7 Best Forethought Alternatives 7 Competitors

Forethought is a customer support platform that uses generative AI to help companies increase their help desk efficiency, and ultimately, cut costs.

But it needs at least 20k historical tickets to learn from to work well. That’s fine if you’re a medium or large business with lots of ticket volume, but what about small businesses?

Forethought may not be ideal for you, in which case you’ll need to look into Forethought alternatives.

Here are our top picks.

1. LiveChat

Best for: LiveChat is best for sizable companies looking for a robust and dependable live chat solution.

Pricing: $20/user/mo – $59/user/mo

LiveChat is a customer service platform built to help boost lead generation, sales, and customer satisfaction for e-commerce businesses.

It works by relying on a combination of AI automation and human input from your support team.

Features

• Customizable live chat widget
• AI consolidated ticketing system
• Message sneak peaks
• Interactive analytical reports

LiveChat vs. Forethought

Criteria	LiveChat	Forethought
Best For	Small enterprises seeking flexibility and a powerful live chat platform	Medium to large businesses
Standout Feature	Interactive analytical reports	Technology built on NLU
Pricing	$20/user/mo – $59/user/mo	Custom pricing

Conclusion

LiveChat states their pricing upfront, so you won’t have to go through the hassle of signing up for a demo just to get a custom quote like with Forethought.

Its interactive reporting feature that allows you to click on various data points to open relevant chats/tickets also gives the software a leg up against Forethought.

Sign up to LiveChat for free today!

Try LiveChat for free

2. Olark

Best for: Olark is a good solution for startups to enterprise companies who want to provide in-house live agent services.

Pricing: $29/user/mo

Olark is a customer service solution with live chat features that allows your support team to interact with customers directly from your website.

Features

• Automated messaging
• Live chat translation
• Chat transcripts
• File sharing

Olark vs. Forethought

Criteria	Olark	Forethought
Best For	Companies who want in-house live agent services	Medium to large businesses
Standout Feature	Targeted messaging with automation rules	Technology built on NLU
Pricing	$29/user/mo	Custom pricing

Conclusion

Olark is a simple, user-friendly live chat solution that’s likely cheaper than Forethought’s plans. It also comes with a free 14-day trial so you can test it out before you buy.

Where Forethought is primarily for mid-sized companies and larger, Olark is a good choice for small businesses and startups with a small in-house customer support team.

Start 14-day free trial of Olark today

Try Olark for free

3. Tidio

Best for: Tidio is best for mid-sized companies looking to increase sales by solving customer issues.

Pricing: Free – $499/mo

Tidio is a customer service software with live chat, chatbots, and other messaging features to help support teams engage and assist customers in real time.

Features

• Customizable chat widgets
• Customer satisfaction measuring
• Offline messages
• Ticket management

Tidio vs. Forethought

Criteria	Tidio	Forethought
Best For	Mid-sized companies looking to increase sales	Medium to large businesses
Standout Feature	Real-time analysis of visitor behavior	Technology built on NLU
Pricing	Free – $499/mo	Custom pricing

Conclusion

Tidio stands out from Forethought in a couple ways. First of all, it offers a free plan (which Forethought doesn’t have) and is transparent about its pricing tiers. It also provides more in-depth customer analyses than Forethought.

For example, Tidio provides information on visitors in real time, including their location, contact details, the pages they’ve recently visited, and more. This can make it easier to spot and resolve customer issues more quickly.

Give Tidio a try for free today

Try Tidio for free

4. Zendesk

Best for: Zendesk is ideal for businesses who need a customer service solution that can handle high ticket volume across platforms.

Pricing: $25/user/mo – $149/user/mo

Zendesk is an all-in-one customer service solution that includes a help desk, CRM (customer relationship management), and live chat features.

Features

• Real-time messaging
• AI chatbots and widget
• Knowledge base management
• Inbound collaboration tools

Zendesk vs. Forethought

Criteria	Zendesk	Forethought
Best For	Businesses with high ticket volume across multiple platforms	Medium to large businesses
Standout Feature	All-in-one customer service solution	Technology built on NLU
Pricing	$25/user/mo – $149/user/mo	Custom pricing

Conclusion

Zendesk provides a help desk, CRM, and live chat features all in one software. The pricing is also transparent, so you can figure out what your investment will be from the jump.

Compared to Forethought, which only offers live chat/real-time messaging features, Zendesk is the better comprehensive solution for teams who process a high level of customer inquiries.

5. Ada

Best for: Ada is a good solution for teams looking for a code-free chatbot to automate customer support at scale.

Pricing: Request a quote

Ada is a customer service platform with AI automation features built to answer simple queries while routing more complex ones to your customer support team quickly.

Features

• Customizable chat widget
• Canned messages
• Visitor tracking
• Visual chatflow builder

Ada vs. Forethought

Criteria	Ada	Forethought
Best For	Teams looking for a code-free chatbot	Medium to large businesses
Standout Feature	Visual chatflow builder	Technology built on NLU
Pricing	Custom pricing	Custom pricing

Conclusion

Overall, Ada and Forethought are pretty similar on the surface. However, Ada comes out on top if you want a chat widget that’s fully customizable.

Ada’s visual chatflow builder allows you to create and edit custom chatbot interactions. The builder itself uses blocks and arrows to render chatbot flow and logic and uses NLP to trigger personalized live responses.

6. Intercom

Best for: Intercom is ideal for businesses that want automated communications and quick responses across channels.

Pricing: $39/user/mo – $139/user/mo

Intercom is a customer service solution and messaging platform that helps businesses cultivate better customer relationships through personalized chats.

Features

• Automated and customizable chatbots
• Conversation tagging and filtering
• Customer data platform (CDP)
• User feedback collection

Intercom vs. Forethought

Criteria	Intercom	Forethought
Best For	Businesses that want quick, automated communications	Medium to large businesses
Standout Feature	Sentiment analysis	Technology built on NLU
Pricing	$39/user/mo – $139/user/mo	Custom pricing

Conclusion

One big perk of using Intercom instead of Forethought is that it comes with a sentiment analysis feature. This feature basically attempts to analyze how customers are feeling based on their messages and responses.

This can be particularly useful to new businesses who want to know what kinds of feelings their brand evokes, what customers like and dislike, and pain points they’re experiencing that you can fix.

7. Ruby

Best for: Ruby is best for customer service teams looking for a multi-channel communication platform with voice calls and live chat.

Pricing: $235/mo – $1,640/mo

Ruby is a live chat and virtual receptionist solution that screens and routes essential calls while staying compliant with HIPAA policies.

Features

• 24/7 chat and phone coverage
• Website lead capture
• Call forwarding and appointment scheduling
• Unlimited voicemail boxes with custom greetings

Ruby vs. Forethought

Criteria	Ruby	Forethought
Best For	Customer service teams who need live chat	Medium to large businesses
Standout Feature	Virtual receptionist for phone calls	Technology built on NLU
Pricing	$235/mo – $1,640/mo	Custom pricing

Conclusion

Forethought uses AI and automation to assist your existing support team, whereas Ruby is more of a full-blown done-for-you customer service solution. It’s by far the better choice if you want to take the brunt of the work off your shoulders.

Ruby provides live chat customer service agents AND phone receptionists to handle incoming communications from your customers 24/7. You can use them to route incoming calls, schedule appointments for you, capture and verify leads, and more.

Get started with Ruby today

Get started with Ruby

Which Forethought alternative should I use?

While Forethought features advanced technology built on NLP and NLU, it needs at least 20,000 historical tickets or 2,000 tickets/month to learn from in order to work well.

Add to that the non-transparent pricing, and it’s clear why Forethought isn’t really the best fit for new or very small businesses.

If you fall into that category and need a solution that’s more tailored to small business needs, consider one of these Forethought alternatives.

Here’s a quick recap of our top picks for Forethought alternatives:

1. LiveChat
2. Olark
3. Tidio
4. Zendesk
5. Ada
6. Intercom
7. Ruby