Which one is better? ManyChat vs Octane AI

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By Joren Wouters • Updated on

ManyChat and Octane AI are both chatbot builders you can use to create Facebook Messenger chatbots and require zero coding experience.

This means that anyone can create a chatbot with them!

But what are the differences between the two builders? Which platform is better? And which one should you use?

Let’s find out!

1. Interface

ManyChat

The ManyChat interface is one of the best interfaces I have ever seen in chatbot software. And this is because of the flexibility.

In ManyChat you can choose between two interfaces: The Basic builder (kind of like the “Block” structure in Chatfuel) and the Flow builder (which is a visual flow builder):

manychat-basic-builder
Basic Builder of Manychat
manychat-flow-builder
Flow Builder of ManyChat

Moreover, you can test the chatbot in Facebook Messenger, before it actually goes live.

  • Visual Flow Builder
    Create chatbot dialogs with a visual flow builder.
  • Test chatbot
    Is it possible to test the chatbot before putting your new flows or changes live?
  • Interface easy to use?
    Is the chatbot platform easy-to-use?
  • Easy to setup a chatbot?
    Is it easy to set up your chatbot with this chatbot platform?

Octane AI

Because Octane AI is mostly focused on eCommerce campaigns for Shopify brands, you don’t have to start from scratch, but you can choose from a number of pre-built flows:

octaneai-campaign-flows

For example, you can choose to send automatic messages in Facebook Messenger when somebody abandoned their shopping cart:

octaneai-abandoned-cart-campaign

And when you click on one of those messages, you can decide the contents of the message yourself or you let Octane AI optimize the message for you:

octaneai-abandoned-cart-message

That’s it! In just 3 steps, you’ve set up an abandoned cart message campaign in Facebook Messenger. And they have much more campaigns, such as:

  • Browse abandonment (somebody doesn’t add something to their cart)
  • Order confirmations
  • Shipping notifications
  • Marketing opt-ins

With SMS as a channel, you can also create these kinds of campaigns, but you have fewer campaigns to choose from:

octaneai-sms-campaigns

Besides that, you can also create “Custom Flows”. These are messages that are automatically sent after a trigger (for example, when someone becomes chats with your chatbot for the first time):

octaneai-custom-flows

Moreover, it is also possible to set up “Questions”, which is a set of questions you can ask your user:

octaneai-questions

As you can see above, it is really simple to set up your chatbot campaigns and it is really easy to use the interface. Also, you can test all your chatbot flows inside Facebook Messenger before they go live.

The only drawback, in my opinion, is that it is not possible to make custom flows (as you would do in ManyChat) yourself. Almost all of the flows inside Octane AI are in some way pre-built by Octane AI. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but for some users (who want to customize more), it might not be the perfect fit.

  • Visual Flow Builder
    Create chatbot dialogs with a visual flow builder.
  • Test chatbot
    Is it possible to test the chatbot before putting your new flows or changes live?
  • Interface easy to use?
    Is the chatbot platform easy-to-use?
  • Easy to setup a chatbot?
    Is it easy to set up your chatbot with this chatbot platform?

The winner: ManyChat.

This is a small win for ManyChat.

With ManyChat, you can use pre-built templates (as you will see in the Templates section) and create chatbot flows that are custom-made.

Unfortunately, you cannot create custom flows with Octane AI, so that’s why ManyChat wins on this subject.

2. Chatbot Elements

ManyChat

ManyChat has all the chatbot elements you need in order to build a chatbot. The only thing that they don’t provide is Vertical Lists, which is logical, because Facebook Messenger doesn’t allow this anymore.

  • Delays
    Use delays between messages in your chatbot
  • Images
    Can you send images via your chatbot?
  • Video
    Can you send video via your chatbot?
  • Audio
    Can you send audio via your chatbot?
  • Attachments
    Can you send attachments via your chatbot?
  • Gallery (Horizontal list)
    Show a gallery of cards inside your chatbot. A card consists of an image, title, subtitle and button.
  • Vertical list
    Show a vertical list of items inside your chatbot
  • Emojis
    Can you use emojis inside your chatbot?
  • Persistent Menu
    Can you add a persistent menu to your chatbot?
  • Quick Replies
    Can you add quick replies to your chatbot where users can click on?
  • Buttons
    Can you add buttons to your chatbot where users can click on?
  • Free text input
    Can chatbot users freely type text to your chatbot whenever they want to?
  • Location sharing
    Can users share their location inside the chatbot?
  • Email validation
    When a chatbot user gives their email, can the platform validate it’s a correct email address?
  • Phone number validation
    When a chatbot user gives their phone number, can the platform validate it’s a correct phone number?
  • Date validation
    When a chatbot user gives a date, can the platform validate it’s a correct date?

 

Octane AI

Octane AI provides enough chatbot elements to create a good chatbot.

They only lack some elements, such as Delays, Vertical Lists and Location Sharing, but these are certainly no deal-breakers.

  • Delays
    Use delays between messages in your chatbot
  • Images
    Can you send images via your chatbot?
  • Video
    Can you send video via your chatbot?
  • Audio
    Can you send audio via your chatbot?
  • Attachments
    Can you send attachments via your chatbot?
  • Gallery (Horizontal list)
    Show a gallery of cards inside your chatbot. A card consists of an image, title, subtitle and button.
  • Vertical list
    Show a vertical list of items inside your chatbot
  • Emojis
    Can you use emojis inside your chatbot?
  • Persistent Menu
    Can you add a persistent menu to your chatbot?
  • Quick Replies
    Can you add quick replies to your chatbot where users can click on?
  • Buttons
    Can you add buttons to your chatbot where users can click on?
  • Free text input
    Can chatbot users freely type text to your chatbot whenever they want to?
  • Location sharing
    Can users share their location inside the chatbot?
  • Email validation
    When a chatbot user gives their email, can the platform validate it’s a correct email address?
  • Phone number validation
    When a chatbot user gives their phone number, can the platform validate it’s a correct phone number?
  • Date validation
    When a chatbot user gives a date, can the platform validate it’s a correct date?

The winner: ManyChat

This is a small win for ManyChat.

Both ManyChat and Octane AI provide enough chatbot elements to create a good chatbot, but ManyChat just offers three more: Delays, Persistent menu and Location sharing.

3. Users

ManyChat

With ManyChat you can add custom fields and tags to specific users. Based on those custom fields and tags, you can send messages to specific user segments.

In ManyChat you can view all the users of your chatbot in the “Audience” tab, which gives you a good overview:

manychat-audience

In this overview you can click on each individual user and get all the information of that user, which is extremely useful:

manychat-user

  • Custom fields
    Store information from your chatbot users inside fields. For example, you can ask for someone’s email and store it inside the “email” custom field.
  • Tags
    Add tags to users in your chatbot flows to organize and categorize contacts.
  • User segments
    Can you create user segments based on custom fields and tags?

Octane AI

Octane AI automatically groups your users in four groups (called “Lists” in Octane AI):

octaneai-lists-users

And if you click on one of those lists, you can see the users in that list with some user information:

octaneai-overview-users

Furthermore, you can ask questions to the user and save the answer in a field. But it is not really a custom field, because Octane AI doesn’t allow you to name a specific field when using the Questions feature of Octane AI. So when using Questions, I really don’t know where the values go unless you are using the Email/Phone field.

Moreover, you can also create your own User Segments by setting up specific targeting for Lists:

octaneai-create-list

  • Custom fields
    Store information from your chatbot users inside fields. For example, you can ask for someone’s email and store it inside the “email” custom field.
  • Tags
    Add tags to users in your chatbot flows to organize and categorize contacts.
  • User segments
    Can you create user segments based on custom fields and tags?

The winner: ManyChat

This is a win for ManyChat.

While you can only use pre-built fields with Octane AI, you can create any custom field with ManyChat and assign values to it.

4. Messages

ManyChat

Manychat provides broadcasts, sequences and also subscribing/unsubscribing from sequences.

What I really like about the sequences in ManyChat is that they are really organized. You can see the complete sequence in one overview and you also see which message is sent at which time, a really good feature.

manychat-sequence
An example sequence in ManyChat

Also, with ManyChat you can use a feature called “Conditions”, in which you can use logic to send users through a certain flow.

With ManyChat it is possible to make a chatbot in any language, but it is not possible to easily translate this chatbot to different languages (because you need to do this manually and copy your complete chatbot).

  • Broadcasts
    Send a message to all or a part of your chatbot users at a specific date and time
  • Sequences
    Send messages on a pre-defined schedule with a certain time interval between those messages
  • Conditions
    Make checks in your chatbot flow based on if-then logic. For example, if the user has not given their email, ask for their email.
  • Multiple languages
    Is it possible to create a chatbot in multiple languages?
  • Easy to translate
    Can you translate text to other languages without using a third-party platform and without creating duplicate flows?

Octane AI

With Octane AI, you can send SMS broadcasts that send one message to all of your SMS subscribers:

octaneai-sms-broadcast

Also, by using the “Custom Flows” feature of Octane AI, you can create some kind of sequence by automatically sending a message after a certain trigger (as shown in the User Interface section).

Unfortunately, is it not possible to use conditions or have a chatbot in multiple languages.

  • Broadcasts
    Send a message to all or a part of your chatbot users at a specific date and time
  • Sequences
    Send messages on a pre-defined schedule with a certain time interval between those messages
  • Conditions
    Make checks in your chatbot flow based on if-then logic. For example, if the user has not given their email, ask for their email.
  • Multiple languages
    Is it possible to create a chatbot in multiple languages?
  • Easy to translate
    Can you translate text to other languages without using a third-party platform and without creating duplicate flows?

The winner: ManyChat.

This is a clear win for ManyChat.

With ManyChat, you can create conditions (that allow you to create personalized conversations) and create a chatbot in multiple languages, while this is. not possible with Octane AI.

5. AI & NLP

ManyChat

With ManyChat it is only possible to recognize keywords with your chatbot. Based on a keyword (or a group of keywords) your chatbot gives a certain response.

How it looks in ManyChat:

manychat-keywords

It is no possible to grab the intent of the user, use synonyms or use entities.

ManyChat also doesn’t have a direct integration with DialogFlow. But I created a tutorial on how you can connect ManyChat to Dialogflow.

  • Keywords
    Trigger chatbot flow based on certain words or phrases a user says to the chatbot.
  • Intents
    Trigger a chatbot flow by understanding the intent of the user.
  • Entities
    Capture specific information from sentences. For example, if a user says “veggie pizza”, the chatbot can understand it’s not a regular pizza, but a veggie pizza.
  • Dialogflow integration
    Does the chatbot platform provide a direct integration with Google’s AI Platform?

Octane AI

Octane AI allows you to automatically respond to questions of users by using keyword recognition:

octaneai-auto-response

Unfortunately, it is not possible to understand the intent of the user or use entities with your chatbot.

  • Keywords
    Trigger chatbot flow based on certain words or phrases a user says to the chatbot.
  • Intents
    Trigger a chatbot flow by understanding the intent of the user.
  • Entities
    Capture specific information from sentences. For example, if a user says “veggie pizza”, the chatbot can understand it’s not a regular pizza, but a veggie pizza.
  • Dialogflow integration
    Does the chatbot platform provide a direct integration with Google’s AI Platform?

No Winner

Both chatbot builders only allow you to recognize keywords and automatically reply to it.

So no winner on this one.

6. Channels

ManyChat

With ManyChat it is possible to make a chatbot for your website, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, SMS and Email.

This allows you to make an omnichannel chatbot experience for your users. So for example, when someone gives a certain response on Facebook Messenger, you could send an email based on that response.

With SMS, it is only possible to send text messages to users in the United States and Canada. If you want to send text messages to other countries, you need to use the Twilio integration available in the ManyChat App Store (additional costs apply).

Also, Telegram is in closed beta, which means this channel will soon be added to ManyChat.

  • Website
    Can you publish your chatbot on your website?
  • Facebook
    Can you publish your chatbot on Facebook?
  • Instagram
    Can you publish your chatbot on Instagram?
  • Whatsapp
    Can you publish your chatbot on WhatsApp?
  • Telegram
    Can you publish your chatbot on Telegram?
  • SMS
    Can you publish your chatbot on SMS?
  • Slack
    Can you publish your chatbot on Slack?
  • Skype
    Can you publish your chatbot on Skype?
  • Email
    Can you publish your chatbot on email?

Octane AI

With Octane AI, you can put a chatbot on:

  • Your website
  • Facebook Messenger
  • SMS

Just as with ManyChat, you can only send text messages to the United States and Canada.

  • Website
    Can you publish your chatbot on your website?
  • Facebook
    Can you publish your chatbot on Facebook?
  • Instagram
    Can you publish your chatbot on Instagram?
  • Whatsapp
    Can you publish your chatbot on WhatsApp?
  • Telegram
    Can you publish your chatbot on Telegram?
  • SMS
    Can you publish your chatbot on SMS?
  • Slack
    Can you publish your chatbot on Slack?
  • Skype
    Can you publish your chatbot on Skype?
  • Email
    Can you publish your chatbot on email?

The winner: ManyChat

ManyChat wins on this subject.

They win because they offer two more channels (Instagram and WhatsApp) and offer Email and SMS channels out of the box.

7. Integrations

ManyChat

ManyChat has a built-in live chat integration. Really good, because this is the most important integration a chatbot software needs. They also provide integrations for:

By the way, what I really like about the live chat integration of ManyChat is that they also have an iOS app and Android app, so you can respond to user inquiries on the go.

Moreover, ManyChat has its own App store which allows third-party developers to create their own integrations with ManyChat. Currently, the App Store has 38 apps, but I think this will grow over the years:

manychat-app-store

  • Livechat
    Direct integration with live chat, either via a built-in live chat functionality or a third-party live chat platform.
  • Zapier
    Direct integration with Zapier, one of the largest integration platforms in the world.
  • Make (formerly Integromat)
    Direct integration with Make (formerly Integromat), one of the largest integration platforms in the world.
  • Google Sheets
    Direct integration with Google Sheets, to store or retrieve data from sheets.
  • Webhooks
    Can you call a webhook inside your chatbot flow to send data to other applications?

Octane AI

Octane AI provides a really simple built-in live chat:

octaneai-livechat

It does not provide a lot of functionality, but you can use it to reply to questions of your users (when the chatbot does not understand them).

Besides, Octane AI provides direct integrations with other eCommerce software applications, such as:

  • Justuno
  • Klaviyo
  • Privy
  • Recharge
  • Yotpo

  • Livechat
    Direct integration with live chat, either via a built-in live chat functionality or a third-party live chat platform.
  • Zapier
    Direct integration with Zapier, one of the largest integration platforms in the world.
  • Make (formerly Integromat)
    Direct integration with Make (formerly Integromat), one of the largest integration platforms in the world.
  • Google Sheets
    Direct integration with Google Sheets, to store or retrieve data from sheets.
  • Webhooks
    Can you call a webhook inside your chatbot flow to send data to other applications?

The winner: ManyChat 

ManyChat wins on this category.

ManyChat offers a more extensive live chat than Octane AI and also provide more integrations, such as Zapier, Integromat and Google Sheets.

8. Marketing

ManyChat

With ManyChat, is possible to put a Facebook Messenger widget on your website, create a landing page, connect to Facebook ads, use the One-Time Notification, automatically reply to Facebook comments, create buttons and create custom URLs to your chatbot.

Moreover, ManyChat has a really advanced auto-reply to Facebook comments.

Usually, with auto-reply to Facebook Comments, you make a Facebook post, people comment on it and then you send them an automatic message in Facebook Messenger.

But ManyChat goes further. Next to sending a message in Facebook Messenger, you can automatically like the comment and reply with your own comment:

manychat-automatic-comment-reply

  • Facebook website widget
    Embed your chatbot as a Facebook Widget on your website.
  • Native website widget
    Embed your chatbot as a native widget (your own branding & colors) on your website.
  • Landing pages
    Can you create a simple landing page to drive users to your chatbot?
  • Facebook Ads
    Start a conversation with your chatbot when someone clicks on a Facebook Ad
  • One-Time Notification
    Send one-time notifications via Facebook Messenger for a topic that a chatbot user has opted-in for
  • Facebook comments auto-reply
    Automatically reply with your chatbot to users who comment on your Facebook Posts
  • Button creator
    Add a button to your website to drive users to your chatbot
  • Custom URLs for your chatbot
    Generate a simple URL that can be shared anywhere to send users to your chatbot

Octane AI

With Octane AI, you can put a Facebook Messenger widget on your website:

octaneai-facebook-website-widget

This widget is really simple, you can determine the color, the greeting and on which devices you want to show it. Unfortunately, it is not possible to show different greeting messages per website page.

Besides the website widget, you can also create three kinds of pop-ups:

  • Welcome pop-up
  • Exit-intent pop-up
  • Add to cart pop-up

octaneai-popups

By the way, these pop-ups are also possible with ManyChat.

And you can also use Octane AI to build your own shop quizzes (but I will not cover that in this comparison).

Moreover, you can connect your chatbot to Facebook Ads, automatically reply to comments on your Facebook posts, use the One-Time Notification and create buttons.

  • Facebook website widget
    Embed your chatbot as a Facebook Widget on your website.
  • Native website widget
    Embed your chatbot as a native widget (your own branding & colors) on your website.
  • Landing pages
    Can you create a simple landing page to drive users to your chatbot?
  • Facebook Ads
    Start a conversation with your chatbot when someone clicks on a Facebook Ad
  • One-Time Notification
    Send one-time notifications via Facebook Messenger for a topic that a chatbot user has opted-in for
  • Facebook comments auto-reply
    Automatically reply with your chatbot to users who comment on your Facebook Posts
  • Button creator
    Add a button to your website to drive users to your chatbot
  • Custom URLs for your chatbot
    Generate a simple URL that can be shared anywhere to send users to your chatbot

No winner

There is no winner in this category.

Both chatbot builders provide enough marketing possibilities. While ManyChat has the capability to create custom URLs, you can create complete product quizzes on your website with Octane AI (although I did not cover that in this comparison).

9. Pricing

ManyChat

ManyChat provides a free plan that stays free forever. This plan comes with 1000 contacts and does not have all the features that ManyChat provides (but still enough to make a good chatbot).

If you want more features, you can upgrade to the Pro package, which costs 15$ per month, which is a really low price. The price of the Pro package goes up with the number of subscribers your chatbot has. 1K subscribers result in $25 per month and 5K subscribers is $45 per month.

manychat-pricing

The only possible drawback is that you cannot have a trial for the Pro package, but this does not matter, because there is a 30-day money-back guarantee, no questions asked.

  • Free trial
    Does the chatbot platform provide a free trial?
  • Free plan
    Does the chatbot platform provide a free plan?
  • Price per month
    What is the lowest price per month for creating a chatbot on this platform?
    15
  • Monthly pricing available?
    Is it possible to pay monthly?
  • Money back guarantee
    Is there a money-back guarantee in case you are not satisfied with the platform?

Octane AI

Octane AI provides a 14-day free trial on all of their plans, which gives you plenty of time to decide whether the platform is the right fit for you.

Their first Starter plan costs $29 per month and comes with 250 users, shop quizzes, Facebook Messenger and SMS channels, pop-ups and live chat:

octaneai-pricing

If that is not enough, you can also go with their Pro plan, which costs $199 per month and comes with 1700 users, all of the previous features and A/B Testing.

Also, if you want to use SMS, you pay around $0,015 per sent message.

I think the pricing of Octane AI can be a bit expensive for some companies, so I would definitely recommend starting with their 14-day trial and analyze the extra sales coming through this. Because I also have seen that abandoned cart campaigns (for example) can have a really high Return On Investment, which will cover the extra costs invested in Octane AI.

  • Free trial
    Does the chatbot platform provide a free trial?
  • Free plan
    Does the chatbot platform provide a free plan?
  • Price per month
    What is the lowest price per month for creating a chatbot on this platform?
    29
  • Monthly pricing available?
    Is it possible to pay monthly?
  • Money back guarantee
    Is there a money-back guarantee in case you are not satisfied with the platform?

The winner: ManyChat 

Again, a clear win for ManyChat. 

The prices of ManyChat are way cheaper than those of Octane AI, so that’s why they win in this category.

10. Analytics

ManyChat

ManyChat provides a basic dashboard for your chatbot analytics, showing you the total subscribers, unsubscribes and net subscribes:

manychat-dashboard
Source: ManyChat

 

Furthermore, they also provide analytics for each block in your chatbot. For each block, they provide the number of people the message is delivered to, the open rate and the click rate.

manychat-analytics-block

And this also holds for sequences:

manychat-analytics-sequence

There are only two drawbacks about the analytics in ManyChat:

  1. The analytics are all over the place. There is no one clear, in-depth dashboard with all relevant analytics, but this is distributed over multiple sections (Broadcasts, Sequences, etc.)
  2. There is no overview of unmatched keywords. If a user filled in a word that did not get a response, you cannot get this information in your ManyChat dashboard. This is a big disadvantage because it does not allow you to easily improve your chatbot. But I have made a solution for this: the ManyChat User Input Dashboard.

What ManyChat also has, is the ManyChat Pixel. This is a pixel you can put on your website to track conversions coming from your chatbot, really useful feature!

  • Dashboard
    Dashboard that provides general analytics of your chatbot.
  • User input
    Get the input from users that your chatbot didn’t understand.
  • Sent messages
    The number of messages that were sent by your chatbot.
  • Open rate
    The percentage of chatbot users that opened a message inside your chatbot.
  • Click rate
    The percentage of chatbot users that click on a button inside your chatbot.
  • Conversion rate
    The percentage of users that converted through your chatbot. For example, the percentage of users that gave their email address
  • Fall back rate
    The percentage of interactions where the chatbot did not know an answer to a question.
  • Custom dashboards/reports
    Can you create your own dashboard or reports?

Octane AI

Octane provides a lot of analytics, way too much to cover all in this review. But I will cover the main ones.

They provide a dashboard that shows a lot of stats, such as how many revenue you got and the number of Messenger/SMS subscribers you have:

octaneai-analytics-dashboard

Also, you can see a breakdown of the most profitable campaigns, and see the number of clicks, orders and revenue:

octane-ai-analytics-breakdown

Furthermore, you can also easily improve the answers of your chatbot, because Octane AI provides an overview of all the phrases your chatbot did not understand:

octaneai-user-input-analytics

  • Dashboard
    Dashboard that provides general analytics of your chatbot.
  • User input
    Get the input from users that your chatbot didn’t understand.
  • Sent messages
    The number of messages that were sent by your chatbot.
  • Open rate
    The percentage of chatbot users that opened a message inside your chatbot.
  • Click rate
    The percentage of chatbot users that click on a button inside your chatbot.
  • Conversion rate
    The percentage of users that converted through your chatbot. For example, the percentage of users that gave their email address
  • Fall back rate
    The percentage of interactions where the chatbot did not know an answer to a question.
  • Custom dashboards/reports
    Can you create your own dashboard or reports?

No winner

There is no winner on this subject.

Both chatbot builders provide around the same analytics and enough analytics to improve your chatbot. While ManyChat provides flow analytics, Octane AI provides a lot of pre-built dashboards that you can use.

11. eCommerce

ManyChat

ManyChat has a direct integration with Shopify that allows you to:

  • Recover abandoned carts
  • Notify customers about orders and shipment updates
  • Collect reviews and feedback after purchase
  • Generate repeated purchases

It is, however, not possible to buy a product from your Shopify store within the chatbot.

But, you can receive payments through your chatbot by using the Stripe or Paypal integration.

The only drawback is that ManyChat doesn’t have a WooCommerce integration.

  • Payments
    Collect payments inside your chatbot
  • Shopify
    Direct integration with Shopify to get products, order information and cart data.
  • WooCommerce
    Direct integration with WooCommerce to get products, order information and cart data.
  • Buy directly within the chatbot
    Ability for chatbot users to buy products or services directly from a chatbot
  • Cart abandonment
    Trigger messages in the chatbot when a user abandons their cart on a website or inside the chatbot

Octane AI

Octane AI is a chatbot builder specifically built for Shopify webshops. They provide a direct integration that directly connects to your Shopify webshop. By using that integration, you can send:

  • Abandoned cart messages
  • Order confirmations
  • Shipping updates

And much more.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to accept payments with Octane AI.

  • Payments
    Collect payments inside your chatbot
  • Shopify
    Direct integration with Shopify to get products, order information and cart data.
  • WooCommerce
    Direct integration with WooCommerce to get products, order information and cart data.
  • Buy directly within the chatbot
    Ability for chatbot users to buy products or services directly from a chatbot
  • Cart abandonment
    Trigger messages in the chatbot when a user abandons their cart on a website or inside the chatbot

The Winner: ManyChat (small win)

This is a small win for ManyChat.

While both chatbot builders provide an extensive Shopify integration, ManyChat also offers the possibility to accept payments within your chatbot (which is not possible with Octane AI).

12. Templates & Cloning

ManyChat

ManyChat provides 19 templates which you can directly install to make your chatbot. These include free templates and templates only available for Pro users.

With ManyChat it is possible to make a chatbot template and share it with others. This is really useful when you are making multiple chatbots who do the same thing (for example, Lead generation). 

Furthermore, it is possible to duplicate your chatbot flows and chatbot elements to make your chatbot faster.

  • Templates
    How many pre-built templates does the chatbot platform provide?
    19
  • Make template
    Can you make templates yourself?
  • Share template
    Can you share self-created templates with others?
  • Duplicate chatbot flows
    Is it possible to duplicate chatbot flows, so you can easily reuse them?
  • Duplicate chatbot elements
    Is it possible to duplicate chatbot elements, so you can easily reuse them?

Octane AI

Octane AI does not provide any templates. But this is also logical, because with Octane AI everything is in some way pre-built, so you don’t need to use them any way 😉

Moreover, it is not possible to duplicate your chatbot flows or chatbot elements.

  • Templates
    How many pre-built templates does the chatbot platform provide?
    0
  • Make template
    Can you make templates yourself?
  • Share template
    Can you share self-created templates with others?
  • Duplicate chatbot flows
    Is it possible to duplicate chatbot flows, so you can easily reuse them?
  • Duplicate chatbot elements
    Is it possible to duplicate chatbot elements, so you can easily reuse them?

The winner: ManyChat

ManyChat provides templates and the possibility to share them and copy your own flows, while this is not possible with Octane AI. 

So a clear win for ManyChat.

13. Optimization

ManyChat

It is possible to do A/B testing in ManyChat, but it is not available in the free plan. So you need to upgrade to a “Pro” plan if you want to unlock this feature.

  • A/B Testing
    Can you optimize your chatbot flows by performing A/B tests?

Octane AI

With Octane AI, you can optimize your chatbot flows by using A/B testing.

  • A/B Testing
    Can you optimize your chatbot flows by performing A/B tests?

No winner

Again, no winner!

They both provide A/B testing in their software, so they are equally good.

14. Support

ManyChat

ManyChat provides extensive tutorials on how to make a chatbot and all of the features on their platform.

They also have proper documentation and good customer support.

What I also love about ManyChat is that they have a large Facebook community (75.000 members) in which you can ask all kinds of questions and learn more about the platform.

  • Tutorials
    Does the chatbot platform provide tutorials on how to use its platform?
  • Documentation
    Does the chatbot platform provide documentation on how to use its platform?
  • Customer support
    Does the chatbot platform provide customer support?

Octane AI

Octane AI provides (video) tutorials and documentation so you can get started with their platform.

Also, they provide customer support through live chat and email.

  • Tutorials
    Does the chatbot platform provide tutorials on how to use its platform?
  • Documentation
    Does the chatbot platform provide documentation on how to use its platform?
  • Customer support
    Does the chatbot platform provide customer support?

No Winner

And lastly, no winner.

Both chatbot builders provide tutorials, documentation and customer support. 

Which one is the winner?

ManyChat.

As you can read from this review, ManyChat has the most wins and is therefore the winner of this comparison.

Go to ManyChat

But this doesn’t mean that Octane AI is bad software. Also, with Octane AI you can create quizzes on your website (which is not possible with ManyChat). So if you want that, I would recommend taking a look at Octane as well 😉

Go to Octane AI

Comments (2)

  1. William Evans 17 Aug 2021 Reply

    Joren, I am just getting started in the world of Chabot’s. I truly appreciate your excellent technical evaluations. I have decided to go with ManyChat. Many thanks and keep up the great work!

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