Instabot Review

Instabot is a chatbot builder for websites and Facebook Messenger. But should you use Instabot to create your chatbots?

Check it out in this review!

User Interface

If  you log in at Instabot, you will first see an overview of your published (on the left) and Draft Bots (on the right):

Instabot is structured in a way that every chatbot can be shown on one or multiple pages on your website. I will cover how you can determine these pages in the Marketing section of this review.

When you are going to build your chatbots for the first time, Instabot shows a step-by-step guide that helps you understand their visual flow builder:

With their visual flow builder, you can primarily use two types of elements: an element that asks a question to the user (and the user can respond to it) or an element that doesn’t expect a reply (normal text):

What you can see on the image above, is that Instabot shrinks part of the flow so you can read it more easily. Then, when you click on this “shrunk flow”, the chatbot elements expand and you can see all the details. Really intuitive!

Also, you can test your chatbot flow before it actually goes live inside the interface of Instabot:

In general, I think that the interface of Instabot is really easy to use and it is also really easy to set up your chatbot.

In my opinion, the only thing that could be improved is that you can drag and drop the chatbot elements, but this is just a minor thing.

• 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

Instabot provides enough chatbot elements to create a good chatbot.

However, they also lack some elements, such as Video, Audio, Attachments and Galleries.

Moreover, it is possible that a user can reply to a question with free text, but the user cannot ask a question whenever he/she wants.

This has some limitations, but Instabot still provides enough elements to make a good chatbot.

Also, what I really like about Instabot, is that they provide a date and time picker so users can easily book appointments:

• 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

Instabot provides an overview of all the user that talked with your chatbot:

And when you click on one of these users, you can see more detailed information about them:

In Instabot, you can just ask a question to the user and save the response in a custom field.

Moreover, you can also create specific user segments for users that match some conditions.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to use Tags, but this is not a huge deal-breaker.

• 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 Instabot, you cannot send broadcasts and sequences. But this is also logical because their software is mostly focused on websites.

Moreover, you can also use conditions in your chatbot flows, to create more personalized experiences for your users.

Also, it is possible to create a chatbot in any language, but it is not possible to handle multiple languages at the same time.

• 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

Unfortunately, it is not possible to recognize keywords and automatically respond to it.

However, Instabot provides some pre-built intents that your chatbot can understand, such as when a user asks for Pricing:

If this is not enough for you, you can also use the direct Dialogflow integration. With this Dialogflow integration, you can understand the intent with your own intents that you created in Dialogflow. Unfortunately, it is not possible to use Dialogflow’s entities.

• 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

With Instabot you can create a chatbot on your website and on Facebook Messenger.

To be honest, I haven’t used the Facebook Messenger channel, so I don’t know how well this integration is.

Also, you can send simple emails to admins and users with Instabot.

• 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?

Integrations

Instabot provides a built-in live chat, which is the most important integration of any chatbot builder:

Moreover, they provide direct integrations with:

• Zapier
• Google Calendar
• Office 365 Calendar
• Salesforce
• Eloqua

If this is not enough, you can also create your own webhooks.

• 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?

Marketing

With Instabot, it is possible to put a native widget on your website and to create a landing page that shows your chatbot.

The native widget that you can put on your website is pretty advanced. First of all, you can change the appearance of the widget by changing the avatar, colours and you can even upload your own CSS file:

Then, you can determine on what pages the chatbot should be triggered and how it must look (only a button or also automatically launching the chat widget):

Next, you can determine when the chatbot should be triggered (for example, after a delay) and for who it must be triggered:

Lastly, you can determine if you want to show a certain greeting message:

Additionally, you can also create a landing page with your chatbot on it:

• 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

Instabot provides a 7-day free trial on their Standard plan, which allows you to test out most features of their software.

When this free trial is over, you can go with their Base plan, which is $49 per month and comes with 5,000 monthly active users per month, 1 user seat, 1 custom bot built for you by Instabot, unlimited chatbots, analytics, custom fields and a Zapier integration:

What is unclear to me is what a “monthly active user” is. Is this a website visitor is is this someone that talked to your chatbot?

If you want more features of 5,000 monthly active users is not enough, you can go with their Standard plan, which costs $149 per month. This plan comes with 10,000 monthly active users, all the features in the Base plan, 5 user seats, Advanced Bot UI options (color changing, custom CSS file), live chat, calendar integration and a Dialogflow integration.

In my opinion, I think Instabot is a bit expensive. If you need to pay $49 per month and you cannot use live chat, this won’t cut it for most businesses. So, if you want to have live chat and a chatbot, you need to pay $149, which is pretty much. Especially, if you compare this with other chatbot builders, there are chatbot builders with more features and cheaper plans.

• 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?
  49
• 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

Instabot provides a dashboard in which you can see the analytics of multiple bots. In essence, this is just a simple chart with the number of goals reached and the number of engaged conversations per week:

Additionally, you can also see specific analytics per chatbot. These analytics shows how many users responded to your questions and what they’ve responded:

I think these analytics are a bit minimal, but are still enough to improve your chatbot flows.

• 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

With Instabot, you can accept payments inside your chatbot, using their direct integration with Stripe.

Unfortunately, they do not provide integrations with eCommerce software, such as Shopify and WooCommerce. This is a drawback, especially for a chatbot builder that is so focused on websites.

• 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

Instabot provides 12 templates that you can use to get started with your chatbot in minutes.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to create these templates and share them with others.

Likewise, it is not possible to duplicate your chatbot flows and chatbot elements.

• Templates

  How many pre-built templates does the chatbot platform provide?
  12
• 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 Instabot, it is not possible to do any optimization, such as A/B testing.

• A/B Testing

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

Support

Instabot provides documentation and tutorials on how you can use their platform.

I don’t know if their documentation is 100% up-to-date, because I cannot find anything about the Facebook Messenger channel. But for most things their documentation is sufficient.

Moreover, they provide support through 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?

Conclusion

So, should you buy Instabot to create your chatbots?

Yes, I think you should.

But it depends on two things: the number of website visitors you have and the average revenue per user.

Instabot is useful for companies that have lots of website visitors with a high average revenue per visitor. And then, I would recommend using Instabot. With Instabot you can create personalized chatbot experiences per page and also customize the messages using conditions.

Instabot has an easy-to-use Visual Flow builder, you can assign custom fields and create user segments, built-in live chat, use conditions in your chatbot, Zapier integration, advanced website widget, Dialogflow integration,

That being said, Instabot also has some disadvantages:

• Cannot reply to keywords
• User cannot type in something whenever he wants
• Mainly supports one channel: Websites
• Can be a bit expensive
• Minimal analytics