Best Chatbot Builders of 2024
🛠️ToolsWe all want to ace at customer support, experience and productivity – and there is no doubt about that. If you are someone on the same boat, we have some good news! Chatbot builders might just be the game-changer you need. These innovative tools are transforming the way businesses interact with their customers, providing round-the-clock support and personalised experiences. With the right chatbot builder, you can automate routine tasks, free up your team's time, and create memorable interactions that keep your customers coming back for more. You'll get to know how these tools can help you build chatbots that not only answer questions but also guide customers through complex processes, gather valuable insights, and even close sales.
HubSpot
Manychat
IBM Watsonx Assistant
Wit.ai
Amazon Lex
HubSpot
Website | www.hubspot.com |
---|---|
Rating | 4.4 |
Free Trial | Yes |
Platforms Supported | Web, IOS/Android |
HubSpot's chatbot builder is a powerful tool that can revolutionise your customer interactions. It allows you to create automated chat services that integrate seamlessly with your current CRM systems. You can set up chatbots to qualify leads, book meetings, and create support tickets, all without human intervention. One of the standout features is the ability to create task-specific bots that guide visitors through a predefined sequence of questions. This helps you gather essential information about your visitors before your team takes over the conversation. For those with more advanced needs, HubSpot offers conversational AI that can provide human-like responses using a knowledge base.
The chatbot builder is incredibly user-friendly, with a visual interface that makes it easy to design your bot's conversation flow. You can customise your bot's welcome message, add various actions like asking questions or setting property values, and even create if/then branches to determine the flow of the conversation.
HubSpot Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Free forever plan with essential features
- User-friendly interface
- Seamless integration with HubSpot's CRM and other tools
- Extensive range of features for marketing, sales, and customer service
- Simple integrations with over 1,500 apps and web services
Cons:
- The interface can be restrictive for complex chatbot flows
- Better suited for businesses already using the HubSpot ecosystem
- Limited customisation options in the free plan
- Advanced features only available in higher-tier plans
HubSpot's chatbot builder is an excellent choice for businesses looking to automate customer interactions and streamline their support processes. Its integration with HubSpot's wider suite of tools makes it particularly valuable for companies already using or planning to use HubSpot's CRM and marketing automation features. While it may have some limitations, the free plan offers a great starting point for businesses to explore the benefits of chatbots without any financial pressure.
Plan | Pricing |
---|---|
Professional | $800/Month |
Enterprise | $3600/Month |
Manychat
Website | www.manychat.com |
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Rating | 4.6 |
Free Trial | Yes |
Platforms Supported | Web, IOS/Android |
Manychat is a powerful chatbot builder that can revolutionise your business by automating conversations across multiple platforms. This tool allows you to create engaging chatbots for Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger, helping you boost sales and conversions.
One of Manychat's standout features is its ability to handle Instagram Direct Messages. Your chatbot can automatically respond to questions, comments, and story replies 24/7, attracting more leads and driving higher conversions. Similarly, on WhatsApp, you can set up automation to help customers discover products, retrieve order information, and get customer support - all without your constant attention. The Facebook Messenger integration is equally impressive. You can automate conversations to generate leads, answer FAQs, and run marketing campaigns effortlessly. This multi-channel approach ensures you're always available to your customers, no matter where they prefer to interact.
Manychat's lead generation capabilities are particularly noteworthy. The platform allows you to capture email addresses and phone numbers for up to 80% of your leads, automatically adding them to your database. This feature can significantly boost your conversion rates, potentially increasing them by up to 90%.
Manychat Pros and Cons
Pros:
- User-friendly interface suitable for non-technical users
- Multi-channel support (Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger)
- Powerful lead generation and conversion tools
- AI Assistant and pre-built templates for easy setup
- Integrations with over 2,000 business tools
Cons:
- The free plan has limited functionality
- Pricing can become expensive for businesses with large contact lists
- Some users report occasional instability in the visual bot builder
- Limited language support compared to some competitors
Manychat stands out as an excellent chatbot builder for businesses looking to automate their customer interactions across multiple platforms. Its user-friendly interface and pre-built templates make it accessible even for those without technical experience. The AI Assistant can help you create your first automation quickly, and you can easily edit any template with just a few clicks. However, it's worth noting that while the free plan is a great starting point, you'll likely need to upgrade to the Pro plan to access the most powerful features. The pricing structure, which scales based on your number of contacts, means that costs can add up quickly for businesses with large audiences.
Plan | Pricing |
---|---|
Free | $0/Month |
Pro | $15/Month |
Elite | Custom |
IBM Watsonx Assistant
Website | www.ibm.com |
---|---|
Rating | 4.4 |
Free Trial | Yes |
Platforms Supported | Web, IOS/Android |
IBM Watsonx Assistant is a powerful chatbot builder that can revolutionise your customer interactions. It uses artificial intelligence to help businesses handle queries and tasks efficiently. This tool is designed to boost productivity and streamline operations across various sectors.
One of the standout features is its user-friendly interface. You don't need coding skills to build generative AI assistants, thanks to the intuitive drag-and-drop conversation builder and pre-built templates. This makes it easy for anyone in your organisation to create effective chatbots. The assistant leverages advanced Large Language Models (LLMs) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to understand the context of each conversation. This means your chatbot can grasp the nuances of human language, leading to more accurate and helpful responses.
Another key feature is the Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). This allows your chatbot to provide accurate, contextual, and up-to-date answers around the clock, grounded in your company's knowledge base. It's like having a tireless customer service rep who always has the right information at their fingertips.
Watsonx Pros and Cons
Pros:
- User-friendly interface suitable for non-technical users
- Advanced AI capabilities for natural language understanding
- Seamless integration with various channels and business systems
- Robust analytics dashboard for tracking conversation performance
- Ability to handle complex customer interactions
Cons:
- Pricing can be steep for smaller businesses
- Some advanced features may require technical expertise
- The free plan has limited capabilities
IBM Watsonx Assistant is an excellent choice for businesses looking to enhance their customer service and automate routine tasks. Its AI-powered features can help you create engaging, personalised interactions that boost customer satisfaction and loyalty. Whether you're a small business just starting with chatbots or a large enterprise looking for a scalable solution, IBM Watsonx Assistant offers a range of options to meet your needs.
Plan | Pricing |
---|---|
Lite | $0/Month |
Plus | $140/Month |
Enterprise | Custom |
Wit.ai
Website | www.wit.ai |
---|---|
Rating | 3.8 |
Free Trial | Yes |
Platforms Supported | Web |
Wit.ai is a powerful chatbot builder that can revamp your business by enhancing your app's ability to understand and respond to user input. This natural language processing platform, developed by Facebook, offers a range of features to help you create intelligent chatbots. Wit's user-friendly interface is its USP. You don't need to be a coding expert to get started. The platform allows you to train your chatbot through examples, or "utterances". By providing a few examples of how users might interact with your chatbot, Wit.ai can infer and understand similar requests.
The Understanding section is where you teach Wit how to comprehend your users' intentions. As you validate more utterances, Wit's understanding improves, leading to more accurate responses. This learning process is continuous, with every new utterance hitting the API showing up for review and improvement. Wit.ai also uses entities to extract meaningful information from user input. For instance, it can automatically detect and highlight specific data like temperatures or dates, making it easier for your chatbot to provide relevant responses.
Wit.ai Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Free for both private and commercial use
- User-friendly interface suitable for non-technical users
- Continuous learning and improvement through user interactions
- Automatic entity detection for more accurate responses
- Open-source community benefits
Cons:
- May require manual review for quality control
- Limited customisation options compared to some paid platforms
- Potential privacy concerns with data storage
Wit.ai is an excellent chatbot builder for businesses looking to upscale their customer interactions without significant financial investment. Its ability to understand natural language and continuously improve makes it an amazing tool for creating responsive and intelligent chatbots.
Plan | Pricing |
---|---|
Free | $0/Month |
Amazon Lex
Website | aws.amazon.com |
---|---|
Rating | 4.2 |
Free Trial | Yes |
Platforms Supported | Web, IOS/Android |
Amazon Lex is a powerful chatbot builder that can revolutionise your business by enabling you to create conversational interfaces for your applications using voice and text. It's powered by the same technology that drives Amazon Alexa, making it a robust choice for developers looking to build sophisticated, natural language chatbots. The standout element in Amazon Lex is its simplicity. You don't need deep learning expertise to create a bot. The Amazon Lex console guides you through the process, allowing you to specify the basic conversation flow quickly. This user-friendly approach makes it accessible for businesses of all sizes.
Amazon Lex uses advanced natural language processing (NLP) and automatic speech recognition (ASR) technologies. These features allow your chatbot to understand the context of conversations, leading to more accurate and helpful responses. The bot can handle multi-turn conversations, managing context across interactions without the need for custom code. Integration is another key strength of Amazon Lex. It seamlessly connects with other AWS services, including Lambda, Cognito, CloudWatch, and DynamoDB. This integration allows you to extend your bot's capabilities, from accessing databases to executing complex business logic.
Amazon Lex Pros and Cons
Pros:
- User-friendly interface suitable for non-technical users
- Advanced NLP and ASR capabilities for natural conversations
- Seamless integration with other AWS services
- Pay-as-you-go pricing model
- Free tier available for new users
- Supports multi-turn conversations
- Easy deployment across multiple platforms
Cons:
- Limited language support (currently supports English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, and Portuguese)
- Restricted customisation options compared to some other chatbot builders
- Integration complexity may require programming knowledge
- Lacks built-in sentiment analysis
Amazon Lex is an excellent choice for businesses looking to build conversational interfaces quickly and cost-effectively. Its integration with the AWS ecosystem and advanced AI capabilities make it a powerful tool for creating engaging chatbots.
Plan | Pricing |
---|---|
Request and response interaction pricing | |
Speech request | $32/ for 8000 speech requests |
Text request | $1.50/ for 2000 text requests |
Streaming conversation pricing | |
Speech intervals | $52/ for 8000 speech intervals |
Text requests | $4/ for 2000 text requests |
Automated chatbot designer pricing | |
Training time | $150/ for 300 minutes |
Conclusive Thoughts
Chatbot builders are causing a revolution in the way businesses interact with their customers, offering round-the-clock support and personalised experiences. These tools cater to a wide range of needs and skill levels. As the chatbot arena continues to evolve, businesses have more options than ever to enhance their customer service and automate routine tasks. Whether you're a small startup or a large enterprise, there's a chatbot builder out there that can help take your business to the next level. However, in order to stay in the loop with the latest trends and tools in the startup world, why not sign up for StartupTalky's legacy newsletter 'Smell The Coffee'? It offers exclusive sneak peeks into the startup scene and early access to some of the most exciting tools out there. Remember, in business circles, staying informed and getting hold of new technologies can make all the difference.
FAQ
Which chatbot builder is best?
The best chatbot builders currently are:
- HubSpot
- Manychat
- IBM Watsonx Assistant
- Wit.ai
- Amazon Lex
Can I create an AI chatbot for free?
Yes, you can create an AI chatbot for free using various platforms, though advanced features may require paid upgrades.
Can I build my own chatbot?
Yes, you can build your own chatbot using various tools or by coding it from scratch. Depending on your technical skills, you can either use a chatbot builder platform or develop it using programming languages and AI frameworks.
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