Chatbotize Review

Chatbotize is chatbot software for Facebook Messenger and websites. In this review, I will cover various aspects of the software, such as the interface, the different channels, integrations, pricing, analytics and much more.

For writing this review about Chatbotize, I used the criteria of my post “How to choose the best chatbot software“.

User Interface

The interface of Chatbotize is fine. On the left there you have multiple options to choose from via the menu, such as the “AI Consultant”, “Plugins” and “Statistics”. On the right is the content of the section that you chose.

When you begin, there is a really a hands-on “Getting Started” section, in which the platform itself helps you to start with building your chatbot. Really helpful, when you are a first-time user!

The interface does not consist of a drag and drop interface. It rather is just an overview of all the content that you have in your chatbot. Chatbotize works with “Topics”, which you can specify yourself. For example, you could have multiple sentences that really mean the same thing “Such as till how late are you open?” and “What are your opening times?”. In Chatbotize, these sentences could be under the topic of “Opening Times”, which allows you to give the same response to multiple kind of questions.

It is also really helpful that in the right corner of the screen, there is a button which connects you to the chatbot of Chatbotize, which could help you further or give you more information. Also, in the interface you can get more information about certain topics, by clicking on the “?” button. When you do this, a youtube video pops up with more information. Moreover, you can test the chatbot in the interface yourself.

• 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?

Chatbot elements

Chatbotize does not provide a wide variety of elements. They only provide images, buttons, quick replies, text, audio, video and emojis. So this is not a really large collection of elements. However, it think they really cover the basics and these elements are enough (for most businesses) to build your chatbot with. So, for most companies, this is not really a deal-breaker.

They also provide another feature, which is extremely good: Plugins. Until now, they have 26 plugins, but this is growing. One plugin is a small application in their software. So, you have a plugin for broadcasts, there is a plugin for contests, for newsletters, quizes, promotional codes, segmentation and lots more. This is really useful when you want to step up your chatbot game.

• 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?

Users

With Chatbotize is it not possible to add custom fields or tags to users. So, those are two drawbacks.

What is possible, however, is segmentation, but not with custom fields. You could (for example) make a quiz in Chatbotize, and send different messages based on how the user responded to the quiz. The drawback of this segmentation feature is that you need to make use of a quiz and cannot use segmentation in general.

• 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?

Messages

With Chatbotize, it is possible to make broadcasts and sequences. I must say, that making a sequence in Chatbotize is a little bit hard, because the interface is not really providing an overview when you are making a sequence, but it is doable.

Furthermore, they do not conditions or 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?

AI & NLP

As I said before, Chatbotize makes use of “Topics”. Multiple phrases or words can relate to one certain topics, and then you can specify your answer per topic. It really works the same as with intents. You can catch the intent of the user with specifying certain phrases and then give the right answer, based on the intent. So Chatbotize provides keywords & intents, which is pretty good.

• 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?

Channels

Chatbotize provides two channels: Facebook Messenger and websites. The drawback is that it does not provide integrations with other channelss (yet). But, because this is a growing company, I expect that more channels are coming soon.

• Website

  Can you publish your chatbot on your website?
• Facebook

  Can you publish your chatbot on Facebook?
• 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?

Integrations

Chatbotize has a built in “Handover”, which really is a livechat feature (the most important integration any chatbot sofware needs). 

Unfortunately, that is the only integration they provide. Currently, they do not have any other integrations with software, which makes it really hard to connect your chatbot with software you are already using. 

• 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 an API inside your chatbot flow to send or get data from other applications?

Marketing

Chatbotize provides a connection with Facebook Ads, an automatic reply feature for Facebook comments and the possibility to use the One-Time Notification. Also, with their website integration, you can have a Chatbotize widget or a Facebook Messenger widget on your website.

• 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

Pricing

Here comes the big disadvantage of Chatbotize: the pricing.

The “Start” plan of Chatbotize costs 99$ a month, which is on itself pretty much for the features you get. Only 2 basic plugins are included and 5 “Topics”. I think this is pretty much for chatbot software with no integrations (except for livechat) and only for two channels (Facebook and websites).

If you upgrade to a higher plan (called the “Plus” plan), it will costs you $199 and this includes the 2 plugins and 10 “Topics”. Also, you can use more plugins, but you need to pay extra for this. For every additional plugin, you need to pay $9 a month per 1000 users. To my opinion, Chatbotize is really expensive.

• 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?
  99
• 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?

Analytics

Chatbotize provides a really good dashboard with the most important statistics of your chatbot. It gives you information about the total users, new users and active users. However, the Analytics section does not provide any information about characteristics of users (because this is not a feature in Chatbotize).

What they also do really well, is that they provide a section called “Unrecognized questions”. In this section, all the questions are collected for which the chatbot could not provide an answer. With this feature, you know how to improve your chatbot.

• 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?

eCommerce

Chatbotize provides integrations with Shopify, WooCommerce and Magento. But it is not the regular integration you would expect. This integration only automates information about current order/parcel status.

• 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

Templates & Cloning

Chatbotize does not provide any pre-built templates. Likewise, it is not possible to create templates yourself and share them.

Also, it is not possible to duplicate your chatbot flows and 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?

Optimization

With Chatbotize it is not possible to do any kind of Optimization, such as A/B testing.

• A/B Testing

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

Support

They do provide support and have a good knowledge base with video tutorials on how to build the chatbot using the Chatbotize 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?

Conclusion

I think that Chatbotize is one of the chatbot software that we really need to keep an eye on. They have various good features in their software, like the Plugins and the livechat integration.

The big drawback of this chatbot software is the price. Their first paid plan is $99 per month and only includes 2 plugins and 5 “Topics”, which is not a lot. When you go one plan higher, you need to pay $199 per month, but you also need to pay extra for each additional plugin. So for small companies, this is not really interesting, because this software becomes really expensive really fast.

Also, for larger companies, who want to scale up their chatbot game, this software is not really interesting. Most larger companies want to provide a omni-channel marketing experience, but with this chatbot software only two channels are included: Facebook and websites. Moreover, most larger companies already use certain software and it would be useful if they could connect this software to their chatbot, but because this software does not provide such integrations, this is not possible.

Thus, really interesting software to keep an eye on in the future, but to my opinion, not really interesting to a lot of companies right now…