Top 7 chatbot platforms for customer service in 2022

Let’s be blunt, chatbots can not replace your operators. Not in 2022, not in the next 10 years. But, they can free up two-thirds of the time your agents spend on routine requests. A well-designed chatbot exists to provide quick responses, help outside working hours and handle a large chunk of common questions.

Moreover, your customers are used to chatbots. 80% of them have interacted with a chatbot before and 62% would prefer to use one to solve their problem. So having an operational chatbot seems like a no-brainer. All that’s left is to pick a bot builder.

How this list is organized

A quick intro. I’m Dmytro. In my work at Chatfuel I make and break chatbots daily to keep our knowledge base up-to-date. I’ve made countless chatbots from simple ones that ask for customer email to complex ones that use third-party integrations and dynamic content. In this article, I’ll help you decide which bot building platform to pick.

I’ve tested several leading bot building platforms. My idea was simple: build a bot to answer common customer questions and export all customer responses to a Google Sheet. Then I checked if I could set up my bot to respond to custom input (keywords) and tried out advanced features like re-engagement, analytics, and third-party integrations. In this guide, I’ll present each platform as follows:

• ease of use: rookie, average Joe, pro.
• supported platforms: website, social media, messengers, emails.
• features: main bot building features, third party API availability, stand-out features, integrations.
• pricing: free, paid options.

Let’s get started.

Chatbot

Ease of use

Average Joe — you understand how chatbots and conversational logic behind them work. You can create a simple chatbot using a pre-made template. You have solved somewhat technical tasks before like: editing a video or setting up ads in Facebook Ads Manager. You’re not afraid of dealing with somewhat technical tasks, but nothing too complex.

Supported platforms

• Website: Independent plugin;
• Facebook Messenger: Direct;
• Slack.

Features

Integrations

Zapier, Freshdesk, HelpDesk, ZenDesk, Shopify.

Pricing

Free: 14-day trial.
Paid: from $50/mo per 1000 chats.

Conclusion

Chatbot is good for creating simple bots with main focus on integration into an existing CRM system. There are plenty of integrations with even more coming in the near future. You can also get pretty creative with keywords and entities to customize responses and use training tab to fine-tune them after you launch your bot.

One of the key features I wanted for my bot is automatic export, but I couldn’t use it since Google Sheets export is not supported. And my biggest issue was the builder interface itself. While simple and pretty on the outside, I’m still puzzled by how the conversation logic works.

Tidio

Ease of use

Average Joe — you understand how chatbots and conversational logic behind them work. You can create a simple chatbot using a pre-made template. You have solved somewhat technical tasks before like: editing a video or setting up ads in Facebook Ads Manager. You’re not afraid of dealing with somewhat technical tasks, but nothing too complex.

Supported platforms

• Website: Independent plugin;
• Facebook Messenger: Direct;
• Instagram: Direct;
• Email.

Features

Integrations

Shopify, Zapier, Mailchimp, Google Analytics, ZenDesk, PipeDrive.

Pricing

Free: first 100 chats.
Paid: from $50/mo for unlimited conversations (3 operators limit).

Conclusion

I think Tidio is best at integrating several communication channels like Messenger, Instagram or email. If you have multiple channels per client, merging them together into a single chat in Tidio is quite a time-saver. I also liked their 40+ templates that seem to cover most business needs.

As for my bot, I couldn’t set it up. Neither custom input nor automatic export to Google Sheets is supported as of this writing. So, keep this in mind, if you’re looking for this functionality.

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Manychat

Ease of use

Average Joe — you understand how chatbots and conversational logic behind them work. You can create a simple chatbot using a pre-made template. You have solved somewhat technical tasks before like: editing a video or setting up ads in Facebook Ads Manager. You’re not afraid of dealing with somewhat technical tasks, but nothing too complex.

Supported platforms

• Facebook Messenger: Direct, Comments;
• Instagram: Direct, Comments;
• WhatsApp;
• Telegram;
• Email;
• SMS.

Features

Integrations

Zapier, Google Sheets (only on Pro plan).

Pricing

Free: a limited plan up to 1,000 chats.
Paid: from $15/mo per 500 chats.

Conclusion

Manychat has all the features necessary to build a simple or an elaborate bot. It’s a good choice, if you have various multiple channels, like SMS, Email and Facebook. I also found the platform quite intuitive and easy to navigate. Sadly, I couldn’t test some features since quite a number of them are Pro-only. I don’t think it’s a deal breaker, but it might be a problem, if you’re looking to see and test all the features before you pay.

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Landbot

Ease of use

Average Joe — you understand how chatbots and conversational logic behind them work. You can create a simple chatbot using a pre-made template. You have solved somewhat technical tasks before like: editing a video or setting up ads in Facebook Ads Manager. You’re not afraid of dealing with somewhat technical tasks, but nothing too complex.

Supported platforms

• Website: Independent plugin;
• Facebook Messenger: Direct;
• WhatsApp (requires a $143 plan and higher);
• Slack.

Features

Integrations

Free integrations: Mailchimp, Zapier.
Paid ($77/mo+) integrations: Calendly, DialogFlow, Stripe, Airtable.
Custom plans integrations: Salesforce, Zendesk.

Pricing

Free: 14-day trial (up to 100 chats).
Paid: from $31/mo per 500 chats.

Note: WhatsApp access requires a separate plan that starts at $143/mo per 1000 chats.

Conclusion

Landbot is great if you want a chat widget for a website. The bot builder is intuitive and easy to get the hang of and you can customize pretty much anything about how your plugin looks and feels. It was easy to build my bot, but once again I couldn’t test auto export. Google Sheets integration is available, but only starting at $77 plan and higher.

Snatchbot

Ease of use

Pro — you have hands-on experience with chatbots. You know bots inside out and have built complex bots before. You might be a professional bot builder, an agency or a chatbot expert.

Supported platforms

• Website: Independent plugin;
• Facebook Messenger: Direct, Comments (paid plan only);
• WhatsApp (starts at $75/mo);
• Telegram;
• Viber;
• Slack;
• Skype;
• Email.

Features

Integrations

ZenDesk, Salesforce, Zoho, Google Sheets.

Pricing

Free: Basic plan with limited features, but unlimited chats.
Paid: from $30/mo per 10,000 chats.

Conclusion

Snatchbot is the most advanced bot builder on this list. It allows you to build laser precise bots and connect multiple channels to them. It even has a free plan with limited features. But all of its strength comes with a price. Snatchbot is highly technical, I’d say borderline code. So it best fits advanced users who need multiple channels and complete control over every detail.

Botme

Ease of use

Rookie — you have used a computer mostly for browsing and socials. You might have edited a photo using presets inside a web editor or made a presentation in PowerPoint or Slides. You can solve a more technical task using a detailed step-by-step YouTube guide, but it’s hard to reproduce the same steps on your own.

Supported platforms

• Website: Independent plugin.
• Facebook Messenger: Direct.
• Instagram: Direct;
• WhatsApp;
• Telegram;
• Email;
• SMS.

Features

Integrations

Stripe, Shopify.

Pricing

Free: Limited free plan.
Paid: from $25/mo per 2,000 chats.

Conclusion

Botme is a good introduction to chatbots. Its has a simple minimal design and all of the basic functionality you’ll need. It is even possible to create a basic showcase for your products to then present them to customers.

However, it seems like some of the things included in the product are not functional. I couldn’t connect my Google Sheets account, since Google blocked the app saying Botme “tried to access sensitive info”. I’d also be cautious about Facebook re-engagement feature. There seems to be no way to add Message Tags, which are required when sending re-engage messages. This might potentially lead to Facebook Page ban.

Chatfuel

Ease of use

Average Joe — you understand how chatbots and conversational logic behind them work. You can create a simple chatbot using a pre-made template. You have solved somewhat technical tasks before like: editing a video or setting up ads in Facebook Ads Manager. You’re not afraid of dealing with somewhat technical tasks, but nothing too complex.

Supported platforms

• Facebook: Page messages, Comments;
• Instagram: Direct, Comments;
• WhatsApp;
• Website: Embedded Messenger plugin.

Features

Integrations

Zapier, Calendly, Stripe.

Pricing

Free: first 50 chats.
Paid: from $14.99/mo per 500 chats.

Conclusion

Chatfuel works best for automating Facebook Messenger and Instagram support. Creating a simple bot with keywords, buttons and galleries is pretty straightforward and easy to do. But building more elaborate bots will require some time and effort to learn the rules and specifics of working with Facebook and Instagram.

Where Chatfuel shines the most is its team. Every support team member knows the platform in and out and helps each customer solve their specific problem. On top of that, Chatfuel has its own bot building team for premium customers. Simply put, they’ll build a unique bot for your particular business, if you don’t want to get into the minutiae of the building process.

Final comparison