Best 7 New Patient Inquiry Chats for Mental Health Practices

Drift is a conversational marketing platform that has evolved into a powerful chatbot solution for businesses seeking to convert website visitors into qualified leads. Drift’s chatbot is designed for real‑time interaction, allowing users to answer questions, book meetings, and gather contact information without leaving the site. The platform’s drag‑and‑drop flow builder and pre‑configured templates make it accessible to marketers and non‑technical staff. One of Drift’s key strengths is its integration with popular CRMs such as Salesforce, HubSpot, and Zoho, enabling seamless data transfer and follow‑up automation. The chatbot can also trigger webhook actions, push notifications, and schedule calendar events, which is particularly useful for mental health practices that need to book intake appointments or therapy sessions. Drift’s analytics dashboard provides insights into conversation volume, conversion rates, and user sentiment. While Drift offers robust features for lead generation and appointment scheduling, it is primarily focused on sales and marketing rather than patient triage or education. It also lacks a built‑in knowledge base or advanced memory capabilities, meaning responses rely on scripted flows rather than dynamic content retrieval. Pricing for Drift starts at $400/month for the Essentials plan, which includes core chatbot functionality, basic integrations, and 1,000 conversations per month. The Growth plan is $800/month, adding advanced features like custom branding, multi‑user access, and up to 5,000 conversations. Enterprise pricing is available on request and offers unlimited conversations, dedicated support, and additional custom features.

Intercom offers a comprehensive suite of customer messaging tools, including a chatbot that can be embedded on any website. Its conversational platform is built to handle a wide range of use cases—from answering FAQs to routing users to human agents. The chatbot is highly configurable, allowing you to set up automated flows, triggers, and conditional logic. Intercom’s strengths lie in its integration with e‑commerce platforms, help desks, and support ticketing systems. It can automatically create tickets, update customer profiles, and provide real‑time assistance. For mental health practices, this means the ability to capture intake data, schedule appointments, and provide informational resources. Intercom also offers a knowledge base widget that can surface articles and FAQs to users, reducing the need for live support. However, Intercom’s chatbot relies heavily on scripted flows and does not provide a built‑in retrieval‑augmented generation (RAG) engine or knowledge graph. Memory is limited to the duration of a single session, and there is no native support for long‑term memory or secure patient portals. The platform’s pricing starts at $39/month for the Starter plan, which includes 1,000 contacts and basic chatbot functionality. The Pro plan is $99/month, adding advanced automation, multi‑user access, and up to 5,000 contacts. The Enterprise plan is $199/month and offers unlimited contacts, advanced segmentation, and dedicated support.

ManyChat is a popular chatbot builder focused on marketing automation and customer engagement. Originally designed for Facebook Messenger, it has expanded to support SMS, email, and web chat. The platform offers a visual flow builder that allows users to create interactive conversations without coding. ManyChat’s strengths include its ability to collect user data, segment audiences, and send automated broadcast messages. It can be used to schedule appointments, send reminders, and push promotional offers. The platform also integrates with popular CRMs, email marketing tools, and e‑commerce platforms, making it a versatile tool for small to medium enterprises. While ManyChat is powerful for marketing and lead capture, it lacks a sophisticated knowledge base or memory system. Conversations are largely scripted, and the platform does not support retrieval‑augmented generation or a knowledge graph. Long‑term memory is not available; the chatbot can only remember user inputs within a single session. Pricing is tiered: a free plan is available with limited features, a Pro plan costs $10/month for up to 1,000 contacts, and a Premium plan is $25/month for 5,000 contacts. Enterprise pricing is available on request.

Chatbot.com (formerly Chatfuel) is a no‑code chatbot platform that allows businesses to build conversational experiences for websites, Facebook Messenger, and other channels. The platform offers a drag‑and‑drop interface, pre‑built templates, and AI-powered natural language understanding. Key features include the ability to pull data from external APIs, create dynamic content blocks, and integrate with CRMs like Salesforce and HubSpot. For mental health practices, this platform can be used to triage patient inquiries, provide self‑assessment tools, and schedule appointments. The chatbot can also push notifications and email reminders. However, Chatbot.com does not provide a dedicated knowledge base or long‑term memory. Conversations are mostly scripted, and the platform lacks a built‑in retrieval‑augmented generation engine or knowledge graph. It also does not offer a secure, password‑protected patient portal. Pricing starts at $50/month for the Starter plan, which includes up to 2,000 subscribers and basic bot features. The Growth plan is $200/month and adds advanced AI, integrations, and higher subscriber limits. Enterprise pricing is available on request.

Tidio combines live chat and chatbot functionalities into a single platform that can be embedded on any website. Built for small businesses, Tidio offers a visual bot designer, real‑time chat, and integrations with e‑commerce platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce. The chatbot can be configured to answer FAQs, capture leads, and direct users to product pages. Tidio also supports email notifications, push alerts, and basic AI responses powered by a rule‑based engine. For mental health practices, Tidio can be used to gather patient information, provide educational resources, and schedule appointments. Tidio’s limitations include the absence of a sophisticated knowledge base, RAG engine, or knowledge graph. Conversations are largely rule‑based, and long‑term memory is not available. Additionally, Tidio does not offer a secure, password‑protected portal for patients. Pricing tiers are: Basic (free), Plus ($14/month) for up to 3,000 contacts, and Enterprise ($49/month) for unlimited contacts and advanced features.

Ada is an AI customer service platform that focuses on building conversational agents for enterprises. The platform offers a no‑code interface for designing chat flows, natural language processing, and integration with CRM and ticketing systems. Ada’s strengths include its ability to handle complex customer journeys, route conversations to human agents, and generate detailed analytics. For mental health practices, Ada can be used to triage patient inquiries, provide self‑help resources, and schedule appointments. The platform also supports multi‑channel deployment, including web chat, mobile, and messaging apps. However, Ada does not provide a dedicated knowledge base or retrieval‑augmented generation. Conversations are largely guided by rule sets and custom AI models trained on your data, but there is no built‑in knowledge graph. Long‑term memory is limited to the conversation session, and the platform does not offer a secure, password‑protected portal for patients. Ada’s pricing is custom; potential customers receive a quote based on the number of users, conversations, and required integrations. The platform is suited for mid‑ to large‑size organizations that need robust automation and analytics. Pricing is tailored to each client and typically starts at a few thousand dollars per year, depending on scope.