most chatbots today offer integration with Zapier and Integromat, Flow XO does not, limiting the number of third-party applications you can connect to your chatbot.
- Unlike other chatbots that send notifications to live agents when human intervention is needed, Flow XO requires agents to monitor conversations and manually take over when required. This somewhat defeats the purpose of an automated chatbot.
- While Flow XO can recognize keywords entered by the user, it does not understand intents or entities. This means that you'll have to integrate your chatbot with Dialogflow to make it more "intelligent".
Flow XO
Review:
Flow XO is an omnichannel no-code chatbot platform that allows you to set up a chatbot solution in three steps — create a chatbot, build a conversational workflow, and integrate it with 100+ cloud-based third-party applications. With a range of marketing tools, analytics, automated workflows, e-commerce integrations, and broadcasting capabilities, Flow XO can be used for a variety of use cases such as welcoming a new customer, answering queries, accepting payments, filtering leads, and gathering information about potential customers.
While the platform also offers live chat, it requires agents to monitor conversations and take over manually as opposed to automatically notifying them when human intervention is needed.
Flow XO
Customers:
Edsby, Royal College of Art, and Smart Pump
Flow XO
Stats:
- Flow XO integrates with over 100+ third-party applications including Google and popular CRM and payment options
Flow XO
Pricing:
Flow XO has a free plan that offers up to 500 interactions, 2 weeks of logs, email support, 5 bots or active flows, and access to Flow XO chat and workflow. You can also upgrade to their Standard Plan, priced at $19/month. This plan includes 5,000 interactions, 15 bots or active flows, 3 months of logs, access to 5 team members, and priority support.
You can also choose to add 5 bots or active flows per month for $10 or 25,000 interactions for $25/month.
Best For:
While Flow XO serves customers of all sizes, the sweet spot for their product is SMBs and startups.
Why we love it
:
Pandorabots is an open-source chatbot builder that uses Artificial Intelligence Markup Language (AIML) to design conversational flows and human-like virtual agents, a.k.a avatars, through real-time animation. Pandorabots can be used to build chatbots on various communication channels such as Facebook Messenger, Twitter, WhatsApp, SMS, and Telegram.
- Pandorabots has a "Small Talk Library" with over 10,000 pre-designed chitchat inputs, making the process of designing your own conversational flows simple and easy.
- Because Pandorabots uses AIML, chatbot flows can be written in any language.
- Pandorabots can be used to build a chatbot on different communication platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, and Twitter. This allows you to provide your customers with an omnichannel support experience.
- Pandorabots has a "Small Talk Library" with over 10,000 pre-designed chitchat inputs, making the process of designing your own conversational flows simple and easy.
- Because Pandorabots uses AIML, chatbot flows can be written in any language.
- Pandorabots can be used to build a chatbot on different communication platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, and Twitter. This allows you to provide your customers with an omnichannel support experience.
- In order to effectively use Pandorabots, one must have a fundamental understanding of AIML and coding expertise.
- Though Pandorabots is an open-source platform, the free plan does not provide important features like API access, integration with third-party communication channels, and avatars. You must upgrade to their paid plans to avail these features.
- Pandorabot does not allow you to auto-transfer conversations from the bot to a live agent. You can only use live chat when a human agent manually pauses the chatbot.
- In order to effectively use Pandorabots, one must have a fundamental understanding of AIML and coding expertise.
- Though Pandorabots is an open-source platform, the free plan does not provide important features like API access, integration with third-party communication channels, and avatars. You must upgrade to their paid plans to avail these features.
- Pandorabot does not allow you to auto-transfer conversations from the bot to a live agent. You can only use live chat when a human agent manually pauses the chatbot.
Pandorabots
Review:
Pandorabots allows you to create a code or no-code chatbot on different communication platforms. The interface of the chatbot builder is pretty straightforward, with a Chat Design feature that allows you to visualize conversational flows. You can also choose to build flows using the Intents Tree or program one from scratch using AIML.
While Pandorabots does not currently support broadcasts or sequence messages, it does provide an extensive range of pre-existing chitchat inputs that you can use in your conversational flows. You can also view basic chatbot analytics, such as the number of sessions, users, and interactions, through their reporting dashboard.
Pandorabots
Customers:
Coca Cola, Bridgestone, Barclays, Walmart, HCL, Docomo, and TATA
Pandorabots
Stats:
- Pandorabots has 275,000+ registered developers.
- Pandorabots has been used to create over 325,000+ chatbots
- Chatbots created using Pandorabots have collectively processed 90,000,000,000+ messages
Pandorabots
Pricing:
Pandorabots offers four pricing plans:
- The Sandbox Plan is free but includes only unlimited Sandbox messages.
- The Developer Plan ($19/month) offers 10,000 channel messages per month, $9/ third-party channel, and $3/ additional 1,000 messages.
- The Pro Plan ($199/month) provides free integration to third-party channels, 100,000 channel messages a month, $2.50/ additional 1,000 messages, and rapport avatar compatibility.
- The Enterprise Plan has more flexible options for third-party channel integrations and the number of channel messages. You can contact the team directly for a custom quote.
Best For:
Though Pandorabots offers both code and no-code options to build and design a chatbot, a basic amount of coding expertise and AIML knowledge is required. Keeping this in mind, the solution is best suited for businesses that have a development team at their disposal.
Why we love it
:
Trusted by big brands like UNICEF, Botsify is an omnichannel chatbot platform you can integrate with over 100 third-party apps and also offers a customizable drag-and-drop interface, live chat, and various marketing tools.
Pro: Botsify provides over 100+ integrations with third-party applications
Pro: Because Botsify is a no-code chatbot, users can quickly create chatbots using pre-existing templates and customize them using their logo and colors
Pro: Botsify offers a powerful analytics tool that makes it easy to track general engagement, sales, and growth statistics
- Botsify provides over 100+ integrations with third-party applications
- Because Botsify is a no-code chatbot, users can quickly create chatbots using pre-existing templates and customize them using their logo and colors
- Botsify offers a powerful analytics tool that makes it easy to track general engagement, sales, and growth statistics
Con: Users believe that Botsify's UI is clunky and not as intuitive as other chatbot solutions available in the market
Con: According to some users, there is a marginal learning curve with Botsify. However, they have a robust library of training resources and a setup wizard to help with this.
Con: Botsify can be expensive for companies that are just starting out and are on a shoestring budget
- Users believe that Botsify's UI is clunky and not as intuitive as other chatbot solutions available in the market
- According to some users, there is a marginal learning curve with Botsify. However, they have a robust library of training resources and a setup wizard to help with this.
- Botsify can be expensive for companies that are just starting out and are on a shoestring budget
Botsify
Review:
Botsify offers no-code chatbots for a range of platforms, including websites, Messenger, Telegram, SMS, and Whatsapp. The platform sets itself apart with tools to improve customer support and engagement. It provides lead generation without additional cost through conversational forms, live chat to enhance support conversations, analytics to track engagement, and multiple language support to eliminate communication barriers.
That being said, Botsify has a marginal learning curve, and its UI is not the best compared to similar solutions in the market. To help with this, professional plan users are assigned a dedicated chatbot manager who provides 24/7 customer support and helps build the first chatbot.
Botsify
Customers:
UNICEF, World Health Organization, Unilever, Costi, METCloud
Botsify
Stats:
Botsify has created thousands of chatbots and bot responses to date. Here are their stats as of March 2022.
- Website: 15,000 chatbots, 1.5 million bot responses, 53,000 leads
- Messenger: 89,000 participants, 277,000 bot responses, 2.8 million entries
- WhatsApp: 2,100 chatbots, 33,000 bot responses, 15,000 hours saved
- Telegram: 521 chatbots, 23,000 bot responses, 8,700 leads
- WordPress: 200 chatbots, 33,000 bot responses, 15,800 leads
- SMS: 130 chatbots, 12,600 bot responses, 7,800 leads
Botsify
Pricing:
Botsify has three pricing plans. They are as follows:
- Do It Yourself/Personal Plan: Priced at $49/month or $490/year, this plan is best suited for personal use, Facebook pages, and startup websites. It comes with two chatbots and interactions with 5000 users per month. Other features include unlimited stories, conversations, forms, media, integration with Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, SMS, and websites, message scheduling, and email support.
- Done For You/Professional Plan: At $149/month or $1490/year, this plan is ideal for scalable businesses that want to build and manage chatbots across different platforms. It comes with all the basic features, 5 chatbots, and interactions with 15000 users per month. You also get one chatbot development worth $200/month free, one WhatsApp chatbot, access to all Botsify resources, three months of chat history, and bi-weekly training of one chatbot free for 12 months.
- White Label/Custom plans: The pricing of this plan isn't available upfront. You can contact their sales team for a custom quote.
All plans come with a 14-day free trial.
Best For:
Botsify is ideal for companies that offer products or services online and wish to improve their customer support. It will also benefit businesses that have little to no expertise in building AI chatbots and want a readymade solution that they can implement across platforms.
Why we love it
:
Supporting over 50,000 companies globally, Drift has an ecosystem of conversational marketing and sales platforms to make B2B revenue generation and customer retention as effortless and real-time as possible.
- Apart from providing a chatbot solution, Drift also offers a range of tools that marketing and sales teams can use to generate and qualify leads. Users especially like their AI playbooks, dynamic routing, and Drift meetings.
- Drift’s reporting dashboard provides a holistic view of performance metrics and interactions through analytics like the number of meetings booked and conversations generated that marketing and sales teams can leverage to understand customer behavior and drive more quality leads.
- Drift has an intuitive user interface that is simple to use even if you don’t have advanced technical skills or programming experience.
- Apart from providing a chatbot solution, Drift also offers a range of tools that marketing and sales teams can use to generate and qualify leads. Users especially like their AI playbooks, dynamic routing, and Drift meetings.
- Drift’s reporting dashboard provides a holistic view of performance metrics and interactions through analytics like the number of meetings booked and conversations generated that marketing and sales teams can leverage to understand customer behavior and drive more quality leads.
- Drift has an intuitive user interface that is simple to use even if you don’t have advanced technical skills or programming experience.
- Drift’s subscription fee starts at $400 per month, which is significantly higher than other chatbot solutions in the market. And if you want advanced features like automation and the option to add multiple teams, it can get even more expensive.
- Unlike some other chatbot platforms, Drift cannot be used on multiple channels like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, SMS, and Telegram. You can only use their chatbot solution on your website.
- According to users, Drift offers poor customer support.
- Users believe that Drift has quite a few bugs that lead to dashboards loading at a very slow rate, profiles and customer names getting mixed up, and no timely notifications when a website visitor enters the chat.
- Drift’s subscription fee starts at $400 per month, which is significantly higher than other chatbot solutions in the market. And if you want advanced features like automation and the option to add multiple teams, it can get even more expensive.
- Unlike some other chatbot platforms, Drift cannot be used on multiple channels like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, SMS, and Telegram. You can only use their chatbot solution on your website.
- According to users, Drift offers poor customer support.
- Users believe that Drift has quite a few bugs that lead to dashboards loading at a very slow rate, profiles and customer names getting mixed up, and no timely notifications when a website visitor enters the chat.
Drift
Review:
Drift offers a custom chatbot solution that you can implement to engage website visitors, qualify leads, schedule meetings with the sales team and provide customer support.
The process of building a chatbot using Drift is fairly easy. You can use their visual flow builder called Playbooks to create questions, evaluate the different responses, and test the various chatbot flows before they go live. You can also conduct A/B tests to determine which messages perform best and use this data to optimize your conversational flows and convert more website visitors into leads.
The chabot itself can perform a range of functions, such as capture emails and contact numbers, auto-create support tickets, route conversations to live chat, and even schedule meetings with sales representatives without leaving the website. You can also use the "Chat to Call" and "Chat to Zoom" features to instantly set up a call with a potential lead and qualify them on the spot.
However, one major drawback of Drift is that you can only build a chatbot on your own website. This means you cannot create an omnichannel chat experience for the user. Drift is also considered a premium product, with monthly subscription plans starting at $400. If you're looking for a simple omnichannel chatbot solution and nothing more, then there are better options available in the market at a lower price point.
Drift
Customers:
Adobe, Grubhub, Monday.com, Proofpoint, Okta, Jitterbit, Skillsoft, Lessonly, Tenable, and Zenefits
Drift
Stats:
- Drift supports 50,000 customers
- After using Drift, Zenefits experienced a 93% increase in the prospect-to-win rate
- Tenable used Drift to double their conversion rate over the last year and improve conversation quality and length by 30%
Drift
Pricing:
If you're an early-stage startup with less than 50 employees, then you can try Drift's free plan. They also offer three paid plans as follows:
- Premium: Designed for small businesses looking to scale at speed, this plan offers features like custom chatbots, insights to deliver personalized experiences to website visitors, and integration with Salesforce.
- Advanced: Ideal for mid-sized businesses that want to engage with their audience and generate qualified leads, this plan includes all the features in Premium, plus A/B testing, audience analytics, and advanced lead routing.
- Enterprise: If you're a large organization that wants to improve customer support and personalize at scale, this is the plan for you. It includes everything in Advanced, plus features like multiple languages, AI-powered chatbots, and custom role-based access controls (RBAC).
Since prices can vary based on the number of employees, the best way to know the actual cost of the subscription plan is to get a demo and talk to their team.
Best For:
Drift is ideal for medium to large-sized organizations that are on the lookout for an all-in-one chatbot solution that not only provides customer support but also helps generate leads and boosts revenue.
Why we love it
:
ManyChat is a flexible chatbot software tool that works in various communication channels from social media to text messaging, providing customization and analytics.
Pro: ManyChat is a no-code omnichannel chatbot solution that allows you to use drag-and-drop elements and readymade templates to set up conversational flows on multiple platforms including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, SMS, and email.
Pro: ManyChat offers A/B testing to evaluate which message flows your audience engages with the most, allowing you to create effective marketing campaigns.
Pro: ManyChat is a great tool for Facebook marketing, and can be used for a variety of use cases, whether that’s to generate and qualify leads, send promotions and coupons, collect feedback, share news and updates, book appointments, send reminders, or provide customer support.
- ManyChat is a no-code omnichannel chatbot solution that allows you to use drag-and-drop elements and readymade templates to set up conversational flows on multiple platforms including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, SMS, and email.
- ManyChat offers A/B testing to evaluate which message flows your audience engages with the most, allowing you to create effective marketing campaigns.
- ManyChat is a great tool for Facebook marketing, and can be used for a variety of use cases, whether that’s to generate and qualify leads, send promotions and coupons, collect feedback, share news and updates, book appointments, send reminders, or provide customer support.
Con: Though ManyChat offers a free plan, it lacks many basic features that one might require to set-up a fully-functional chatbot solution including connection to channels like SMS and Email, integrations with third-party applications, and analytics.
Con: According to users, ManyChat isn’t the easiest chatbot solution to set up and there is definitely a marginal learning curve.
Con: Users have cited that ManyChat has poor customer support
Con: ManyChat can get very expensive for businesses that cater to a large audience since the cost depends on the number of contacts who engage with them on a monthly basis.
- Though ManyChat offers a free plan, it lacks many basic features that one might require to set-up a fully-functional chatbot solution including connection to channels like SMS and Email, integrations with third-party applications, and analytics.
- According to users, ManyChat isn’t the easiest chatbot solution to set up and there is definitely a marginal learning curve.
- Users have cited that ManyChat has poor customer support
- ManyChat can get very expensive for businesses that cater to a large audience since the cost depends on the number of contacts who engage with them on a monthly basis.
ManyChat
Review:
ManyChat is a no-code chatbot solution that can be used to build a chatbot on multiple channels, including Facebook Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, SMS, Shopify, and email. ManyChat has many notable features such as a drag-and-drop visual flow builder, growth tools, basic analytics, A/B testing, automations, and live chat capabilities.
While they do offer a free plan, it lacks the basic features one might need to build a fully-functional chatbot. Their Pro plan, on the other hand, comes with advanced capabilities but is billed based on the number of contacts that engage with your business on a monthly basis. For businesses with a large audience, it can get quite expensive.
ManyChat
Customers:
Benefit Cosmetics, Superstar Bots, and TBS Marketing
ManyChat
Stats:
- ManyChat has powered over 1 billion conversations in the last year
- ManyChat is used by businesses in over 190+ countries across the world
- Over 1 million businesses use ManyChat's chatbot services
ManyChat
Pricing:
ManyChat has two primary pricing plans depending on the number of contacts the business expects to engage:
- The Free Plan provides basic features, such as channel integrations to Instagram Direct Messages, Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp. You can also automate conversations of up to 1,000 contacts, access basic growth tools, create 3 custom keyword triggers, run 2 automated drip sequences, and create 10 customer tags to segment your audience.
- The Pro Plan ( starting at $15 a month) includes all the basic features of the Free Plan and additional channel access to SMS and email. Billed based on the number of contacts per month, it offers unlimited growth tools, advanced analytics and insights tools, unlimited tags, keywords, and drip sequences, one-tap contact data collection, and A/B testing.
ManyChat offers a free 7-day trial of the Pro plan during sign-up and a no-questions-asked refund within 30 days of purchase if you're unhappy with their services.
Best For:
ManyChat is ideal for small and mid-sized businesses, specifically in the Ecommerce space, that engage with <1000 customers per month. This is because as the number of contacts increases, the price/month becomes higher, which can be significantly expensive in the long term.
Why we love it
:
Perfect for mid-sized businesses, TARS is an easy setup, highly customizable chatbot for websites or WhatsApp, with features that complement various sales funnel stages and customer journey.
- TARS offers over 1000+ pre-existing chatbot templates for a range of use cases and industries, making the process of building a chatbot quick and easy.
- The TARS development team constantly releases new features and updates to ensure users get the most out of the platform.
- The TARS chatbot builder supports 100+ languages, allowing you to communicate with your customers without language barriers.
- According to users, TARS customer support is top-notch.
- TARS offers over 1000+ pre-existing chatbot templates for a range of use cases and industries, making the process of building a chatbot quick and easy.
- The TARS development team constantly releases new features and updates to ensure users get the most out of the platform.
- The TARS chatbot builder supports 100+ languages, allowing you to communicate with your customers without language barriers.
- According to users, TARS customer support is top-notch.
- The overall design, UI/UX, and aesthetics of TARS' chatbots are quite outdated. Further, there's not much room to customize the look of your chatbot apart from changing the colors.
- TARS' premium chatbot solution costs around $500 per month which is higher than other similar solutions in the market.
- According to users, the platform sometimes fails to integrate with third-party applications like Google Analytics and Google Calendar.
- TARS does not offer a live chat option, which is arguably one of the most important features of a chatbot solution.
- The overall design, UI/UX, and aesthetics of TARS' chatbots are quite outdated. Further, there's not much room to customize the look of your chatbot apart from changing the colors.
- TARS' premium chatbot solution costs around $500 per month which is higher than other similar solutions in the market.
- According to users, the platform sometimes fails to integrate with third-party applications like Google Analytics and Google Calendar.
- TARS does not offer a live chat option, which is arguably one of the most important features of a chatbot solution.
TARS
Review:
One of the most significant advantages of using TARS is the ease with which you can build a chatbot solution for your business. Even if you have little to no coding experience, TARS offers 1000+ pre-existing chatbot templates across 18+ industries and hundreds of use cases that you can use to set up a custom chatbot solution in a matter of a few minutes.
You can create your chatbot on the Chatbot Canvas by adding gambits, which are single back-and-forth conversations between the chatbot and the user. Once you've designed the entire conversational flow, you can publish it and monitor its performance through the chatbot analytics dashboard.
At the moment, you can only use TARS to build a chatbot on your website and WhatsApp. It is not an omnichannel chatbot solution and does not support platforms like Facebook, Instagram, etc. Another noteworthy drawback is that TARS does not offer the option of switching to a live chat with an agent during a conversation.
TARS
Customers:
Vodafone, American Express, Bosch, University of California, Adobe, Nestle, and Daimler
TARS
Stats:
- TARS is used by 700+ global brands
- 18,000+ chatbots have been created using TARS
- TARS has powered over 25 million bot conversations
- TARS has supported 10,500+ bot creators
TARS
Pricing:
TARS offers three plans. They are:
- Business: This plan includes 1 web chatbot, 5000 chats/month, 1 free chatbot designed by TARS experts, and up to 3 users.
- Premium: This tier includes 3 web chatbots, a WhatsApp Business API number, 10000 chats/ month, up to 5 users, 2 free chatbots designed by TARS experts, payment integration, and technical integrations support.
- Enterprise: This plan offers access to the entire TARS platform, 5 web chatbots, 2 WhatsApp Business API numbers, 20000 chats/month, 3 free chatbots designed by TARS experts, and up to 10 users.
All plans include a 14-day free trial. For exact pricing, you will have to contact TARS' sales team.
Best For:
TARS is ideal for SMEs and enterprises that want to build conversational landing pages to boost conversions.
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Final Advice on Buying Chatbot Software
If you're interested in purchasing a chatbot solution, then research and find out which one offers the best price for the type of service that you need. Whether you are trying to help customers or boost conversions, chatbot providers offer pricing plans that can fit into any business budget. Consider requesting demos from two to three vendors to see how chatbots could work in your industry.
If you want to design a chatbot that can personalize chats for each customer, look for a plan that includes the tools necessary for this functionality. For example, instead of just offering customer service chats, you may want to also provide notifications for purchase confirmations and shipping updates. This is just one way that chatbots can increase customer satisfaction and loyalty by providing better user experiences.
At the end of the day, a chatbot solution has many benefits for businesses, customers, and technology developers. Whether you're just trying to increase conversions or provide faster service for everyone, they are cost-effective tools that help streamline transactions while making everyone more satisfied with their overall online experience.
To learn more on how to use chatbots effectively, it’s wise to refer to each vendor’s documentation. For a more general overview, we recommend grabbing a copy of Amir Shevat’s Designing Bots book. Lastly, you can also download this software implementation ebook.
Best Chatbot Software
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