Botnation AI is chatbot software for building a chatbot for your website, Facebook Messenger and Google Assistant.
Do you want to know whether this chatbot software is worth it to invest in? Let’s find out!
Sneak peek: Yes, it is 😉
I based my review on my ultimate guide on choosing the best chatbot software.
User Interface
If you log into Botnation AI, the first thing you see is the dashboard:
Here is the overview of all of your chatbots, the templates that you can use to build a chatbot and on which channels you can put them.
When you are going to build the actual chatbot, it is possible to go through a complete tutorial (if it is your first time):
This is a really useful feature, especially for people who are not familiar with the platform or for people who don’t have much experience with building chatbots.
In Botnation AI the interface is structured in the following way:
- On the left-hand side, you have all the blocks (or flows) of your chatbot
- On the right-hand side, there are the contents of your blocks
Next to the content of your actual flows, it is also possible to set certain variables (or custom fields) for your chatbot:
This is really useful if you want to use the same information in different parts of your chatbot. For example, the name of your restaurant, the street name, the street number and the zip code.
Besides, it is possible to test your chatbot in Facebook Messenger.
In general, the interface is pretty easy to use. But I must say this interface has a higher learning curve than most other chatbot software. Because Botnation AI puts all the variables and content of the flows in one interface, the interface becomes a little bit overwhelming.
But if you go through their tutorial and use one of their templates, it still is pretty easy to set up a chatbot.
- Visual Flow Builder
- Test chatbot
- Interface easy to use?
- Easy to setup a chatbot?
Chatbot elements
Botnation AI provides all the elements you need. They only do not provide Files, but this is certainly no deal-breaker:
Next to the “standard” elements, it is also possible to do Games and Polls in Botnation AI! This is a great way to make your chatbot more fun and engaging:
What I really like about their elements is the Date & Time element. Instead of just filling in a date in normal text, this automatically opens a Webview in which you can select a date and time on a calendar:
Furthermore, Botnation AI is one of the only chatbot software that provides location sharing in Facebook Messenger. Facebook disabled this feature in Facebook Messenger itself, but Botnation AI made a work-around for this by using their own location sharing feature in a webview:
- Delays
- Images
- Video
- Audio
- Attachments
- Gallery (Horizontal list)
- Vertical list
- Emojis
- Persistent Menu
- Quick Replies
- Buttons
- Free text input
- Location sharing
- Email validation
- Phone number validation
- Date validation
Users
With Botnation AI it is possible to assign custom fields to specific users and then segment these users based on those fields.
What is a little disadvantage is that you cannot assign tags to certain users, but this not a deal-breaker. You can still use a custom field as a tag, by setting the value of the custom field to “Yes” or “No”.
- Custom fields
- Tags
- User segments
Messages
With Botnation AI it is possible to send broadcasts to all your users or a segment of your users.
But there is also a disadvantage, you cannot send sequences.
Furthermore, it is possible to use conditions and make a chatbot in any language you want. It is, however, not possible to easily translate your chatbot to another language.
- Broadcasts
- Sequences
- Conditions
- Multiple languages
- Easy to translate
AI & NLP
With Botnation AI it is possible to recognize keywords with your chatbot.
Also, it is possible to grab the intention of the user, which they call the “context”. This is extremely useful. With this feature, it is possible to send different messages depending on the context of the user.
- Keywords
- Intents
- Entities
- Dialogflow integration
Channels
With Botnation AI it is possible to make a chatbot for Facebook Messenger, your website and for Google Assistant. I must say that I did not use the Google Assistant integration because you need to apply for this with Botnation AI. This is because Google asks requirements to apply to the program.
If you want to place a chatbot on your website, you can make use of a website widget or you can put your chatbot for the full width on your website. I will explain this further in the Marketing section.
Next to websites and Facebook Messenger, it is also possible to send text messages to your users with the Twilio integration of Botnation AI. So, in general, Botnation AI provides two channels, but you can add SMS by using their Twilio integration.
- Website
- Facebook
- SMS
- Slack
- Whatsapp
- Telegram
- Skype
- Email
Integrations
Botnation AI has a live chat integration, which is the most important integration that a chatbot needs. But it has a little different approach than most chatbot software. Instead of using their own live chat feature, it is using Facebook Messenger itself to handle the live chat. This is great, because you can use Messenger on your laptop and mobile phone.
Next to this integration, it provides integrations with Zapier, Google Sheets, Twilio and Webhooks.
So you have plenty of opportunities to integrate your chatbot with other software applications!
- Livechat
- Zapier
- Integromat
- Google Sheets
- Webhooks
Marketing
Botnation AI does pretty well on this one. It is possible to have a native website widget, a landing page, Facebook Ads, automatically reply to Facebook Comments and to create “Send to Messenger” buttons.
There is, however, a drawback: it is not possible to use the One-Time Notification. For a chatbot software that is primarily focused on Facebook Messenger, it is a huge disadvantage that they do not comply with the latest Facebook Messenger Policy.
If you want to put your chatbot on your website, you can make a website widget which you can fully customize to your identity:
It is also possible to make these widgets full screen, so the chatbot really functions as a complete landing page.
- Facebook website widget
- Native website widget
- Landing pages
- Facebook Ads
- Facebook comments auto-reply
- Button creator
- Custom URLs for your chatbot
Pricing
Botnation AI provides a free plan in which you can make your chatbot. But, you need to be careful. Because it only allows you to build your chatbot, not to actually use it on your Facebook page. To actually use it on your Facebook Page, you need the paid plan.
This seems a bit weird to me because you cannot actually see your chatbot on your Facebook page/website before you are paying for it.
The first paid plan is 29 euros per month, which seems like a really fair price for the features that they are offering. This plan comes with 1000 users per month:
- Free trial
- Free plan
- Price per month29
- Monthly pricing available?
- Money back guarantee
Analytics
The Analytics of Botnation AI are pretty standard. They show the number of users, the number of sent messages and the number of messages the chatbot could not handle.
Next to this, they also have the Recommendation Engine. This is a feature that shows you all the messages the chatbot did not know how to answer. With this engine, it is really easy to improve the answers of your chatbot:
If these chatbot analytics are not enough for you, it is possible to integrate Botnation AI with Chatbase or Dashbot to get more analytics.
- Dashboard
- User input
- User retention
- Sent messages
- Open rate
- Click rate
- Conversion rate
- Fall back rate
- Volunteer users
- Custom dashboards/reports
eCommerce
Botnation AI does not have any eCommerce integrations.
- Payments
- Shopify
- WooCommerce
- Buy directly within the chatbot
- Cart abandonment
Templates & Cloning
Botnation AI provides 8 templates to help you to get started right away.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to make templates yourself and share them with others.
Also, it is not possible to duplicate chatbot flows, but on the other hand, you can duplicate chatbot elements within your flows.
Optimization
With Botnation AI it is possible to A/B test your buttons:
With this feature, you can see which button is clicked more often, the red one or the blue one.
But, that is not it. You can also A/B test on multiple things, like the text of the button and the color:
- A/B Testing
Support
Botnation AI provides great tutorials and documentation to help you to use their platform.
And of course, they have customer support via email.
- Tutorials
- Documentation
- Customer support
Conclusion
So, should you buy Botnation AI?
Yes, I think you should.
Botnation AI is great software for a fair price. They provide many chatbot elements, it is possible to save custom fields and make user segments, it has decent AI & NLP, have many integrations (including live chat) and the necessary analytics to improve your chatbot.
But there are also some disadvantages that you need to take into consideration:
- Their interface has a high learning curve. But if go through their tutorial and use one of their templates, you will be fine.
- They only provide website and Facebook Messenger, so it is not possible to provide an omnichannel experience for your users. You could build this by their Twilio/Zapier integrations.
- It is not possible to send sequences and One-Time Notifications
