Tidio Chat vs Drift Chat

Live chat is now a commodity with dozens of options. I was asked which are the best options on the market, narrowing down to Tidio and Drift. Outside of those two options, the top chat plugins include:

• Olark
• LiveChat
• Tawk.To
• Drift
• Zendesk Chat
• Intercom
• Tidio

Each of them offers integrations with WordPress and other popular content management systems. Also, each chat service focuses on different areas, from customer support, sales, free features, and general inquiries. 

Let’s look at how Drift compares to Tidio. I will highlight:

• Each tool’s key features and focus
• Pricing and other features
• Set up & ease of use

Drift

Drift is one of the well-known live chat services focusing on generating sales and growing a funnel. It’s an advanced sales and marketing tool, geared toward larger organizations that want a sales chat functionality. 

As I mentioned, Drift offers features built around sales conversation, making the chat tool a marketing and sales tool over a customer success tool. So while you can use Drift for support, customer success, or other inquiries – it’s best when used for its sales functions. 

Drift sales tools include: 

• Drift AI Conversation
  • A bot with AI for users to book meetings and feel helped quickly
• Drift Prospector
  • It gives you insights into target accounts and their activities on your page
• Drift Intel
  • It gives you a way to qualify a lead without a form quickly

Drift is an excellent enterprise offer, but the pricing is not cheap. They don’t share pricing online without talking to a sales team member. However, users online share Drift pricing starts at around $500 a month for 10 seats with the option to add more seats for $80 to $100 per seat. 

Drift is a more complex setup with the ability to build out complex workflows and conversation paths. In addition, there is the ability to build “playbooks,” which are preset chats for different scenarios. You can also set up meetings, email capture, chatbots, and other settings. 

Drift is an excellent fit if you’re using it across a large team and want the chat to focus on sales. If budget is a consideration, Drift will break the bank. The integrations Drift offers are skewing towards the enterprise with Salesforce, Clearbit, Marketo, Oracle, and others. 

Here are the pros and cons:

Pros: 

• Advanced chatbot workflows to fit all needs
• Integrations with sales and marketing solutions – Marketo and Salesforce
• The chatbot is the best on the market

Cons: 

• Pricing isn’t listed on the website, but there is a high starting monthly price
• Built for large organizations
• There’s a steep learning curve due to complex chatbot workflows

Tidio Chat

Tidio is another popular chat app with a streamlined automation and chatbot functions set. Unlike Drift, Tidio offers a free plan which is a good starting point if you’re unsure whether chat capability is a good investment. 

Tidio is a generalist. The chatbots can function as sales, marketing, and support tools. The free option is a good starting point with limits on the number of chatbots, 2 operator seats and shows the Tidio branding. 

There are the essential chat functions with the following other features: 

• Quick responses (canned responses)
• Typing preview for agents and users
• Visitor information (pages viewed, email, device, etc.)
• Customizable chatbot workflows & chatbot templates
• Advance integration into Shopify websites

Tidio chat works with the following platforms: 

• WordPress
• Google Analytics
• Hubspot
• Mailchimp
• Shopify
• Zendesk

The substantial offering on the free side is perfect for feeling out whether chat is a good option for your business and team. Tidio offers a generous free plan, with prices ranging from $33 to $335. The smaller plans offer set seats, and the addon price is fair – around $4 to $5. The Scale plan, made for larger organizations, offers unlimited seats and custom 1-on-1 onboarding. 

Here are the pros and cons:

Pros: 

• Easy to manage chatbot workflows
• Integrations with Analytics, WordPress, and Hubspot
• Flexible pricing from free to $350

Cons: 

• Limited integrations on the enterprise side, no Salesforce or Marketo
• Reporting and analytics are fairly basic
• User report issues with chat notifications being unreliable

Final Thoughts

Drift is an expensive, top-of-the-line solution designed as an enterprise-level system.  If your company needs less than a 10-seat implementation, there is a startup plan which requires an application with pricing going off the amount raised and current revenue. 

While Drift is expensive – I would recommend any growth-focused organization towards their system if they’re using Salesforce or Marketo. Drift offers sales tools and integrations (Salesforce) that few other chat companies provides, even if you are looking for fewer seats. 

Tidio is a solution most appropriate for smaller teams or budget-conscious organizations. While the chatbots and free features are limited, compared to Drift, Tidio still can improve sales or customer support with chat. The free plan is a perfect choice for the testing chat within a sales organization and a website. 

If you need help setting up Drift or Tidio, tweet me @leonhitchens.