10 Free Chatbot Limitations in 2024 & Switching to a Paid One

According to our article about chatbot statistics, 80% of consumers who have engaged with a chatbot report the experience as positive, and 47% said that they would buy items via a chatbot. This data signifies the impact of using chatbots for businesses who need to find leads, simplify sales, and provide better customer service. Small businesses are looking for free or affordable chatbots to keep up with the trend. Currently there are many free platforms to build and train chatbots such as Chatfuel for different business purposes. However, chatbot platforms tend to limit the number of subscribers or bot features in their free versions.

How to find free chatbots?

We have listed all the top free chatbot providers with relevant criteria such as pricing, references and platforms they are integrated to.

What are the limitations of free chatbots?

The idea of a chatbot that can make you money without making you spend any is tempting, However, free chatbot building platforms provide free bot licenses with limited functionality. Depending on the chatbot building platform, limitations of free chatbots may include:

Limited number of users

Limited number of users can have different meanings depending on what function the bot serves. It could mean a limitation in:

• number of new leads (potential customers)
• number of appointments to be scheduled
• availability of customer service

Features

Limitations in chat automation

Some free chatbot providers limit the training data that developers can use. This results in limitations in automated conversations. As a result, chatbots may fail to provide enough information or generate an engaging conversation with a potential customer.

Limited data retention period

To follow up with leads or users who book demos or schedule appointments the chatbot needs to store the user’s data. A limited data retention period affects the long term relationship between the user and the bot.

Limited integration platforms

A business may have different communication platforms to engage with customers such as Viber, Slack, WhatsApp, etc. Limiting the number of chatbot integration platforms will limit the reach of this chatbot.

No automatic follow up with leads

To follow up with a lead, a chatbot can:

• Schedule a conversation between the customer and a live agent
• Share relevant and/or new content
• Offer deals to new customers

These functionalities may be limited in free versions.

No push-notifications

Notifications are a way to increase chatbot user engagement by sending product updates or promotional messages.

No Facebook Ads integration

Facebook ads play an important role to promote the chatbot and drive users to engage in a conversation with it.

No or limited lead routing

Asking a series of questions and recognizing the user’s intent, the chatbot will route users to the necessary place to find the information they want.

Support: Limited support or bot-building help

Free chatbots may not have onboarding sessions to teach the developer how to build their chatbot or fix its errors. Even when they have onboarding sessions, they wouldn’t include any custom support to answer developers’ questions.

Analytics: No pre-launch or post-launch (A/B) chatbot testing

A/B testing is used to compare two versions of the same chatbots to see which one performs better. To read more about A/B testing feel free to read our article Chatbot testing in 2021 covering A/B, auto & manual testing

Benefits of switching to paid

Chatbot pricing depends on the customer’s business goals like customer service , help with website navigation, scheduling appointments or demos, or generating leads. According to CNBC chatbots are expected to cut back business costs up to $8 billion by 2022 saving up to $0.70 per interaction. Therefore, it is important to evaluate the benefits of investing in a paid chatbot and consider the following:

1. Paid chatbots serve a larger audience compared to free versions.
2. Paid chatbots can accommodate multiple integration domains (e.g. Slack, WhatsApp)
3. Paid chatbots are customizable to complete a goal (e.g. book a ticket) as well as switch between contexts if a user sends an unexpected reply.
4. Paid solutions may offer pre-trained bots.
5. Paid chatbots can be integrated with ad platforms
6. Paid chatbots come with stronger support (e.g. live chat, priority emails)
7. Paid chatbots provide analytics and reports about user data, demographics, intents, and recurrent queries

Switching to a paid chatbot solution should be considered based on the business’s needs, size, marketing strategy, as well as the size of its current and potential audience.

For more on chatbots

If you want to learn more about chatbots, how they work, and their market size, these articles may be interesting for you:

• In-depth Conversational Bots Guide
• 84 Chatbot /Conversational AI Statistics
• Behind the scenes of chatbots: Natural language processing and intent recognition in chatbots

If you are ready to deploy chatbots, we have 2 lists of vendors to help you choose the best fit for your business:

• Voice AI vendors
• Conversational platform vendors

And if you want us to help you find the best chatbot tool for your business