Best 15 AI chatbot software : explore and find the perfect fit
Unlock smarter, faster customer service with the ideal AI chatbot for your business
Jan 30, 202419 MINS READ
What is chatbot software?
As the world of customer support rapidly evolves, it’s important to understand the key distinctions between chatbots, widgets, and software:
The chat widget that pops up in the bottom right-hand corner of some websites — typically with an automated question to start — is a chatbot.
A chatbot is defined today as an application that’s capable of having online conversations with your website visitors.
Customer service chatbot software is the technology that makes chatbots perform different customer support functions.
Thankfully, today’s chatbot software solutions are advanced enough to make the setup process hassle-free. They offer intuitive and easy-to-use chatbot builders that don’t require coding skills.
The three main types of chatbots are rule-based chatbots, AI chatbots, and hybrid chatbots. Here’s a quick breakdown of all three:
Rule-based chatbots follow predefined workflows and are great at basic chats and resolving simple and repetitive issues.
AI chatbots use natural language processing (NLP chatbots) and artificial intelligence (AI) for human-like conversations. AI chatbots can work on their own to an extent.
Hybrid chatbots involve a mix of chatbot technology and human input. This technology is the best of both worlds. It offers automated customer support to reduce ticket overload and hands-on support from a live agent to help customers with more advanced issues.
Whether you’re a business looking to provide pristine customer service, generate leads, or set up guided selling experiences, chatbot software has got you covered.
How does AI chatbot software help your business?
AI chatbot software offers a wide range of tools that can optimize your response times, provide 24/7 support, free up your customer support team for more challenging tasks, and save on overall labor costs.
For businesses that handle customer communications via email and chat, AI bot can:
Shorten customer wait times and optimize agent response time
Support customers instantly, every day of the week
Improve efficiency by handling a large volume of queries simultaneously
Free up your customer support team to work on more complex tasks
Improve customer satisfaction scores and encourage more upsells
Offer personalized and engaging customer experiences with NLP, which can lead to a higher retention rate
Generate quality leads for potential sales opportunities and marketing campaigns
In short, chatbots help businesses by providing better customer service, improving efficiency, generating leads, and retaining customers through a stellar CX.
15 best chatbot software in 2024
Now that we’re clear on what to look for, here are 15 of the best chatbot software options available in 2024:
1. Freshchat
Freshchat offers AI-driven, omnichannel chatbots for customer service. They’re a great addition to your support strategy and help your team provide a delightful support experience every time.
Key features
Freshchat key features include:
Live chat support
- Chat routing
Email campaigns
Proactive messaging
Automatic support ticket routing
An activity dashboard
Advanced reporting options
Machine learning systems that get smarter the more they interact
Social media integration
Assignment management
Agent scheduling
A web widget
Pros and cons
Some pros of using Freshchat include:
Advanced analytic reporting
Personalization options
Lots of integrations
Conversion automation
Freshchat’s cons include the following:
Small bugs here and there that are typically fixed efficiently
Pricing and trial options
Freshchat has a free plan for up to 10 agents. Its paid plans start at $19 per agent per month with $49 and $79 options also available with additional features.
There’s a 14-day free trial available, too.
2. Drift chatbot
The Drift chatbot is primarily focused on lead generation and is more suitable for sales teams.
Key features
The key features of Drift’s cloud-based AI chatbot solution include:
Customizable widgets
Email campaign automation
The ability to manage multiple inboxes
Automatic routing
Integration with calendars in both Google and Outlook
Pros and cons
Some of the commonly reported pros of Drift include:
Good contact management
Easy to set up and use
Solid customer support
Reported cons of using Drift are:
Difficult to cancel
Reports of pushy account executives
Quickly becomes expensive
No option for multiple teams outside the Enterprise plan
Bugs present in both web and mobile apps
Limited chatbot builder
Pricing and trial options
Drift’s Premium plan for small businesses starts at $2,500 per month, billed annually. So that’s $30,000 upfront. It also has advanced and enterprise plans, but doesn’t make pricing publicly available for those.
Drift has a free trial available.
3. Intercom
Intercom offers chatbots for sales, support, and marketing.
Key features
Some of the key features offered through Intercom include:
Customizable bots
No code options
Web form replacements
Live chat widgets
Omnichannel support
More than 300 integrations
Pros and cons
Some of the pros reported in online reviews of Intercom include:
Easy to-use
Simple setup
Integrations work well
The cons reported online regarding Intercom’s chatbot service are:
Poor customer support
Easy to lose track of messages
Chatbot API is not user-friendly
Menu layouts cause confusion
Pricing and trial options
Intercom’s pricing starts at $39 per seat per month. It has additional plans for $99 per seat per month, $139 per seat per month, and a proactive support plan for $499 per month.
There’s a free 14-day trial available.
4. Chatfuel
Chatfuel is a chatbot platform specifically designed for websites, Facebook and Instagram.
Key features
Some of the key features of Chatfuel include:
A/B testing
Automated scheduling
Automated publishing
Campaign management
An activity dashboard
Analytics capabilities
Pros and cons
A few of the pros reported by Chatfuel users include:
Simple UI
Links well to Facebook
Detailed chatbot analytics capabilities
Navigation is straightforward
The cons associated online with Chatfuel include:
Poor template quality
Sign up is only available through Facebook
Pricing can be confusing
The system is buggy
Pricing and trial options
Chatfuel has different pricing plans for Facebook/Instagram and Whatsapp.
The plan for Facebook and Instagram starts at $14.39 per month with a limit of 500 conversations. Each additional conversation costs $0.03.
The WhatsApp plan starts at $41.29 per month with 1,000 conversations included.
It also has an enterprise solution starting at $300 per month.
There’s a free trial offered.
5. Landbot.io
Landbot is a chatbot platform best suited for independent and small businesses.
Key features
Some of the main features of Landbot include:
Integrations with popular systems like Google Sheets
A team inbox
Lead generation assistance
A WhatsApp business number
API
Pros and cons
The pros reported about Landbot’s product include:
Flexible software
Easy to get started
Responsive customer service
Reported cons of using Landbot’s service are:
A steep learning curve
High pricing
Slow speeds
A clunky user interface
Pricing and trial options
Landbot has a free plan with 100 chats per month and a paid Starter plan that costs $45 per month. Additional plans are $110 and $450 per month.
You can get a 20% discount by paying for an entire year upfront.
A free trial is available with all paid plans.
6. Mobile Monkey
Mobile Monkey is a mobile messaging platform that focuses on Facebook Messenger support.
Key features
Some of the key features of Mobile Monkey include:
A chatbot builder
Automated drip campaigns
Analytics
Facebook Messenger ads
Website chat integration
Zapier integrations
Bulk messaging
Pros and cons
The pros reported for Mobile Monkey online include:
Easy to-use
Offers a free plan
Includes a mobile app
Solid chatbot templates
The cons that many have complained about include:
Lack of third-party integrations
Can get expensive
Ineffective customer support team
Pricing and trial options
Mobile Monkey has a free plan and several paid options. The annual plans start at $14.25 per month and go up from there to $36.75 per month and $299 per month.
There’s a free trial offered with Mobile Monkey.
7. Pandorabots
Pandorabots is one of the oldest and largest chatbot service providers.
Key features
Some of the key features offered through Pandorabots include:
Interactive content creation
Knowledge base creation
Integrations with Slack
API
Chat widget
Pros and cons
Common pros associated with Pandorabots are:
Highly customizable
Testing playground feature
Chatbot creation
Open-source libraries for chatbots
Some common Pandorabots cons are:
Phone support limited to more expensive options
Correct answer rate of under 80%
Not user-friendly
Third-party integrations cost more
Pricing and trial options
Pandorabots offers a free plan and several paid options ranging from $19 per month to $199 per month. There’s also an enterprise plan with no public pricing available.
A two-week free trial comes with Pandorabots.
8. Tidio
Tidio is a chatbot platform that helps with lead generation, third-party integrations, and triggered messages for small and medium businesses.
Key features
Some of the key features of Tidio include:
Integrations with existing systems
A support ticketing system
Live typing
Offline messaging
A pre-chat survey
Multiple languages
Pros and cons
Some common pros associated with Tidio are:
Easy to-use
Intuitive system
Plans are scalable
Provides full context on customers, including shopping history
Some of the reported cons of the service are:
A lack of advanced features
Analytics aren’t very advanced
High pricing
Pricing and trial options
Tidio has a free plan that comes with three seats. It also has plans ranging from $39 per month to $25 per seat per month. You can also bundle services together.
Tidio offers a one-week free trial.
9. Aivo
Aivo is a chatbot platform that offers both text and voice messaging for customer interactions.
Key features
Some of the key features of Aivo include:
Video content
Predictive analysis
Issue tracking
Task management
Knowledge management
Multi-channel communication
Pros and cons
Pros associated with Aivo include:
Enhanced control over the customer experience
Adaptive conversations based on context
Options for chatbot personality
Reported cons of the Aivo service include:
Chatbots require a lot of personal data to function
Complex chatbots have a higher price tag
Formatting issues with data reports
Can’t easily upload a lot of information at the same time
Pricing and trial options
Aivo’s pricing starts at $99 per month, with the advanced plan coming in at $399 per month.
It comes with a 30-day free trial.
10. ManyChat
ManyChat is a popular chatbot platform more suited for social media support.
Key features
The key features of the ManyChat platform include:
A/B testing
Lead conversion features
Six channels for chatbot publishing
Drip marketing management
Message broadcasting
Pros and cons
Some of the pros associated with ManyChat are:
Official Facebook marketing partner
Easy to-use
Powerful segmentation features
Fair pricing
The cons reported online for ManyChat include:
Not a great fit for small businesses
No support for email marketing
Limited support for integrations
Pricing and trial options
Manychat has a limited free plan and a Pro plan that starts at $15 per month and can go all the way up to $835 per month depending on how many contacts you have. There’s a customized Enterprise plan that has no public pricing available.
Manychat has a free 30-day trial.
11. Zendesk
Zendesk is a customer experience platform that provides live chat and chatbot functionality in a single solution.
Key features
The key features for Zendesk include:
SLA management
Custom views
Reporting options
Role management
Multiple languages
Phone support
Access to a knowledge base
Advanced reporting and analytics
Pros and cons
The pros associated with Zendesk include:
CRM included with helpdesk software
FAQ-creation tool included
Manages client contacts
Simple to-use
Commonly listed cons of the Zendesk service include:
Challenges with uploading and exporting data
Difficult navigation
Too pricey for SMBs
Difficult to collaborate with coworkers
Pricing and trial options
Pricing for Zendesk starts at $55 per agent per month. Other options include $89, $115, and custom enterprise pricing.
Zendesk offers a free trial.
12. Brevo (ex SendinBlue)
Brevo Conversations (formerly Sendinblue) provides businesses with a chatbot software solution with live chat, customizable widgets, and more.
Key features
Some key features of Brevo include:
SMS marketing
WhatsApp campaigns
Email marketing
Transactional campaigns
Pros and cons
Brevo has the following pros listed online:
Easy to-use
Good feature set
Drag-and-drop interface
Free option available
Multi-channel campaigns
Some of the Cons associated with the service are:
Lack of data importing
No CRM connections
Difficult to embed videos
Slow loading times
Pricing and trial options
Brevo has a free plan and pricing that varies based on your needs. You can get Brevo for as low as $25 per month and as high as $669 per month.
Brevo offers a free trial for new customers.
13. Ada
Ada is an AI-driven chatbot automation platform that supports chatbot functionality.
Key features
Some key features of Ada include:
Reading customer intent
API
Integrations
Customizable branding
Drag-and-drop interface
Reporting and analytics
Pros and cons
Some of the Ada pros listed online include:
Solid customer support
Intuitive chatbot tools
Easy to-use
Straightforward system
Ada’s cons include:
Conflicting numbers in reports
Major bugs reported
Some phrases and text not editable
Issues with language translation
Needs more customization options
Pricing and trial options
Ada doesn’t have pricing listed on its website, but third party sites have reported that pricing for the system starts at $60,000 for the entire year.
There’s a free trial available with Ada.
14. HubSpot
HubSpot's Sales Hub has chatbot builder software that offers basic and advanced features to free and paid users for automated customer interactions.
Key features
Hubspot’s key features include:
Lead-capture forms
Real-time chatbots
CRM solution
Pipeline management
Activity logs
Segmentation
Email marketing
Pros and cons
The pros associated with Hubspot include:
Free plan available
Intuitive system
Automatic data analysis
The cons commonly associated with Hubspot are:
High pricing with more contacts
Poor templates
Not user-friendly
Contracts aren’t flexible
Limited reporting
Pricing and trial options
Hubspot’s chatbot pricing starts at $50 per month. It also has options for $500 and $1,200 per month.
The platform comes with a 14-day free trial.
15.ChatBot.com
ChatBot.com is a platform dedicated to providing tools for creating, managing, and refining chatbots.
Key features
The key features of ChatbBot.com include:
No code chatbot builder
Testing tools
Customizable widgets
Templates
Pros and cons
Some of the common pros associated with ChatBot.com include:
Reliable system
Good canned responses
Easy integrations
Some common cons of ChatBot.com are:
Learning academy training not sufficient
Difficulty dealing with more complicated customer dissatisfaction issues
Not practical for smaller businesses
Pricing and trial options
Pricing for ChatBot.com starts at $52 per month, with additional options for $142 per month and $424 per month. There’s also custom Enterprise pricing available.
A free trial for this service is available.
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Conversational support benchmark report
Use cases for chatbot software
Now that you have a strong concept of what chatbots are and how they work, let’s examine some industry-specific chatbot use cases. AI chatbots are useful across a wealth of different industries, helping out in many ways. Here are three real-life use cases broken down by industry.
SaaS support chatbots
Software companies can get a lot of mileage out of AI chatbots. Their customers are constantly in need of support, and a lot of the issues they experience boil down to user error.
A SaaS customer could engage a chatbot because they’re having an issue with a particular software feature. The bot can then ask clarifying questions about the issue to narrow down its list of answers.
It’s very possible that this issue could be resolved through self-service articles in the company's chatbot knowledge base. By explaining the potential cause of the problem and providing a link to that article, the chatbot has resolved the customer’s problem without escalating the issue to a human representative.
Ecommerce chatbots
In the ecommerce world, chatbots can save customer support departments a lot of time and energy. Typically, when a customer has a question about their order or another purchase-related issue, they call customer support.
This can contribute to longer hold times and lower customer satisfaction scores. It can also lead to emotionally burnt-out and exhausted support agents.
However, a quality AI chatbot can step in to take away some of the pressure plaguing these incredibly important departments. When a customer contacts the chatbot with simple questions about their orders, the chatbot can verify their identity and provide the necessary information.
For instance, say, a customer is contacting a chatbot to ask about the status of a recently shipped order. The chatbot can provide them with the latest information and tracking data for the package.
Chatbots can also help ecommerce brands minimize unnecessary customer support tickets that shoppers send in via online forms. Ecommerce customers want help as quickly as possible. If they have to submit a form and wait 12 to 24 hours for a response, it bruises their experience.
Utility service chatbots
When utility services suffer an outage, they become inundated with angry phone calls from concerned customers looking for an update. An AI chatbot can help them head off these issues before they disrupt support operations.
For instance, if there’s an outage, customers can reach out to the chatbot with their service area information. The chatbot can then provide the latest information on the outage, along with an estimated time to resolution.
Utility companies can also set up chatbots to automatically determine where the customer has service without having to ask. It can then offer that information on its own.
For starters, have a strong understanding of what it is you want the chatbot to do. This entails understanding your target audience and keeping goals in mind.
If you’re trying to chop down support hold times and free up human support agents, you’ll need to figure out how to accomplish that while keeping the audience’s wants and needs front of mind.
Remember to stay true to your brand identity by giving your chatbot a personality and programming a welcoming greeting that reflects your brand values and voice.
Ongoing management
Thankfully, as the chatbot continues to work, it continues to learn. The more it communicates with your target audience, the more it comes to understand their behaviors. That means it gets smarter and more effective as time goes on.
The bot should be implemented into as many chat systems as possible.
If it’s popular with your audience, then it needs to be an option. That could mean WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Slack, and more.
Make sure to periodically poll your audience after they interact with your chatbot. For instance, sending out a Net Promoter Score survey, where users rate their interaction between 1-10, can be especially helpful. It’ll keep you updated on how people feel about the system and whether it’s working.
Take the feedback you get into account and make changes accordingly. Be on the lookout for trends that start to pop up and roll that feedback into your next update.
Make sure to keep your chatbot up to date with the latest patches and updates. This will make the bot more effective and keep up with industry standards. You should also make sure that its security is ready to fight off any advanced cyber-crime attacks.
Measuring success
You can measure success by keeping track of certain key metrics.
For example, has your average hold time gone down? Are your support agents fielding fewer calls? Are your guided selling templates converting visitors? If not, then your chatbot isn’t as effective as it should be and it’s time to figure out why.
It could be that the technology isn’t set up properly or maybe the scripts the bot uses are unaligned with your audience’s core pain points and FAQS.
Customer feedback analysis is another way to measure a chatbot’s success. If the audience is trying to make its voice heard, don’t ignore them.
Buyer’s guide: How to select a good AI bot software
With AI taking over, finding the perfect chatbot software for your business has become more important than ever. With so many options to choose from, you’ll want to be sure that you’re selecting a chatbot that meets all your needs.
Selecting the wrong chatbot software can lead to needless problems for your business, including the inability to store chat transcripts for an extended period, challenges in handing over chats to agents for complex queries, or lack of insightful statistics.
To avoid problems like these, it’s crucial to define your criteria before making a choice about chatbot software.
Here are some features to look for in a good AI-powered chatbot software:
Intuitive flow builder: A good chatbot platform should help you map out conversations easily and design common chat scenarios in only a few clicks.
Customization: The software should help you design a widget that matches your brand and website easily.
Dynamic Reporting: Quality chatbot software should provide chat analytics that improves virtual assistants' performance continuously.
Easy deployment: Your chatbot software should be easy to install, and you shouldn't have to be a developer to do it.
Live chat handover: While chatbots are great, there are times when you need human intervention. A good AI chatbot software should allow live agents to join conversations whenever necessary. Look for software options that include hybrid features.
Consider the following questions to help you choose the right software for your specific needs:
How big is your target audience?
How much can you afford to pay for chatbot software?
What are you hoping to accomplish with your chatbot?
How will a chatbot fit into your current support structure?
What kind of features will resonate best with your audience?
By selecting a chatbot software that matches your needs, you'll be able to take advantage of AI and provide customers with exceptional support, encouraging better customer satisfaction and loyalty.
With that said, there are a few extra measures you can take to build a supreme chatbot.
Key features of the best AI chatbot software
Here’s how to take your chatbot to the next level:
Delight, don't just deflect
Build a chatbot that understands customer intent, provides the right information instantly, and saves time for your customers and agents. Completely remove the guesswork from your responses.
Offer seamless self-service with a chatbot that learns
88% of customers expect companies to offer an online self-service portal. Use chatbots to ask and answer common customer queries and train your chatbots on different variations.
Give the chatbot plenty of resources it can provide, such as Help Desk Articles and FAQ pages, so the customer can read into their issue and take any necessary steps to solve their problem.
Offer support in multiple languages
Respond to your customers in their native languages. Upload bot conversation scripts in any language so your bot can speak in your customers’ preferred language.
Customize to reflect your brand
Adjust the chat widget’s look and feel so it reflects your brand. For instance, with our chatbot software, you can customize the shape, color, size, and everything about your widget with our simple Freshchat editor.
Boost your engagement on messaging channels
Use chatbots to support your customers 24/7 on messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Apple Business Chat, and LINE.
What makes Freshchat the best conversational AI platform?
Conversational AI chatbots that learn
Freshchat’s support and sales bots build on top of AI and ML that detect the intent of prospects and learn from the questions asked over time.
Intent detection and faster resolutions
Freshchat’s chatbots understand user intent and instantaneously deliver the right solution to your customers. As a result, customers no longer have to wait in chat queues to get their queries resolved.
Proactive customer engagement
Freshchat allows you to proactively interact with your website visitors based on the type of user (new vs returning vs customer), their location, and their actions on your website. This way, you don't have to wait for your customers to initiate conversations. Instead, you can let AI chatbots take the lead in proactive engagement.
Intelligent agent handoff
Our intelligent agent handoff routes chats based on team member skill level and current chat load to avoid the hassle of cherry-picking conversations and manually assigning them to agents.
Personalize customer conversations
Our conversational AI chatbots can pull customer data from your CRM and offer personalized support and product recommendations.
Integration with messaging channels and other tools
You can easily integrate our smart chatbots with messaging channels like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Apple Business Chat, and other tools for a unified support experience.
Real-time insights
With a real-time dashboard and custom reports, you can analyze your chatbot performance against various metrics and optimize it to perform better.
Pricing and ROI
Freshchat has a forever-free pricing plan for up to 10 agents.
The Growth plan starts at $19 per agent per month for annual plans and goes up to $49 and $79 for higher tiers. You can also buy 1,000 additional Freshbot sessions for $100.
See why customers rave about Freshchat
Freshchat has a wealth of positive reviews online, marking it as one of the best chatbot solutions. Customers rave about the quality of the product and how it can streamline customer support.
The service is super streamlined and easy to use. I use it at an everyday frequency. There are no confusing menus, no excessive number of features, and everything looks organized and neatly positioned. I rarely encounter issues with the service, and whenever it has happened, the developer and customer support team is always quick to fix it.
Maria N
Freshchat is one of the unique CRMs that is relatively easy to use and has its own AI assistance for summarizing and paraphrasing conversations. This makes customer support easy and offers an excellent user experience. What I especially admire about Freshchat is the features that it provides, like the ability to save your own customized replies and messages…
Shawn J
Getting started
A quality chatbot takes support team productivity to a new level. The ability to offer 24/7 customer support can help your business meet the needs of modern audiences who don’t want to wait around for help.
Freshchat is a responsive and easy-to-use system — it’s one of the world’s best AI chatbot providers that can help optimize any customer support department.
Learn more about Freshchat today
Related Resources
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Free AI chatbots
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Chatbot best practices
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Chatbot statistics
What are the top stats for chatbot in 2024?
Chatbot automation
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Chatbot feature
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Chatbot builder 2024
How to build a bot for your business?
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FAQ
How can a chatbot improve customer experience (CX)?
Chatbots can improve the customer experience by improving phone support hold times and making support more accessible than ever before.
Is chatbot software suitable for businesses of all sizes?
Chatbot software can be an excellent addition to any business of any size. The ability to offer 24/7 self service support is invaluable and speaks to a real need in the market of just about any industry.
Can chatbot software integrate with our existing systems, including CRM?
Yes, chatbot software solutions like Freshchat have a wealth of integrations available that can easily make it a part of any ongoing tech stack.
How do I ensure that the chatbot aligns with our brand voice and values?
You can personalize your chatbot with a personality and vocabulary that reflects your brand’s values and overall tone.
What kind of data insights and analytics does the chatbot software provide?
Chatbots gather conversational data, such as user satisfaction, conversation length, the number of users who access the service, the actual flow of the conversation, and more.