With digital marketing and customer service both needing to be more real-time than ever to serve consumers, chatbots are more popular than ever.
You’ll find at least 300,000 chatbots on Facebook alone (and climbing). In fact, about 53 percent of consumers are more likely to purchase from businesses that they can message.
Essentially, a chatbot is a software (powered by artificial intelligence) that simulates conversations with users through a chat interface either on a website or on a messaging app.
Chatbots help streamline the sales process and offer better customer service because they make it easier for consumers to get answers to questions without having to search around on a website or in a search engine.
Learn more about conversational marketing, as well as eight tips to get started.
This technology is configured through a chatbot builder that uses if-then rule programming that can be customized to the common questions you experience as a business, as well as the specific answers that reflect your business.
The good news is that you don’t have to know how to code or program to create a chatbot. Most chatbot builders are easy enough to use and install.
The following are 14 of the best chatbot builders to choose from to use for your small business.
TARS
Chatbot builder TARS allows users to create chatbots that can be used on your website and Facebook Messenger without any programming knowledge.
You can use chatbots built by TARS for an ordering or booking process, feedback collection, surveys, user onboarding, customer service, training and more.
TARS also offers chatbot templates to make it even easier to get started.
Pricing: 14-day free trial available; paid plans start at $99 per month
Botsify
Botsify is a chatbot builder that can build chatbots on your website or Facebook Messenger without any coding skills. It integrates with such services as WordPress, Shopify, Slack, Google Sheets, Alexa and more.
Botsify features a drag-and-drop interface that’s easy to use. Both Apple and Shazam use this tool.
Pricing: Free version available; paid plans start at $10 per month
Hubspot
The Hubspot Chatbot Builder is a free tool, without any coding knowledge required. It can help customers book meetings, answer common customer service questions, qualify sales leads and so on.
Hubspot’s Chatbot Builder is integrated with HubSpot’s free CRM tool, so the chatbots you build can deliver more personalized messages based on the information you have for your existing contacts.
Pricing: Free version available
MobileMonkey
Chatbot builder MobileMonkey helps you build chatbots for Facebook Messenger, Instagram Direct Message, SMS texting and websites. The tool also can help you grow your contact list, segment your audience and more.
The chatbots you create with MobileMonkey can make appointments, answer frequently asked questions, track purchases and so on.
MobileMonkey also features an OmniChat widget that automatically detects if the user is logged in on Facebook. When the user is logged in, a Facebook Messenger widget will appear on your website. If the user is not logged in, it will automatically change to a native website widget.
Pricing: Free version available; paid plans start at $49 per month
Flow XO
The Flow XO chatbot builder offers several pre-built chatbot templates to make it easy to create your own. You can use their drag-and-drop editor to customize any of those templates.
These chatbots can be used on your website and Facebook Messenger but offer minimal analytics.
Pricing: Free version available; paid plans start at $19 per month
Chatfuel
Chatfuel is another chatbot builder that helps you create chatbots on Facebook Messenger. No coding expertise is required. NFL teams, TechCrunch and Forbes use Chatfuel.
Chatfuel also offers analytics, which helps you easily improve your chatbot over time.
While there is a free version of this chatbot builder, but one of the features of the paid plans includes the ability to remove Chatfuel’s branding on your chatbot landing pages.
Pricing: Free version available; paid plans start at $15 per month
Wit.ai
Chatbot builder Wit.ai enables you to create text- or voice-based bots on a messaging platform of your choice. Wit.ai learns the human language from each interaction.
To create your Wit.ai account, log in through GitHub or Facebook.
Pricing: Free version available
ManyChat
One of the more popular chatbot builders, ManyChat is extremely easy to use. It features a visual flow builder, where you can create your chatbot within minutes.
The chatbots you create can be used on Facebook Messenger, Instagram, SMS texting and your website.
Keep in mind that the SMS channel only supports two countries.
Pricing: Free version available; paid plans start at $10 per month
Xenioo
Chatbot builder Xenioo also offers a visual flow builder that takes you through the creation process without any programming or coding knowledge.
Xenioo features a dozen channels where you can install its chatbot, including WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram Direct Messenger, SMS, Slack, Google Assistant, Alexa and more.
Its best feature is how flexible those hosting channels are.
Pricing: Free version available; paid plans start at about $34 per month
Intercom
Intercom is actually the chatbot builder that other chatbot builders (such as ManyChat, Chatfuel and so on) use in their own chatbot platforms. In addition to creating chatbots, Intercom also enables you to create product tours and more.
It features an easy-to-use interface with more than 100 direct integrations.
Pricing: Paid plans start at $67 per month
Landbot
The chatbot builder Landbot focuses on the creation of chatbots for landing pages but also includes chatbots for websites, WhatsApp, Slack and Facebook Messenger.
It also features a visual flow builder when creating chatbots but has minimal analytics.
Pricing: Free version available; paid plans start at $30 per month
Tidio
Chatbot builder Tidio focuses mainly on chatbots for websites, but Facebook Messenger is also available.
You can add custom fields and tags in the easy-to-use interface, but analytics are minimal.
Pricing: 7-day free trial available; paid plans start at $18 per month
ActiveChat
What makes ActiveChat a unique chatbot builder is its eCommerce feature, where users can pay for products inside the chatbot. You can create chatbots for your website, Facebook Messenger, SMS texting and more.
It also has an advanced website widget where you can incorporate your own corporate identity and send messages based on the page the user is on.
Pricing: 14-day free trial available; paid plans start at $33 per month
Dialogflow
Last but not least, Dialogflow is powered by Google. The AI is exceptionally good, so other chatbot builders typically have integrations with Dialogflow just to access the AI.
Dialogflow supports chatbot creation for a number of channels, including your website, Facebook Messenger, Twitter, Google Assistant and more. You also can match the chatbot to the branding of your website and get robust analytics.
On the other hand, the interface is a little harder for beginners to understand at first.
Pricing: Free version available as long as you remain below 180 requests per minute
In conclusion
More than anything, we recommend reviewing all available features for each chatbot builder as well as the pricing of available plans.
Depending on your goals and budget, you should be able to narrow down this list to a top few to choose from. Always feel free to take advantage of any free trials that are available so that you can test your top tools yourself.
Looking to level up your digital marketing process as you get into conversational marketing with your new chatbot? Consider DailyStory, which features automation, audience segmentation and more. Schedule your free demo with us today.
