Drift Review: Features, Pricing, & Alternatives

Our Verdict

Explore Drift’s real-time messaging for sales conversations and marketing engagement. Boost your business with personalized customer interactions today.

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Drift Drift
Software Type: Buyer engagement platform
Best For: Businesses seeking to improve customer engagement and marketing automation.
Pricing: Starts at $2,500/mo
Pros:
  • User-friendly interface
  • 40+ integrations
  • AI-powered platform
  • Proven increase in sales
Cons:
  • No free trial or plan
  • Expensive pricing

Diving into this Drift review, We uncover the true potential of this Innovative software. Designed to streamline customer communication, Drift aims to revolutionize your business operations, but does it deliver on its promises?

Can it truly enhance your customer engagement? This review is here to answer all your questions and guide you toward making an informed decision.

Let’s delve deeper into the world of Drift.

SMB Guide’s Verdict for Drift

Drift gets an 8.3 out of 10 from us because it is easy to use, has strong live chat and chatbot features, and so on.

We don’t give it a perfect score because it is an expensive platform that offers so many features, it can take a bit to really understand how to leverage the platform to its fullest potential.

FactorRating (out of 10)
Pricing & Plans5
Real-Time Messaging & Canned Responses10
Live Chat AI & Natural Language Processing (NLP)9
Customizable Chat Widgets8.5
Visitor Tracking and Analytics9
User Interface and User Experience9
Integrations and Compatibility8
Customer Support8
SMB Guide Rating8.3

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

Drift offers three pricing plans, but pricing information is only available for the base plan.

Drift pricing

You must speak to someone to get pricing information for the mid-tier plan, and the top plan is customized based on the needs of your business.

Premium

The basic plan Drift offers.

Price

  • $2,500/month billed annually

Features

  • Live Chat
  • Meetings
  • Custom Chatbots
  • Intel
  • Real-Time Notifications
  • Conversational Landing Pages

Who it’s for: small businesses

Advanced

A custom-priced plan with additional features for businesses that need more.

Price

  • Custom pricing after a chat with someone from the team

Features

  • Everything in Premium plus:
  • Fastlane
  • Audiences
  • A/B Testing
  • Flex Routing

Who it’s for: Growing businesses that want to engage audiences with more personalized messages and grow qualified pipelines with less effort.

Enterprise

A custom plan designed to suit the needs of your business and customer lifecycle.

Price

  • Custom

Features

  • Custom plan with access to:
  • Workspaces
  • AI-Powered Chatbots
  • Custom role-based access controls (RBAC)

Who it’s for: Larger businesses looking to scale personalization and pipeline generation efforts across the full customer lifecycle.

Real-Time Messaging & Canned Responses

Though I couldn’t test the live chat from the customer’s back end, it’s a robust platform that lets you add Zoom meetings with Drift Meetings, bring in other agents, and so on.

Drift meetings

Based on these features, it seems like it would be easy to add and trigger canned responses and carry on multiple conversations in real-time.

Live Chat AI & NLP

Without an actual account, all I could do is test the chatbot on the Drift website. I asked it specifically how the chatbot works with AI – and I was pleasantly surprised by the response.

Drift Bot

It seems grammatically correct and very human-like, which is what we want to see in a software like this.

Customizable Chat Widgets

You can control your widget colors on all plans. You can also add a custom image for your widget or change your bot avatar on all paid plans starting with premium.

You can only have one widget design at a time.

Drift chat widget customization

Changing your widget design is as simple as navigating to Settings > Apps > Draft Widget > Design and Language.

Visitor Tracking and Analytics

Using Drift, you can track visitor behavior, such as pages visited, time spent on each page, and the source of their visitor.

You can see real-time notifications when a visitor takes a specific action, such as submitting a form or starting a conversation.

Drift also offers detailed analytics and reporting to measure the effectiveness of your conversations, track lead generation, and analyze overall chatbot performance.

User Interface and User Experience

Though I didn’t personally use the software, I was able to review the dashboard through the demo video I found. From what I could see, the user interface and user experience is really easy to understand.

Integrations and Compatibility

Drift offers a variety of integration options, including CRM platforms like Salesforce and HubSpot, email marketing tools, collaboration tools, and Google Analytics.

There are also integrations with CMS platforms, social media platforms, and more. As a cloud-based platform, you can access Drift from any device with an internet connection.

There are also mobile apps available for Android and iOS.

Customer Support

Drift offers multiple customer support options. You can find articles and guides on how to use their platform in the Drift Help Center.

If you need more immediate assistance, you can reach out to them via the website’s live chat features or email them. Response times vary depending on inquiry volume.

When you sign up, you have the option to invest in assisted onboarding, and Drift certifications to help you make the most of the platform.

Drift — Unique Features

Drift is more than just a live chat or chat bot tool. It offers complete sales and marketing automation tools and support.

You can build a deal pipeline, track the progress of those deals, integrate with other tools, and more.

What the Experts Say About Drift

At the time of this writing, Drift had the following reviews:

  • G2 rating: 4.4/5 (1,000+ ratings)
  • TrustRadius rating: 8.3/10 (160+ ratings)
  • Capterra rating: 4.5/5 (190+ ratings)

With two substantially different audiences being targeted by our business, and a general need to do a better job of quickly connecting with promising leads, we’ve been quite pleased so far with Drift. We’ve already had several great opportunities arise thanks to the tool, and still have a large number of new bots to roll out, plus refinements to make based on our learnings from using the tool. As a supplement to our other inbound marketing efforts, I foresee chat through Drift being a substantial asset for a long while to come.

Rob, Content & SEO Specialist – Verified Capterra review

Drift allows me to communicate with clients and gauge the level of interest they have in our offerings. My end aim is to close a transaction, and Drift helps me do this by facilitating instantaneous communication with prospects and clients, allowing me to address their concerns and guide them toward a conclusive next step in the buying process.

Sarah, System Administrator – Verified Capterra review

Drift Alternatives

Not 100% convinced Drift is right for your business needs or budget? Take a look at these other options.

 
 
 
4.5
3.9
4.3
Free - $95/user/mo
$39/user/mo - $139/user/mo
$25/user/mo - $149/user/mo
4.5
Free - $95/user/mo
3.9
$39/user/mo - $139/user/mo
4.3
$25/user/mo - $149/user/mo

Freshchat

freshchat homepage

Freshchat is part of the Freshworks suite, which means it seamlessly integrates with other Freshworks products like Freshales and Freshdesk.

It can provide a more unified customer service and sales experience if you’re already using or considering these tools. Freshchat also offers a free plan, whereas Drift doesn’t.

It’s a much more cost-effective option for small businesses or those who are just starting to explore live chat software.

Freshchat could be the better choice for businesses looking for an affordable, user-friendly live chat tool that integrates well with other customer service and sales software.

Start your free trial of Freshchat today!

Intercom

Intercom homepage

Intercom is a well-rounded communication platform that covers support, marketing, and sales tasks, whereas Drift is more sales-oriented.

This makes Intercom a more versatile tool capable of serving a wider range of business needs. Intercom offers more integration options than Drift.

Some of the most popular integrations include Stripe, Salesforce, Slack, HubSpot, Jira, and Segment. It’s a more flexible tool that seamlessly fits into various tech stacks.

Intercom pricing starts at $39/seat/month, making it far more affordable than Drift, which starts at $2,500/month.

Zendesk

Zendesk homepage

Zendesk is considered Help Desk software and is often used for more service and success activities, while Drift is considered customer support chat and is primarily designed for sales and marketing conversations.

Zendesk pricing starts at $19/month, making it far more affordable for small businesses compared to Drift.

Zendesk Support Suite is better suited for businesses that need a robust help desk solution with strong messaging capabilities and a proven track record of user satisfaction.

Other options: Best Drift Alternatives

Getting Started with Drift

Drift is a powerful tool that provides real-time messaging for sales and marketing engagement. The AI-driven feature allows for personalized customer interactions, making it a great choice for businesses to boost sales and marketing efforts.

Though it lacks the extensive integrations found in some competitors, its focus on sales-oriented conversations makes it stand out.

So why wait? Start your journey with Drift today and revolutionize your customer communication strategy.

FAQs

Is Drift Website legit?

Yes, drift is a legitimate website and software. It’s a well-regarded SaaS marketing solution with high ratings on user review websites.

Is Drift a good company?

Third-party employers review websites like Great Place to Work and Comparably indicate that the vast majority of employees say the company is a great place to work.

What does Drift software do?

Drift is a cloud-based software designed to automate sales processes and enhance customer experience by integrating live chat windows on websites.

The software is part of Drift’s Conversation Cloud, which users chat, email, video, and more to help businesses connect with customers at the most crucial moments.

Freshchat

Engage your customers with smarter conversations on any channel.

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Drift

Creating a world where AI works for humans to deliver the right experience at every touchpoint of the buyer journey.

Product Brand: Drift

Editor's Rating:
4.1

Lucinda has spent the last 15 years working from home as a freelance writer and WordPress designer, and throughout her career, she has worked directly with several digital marketing agencies with clients in the SaaS space, ranging from e-commerce platforms to procurement software.