5 Best HubSpot Chatbot Alternatives for Hotels

Drift has established itself as a leader in conversational marketing, offering a chatbot platform that excels in lead qualification and real‑time engagement. Designed primarily for B2B, Drift’s chatbot can be embedded on booking pages to capture guest intent, schedule appointments, and route inquiries to the appropriate reservations team. The platform’s visual flow builder allows marketers to create conversational paths without code, while the AI engine can answer frequently asked questions about room rates, availability, and local attractions. Drift’s native integrations include Salesforce, HubSpot, and a range of e‑commerce platforms, enabling seamless data flow between the chatbot and reservation systems. While Drift’s core strengths lie in lead capture and marketing automation, hotels may find certain limitations: the free tier is limited to 1,000 conversations per month, and advanced features such as custom AI intents require a paid plan. Additionally, Drift does not offer a built‑in knowledge‑base or persistent memory beyond the session, meaning repeat guests receive generic responses unless integrated with a separate CRM. Despite these constraints, Drift remains a compelling choice for hotels that prioritize real‑time booking assistance and marketing funnel integration. Pricing starts with a free plan (1,000 conversations, basic chatbot builder), Pro at $499/month (unlimited conversations, advanced analytics, and team collaboration), and Enterprise at $1,000/month (custom SLAs, dedicated support, and white‑glove onboarding).

Intercom combines live chat, automation, and AI to deliver a full customer engagement platform. For hotels, Intercom’s chatbot can handle instant booking inquiries, answer policy questions, and guide guests through upsell options like room upgrades or spa packages. The platform supports a visual chatbot builder, allowing operators to create conversational flows that trigger based on guest behavior or time of day. Intercom’s AI features, such as Answer Bot, use machine learning to respond to common questions, reducing agent workload. Intercom offers robust integrations with booking engines, payment processors, and CRM systems, enabling a single view of the guest journey. However, the platform’s pricing can be steep for smaller properties, and the AI capabilities are limited to FAQ answering rather than deep knowledge‑base exploration. Additionally, Intercom does not provide persistent long‑term memory; each chat session is independent unless integrated with external databases. The pricing structure includes a free trial, then Standard at $39/month (up to 3 agents, 5,000 conversations), Premium at $99/month (unlimited agents, advanced automation), and Enterprise at $199/month (custom billing and dedicated support).

Tidio blends live chat with a chatbot builder to deliver a lightweight, cost‑effective solution for hotels. The platform’s drag‑and‑drop chatbot editor lets users design conversational flows without coding, and its AI engine can answer common questions about room availability, rates, and local attractions. Tidio supports integrations with popular e‑commerce platforms such as Shopify and WooCommerce, enabling hotels that also sell merch or gift cards to manage all conversations in one place. While Tidio’s free tier includes unlimited visitors and basic chat, the premium plans unlock additional agents, advanced automation, and video chat. A notable limitation is that Tidio’s knowledge‑base is file‑based and does not include a graph‑based approach, so it may struggle with complex, relational queries. Moreover, persistent memory is not available; each guest conversation is treated as a new session. Pricing starts at $18/month for the Basic plan (up to 2 agents, limited automation), $29/month for the Premium plan (up to 4 agents, advanced automation and video), and $69/month for the Enterprise plan (unlimited agents, priority support).

Zendesk Chat (formerly Zopim) is a widely used live‑chat solution that offers an AI chatbot add‑on for basic automation. Hotels can use Zendesk Chat to provide instant support for booking questions, rate inquiries, and reservation changes. The platform’s chatbot can be configured to answer frequently asked questions and hand off to a live agent when needed. Zendesk Chat’s strengths include deep integration with the Zendesk ecosystem, allowing tickets to be automatically created from chat conversations and enabling a unified view of guest interactions. However, the native AI chatbot is relatively simple, lacking advanced natural language understanding or a sophisticated knowledge‑base. Persistent memory is also limited to the session; guests must re‑enter information on each visit unless integrated with an external database. The pricing tiers are: Free (limited features, 1 agent), Growth at $19/month (up to 3 agents), and Business at $49/month (unlimited agents, advanced reporting). For hotels that already use Zendesk for support, adding Zendesk Chat can streamline guest communication.