Top 10 Chatbot Platforms on Website to Start Conversation with Users

Have you ever counted how much time your colleagues spend dealing with non-target customers?

We’ve talked to people responsible for sales and marketing, and what we found out shocked us:

• sales reps spend up to 70% of their working time on non-target leads;
• each of the 10 potential customers requires an hour for a decent conversation; only one is a target customer;
• sales reps spend up to 20 minutes on primary desk research on a customer.

Time wasted due to insufficient contact data on leads is a common pain for sales and marketing teams.

The solution? Chatbots for a website help to pass to sales reps only hot ones. To save you time and money, we’ve tested the top 10 chatbot platforms, their best features, and prices. We’ve also put the results of our research in an exhaustive table or you can enjoy the video comparison 👇

How we evaluate and test apps: the review of these top 10 best chatbot platforms is written by experts who spend 99% of their careers using marketing software. We’ve spent a week testing each of these chatbot platforms, evaluating its best features for this list. Your trust is important to us, so there is no paid membership, and no guest links were accepted in this article. 

Dashly helps business support and qualify visitors

Dashly chatbot is a conversational platform. Its AI chat bot is aimed to save your team time and automate lead qualification and customer service.

There are two chatbot types AI and rule-based one that can:

Dashly chatbot platform is the best for 

Companies with large traffic to support and gather more leads without overloading sales reps; or companies with a high average order value, save the time of the marketing team that is now spent on those who won’t buy.

Choose any template of bot for: 

What can Dashly chatbot do?

• Offer up to 10 possible response options to each message and behave depending on the replies;
• Qualify your visitors with questions and possible answers;
• Save information based on the visitor’s answers into lead cards for further segmentation and triggered messages;

• Capture visitors contacts;
• Send files and images;
• Assign a conversation to an agent or a channel;

• Send Calendly forms for signing up for events on your own;
• Send articles from the Dashly knowledge base.

Using our builder, you can craft and customize a bot even without a developer. An intuitive interface allows creating an online bot within 15-20 minutes:

Advanced features of the Dashly platform chatbot

Here’s what you can find in Dashly aside from a chatbot:

• Website visitors behavior tracking
• Live chat with mobile apps for Android and iOS
• Message segmentation and personalization
• Manual and triggered emails
• Message A/B tests
• 30+ integrations including CRMs, social media, and messengers like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc.

Generally, the platform’s objective is to help increase sales without additional traffic and improve customer communication.

Pricing: from $39 per month 

There is no limit on agent seats in the service. Dashly plans depend on the number of unique website visitors and add-ons you choose to include in your plan.

The prices start from $39. But if you want to set up an effective system of chatbots, consider the Marketing plan. It offers the biggest number of chatbots, and it can be extended with add-ons.

Check out the full list of add-ons and calculate the cost of the platform for your business on the pricing page.

Free trial is 7 days. You can try all features of the platform for free during the period.

Dashly’s rates

Intercom Resolution Bot for customer self-service

Intercom took second place in our 10 best chatbot platforms due to its popularity among companies of all sizes. It has a large set of tools to help you communicate with your website and app users. It is created to speed up self-service by offering relevant answers based on what customers are typing — before they even hit the enter key. 

For whom

Intercom fits enterprise-level businesses best of all. This service is the best for businesses that want to set up an omnichannel experience for their customers. For very small businesses, it offers a limited tariff also.

What can Intercom chatbots do?

Here are the 5 types of chatbots in the inventory of Intercom:

• for lead qualification,
• for article recommendations (for example, on platform updates),
• for customer engagement,
• for answering customer FAQs,
• with integrated apps (for example, for automatic voice, video calls scheduling, Facebook).

The first two types do simple tasks following their descriptions. These chatbots start conversations independently, offering answer options to users as buttons. This is the beginning of a conversation with the Intercom chatbot. A chat bot offers two buttons with possible options — “Yes” and “No”.

The next two chatbots are more complicated: they can answer FAQs and schedule meetings automatically, but they will be times more expensive.

Advanced features of the Intercom Resolution Bot

There are the best marketing, sales, and service features in the Intercom’s toolkit:

• live chat
• customer base management
• trigger messages
• push notifications
• message segmentation and personalization
• knowledge base
• emails
• routing conversation to the relevant agent
• A/B tests

Pricing: from $74/user/month to $999

You can create chatbots using an additional module that is available for plans above $99. If your tariff includes automation features and costs $499 or $999, you can create the so-called custom chatbots for customer engagement. A bot answering user questions and one with integrated applications can only be implemented together with advanced lead qualification (from $499) and support automation modules (from $249).

Startups can expect a special plan from $67 per month to enjoy Intercom in full for up to one year, provided that:

• they match the requirement of the agent count;
• they match the investment criterion;
• they are new customers of Intercom.

There’s a free trial period of 14 days, but you’ll have to provide your bank card credentials to use it.

Intercom’s rate

Find out why Dashly is a more functional solution than Intercom

Drift bot for sales

Drift is a communication platform mostly used by sales teams. The platform’s toolkit is aimed at sales. Drift proclaims the power of real-time conversation to shorten the sales cycle. For this goal, it offers a chatbot. It is perfect to engage and consult visitors, then convert them into buyers. 

For whom

Best of all Drift fits sales teams of small and medium-sized businesses.

What can Drift chatbots do?

Drift also offers several chatbots.

Customer replies are sent to lead cards in the CRM system. After that, the bot automatically addresses the working calendars of the sales team and schedules demos for convenient time slots for customers.

Please note: you will need to train it together with the Drift team.

Advanced features:

• live chat
• video calls
• emails
• automation (including bots)

Pricing: from $0 to $1,500 per month

There are four plans in Drift. Starting from the free tariff for small businesses, it offers middle and large companies oriented plans: Premium, Advanced, and Enterprise. But all the prices are available only after personal one-on-one communication with an agent.

Of course, we can’t leave you without this info. So we did some research.

Drift pricing ranges from $0 to $1,500 per month.

• The pricing free plan includes welcome email messages, email signatures, live chat, and basic reporting. There are also integrations: Fcaebook, voice calling, Vidyard, calendar, Slack, and Google Analytics with a limit to 100 contacts and a single agent.
• Premium tariff costs from $400/month to $1,500 per month/agent (thank you, Melissa Pardo-Bunte). If you want more agent seats, pay an extra $80 per month. For this money, you’ll get proactive messages, chatbots, revenue reports, live chat, canned responses, etc. But what is more important is what you won’t get: A/B testing, role-based access management, multilingual chatbots for multiple brands.
• To get that, you will have to upgrade your plan to an Advanced or even Enterprise tariff that costs $4,800/year.

This price tag may be too high for you if you’re a small business or startup. So for them, Drift offers a $500 per 10 seats plan. If you’re not a startup, you’ll start with $400 per seat with customer communication tools only. That is too high.
There’s no trial period, but you can use the platform on a free plan.

Drift’s rates

Find out why Dashly is a more functional solution than Drift

ChatBot for support customers on your site, WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and email

The third place in our top 10 best chatbot platforms goes to LiveChat Chatbot. You may think this is a single platform, but not just like that. These are two full-fledged products — a live chat and an AI bot — developed by the same company that can easily be integrated. Sounds impressive, right?

The ChatBot invites you to talk to it on its product landing page.

For whom

This bot is designed for the sales and support team of enterprise-level companies, as well as for small and mid-size businesses in various industries.

What can ChatBot do?

ChatBot can be used either together with LiveChat or independently. You can create a bot not just for your website, but also for Facebook and other messengers. The platform has a simple and user-friendly modern interface.

The job that the product is designed to do is to engage users and provide customer service. Chatbots created using it can both qualify leads and cover the first support line.

Its functionality makes it easy for you to:

• configure a triggered message campaign;
• add images and buttons to it;
• conduct human-like conversations with AI;
• send messages to a particular customer segment;
• route conversation to an agent; 
• start a ticket or even email a conversation transcript;
• Facebook, WhatsApp, etc. apps integrations.

Some hints will help you:

If you want the bot not only to automatically send a certain campaign but also to use the neural network to answer users’ questions, you will have to train it to do so. You can also do this on your own if you want.

Additional features

LiveChat is a live chat first. It has plenty of features and opportunities, such as:

• tickets
• analytics
• integrations with Facebook, Slack apps, a dozen of CMS, email platforms, etc.

The only thing is, you can’t use its best features during a trial period, as you’ll need to pay for them.

Pricing: from $19 to $59+

The price depends on the number of agents in a chat. If billed annually, the price is lower. Configuring one bot costs from $50, if you use a tariff for $499 or above, you can configure limitless chatbots. The exact price depends on the number of conversations per month. The ChatBot is like an additional agent, so you’ll have to pay for it using the integration with LiveChat. The price of the basic version of LiveChat starts from $19 per agent.

There’s a free trial period of 14 days, and most chat bot features are available during it.

LiveChat’s rates

Find out why Dashly is more functional solution than LiveChat

User.com

User.com platform is one of the best chatbot development services and tools. It is created for customer tracking and omnichannel communication with a toolkit for marketing, sales, and support teams.

For whom

Agencies, startups, small and medium-sized businesses. The platform offers premade solutions for marketing at:

• e-commerce
• finance
• car dealers
• web hosting companies
• real estate
• travel
• education
• health care organizations

What can the User.com marketing chatbot do?

You can configure a simple bot offering possible answers as buttons.

Its functionality makes it easy for you to:

• configure sending triggered messages;
• set a timeout for sending chatbot messages;
• ask for user email and send the data to an agent.

You can either configure the chatbot message campaign on your own or use the premade template. There are over 20 campaign template choices in the automation section for different companies — from art galleries and wedding agencies to game dev studios and schools. You can also edit any part of your campaign.

This is a premade chatbot campaign template — the “weekend” chatbot, which replies to users in a live chat when agents are having a rest.

Additional features

Here’s a list of what you get in addition to user.com chatbot:

• live chat
• emails
• SMS messages and calls
• push notifications
• a simple CRM system
• helicopter-view analytics

Pricing: from $249 to $1349/month

The price depends on the number of contacts. The number of agents is unlimited within any plan.

There is no free tariff on User.com.

What’s included in the basic plan?

• up to 5 000 contacts
• Automation
• Contact base
• Chatbot
• API
• Simple analytics
• Basic CRM
• Knowledge base
• Facebook, WhatsApp, calendar apps integration

What’s not available:

• Mobile SDK
• Account Manager

Free trial

You can test this platform for free for 14 days.

User.com rates

Freshdesk Messaging (Freshchat) for customer support

Freshdesk is one of the best chatbot building platforms. It entails 12 different products including batch software for various management purposes:

• team management
• call center
• customer data management, etc.

One of the software batches is a chatbot. Powered by AI, it is created to boost the efficiency of your customer service.

For whom

Freshdesk messaging fits both small and enterprise-level business teams. It provides a variety of plans for each of them. In terms of functionality, its chatbot will bring the most value to the support team but not to marketing or sales.

What can the Freshdesk Messaging chatbots do?

With the help of premade template and AI, you can build human-like bots to welcome and support your website visitors. 

These bots respond to users independently or assign a conversation to an agent. They can qualify the lead and register it in the CRM system.

Besides, the functionality allows you to:

• name your chatbot, set a profile pic for it, change colors;
• send texts, images, and videos on behalf of the chatbot;
• talk on the language of your visitors;
• fetch and push data to any of your 3rd party applications and internal systems to improve resolution rates;
• set messaging filters — for example, based on the session duration or the number of sessions;
• show conversation analytics reports.

Additional tools

• Team inbox
• Instagram, Facebook social media integrations
• Triggered messages
• Mobile app
• Live chat
• Visitors behavior tracking
• Roles management
• Custom reports

Pricing: from $0 to $83 per agent per month

You can test some of the best chatbot features on a free plan. There is an opportunity to create a FAQ chatbot Freddy with access to its analytics. But you can’t send files in it.

If you want more, try the Growth plan. It includes up to 20K bot sessions and everything from a Free plan, including files sharing. For high-traffic websites, it would be better to choose Pro or Enterprise plan.

Your free trial access will last for 21 days. 

Freshdesk’s rates

Gist for lead generation

Gist platform offers one of the best no-code web-based chatbot for visitors’ engagement and converting them into leads. They claim 30% lead growth after the chatbot launch. With its help, you can qualify leads and route them to the right manager or book a meeting with a sales rep automatically.

For whom

Gist fits marketing teams of any business size companies best of all.

What can the Gist chatbots do?

There are several types of Gist chatbots performing simple tasks. They are primarily destined at helping sales teams:

• pre lead qualification through questions and possible answers;
• article recommendations;
• scheduling calls automatically.

Additional tools

Gist has plenty of features, too:

• live chat
• email marketing automation
• event tracking
• lead forms
• knowledge base
• A/B tests
• API, Facebook, Instagram, CRM integrations
• personalization

Pricing: from $0 to $499 ($99 temporary special offer)

Bots are available on every platform plan, but there are limits on functionality. You can start with Forever free pricing without lead qualification, custom bots, smart suggestions, and meetings booking chatbot key features. The qualification chatbot is available in the professional plan (from $29/month per team of 5 agents), and bots for scheduling calls and content recommendations are only available in the premium plan (it usually costs $499, but now the price is $99).

You can create a simple chatbot using a free plan and more complex ones during a 14-day trial period. 

Gist’s rates

Zendesk Answer Chatbot

This chatbot is aimed to support your website visitors by answering FAQs, as you may have guessed by the name. Powered by an AI, the answer bot platform can identify when to bring a conversation to an agent. There is an opportunity to put Answer Bot on email, messengers, live chat, etc. 

For whom

The Answer is one of the chatbot platforms that first support teams best. It is used by companies in the education, healthcare, manufacturing, software, or media industries. But in terms of pricing, it is expensive for a small business. Zendesk makes it easy o create a chatbot with a visual builder, so even your granny can do it.

What can Zendesk chatbot do

• Answer FAQ
• Route conversations to agents
• Capture customers’ contact & personal data for marketing 
• Fill in tickets with relevant customer data
• Provides agents with the context of the visitor’s behavior or previous requests
• Multiple languages support
• Facebook, Instagram, messengers, CRM integrations

Additional features

In addition to the website chatbot, Zendesk platform provides its clients with a list of other software:

• Ticketing system
• Live chat
• Help center
• Voice
• Forums
• Reporting & analytics
• Knowledge base

Pricing from $49/agent/mo

This is one of the chatbot platforms with the best pricing. Basically, for support, it offers 5 plans from $49 to $215 per month and an agent if billed annually.

Each of them includes an answer bot:

The free trial is 14 days.

Zendesk’s rates

Zendesk Vs. Dashly: Find out why Dashly is a more functional solution for your business

Tidio chatbot platform

Tidio platform provides business with an AI-powered chatbot to boost conversations on your website. It saves your team from slipless nights or FAQs on websites, socials, messengers, or email. Tidio chatbot is designed to engage website visitors by sending them personalized messages.

Best for

Tidio positions its chatbot as a solution for marketing and sale of small businesses first. Its premade template list and drag-and-drop builder makes it easy to create a chatbot on a website, even for a newbie.

What can Tidio chatbot do?

• Answer FAQ;
• Provide automated answers to order status, shipping, and return policies;
• Recommend products;
• Offer personalized discounts;
• Collect customer feedback in a form of surveys;
• Capture contact and personal info for marketing;
• Multilingual workflow.

Additional features

In addition to the chatbot maker platform, Tidio offers:

– Live chat
– Knowledge base
– Facebook, WhatsApp, CRM integrations.
– Desktop and mobile apps

Pricing from $39/mo

There are 4 plans in Tidio that takes into account teams of any business size:

There is a free plan. Its users can create chatbots that serve 100 visitors per month. Wanna more? Switch to any of the paid plans.  

The free trial period lasts 7-days. During this time you are free to test all the paid features. 

Tidio’s rates

BotStar

Last but not least among the best chatbot-building platforms is BotStar. It is a multi-platform service that provides businesses with one of the best web-based chatbots for mastering conversations and understanding its target audience on messengers and websites. 

Best for

Customer service and marketing teams because its function is aimed to answer FAQs and capture leads. Basically, it fits any business, but eCommerce is the best.

Thanks to the visual builder, it is easy to create a chatbot text even without relevant experience:

What can BotStar chatbot do

– Provide reports and analytics;
– Collect all messages in one inbox from Facebook, chatbot, email, messengers;
– Understand keywords (AI);
– CMS to manage content for your bot;
– Manage leads for marketing;
– Send email auto-followup sequences;
– Facebook, WhatsApp, CRM, payment, contacts, data store integrations;
– Build landing pages for marketing;
– Talk in multiple languages.

Pricing from $0/agent/mo

BotStart doesn’t have a free trial because there is a free plan. Of course, its functions are limited, but you’re free to create 3 chatbots and train them by keywords.

If you want more, there is a $15/mo tariff with unlimited chatbots and premium features. 

Don’t like limits, contact managers to discuss custom pricing for your business.

BotStar’s rates

To wrap up

	Price	Customi zation	Lead capture	CRM integration	Visual chatbot builder	Personali zation	Knowledge base	Visitors  behavior tracking	File sharing	Chat routing
Dashly	$0 to $109	+	+	+	+	+	+	+	+	+
Intercom	$59 to $999	+	+	+	+	+	+	+	–	+
Drift	$600 to $1500	+	+	+	+	+	+	+	+	+
LiveChat	$0 to $499	+	+	+	+	+	–	+	+	+
User.com	$0 to $167	+	+	+	+	+	+	+	+	+

There are only 5 out of 10 best chatbots we compared because the table is too small to show their all features. Find the entire review table 👇

Download an ultimate comparison of the 10 best chatbots for free [14 features & pricing]

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FAQ on chatbot platforms

Read also:

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• 12 best AI marketing tools to automate everything [expert edition]
• Top 12 omnichannel marketing tools for your cross-channel campaigns