Drift vs Messagely

Messagely is an affordable Drift alternative. It comes with all the features that Drift offers (and more), and costs just a fraction of the price. Here’s why it makes sense to switch to Messagely today.

Drift bills itself as a “conversation-driven marketing and sales platform”, and it was founded in 2015 by David Cancel and Elias Torres. Today, the company employs over 200 people, and it has offices in Boston, San Francisco, and Seattle. Drift has raised $107M to date, from prominent investors including Sequoia Capital. The company currently serves 150,000 customers, and acquired two companies, Fetchnotes and Siftrock, in the last four years. Mention the phrase “customer messaging platform”, and Drift inevitably comes to mind. In comparison, fewer people know about Messagely, which is a new entrant to this space. That said, does Drift really offer customers the best experience, or are there certain areas in which Messagely has an advantage over Drift? Read on to find out more.

Should you switch from Drift? Factors to consider.

Price

Scope of tool

Types of chatbots

In this guide, we walk you through the pros and cons of Drift and Messagely across three different factors: price, scope of tool, and types of chatbots. After assessing both tools in these categories, you’ll have all the information you need to make a decision as to whether Messagely is a worthwhile Drift competitor.

Price

For most companies shopping around for a software or tool, price is definitely a key consideration. Obviously, you’ll want to look for a tool that’s affordable, and doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. On top of that, it’s also important to ensure that your tool is transparent in its pricing plans, and doesn’t tack on hidden costs to the price that’s advertised on their site.

When it comes to transparency, Drift fares pretty well. Its prices are displayed clearly on its site, and while it does charge for extra chat seats and calendar seats, this information is displayed prominently and unambiguously, which customers will definitely appreciate. When it comes to affordability, though, Drift is not the most wallet-friendly tool in the market (not by a long shot!) Its Premium plan, which comes with features such as Custom Bots, Account Based Marketing and Multiple Inboxes costs a whopping $1,500 per month.

Like Drift, Messagely displays its prices clearly and prominently on its website. For the highest tiered plan on Messagely, you’ll have to fork out $75 per month, which works out to 5% the price that Drift charges. While you’ll also have to pay for each additional user that you want to add to the Messagely tool, Messagely only charges between $15 to $25 per user (Drift, on the other hand, charges $40 to $80 per additional user).

On top of that, with Messagely, you get to choose if you want to be billed monthly, or annually. Drift, on the other hand, strictly bills its customers annually. If you’d prefer to pay monthly so as to ensure that you have enough cashflow, or you simply don’t want to be locked in for an entire year at a time, Messagely is definitely the tool for you.

The Verdict

Messagely Wins!

When it comes to pricing, Messagely beats Drift, hands down. Comparing the tools’ highest tiered plan, Messagely charges just 5% of what Drift does; ‘nuff said.

Scope of tool

When choosing a tool, would you prefer a tool that does just one thing, or a tool that you can use to meet several business needs? The latter, of course. It’s much better to have a single platform that takes care of all your customer acquisition, engagement and support needs, rather than using several platforms to do the same thing.

Why is this the case? By using one platform to serve your customers, you’re keeping all your data and analytics in one place, and this helps you keep track of your key metrics and fine-tune your strategies more easily. On top of that, using a single tool helps you save cost, and you won’t have to fuss around with setting up your integrations and/or exporting information back and forth.

How do Drift and Messagely fare, in terms of scope? Let’s face it: Drift does what it does exceptionally well, but at the end of the day, it’s highly limited in scope. You can use Drift to build powerful sales chatbots, but that’s about it. Beyond that, Drift isn’t engineered to help you engage your existing customers, or retain and support them.

Messagely, on the other hand, is a feature-rich platform that does so much more. With Messagely, you can upsell customers on free trials and convert them to paid users, re-engage users and retain them, and even support customers. Basically, we help you take care of customers throughout their entire lifecycle.

The Verdict

Messagely Wins!

Drift does what it does well, but it’s highly limited in scope. Rather than using Drift to acquire customers, and paying for other tools to engage and support your customers, it makes more sense to use Messagely to take care of customers throughout their entire lifecycle.

Types of chatbots

If you ask us, chatbots are an absolute godsend to sales, marketing, and customer support teams. These bots help to automate all the tedious, manual tasks that, quite frankly, aren’t worth your effort; this frees up your time, and allows you to focus on fine-tuning campaigns and improving strategies.

Now, Drift’s chatbots do several sales-related tasks, including initiating conversations with website visitors to capture and qualify leads, and scheduling meetings with said leads. This might sound impressive, until you hear what Messagely’s bots do.

Unlike Drift’s chatbots, Messagely chatbots aren’t one-trick ponies that take on sales-related tasks. Our chatbots don’t just sell to customers, they also nurture, engage, and support customers. For instance, using Messagely’s support bots, you can trigger instant replies to simple, straightforward questions about your pricing plan, or whether you offer product demos. You can also connect your help docs with your help desk, so that your support bot can recommend relevant articles to your customers.

The Verdict

Messagely Wins!

Drift’s chatbots are only capable of dealing with sales-related tasks, and they’re essentially one-trick ponies. Messagely’s bots, on the other hand, can help you acquire, engage and support customers.

The Verdict

Messagely Beats Drift!

Drift is one of the most reputable firms in the customer messaging space, but it’s somewhat limited in scope, and it doesn’t offer as many features as Messagely does. While customers might be willing to overlook this if the price is right, Drift is actually priced at a premium, with its highest-tiered plan costing 20x of Messagely’s equivalent plan.

At the end of the day, Messagely delivers more functionality for a more affordable price, and it definitely offers better value for companies. Our take is that Messagely is a great Drift alternative – one that’s worth switching to.

Unlock your 14 day free trial. No credit card required.

Delight Your Customers And Win Them Over For Life.

Unlock your 14 day free trial. No credit card required.