Chatfuel Review: Features, Pricing, & Alternatives

Chatfuel allows you to easily create chatbots to automate communications on Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Telegram, Line, and your website.

It connects to your knowledge base to find helpful answers to FAQs, offer sales incentives, and encourage conversions. This detailed review covers everything you need to know about automated Chatfuel chatbots.

SMB Guide’s Verdict for Chatfuel

We rate ChatFuel 8 out of 10. It’s a simple and inexpensive chatbot creator for organizations of any size. Its simplicity means limited functions, but it is effective at what it does.

ChatFuel is an AI-driven chat widget you can add to your website or social media accounts. It’s easy to use and integrates with.

Here is what you need to know about ChatFuel’s pricing, features, usability, and what users have to say.

Factor	Rating (out of 10)
Pricing & Plans	9
Real-Time Messaging & Canned responses	8.5
Live Chat AI & Natural Language Processing (NLP)	6.5
Customizable Chat Widgets	7
Visitor Tracking and Analytics	7.5
User Interface and User Experience	9
Integrations and Compatibility	9
Customer Support	8
SMB Guide Rating	8

SMB Guide utilizes a comprehensive set of evaluation criteria for reviewing software to keep our reviews unbiased for our readers. For more information, see our evaluation criteria.

Pricing & Plans

Following a 7-day free trial, you have 2 plans to choose from. While the service offerings are the same, each higher plan offers more messages, and the enterprise plan adds priority support.

Here are the prices for each level.

Business

Get started with up to 500 automated messages per month across all channels. Chatfuel’s business plan is a cost-effective way to answer routine questions without monitoring social media all the time.

Price

• $14.39 per month

Features

• 500 AI messages per month
• Unlimited manual messages
• All channels supported
• Standard support

Who it’s for: The Chatfuel business package is an inexpensive solution for small businesses who want an active social media presence.

Enterprise

When your customer service reps can’t keep up with all the social media and web queries, ChatFuel’s Enterprise plan can handle a lot of your communication needs.

Price

• $300 per month

Features

• 10,000 AI messages per month
• Unlimited manual messages
• All channels supported
• Priority support

Who it’s for: The Enterprise plan is best for growing businesses with heavy web traffic to service a lot of visitors each month.

Real-Time Messaging & Canned Responses

Rule-based chatbots used to be standard, and severely limited in possible responses. They did not evaluate user intent, and only scanned for keywords and returned pre-written responses, which were often not helpful.

Chatfuel leverages ChatGPT to understand user intent and provide more accurate answers, just as a human would (only faster).

Although Chatfuel uses keywords, it does not simply give canned answers, it understands the user’s intent to return accurate answers even to non-standard questions.

Live Chat AI & NLP

Chatfuel can access Natural Language Processing (NLP) in most languages by integrating with Dialogflow, then setting up Janis using a JSON API to manage it.

The beauty of Dialogflow + Janis is in determining the user’s intent, instead of relying on keywords. For example, one user might say “I’d like to make a reservation” and another might say “If I make a reservation, will I be able to change it if I need to?”

They use the same keyword string :make a reservation.” but they want different answers. By interpreting user intent, Janis can provide a link to make a reservation for the first user and answer the second user’s question properly.

Customizable Chat Widgets

Chatfuel’s chat widgets have limited visual customization, but text is open-ended. You can input canned responses and sequences or use one of their templates.

Options might include:

• Re-engaging a returning customer or an abandoned shopping cart
• Display organization information
• Take orders, reservations, and payments
• Inform customers of sales
• Offer customer service

You can match your brand voice and add your logo and business name, but there’s nothing you can do to alter the appearance of the chatbot.

It’s simple to add the chatbot widget to your website, integrate with social media channels, or use Zapier or API support to connect other apps.

Visitor Tracking and Analytics

Chatfuel’s dashboard offers at-a-glance reports about chat statistics and connects to Google analytics for a deeper data dive.

Chatfuel can send user information through Zapier to Google Analytics or your CRM to help you make better informed business decisions.

Collect information about interests, contact details, and queries. Use gathered info to upsell or remind customers about sales on products they have looked at before.

User Interface and User Experience

Setting up a chatbot using Chatfuel’s interface is easy and fast. You will need to set up your knowledge base in advance and input your brand voice.

You can add up to five links to FAQ answers in your welcome screen.

You can start with a blank bot or use a pre-written template loaded with typical scenarios. Your bot can answer FAQs, inform customers about products and sales, ask for signups, take reservations, ask for feedback, and more.

Here’s a WhatsApp sales template flow chart:

Training the bot is simple. You connect with your website or knowledge base and Chatfuel AI generates automatic responses compiled from your resources.

Canned chatbot responses can include additional elements, which are added during setup.

If no Chatfuel templates meet your needs, you can start with a blank bot and add the conversations you want to communicate. Input is easy, you’ll just need to have a script in mind.

Integrations and Compatibility

Chatfuel offers API support and integrates with several popular apps.

Integrations include:

• Shopify
• Facebook Messenger
• WhatsApp
• Instagram
• Telegraph
• Line
• Your website
• Calendly
• ChatGPT
• Stripe
• Zapier

Setup your Chatfuel AI chatbot to book appointments, take reservations, take payments, and more through integrations.

Customer Support

There’s a distinct lack of customer support with lower-priced plans. There’s a bare knowledge base and a chatbot to answer FAQs, and users are directed to a WhatsApp group if they can’t find answers.

The Enterprise plan is the only level that offers priority service.

Chatfuel — Unique Features

Chatfuel is one of the cheapest AI solutions on the market and it’s simple to get started, but it depends heavily on integrations -which you may have to pay for- to deliver additional functionality such as multi-language support and user analytics.

What the Experts Say About Chatfuel

• Software Advice rating: 4.4/5 (27 reviews)
• Capterra rating: 4.4/5 (27 reviews)
• G2 rating: 4.5/5 (44 reviews)

This is a solid tool for building your first bots. It also has a free plan, which is what I used first to get started. I like the straight-forward approach and simple interface. It’s easy to create a bot and you can take it into different directions. Plenty of documentation available as well. Overall this is a good tool, definitely one of the better chat bot tools I’ve personally tested. Worth checking out in my opinion.

Verified Reviewer, Owner – Verified Capterra review

Chatfuel makes dealing with our approaching Facebook messages conceivable by directing the discussions and sending notices to our colleagues when suitable. Chatfuel takes care of business to address routine inquiries.

Kristoffer F., Owner – Verified Capterra review

Chatfuel Alternatives

Still not sure if Chatfuel is the answer to your needs? Here are some other popular AI driven chatbots to consider.

Manychat

Manychat is a platform that primarily focuses on creating chatbots or Facebook Messenger. It’s an excellent choice for businesses that rely heavily on Facebook Messenger for customer interactions and marketing efforts.

It’s also helpful for businesses that aim to automate marketing, sales, and support on Facebook. There is a free plan that offers access to basic features to engage up to 1,000 contacts, with paid plans starting at $15/month.

Get started with Manychat for free!

ChatBot

ChatBot and Chatfuel offer similar services, but in different ways. ChatBot is a more robust platform, offering built-in analytics and NLP support.

However, ChatBot has more limited automatic social media connections. To connect to social media channels other than Facebook Messenger, you’d have to use the API feature. 

Chatbot’s flat-rate pricing plans range from $52/month to $454/month plus custom options for Enterprise service. ChatFuel is significantly cheaper, from $29/month to $149/month.

Sign up to ChatBot for free today!

Respond.io

Respond.io is a messaging CRM that consolidates all your messaging channels into a single platform. This makes it a perfect fit for businesses employing multiple messaging channels and needing a centralized system for overseeing customer communications.

It ensures a smooth and integrated experience in managing customer communications. Respond.io offers a starting price of $99/month ($79/month for annual subscription) and a 7-day free trial with no required credit card.

Start your free trial of Respond.io today!

Other options: Best Chatfuel Alternatives

Getting Started with Chatfuel

Chatfuel is a simple chatbot designed to integrate seamlessly with social media sites and your website. While it has limited standalone features, integrations add tons of functionality.

If you’re looking for a straightforward, easy-setup chatbot to answer FAQs and aid marketing, selling, and conversions, Chatfuel is a great fit.

FAQs

Related reading:

• Chatfuel vs. Manychat