Top 8 Chatbot Building Tools Marketers Should Try

Have you ever wished your marketing could run itself? Check out the best 8 top chatbot tools with AI, free trials, and automation features that help marketers engage audiences and scale campaigns seamlessly.

Today’s consumers expect instant replies, personalized experiences, and round-the-clock availability. Chatbots make this possible, handling repetitive questions, collecting leads, and even driving sales while human teams focus on strategy and creative work. 

According to McKinsey & Company, 78% of organizations use AI in at least one business function as of 2025. The international AI market is expected to grow significantly, showing strong momentum across industries.

For marketers, this isn’t just about convenience. Chatbots now come with natural language processing, AI-driven personalization, and multi-channel support that allows them to be deployed across websites, social media platforms, and messaging apps. 

Beginners in particular benefit from drag-and-drop builders, pre-made templates, and free tiers that let them test real campaigns without risk. 

This guide compares eight leading platforms, focusing on features that matter most to newcomers: ease of use, pricing transparency, multi-channel reach, AI features, analytics, and growth potential.

1. SendPulse

SendPulse is considered one of the most user-friendly chatbot platforms for beginners simply because of that very harmony between simplicity and depth. One can have it all set within just a few minutes. All you have to do is embed the widget onto a website and then either connect to or create new app accounts on Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, and Instagram for instant lead collection.

The platform offers pre-built chatbot templates for common scenarios such as welcome messages, FAQs, and abandoned cart reminders, which means beginners don’t have to design conversations from scratch.

Free Plan

SendPulse gives beginners a free plan that is good enough to try out chatbot features without paying. You can create three chatbots, manage up to 500 subscribers, and send up to 10,000 messages each month. This makes it easier to test how the platform works or to start building WhatsApp chatbots before committing to an upgrade.

Paid Plan
When you move to a paid plan starting at about $8 per month if paid annually, you unlock unlimited chatbots and messages. Higher tiers also include advanced segmentation, more users, better automation flows, and stronger analytics for conversion tracking. Paid plans integrate smoothly with email campaigns, CRM systems, and ecommerce platforms, making SendPulse a complete all-in-one solution.

AI and WhatsApp Features
SendPulse emphasizes AI-driven automation across all plans. Its bots can recognize keywords, understand user intent, and provide automated responses to common questions, while higher plans add advanced natural language processing for handling open-ended queries. As an official WhatsApp Business Solution Provider, SendPulse also supports WhatsApp CRM integration, WhatsApp chatbots, WhatsApp link generation, and WhatsApp QR code generation to help businesses automate workflows and connect with customers seamlessly.

2. Chatfuel

For longtime users, it has always been the go-to choice among marketers on social media channels, specifically Messenger for Facebook and Instagram. Its visual flow builder is meant to be straightforward, where people can drag and drop blocks of conversation rather than do any coding.

Beginners can quickly create bots that greet new followers, reply to comments, or send promotional messages. The availability of ready-to-use templates for onboarding, customer service, and FAQ flows speeds up deployment even further.

Trial and Paid Plans

Chatfuel doesn’t offer a free plan, but it provides a 7-day free trial that gives beginners enough time to test campaigns and see early results. Paid plans start at $23.99 per month, including 1,000 conversations, advanced automations, support for larger audiences, and extra integrations.

AI Features
The platform includes intent recognition and keyword-based triggers, allowing bots to understand different ways users phrase their messages and respond accurately. Premium plans unlock more advanced NLP tools, while even the entry plan provides AI-assisted auto-responses for handling repetitive questions. Chatfuel also integrates with Zapier, making it easy to connect with CRMs and other marketing platforms.

Best For
Chatfuel is especially strong for marketers focused on Facebook and Instagram. It is simple to set up, offers valuable AI support, and provides a clear path to scale as campaigns grow.

3. ManyChat

Although ManyChat previously had a reputation for being simple rather than deeply AI-driven, it has incorporated intelligent features that make its bot interactors feel smarter. Marketers can, for example, have multilingual bots, set up keyword recognition to trigger flows, and establish personalized experiences based on a user's attributes or behavior.

The tool also assists in recovering abandoned carts and triggers such as events, thus reminding businesses to re-engage prospects timely. It cannot carry out semantic searches using higher knowledge-base AI, as is done by other competitors, but more than sufficient are the automation rules and personalization options for the majority of small marketing teams.

Free and Paid Plans

ManyChat offers a free plan that supports up to 1,000 contacts. It includes Messenger and Instagram bots, SMS messaging, and basic broadcasts, though it comes with branding and limited customization. Paid plans start at $15 per month and unlock unlimited flows, advanced segmentation, ecommerce integrations, and detailed analytics.

AI Features
While not the most advanced in AI, ManyChat includes automation features like abandoned cart recovery, one-time notifications, and live chat takeover. These tools help businesses convert leads and manage customer interactions more effectively.

Best For
ManyChat is best for marketers focused on social channels. It’s affordable, beginner-friendly, and powerful enough to scale, offering a strong balance between simplicity and growth.

4. Chatbase

Chatbase stands out as a platform for businesses wishing to build ever-smarter, conversational bots without heavy amounts of coding. It is very beginner-friendly; besides that, it focuses specifically on AI-based natural language understanding.

Instead of requiring you to manually script every possible response, Chatbase lets you upload documents, FAQs, or website data, and then the bot learns from this content to answer questions accurately. This makes it a practical choice if your audience tends to ask a lot of free-form questions.

Free and Paid Plans

Chatbase provides a free plan with 100 message credits each month. Paid plans start at $32 per month when billed annually. Setup is simple: connect data sources, add branding, and deploy the chatbot across websites and messaging apps.

AI Features
The platform’s strength lies in its AI backbone. Using machine learning and semantic search, Chatbase matches user queries with the right answers, even when phrased differently. It improves over time through interactions, making conversations more natural and reducing manual setup.

Best For
Chatbase is ideal for small teams that want an intelligent, evolving chatbot without complex development. It balances simplicity with advanced AI, making it suitable for businesses that need scalability.

5. Landbot

Landbot positions itself as one of the most user-friendly platforms for beginners, especially those who want to create chatbots for websites and landing pages. Its hallmark feature is the drag-and-drop conversation builder, which feels more like designing a flowchart than writing code. This visual approach makes it approachable even for marketers with no technical background.

Free and Paid Plans

Landbot’s free plan lets you create simple bots and handle 100 chats per month, making it ideal for testing conversational landing pages and conversion. Paid plans start at €32 per month (billed annually) and unlock more customization, integrations, and advanced analytics. Beginners can start small with interactive projects like quizzes, surveys, or lead capture forms without a large investment.

AI Features
Although rule-based at its core, Landbot now integrates NLP to handle open-ended inputs when visitors deviate from expected paths. It can also store user data to personalize conversations, making interactions feel more natural.

Best For
Landbot is perfect for marketers who want a fun and creative platform. It allows interactive, gamified bots, and while its AI isn’t as advanced as Chatbase, it provides enough support for handling real conversations effectively.

6. WotNot

WotNot is a hybrid, designed with both scalability and ease of use in mind. The no-code builder would be a boon for first-timers, as it enables bot design for websites, WhatsApp, and other messaging platforms without requiring technical expertise. 

The interface is intuitive, and WotNot also provides industry-specific templates to help you launch quickly. For example, you can find pre-made chat flows for ecommerce, healthcare, real estate, and more.

Free and Paid Plans

WotNot doesn’t offer a free plan, but it provides a 14-day free trial for testing features. Paid plans start at $23 per month (billed annually) for 1,000 chats, allowing businesses to explore its capabilities before committing.

AI Features
The platform uses natural language processing to understand customer inquiries beyond simple keyword triggers. It also includes AI-driven lead qualification, which separates casual visitors from high-intent prospects, reducing workload for human agents while prioritizing valuable leads.

Best For
WotNot is ideal for beginners seeking a balance of ease of use and powerful features. Its simple setup, smart AI tools, and prebuilt industry templates make it practical and scalable for marketers looking for an intelligent, automated chatbot solution.

7. ActiveChat

ActiveChat is a platform designed for businesses seeking more than just basic automation. While it offers beginner-friendly templates and a visual builder, its real strength lies in combining chatbots with customer support and sales automation. 

From the start, you can create bots for Messenger, WhatsApp, and websites, and then connect them with live agents when needed. This human-plus-bot approach makes it ideal for marketers who want to gradually introduce automation without losing the personal touch.

Free and Paid Plans

ActiveChat offers a demo to test the platform before purchase. If it meets your needs, a one-time license costs $4995, giving lifetime access. Beginners can quickly set up basic bots for FAQs, lead generation, or broadcast messages with minimal technical effort.

AI Features
AI is central to ActiveChat, with bots using natural language processing to understand questions and provide accurate answers. The platform also includes AI-powered sentiment analysis, detecting customer mood to adjust conversation tone or escalate to a human agent when needed.

Best For
ActiveChat is ideal for marketers who want a mix of automation and human support. It allows beginners to start simple while offering advanced features to scale into a full customer service solution.

8. Jotform AI Chatbot

Jotform is mostly recognized as a form-building platform, but its capabilities have extended into chatbot creation. For beginners, this is especially attractive since the chatbot builder is essentially a drag-and-drop application like Jotform's forms. It is a straightforward process of creating conversational forms that collect user information, qualify leads, or process feedback-anything without writing a single line of code.

Free and Paid Plans

Jotform’s freemium version is a great starting point for marketers running small campaigns or capturing leads. It includes 5 chatbots and 100 conversations per month. Paid plans start at $34 per month (billed annually) for more chatbots and higher limits.

AI Features
While simpler than platforms like Chatbase or ActiveChat, Jotform’s bots can process inputs beyond multiple-choice answers. Conditional logic allows conversations to adapt based on previous replies, making interactions more dynamic.

Best For
Jotform Chatbots are ideal for small businesses or teams new to automation. They offer an easy, effective way to collect data and engage users without complexity, especially for surveys and lead capture.

Final Thoughts

The best chatbot platform depends on your needs, but for beginners, SendPulse stands out as the top choice. It offers a strong free plan, easy setup, AI-driven automation, and multi-channel support, making it simple to start while still powerful enough to scale. For most marketers, it provides the smoothest learning curve with advanced features ready when needed.

Other tools also shine in specific areas. Chatfuel is great for social media. ManyChat works well for B2B lead generation, Chatbase delivers advanced AI, Landbot makes chatbot building creative, WotNot adds AI-driven lead qualification, ActiveChat blends automation with human support, and Jotform is perfect for conversational forms. Since all offer free trials or starter plans, beginners can test them safely and choose the one that best matches their goals.