28 Best Chatbot Software of 2025: Reviewed & Compared
10 Best Chatbot Software Shortlist
Here's my pick of the 10 best software from the 28 tools reviewed.
Our one-on-one guidance will help you find the perfect fit.
With so many different chatbot software solutions available, figuring out which is the right one for your business is tough. You know you want to automate responses to common customer questions to enhance your customer experience, but you need to figure out which option is best. In this article, I'll help you make this choice easier by sharing my insights on the best chatbot software to automate your interactions with customers, based on my personal CX experience.
What is Chatbot Software?
Chatbot software is a digital tool that uses artificial intelligence to respond to customer inquiries, simulating a human conversation. Chatbots deal with requests without employee input, meaning your team can help far more customers without increasing the number of resources. While the chatbots deal with the first few levels of queries, your team deals with special requests.
Using chatbot software allows businesses to provide 24/7 customer assistance to customers around the world, reducing staffing and labor costs and speeding up customer response times for a better customer experience.
Overviews Of The 10 Best Chatbot Software
Here’s a brief description of the top 10 chatbots that I’ve highlighted in detail in this article, which showcases each tool’s best use case and noteworthy features. I’ve also added screenshots to give you a snapshot of their user interface too. Plus, there are 18 additional options below if you’d like even more possibilities to consider.
LiveHelpNow is a comprehensive suite of professional customer service tools that businesses use to facilitate seamless communication with clientele in real time. It offers a combination of live chat support, email ticketing, customer self-help knowledge systems, call management, and more, to provide customers instant access to assistance and information they need.
Why I picked LiveHelpNow: I chose LiveHelpNow because of its ability to manage omnichannel communication and support ticket management. LiveHelpNow's live chat software facilitates real-time communication between customer service agents and website visitors, with capabilities such as chat window customization, proactive chat invitations, real-time visitor monitoring, and concurrent chat management.
Additional features include 2-way SMS texting for text-based customer support, FAQ software for self-service knowledge bases, 24/7 live chat support, a cloud phone system for call management, social media customer support integration, and agent gamification to encourage performance and service quality.
LiveHelpNow Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include the integration of ChatGPT technology which enables automated customer service interactions, with the AI chatbot capable of responding to inquiries, guiding users, and escalating complex issues to human agents. Also, the help desk ticketing system centralizes customer inquiries, supports ticket management, and includes automation for routing and follow-ups, while the live chatbot offers automated responses to common questions and data collection.
Key integrations include Google Business Messages for customer interactions, a cloud phone system for telephony needs, and HIPAA-compliant chat and email for secure communications. Additionally, the platform integrates with various CRM, helpdesk, and e-commerce systems such as Salesforce, ZenDesk, and BigCommerce, enabling businesses to manage customer support, lead generation, and sales processes effectively.
Guru is a search and knowledge management platform that centralizes a company's collective intelligence. Users can connect all their apps, documents, and chats to the platform to get instant answers in their workflow.
Why I picked Guru: This software earned its spot on my list because of how it brings your company's knowledge base into your key workflows, whether with chatbots or other channels. It uses AI to quickly and effectively find key information from your wiki or intranet and bring it into your communication systems.
This AI-powered functionality allows your teams to find answers to their questions quickly, and deliver personalized, contextual recommendations in real-time. It can be leveraged for both internal and external knowledge sharing.
Guru Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include the AI Suggest tool, which uses artificial intelligence to find relevant knowledge from the Guru database for users based on the content displayed on their screen. Knowledge Triggers automatically display information when specific conditions on a webpage are met, such as visiting a certain URL. The browser extension and integrations with Slack and MS Teams allow for easy access to the knowledge base within commonly used platforms.
Integrations include Slack, Salesforce, Microsoft Teams, Google Chrome, Gmail, and Outlook.
Zoho SalesIQ is a live chat software that businesses can use to manage customer interactions.
Why I picked Zoho SalesIQ: The chatbot feature has a no-code drag-and-drop builder that can be used to craft scripts to respond to common customer queries. It can also use AI to understand the context of a visitor's question and provide answers directly from your customer resource hub. Both your support agents and your customers will have access to their chat history, helping everyone catch up on the situation at hand when an agent needs to step in to handle a request.
What's particularly noteworthy about the software is its capacity to manage live chats on your website and social media profiles, but it can also be used directly in your app. Customers can connect with your support team (or support bot) straight from your product, cutting out the need to visit your site or send an email to get in touch.
Zoho SalesIQ Standout Features & Integrations
Features include chatbot templates, drag-and-drop script builder, social media message management, visitor tracking, lead scoring, ticket routing, and analytics.
Integrations include Zoho CRM, Zoho Desk, and Zoho Campaigns, as well as Google Analytics and Salesforce.
Zoho SalesIQ Plans & Pricing
Plans start at $7/operator/month, and they offer a 15-day free trial.
Quidget is a no-code AI chatbot designed to automate repetitive frontline support. By learning from your website, FAQs, and uploaded resources, it provides instant, accurate answers around the clock.
Why I picked Quidget: Quidget relies on user-provided sources for training, such as website URLs, knowledge base documents, or custom FAQ entries. This approach ensures that Quidget AI Agents stick strictly to the information they’re trained with, delivering accurate, automated responses without introducing unverified data.
To modify how Quidget Agents respond, you can update the knowledge base or customize prompts directly in the settings.
Quidget Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include the ability to escalate complex cases to live agents, enhancing your customer support workflow. It supports multiple languages, enabling responses in the customer’s preferred language. Additionally, Quidget includes AI Sales Agents that can automatically collect lead emails and schedule meetings using an integrated Calendly feature.
Integrations include Euphoric.ai, Zendesk, WhatsApp, and Slack.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Convenient chatbot flow builder interface
- Handles numerous requests efficiently
- Easy to set up and customize
Cons:
- Could offer more direct integrations
- Limited analytics features
Tidio is a cloud-based chatbot software solution that helps businesses automate customer service. It offers many features, including live chat, email marketing, and automation.
Why I picked Tidio: It integrates with a website and monitors visitor activity in real time. Users can configure chatbots to automatically start a chat session when a visitor arrives on a website and engage in conversation with the visitor to provide assistance. If an agent is unavailable to chat, you can set up automatic responses so that the visitor still receives some level of customer service.
The order placement feature of Tidio's chatbots streamlines the process of placing an order on a website. By providing a link to the product page and a form to fill out, the chatbot can handle the entire process from start to finish. The chatbot can also provide confirmation of the order, estimated delivery time, and other relevant information.
Additionally, Tidio's abandoned cart saver feature is a powerful tool that can help recover lost sales and boost your bottom line. When a customer adds an item to their shopping cart but does not complete the purchase, Tidio's chatbot will automatically reach out and send a reminder with a link to the product page and a unique discount code that can be used to complete the purchase.
Tidio Standout Features & Integrations
Features include ticketing, AI-response bots, shared inbox for teams, a live view of visitors, canned responses, and pre-chat surveys.
Integrations are available with popular third-party applications, such as Zendesk, MailChimp, Shopify, Magento, and Klaviyo.
The software’s chatbots can provide 24/7 assistance to website visitors, freeing human customer service representatives to handle more complex inquiries.
Tars is chatbot software that makes building conversation workflows easy. Its visual interface lets you choose what happens after each interaction and then test out your workflows before pushing them live.
Why I picked Tars: One place the tool stands out is in its templates. There are over 1,000 choices for industries like healthcare, insurance, education, real estate, and even government. Once you choose your favorite, you can easily customize it using the drag-and-drop builder.
You can make a chatbot for your website by adding it as a widget or a standalone page. You can also build a bot for WhatsApp that let you automate L0 & L1 queries.
Tars Standout Features & Integrations
Features include chatbot analytics, NLP, a no-code chatbot builder, and multi-language bots.
Integrations are available so you can connect your platform to Hubspot, Zendesk, and Google Calendar.
Tars Plans & Pricing
There are 3 plans, and pricing is available upon request.
Intercom is a customizable chatbot platform that helps you scale every part of your business through your own creations.
Why I picked Intercom: Its business messenger enables multiple types of conversation within the same widget. The chatbot functionality lets you set up automated conversions to help with common customer issues. Guide the conversation in a particular direction by including options for customers to select.
I especially like how you can customize the chat widget. You can include a chatbot, a direct link to your live support team, a knowledge base search function, and relevant articles and guides. You can also customize the widget for different pages to encourage users to take particular actions. For example, on a blog post, you can use the widget to add links to relevant resources. But on a landing page, you can make buying easy by only linking to a live sales rep.
Intercom Standout Features & Integrations
Features include a white label messenger, mobile app support, a collaborative inbox, rules and automated workflows, and a drag-and-drop visual campaign builder.
Integrations include 300+ apps like Slack, Hubspot, and Salesforce.
Intercom Plans & Pricing
Pricing starts at $74/month (billed annually). Contact the company to see pricing details for other plans.
Drift is a conversation platform that keeps your marketing, sales, and customer teams connected. Among their many products, they have custom chatbots that will make your customer conversations richer.
Why I picked Drift: Drift’s chatbots help you increase lead generation on your website. It turns website visitors into prospects by pre-qualifying and scheduling meetings with your sales team. Central to this is personalization—the bot uses information about the customer to tailor the conversation to an individual’s needs. Enterprise buyers and small business owners each receive content relevant to their specific challenges.
You can also tailor conversations to the stage of the pipeline the buyer is in, ensuring optimized customer engagement. Someone visiting your site for the first time via a blog post gets a different experience from someone who has already viewed your pricing page.
Drift Standout Features & Integrations
Features include A/B testing, insights from customer conversations, AI chatbots, advanced lead routing, and a fast-track option for hot leads.
Integrations include custom ones you can build with its open development platform, automations through Zapier, and native integrations with apps like Marketo, Salesforce, Clearbit, Optimizely, Slack, and Poptin.
Drift Plans & Pricing
Drift has 3 plans, and pricing is available upon request.
Kommunicate is a chatbot builder that automates your customer conversations using AI chatbots.
Why I picked Kommunicate: The tool is easy to use. You can add a bot to your website right away using pre-built templates, meaning you’ll start deflecting customer queries immediately. The fastest way to get set up is within the dashboard: either choose a blank bot or select one of the ready-made templates—the latter option makes things much easier, and you can always customize it to suit your needs.
Creating intents is easy. Either choose from the premade automation that comes with the template or build your own. Just add the questions and answers you expect customers to use. Don’t worry if you forget to add a particular way of phrasing a question; the bot interprets intent even if the customer doesn’t express the request exactly as predicted. The tool also has a handoff feature that allows customers to speak to live agents if the bot can’t solve their problem.
Kommunicate Standout Features & Integrations
Features include deflection, unlimited bots, pre-chat lead collection, multilingual bots, omnichannel support, and templates.
Integrations include Pipedrive, and AgileCRM for the Grow plan. Zendesk and Zapier integrations are included in their Business plan.
Kommunicate Plans & Pricing
There are 3 plans, and pricing starts at $40 /month. There’s also a 30-day trial you can use to create free chatbots to test the software.
Acquire’s chatbot software is an easy way to build helpful bots without code.
Why I picked Acquire: You can create flow-based bots and AI bots to ensure customers get the contextual help they need. I particularly like the knowledge base integration. This provides customers with easy access to support documentation, helping to streamline self-service solutions.
You can also integrate Acquire with other tools to provide a more personalized experience. For example, e-commerce stores can use order history when replying to chat requests.
Acquire provides detailed analytics on the conversations that are happening in your chatbot. This helps you discover which bots are performing best and point out ones that could use improvement. Or, you can use the information to find common customer questions that your bots aren’t set up to answer and create workflows for these issues.
Acquire Standout Features & Integrations
Features include live chat, video chat, email, contextual customer information, automation, co-browse, a single interface for all support channels, and the ability to pull up customer data and historical conversations.
Integrations are not available at the moment.
Acquire Plans & Pricing
Acquire has three pricing plans; contact the company via their website for information.
The Best Chatbot Software Comparison Chart
This comparison chart summarizes basic details about each of my top chatbot software selections. You can view pricing details and the availability of free trials or demos side-by-side to help you find the best software for your budget and business needs.
| Tool | Best For | Trial Info | Price | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | LiveHelpNow LiveHelpNow has an AI chatbot called Hue and the backend offers a customer interactions section that will report the number of times Hue was used by customers. | Best for omnichannel customer support | 30-day free trial | From $9/agent/month | Website |
| 2 | Guru Inject AI-powered auto responses in tandem with other systems you already use, like Zendesk or Freshdesk. | Best to connect your knowledge base | 30-day free trial | From $10/user/month | Website |
| 3 | Zoho SalesIQ Businesses can design chatbots that can handle various tasks, from answering frequently asked questions to providing in-depth product information. | Best for providing in-app chat support | 15-day free trial available | From $7/operator/month | Website |
| 4 | Quidget Quidget's dashboard provides insights into how your chatbot is performing using various metrics. | Best for automating repetitive frontline support | Free plan available | From $16/month (billed annually) | Website |
| 5 | Tidio Tidio lets you create and customize a chatbot and choose from prebuilt templates based on different actions, triggers, and conditions. | Best for its focus on generating sales | 7-day free trial + free plan available | From $25/user/month | Website |
| 6 | Tars Tars has a huge library of pre-built chatbot templates. | Best for its vast template library | 14 Days Free Trial | Pricing available upon request | Website |
| 7 | Intercom Intercom has many options for customizing your chatbot widget. | Best for customized chat widgets | 14-day free trial | From $74/month (billed annually) | Website |
| 8 | Drift Drift helps you build chatbots to increase website conversion. | Best for sales and marketing teams | Free demo available | From $2,500/month (billed annually) | Website |
| 9 | Kommunicate Kommunicate has customizable templates that speed up bot creation. | Best for fast setup | 30-day Free Trial | Starts at $40/month | Website |
| 10 | Acquire Acquire has powerful analytics you can use to fine-tune chatbot performance. | Best for reporting and analytics | Free trial available | From $25/user/month + $500/month base fee | Website |
Other Chatbot Options
Here are several more chatbots that didn’t make it into my top 10 list, but are still worth considering. If none of the above fits your needs, maybe one of the tools below will:
- Quiq Messaging
For conversations involving humans and bots
- Yellow.ai
For omnichannel customer experiences
- Botmock
For team collaboration
- Kore
AI-powered chatbots
- Genesys
Chatbot for contact centers
- Birdeye
Chatbot and reputation management in one
- Haptik
For providing automated proactive support
- Landbot.io
For simple lead capture
- Userlike
For tracking customer interactions
- ChatBot
For LiveChat users
- Tidio
For its focus on generating sales
- Finn AI
For banks and credit unions
- Heyday
For eCommerce
- HappyFox Chatbot
With built-in machine learning
- Comm100 Chatbot
On-premise software
- Boost.ai
For ease of setup
- FAQ Bot
For creating great-looking, branded chatbots
- Ada
For real-time support
Selection Criteria for Chatbot Software
I researched and compared a number of popular options to help me select the best chatbot solutions for this list. After gathering my long list of potential options, I began weighing a number of factors that make chatbot software a great fit for customer satisfaction and customer experience teams. My final selections went through an evaluation based on the criteria and key features below.
Key Features
To help me select the best chatbot software out there, I assessed the key features of each system in detail. Here are the main features I focused on:
- Drag-and-Drop Chatbot Builder: This is an intuitive way for anyone to create a chatbot—even those who can’t code. Just build a flowchart that shows how the bot will respond to different situations.
- Omnichannel Support: Many of the tools on the list let you create chatbots for multiple platforms. For example, your website, mobile app, email, and social media.
- Natural Language Understanding (NLU): People rarely ask chatbots questions using the exact phrase you suggested. NLU technology helps chatbots understand the intent behind various terms.
- Reporting and Analytics: Tools with reporting and analytics show how your chatbots perform and let you optimize them accordingly. Some tools also highlight common questions you haven’t yet built solutions for.
Once I was satisfied that each system contained the features above, I dug into the following, more general criteria, as well.
User Interface (UI)
A good UI simplifies the complexities of creating and deploying a chatbot and makes the experience more user-friendly. The visuals should make it easy to identify where to access key features, display information on metrics in clean visuals, and overall improve the user experience.
Usability
The best tools simplify the chatbot creation process so anyone can build one. All the tools on this list are no-code, which means you can create bots without coding knowledge. Usually, these builders are based on some drag-and-drop functionality that lets you build conversation workflows and behavior modeling easily.
Software Integrations
Chatbots need to integrate with messaging tools and your website. Tools may also integrate with your CRM or help desk software. I've provided a list of some of the pre-built integrations, any information on app integration through third-party software, or custom-built options through the tool’s API.
Pricing
The tools on this list come in at a wide range of price points. I’ve got ones suitable for small businesses and others that are best for enterprise clients. But, I think they all offer good value to the right company.
Chatbot Software: FAQ
Here are some answers to frequently asked questions related to chatbot software and how it works:
What is a chatbot?
A chatbot is a piece of software that uses an algorithm to help it mimic human communication via chat. The whole point of it is for you to feel like you are talking to another person, but unlike other people who you talk to, chatbots have no initiative. Therefore, conversations you have will follow a question-answer-question-answer sequence.
To learn more about chatbots, pop over to our article explaining how chatbots work for more details.
How does chatbot software work?
Chatbot software is a program that has pre-built chatbots that you can use to automate parts of your business that are customer-facing, like sales and customer support.
Additionally, chatbot software normally features a bot builder that helps you create your own chatbot from scratch. Once you have your chatbot though, you can deploy it on a website or through an app and let it handle initial, repetitive queries. However, if a customer requires additional information, the chatbot software can re-route the communication to a real person and let them handle the rest.
If you need tips on how to get started, take a look at this article explaining how you can create a chatbot yourself for more info.
Are there different types of chatbots?
There are two main types of chatbots: rule-based and AI-based (artificial intelligence-based). Rule-based chatbots let you set up workflows to answer pre-programmed questions like discovering opening hours or making bookings.
Conversational AI chatbots go further by using natural language processing (NLP) to gauge the intent of a customer inquiry and provide a suitable answer.
What can you use chatbots for?
Chatbots have many use cases, all of which aim to take the burden of basic and repetitive customer service off of your employees. Support teams can use chatbots to solve customer issues and troubleshoot problems. Sales and marketing teams can use them to qualify and convert leads. Ecommerce stores can use them to answer customer questions about products. These interactions will happen 24/7 without your team lifting a finger.
You can also use chatbots as part of a hybrid model that combines live support and automated help. For example, by using the chatbot to collect customer information and then handing off the conversation to a live rep.
How popular are chatbots?
Chatbot usage is growing. According to a 2021 Gartner survey, 37.5% of customer service leaders are planning to deploy chatbots in 2023. And in a time where ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence (AI) solutions are becoming everything everyone is talking about, this percentage is expected to increase.
What is customer support automation?
Customer support automation is when a machine is the first point of contact. As you can probably tell, chatbot software is a type of customer support automation, along with Interactive Voice Response and email automation.
Learn more about its benefits and the role of AI in automation.
What's Next?
Whichever chatbot you choose, one thing is clear: they can have a huge impact on the efficiency of your support and sales teams.
If you're interested in knowing more about this topic you can learn what is a chatbot and how they work, how to build a chatbot, and the benefits and challenges of customer support automation.
Other tool lists you might be interested in are:
- The best live chat software to connect at scale
- The best AI chatbots for customer service
- The best chatbots for small businesses
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