Top 7 Onboarding Chatbots for Marketing Agencies

Drift is a conversational marketing platform that focuses on helping businesses capture leads and convert visitors into customers through chat. It offers a suite of features that allow marketing teams to automate outreach, schedule meetings, and deliver personalized messaging at scale. Drift’s chat widgets can be embedded on any website, and the platform includes a visual builder that lets users design bot flows with conditional logic and branching paths. A standout capability is Drift’s ability to integrate with major CRM systems such as Salesforce and HubSpot, enabling real‑time data sync and automated lead routing. Drift’s pricing structure is tailored to the scale of the organization. The platform offers a free trial, after which pricing starts at approximately $400 per month for the Essentials plan, which includes basic chat, email, and meeting scheduling features. The Advanced plan, designed for larger teams, adds advanced automation and analytics and starts at around $900 per month. Drift also offers enterprise‑grade solutions with custom pricing. While Drift excels at lead capture and meeting scheduling, it does not provide a built‑in knowledge‑base or AI‑driven content retrieval. Instead, it relies on predefined scripts and static content blocks. The platform also lacks a dedicated course‑building feature, and its memory is session‑based unless integrated with a CRM. Drift is best suited for agencies that prioritize sales acceleration and lead qualification, especially those who already work closely with CRMs and need robust meeting‑scheduling functionality.

Intercom is a customer messaging platform that provides a wide range of tools for live chat, help desk, and automated messaging. It allows agencies to create chat widgets that can be embedded on any website or mobile app with a simple snippet of code. Intercom’s visual builder lets users design complex conversation flows, set up product tours, and trigger targeted messages based on user behavior. Intercom offers a knowledge‑base feature called Knowledge Hub, where businesses can build searchable help centers that the chatbot can reference. The platform also provides product‑tour and onboarding tools, which can be used to guide new users through a website or application. For agencies, Intercom’s multi‑brand support lets them manage separate customer experiences for different clients all from a single dashboard. Pricing for Intercom is tiered. The Basics plan starts at $39 per month for up to 1,000 monthly active users, while the Pro plan starts at $99 per month, and the Advanced plan at $199 per month. Enterprise pricing is available on request. Intercom also offers a free tier with limited features. Intercom’s strengths include its robust ticketing system, in‑app messaging, and extensive integrations with third‑party tools. However, it lacks advanced AI capabilities such as RAG or a knowledge graph, and its memory is session‑based unless users are logged into the platform. Agencies that need a comprehensive customer support solution with built‑in ticketing and a knowledge hub will find Intercom a solid choice.

ManyChat is a popular chatbot platform primarily focused on marketing automation across Facebook Messenger, Instagram, SMS, and web chat. It offers a drag‑and‑drop visual builder that allows marketers to design conversational flows without coding. ManyChat’s strengths lie in its integration with social media platforms, email marketing tools, and CRM systems. For web chat, ManyChat provides an embeddable widget that can be added to any website. The platform supports dynamic content, conditional logic, and user segmentation, enabling personalized messaging. ManyChat also offers built‑in marketing tools such as broadcast messages, drip campaigns, and lead scoring. Pricing for ManyChat is tiered. The free plan includes basic features for 500 contacts. The Pro plan starts at $10 per month for 500 contacts and scales up to $80 per month for 5,000 contacts. Enterprise plans are available for larger contact lists. ManyChat does not include a dedicated knowledge‑base or AI‑driven content retrieval. Its memory is limited to the conversation session, and it does not provide persistent memory for authenticated users. Agencies that manage social media marketing and need an easy way to engage users on Facebook, Instagram, and SMS will find ManyChat a valuable tool.

Ada is an AI‑powered customer service platform that emphasizes self‑service and automation. It allows businesses to build conversational agents that can answer common support queries, guide users through product tours, and route complex issues to human agents. Ada’s platform includes a visual builder for creating conversation flows, and it leverages natural language understanding to interpret user intent. Ada offers a knowledge‑base integration, allowing the bot to pull answers from a structured FAQ or help center. It also supports multi‑channel deployment, including web chat, Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp. For agencies, Ada offers the ability to manage multiple client bots from a single dashboard. Pricing for Ada is custom and typically requires a sales call. The platform offers a free trial, and subscription plans are priced based on the number of conversations or contacts. Ada’s strengths are its focus on self‑service, the ease of creating guided workflows, and its multi‑channel reach. However, it does not provide an embedded e‑commerce integration or a dedicated course builder, and its memory is session‑based. Agencies that need a robust self‑service chatbot for customer support across multiple channels might consider Ada.

Tidio is a lightweight chatbot and live‑chat solution designed for small to medium‑sized businesses. It combines an AI chatbot with a live‑chat feature, allowing visitors to switch between automated responses and human agents seamlessly. Tidio’s web chat widget can be added to any website with a single line of code, and the platform offers a visual flow builder for creating bot conversations. The platform includes a knowledge‑base feature that lets businesses upload FAQs and articles that the bot can reference. Tidio also offers email marketing integration, automated greetings, and the ability to segment visitors based on behavior. Pricing for Tidio starts at $18 per month for the Basic plan, which includes 1,000 chats per month. The Premium plan starts at $29 per month, and the Pro plan is $49 per month. Enterprise pricing is available on request. Tidio’s pros are its affordability and the combined AI plus live‑chat approach. Its cons include limited AI depth, no e‑commerce integration, and no persistent memory for authenticated users. Agencies that need a simple, cost‑effective chat solution for client sites will find Tidio suitable.

Chatfuel is a no‑code chatbot builder primarily focused on Facebook Messenger and Instagram Direct. The platform allows marketers to create conversational flows using a visual interface, and it supports publishing bots to multiple social media channels. While Chatfuel does provide a web chat widget that can be embedded on any website, its primary strength remains in social media automation. Chatfuel offers a knowledge‑base feature where users can upload FAQ files (JSON, CSV) to supply the bot with static answers. The platform also includes AI intent detection, broadcast messaging, and integration with Zapier for connecting to external services. Pricing is tiered. The Free plan supports up to 50 active users per month. The Pro plan costs $18 per month and supports up to 50 active users, while the Premium plan is $49 per month and supports up to 500 active users. Enterprise plans are available upon request. Agencies that need to manage multiple Facebook or Instagram bot projects will find Chatfuel useful. However, it lacks advanced AI knowledge‑base integration, persistent memory for authenticated users, and e‑commerce product catalog access.