5 Best Sales Chatbots for 2024

Why we chose Zoho SalesIQ

Zoho SalesIQ offers powerful lead generation features that are both affordable and scalable–a hard combination to find. Its ability to integrate with the broader Zoho ecosystem for CRM, email marketing, and more ensures that leads are captured and nurtured throughout the entire sales funnel. This makes it the ideal choice for businesses looking to maximize lead conversion at every touchpoint.

Zoho SalesIQ integrates advanced lead scoring through its AI assistant, Zia, which helps prioritize leads based on user behavior and interactions across multiple channels. This proactive approach ensures your sales team focuses on the most promising prospects. 

What sets Zoho apart from alternatives like HubSpot or Freshdesk is its ability to handle detailed lead management at a fraction of the cost, without compromising on customization or control. For example, at the $17/user Professional tier, you get real-time reporting, unlimited chat sessions, and up to five chatbots, all of which are essential tools for managing high lead volumes efficiently. In contrast, HubSpot’s pricing escalates significantly for comparable features​.

Zoho SalesIQ also excels in multichannel lead capture, engaging prospects via email, social media, web chat, and other platforms, making it highly adaptable to various customer journeys. The platform’s customization options allow you to tailor chat flows and automations to fit specific sales processes, making it easier to engage visitors based on their behavior and convert them into qualified leads. 

Zia’s AI-driven insights provide real-time suggestions and analytics, giving sales teams a clear edge in optimizing interactions. Other competitors like Zendesk or HubSpot offer impressive chatbot tools, but they lack the same level of integrated AI-driven lead scoring and affordability that Zoho delivers. Additionally, Zoho SalesIQ’s enterprise-level plan at $25/user includes up to 10 chatbots and 200,000 visitor interactions, providing incredible scalability at a reasonable price​ compared to competitors. 

Why we chose HubSpot Sales Chatbot

HubSpot Sales Chatbot has the advantage of integrating with HubSpot’s ecosystem, while also prioritizing ease of use and scalability. While Zoho SalesIQ is a strong competitor, HubSpot in several areas such as being a more intuitive and complete solution for growing businesses.

The chatbot integrates directly with the entire HubSpot CRM, allowing sales teams to use AI-driven insights in real-time. This includes lead qualification, email tracking, and contact management. The chatbot can automate interactions, handle lead nurturing, and even schedule meetings with potential clients—all without requiring a technical setup. It’s designed for easy use, so even businesses without a dedicated IT team can quickly implement and benefit from it.

Compared to Zoho SalesIQ, HubSpot is generally more user-friendly and offers a better overall experience, especially for businesses already using HubSpot’s marketing and service tools. Zoho might offer a more budget-friendly option at lower tiers, but HubSpot’s chatbot delivers a smoother integration, more robust automations, and deeper marketing and sales insights at every level. 

At the Starter tier (from $20/month), HubSpot offers core chatbot functionalities like email tracking and meeting scheduling. This makes it a cost-effective entry point for SMBs. The Professional plan ($500/month) adds more advanced features, including sales automation and forecasting, which is essential for growing teams needing deeper insights and more sophisticated automation. Finally, the Enterprise plan ($1,200/month) unlocks powerful tools like predictive lead scoring and custom reporting, giving larger teams the data and flexibility they need to scale.

HubSpot’s comprehensive platform also ensures that your chatbot is fully integrated with email marketing, social media, and customer service, providing an all-in-one solution that scales easily as your business grows. This makes HubSpot the preferred choice for SMBs looking to invest in a long-term, scalable AI sales chatbot solution.

Also read: Best Sales Engagement Software 2024

Why we chose Freshdesk Freddy AI

Freddy AI provides an excellent mix of advanced AI features, cost-effective pricing, and ease of use. 

The platform offers generative AI tools like summarizing conversations, rephrasing responses, and generating emails, which streamline tasks for sales agents and ensure consistency across customer interactions.

Where Freshdesk Freddy AI really wins versus other major competitors like Salesforce or HubSpot is in its ability to assist sales teams by automating tasks and providing real-time agent support through suggested responses and sentiment analysis. This helps sales teams engage with leads and prioritizes interactions based on customer sentiment. Competitors like HubSpot ChatSpot focus heavily on CRM integrations and data management, but Freddy A takes its real-time contextual suggestions a step further, which make sales processes smoother and faster​. 

At its price point, Freddy AI also offers flexible, pay-as-you-go options, with prices starting at $29 per user/month. This makes it an affordable choice for sales teams of any size, especially when compared to Salesforce Einstein, which can quickly become costly due to its focus on enterprise-level features like lead scoring and predictive analytics. While Salesforce might be better for companies requiring deep AI-driven insights, Freddy AI offers strong automation features while being relatively easy to use​.

Additionally, Freddy AI integrates smoothly across multiple platforms like live chat, email, and social media, similar to Zendesk Answer Bot, but it offers more sales assistance tools, especially with its customizable workflows and multilingual support. 

Why we chose Salesforce Einstein

For companies looking to leverage AI within their existing CRM structure while maintaining a high standard of data security and operational efficiency, Salesforce Einstein should be at the top of the list.

Its seamless integration with the entire Salesforce ecosystem, which facilitates an unparalleled level of data accuracy, personalization, and trust make it a go-to for large organizations already using the Salesforce suite. Unlike many AI chatbots that require extensive third-party integration, Einstein AI works natively within Salesforce, allowing real-time access to CRM data for more informed and targeted customer interactions.

A compelling reason for choosing Salesforce Einstein is its AI-driven insights that enhance sales processes, such as generating personalized customer emails and transcribing sales calls into actionable summaries. Competitors like Drift and Intercom offer strong chatbot solutions, but Salesforce Einstein blends chatbot capabilities with comprehensive CRM functionality. Its “Sales Assistant” feature, for instance, provides tailored recommendations for sales activities based on dynamic data, offering a degree of automation and context-awareness unmatched by other solutions.

Salesforce also recently deployed Agentforce, a significant leap in AI-powered sales automation. 

Agentforce allows for the deployment of autonomous AI agents, such as the Sales Development Rep (SDR) Agent, which engages inbound leads 24/7, autonomously handling tasks like answering questions, managing objections, and scheduling meetings. 

This capability helps sales teams focus on closing deals rather than routine lead nurturing. Agentforce operates within Salesforce’s extensive CRM and Atlas Reasoning Engine, allowing data-driven decisions to be made in real-time based on a company’s specific workflows and customer data, setting it apart from traditional chatbots that rely on pre-programmed scripts​. 

Additionally, Einstein boasts some of the best privacy and security in the business through features like the Einstein GPT Trust Layer, differentiating it from competitors like HubSpot or Zoho. This layer ensures customer data remains within the Salesforce platform, reducing risk and increasing enterprise-level compliance—a vital consideration for organizations handling sensitive data.

From a pricing perspective, Salesforce Einstein can be more expensive than standalone chatbot competitors. However, when you factor in its extensive suite of AI features that directly improve sales, marketing, and customer service efforts, it offers excellent value for businesses already invested in the Salesforce ecosystem.

Also read: Best Sales Enablement Software 2024

Why we chose Zendesk Answer Bot

For businesses looking to offer superior customer support with scalable, smart AI tools, Zendesk Answer Bot is the clear winner. 

Zendesk Answer Bot has a natural advantage because of its powerful integration with Zendesk’s comprehensive suite of customer service tools. It excels where other AI chatbots fall short, providing a seamless customer experience across multiple channels, and automating routine inquiries while escalating complex issues to live agents when needed. This balance between automation and human interaction is key for customer support, making Zendesk a top solution.

Compared to competitors like HubSpot Sales Chatbot or Zoho SalesIQ, Zendesk Answer Bot’s ability to work across multiple support channels—including live chat, email, and social media—sets it apart. Its omnichannel support is built to ensure customer queries are handled wherever they originate, providing consistent service across different platforms. 

At the Team Plan ($55 per agent/month), Zendesk Answer Bot provides basic automated responses and live chat capabilities, perfect for handling routine customer queries. However, if your business needs more advanced features, such as multi-language support, you’ll need to upgrade to the Professional Plan ($115 per agent/month), which adds more sophisticated automation options. The Enterprise Plan ($149 per agent/month) goes even further, offering customizable workflows and the ability to scale automation for larger support teams​.

Zendesk recently stepped up its game with the Outcome-Based Pricing model, introduced in 2024. This ensures businesses only pay for customer inquiries that are fully resolved by the Answer Bot. Unlike traditional pricing models, this approach directly ties cost to value, allowing you to scale without overspending. No other chatbot on this list offers such a flexible, results-driven pricing structure​.

Additionally, Zendesk Answer Bot’s Flow Builder allows businesses to create custom conversation paths, ensuring that customers receive tailored responses based on their specific needs. In contrast, platforms like Zoho SalesIQ or Freshdesk Freddy AI are more limited in terms of customization and focus more on general sales automation rather than deep customer support integration. 

Also read: What is Artificial Intelligence?