Drift Review - Features, Pricing & Deals

Drift is a conversational marketing and sales platform that helps businesses connect with their website visitors in real-time. Founded in 2015 in Boston, Massachusetts, the platform combines AI-powered chatbots with live chat features to streamline customer interactions and boost sales efficiency.

At its core, the platform focuses on enabling quick, meaningful conversations between businesses and their potential customers. It does this through intelligent chat routing, automated meeting scheduling, and targeted messaging. The system can identify high-value prospects and direct them to the right team members, while handling routine inquiries through AI-powered chatbots.

After being acquired by SalesLoft in early 2024, Drift continues to offer various pricing tiers starting at $2,500 monthly for their Premium plan, with custom pricing available for Advanced and Enterprise solutions. The platform integrates with common business tools like CRM systems and email marketing platforms, making it easier to manage customer data in one place.

While the tool offers robust features for larger organizations, smaller businesses might find the pricing steep and the learning curve challenging. However, businesses that can leverage its full capabilities often see improvements in lead generation, customer engagement, and sales efficiency.

• Conversational Marketing Platform: Real-time AI-powered chatbot system that enables instant website interactions, helping businesses engage visitors and convert leads quickly.
• Intelligent Chat Routing: Automatically directs website visitors to the most appropriate team member based on their specific inquiries and needs, ensuring accurate and timely responses.
• 24/7 Meeting Scheduler: Allows prospects to book meetings instantly by syncing with team calendars, eliminating complex scheduling back-and-forth communications.
• Advanced Lead Management: Uses AI-driven engagement scoring to prioritize and qualify leads, helping sales teams focus on high-potential prospects efficiently.
• Seamless Integration Tools: Connects with major CRM systems, email platforms, and analytics tools to centralize customer data and streamline business workflows.
• Customizable Chatbot Design: Enables businesses to create personalized chatbot experiences that match their brand voice and specific communication requirements.
• Comprehensive Analytics Dashboard: Provides detailed insights into customer interactions, chatbot performance, and conversion metrics to help optimize marketing strategies.

• Premium plan starts at $2,500 per month when billed annually, offering features like live chat, meetings, custom chatbots, Intel, real-time notifications, and conversational landing pages.
• Advanced plan requires custom pricing and provides additional features such as Fastlane, Audiences, A/B Testing, and Flex Routing beyond the Premium plan offerings.
• Enterprise plan also has custom pricing, designed for large-scale businesses to scale personalization and pipeline generation across the full customer lifecycle.
• No free trial or free plan is available, which may be challenging for businesses wanting to test the platform before committing.
• Pricing is considered expensive, particularly for small businesses, with both Advanced and Enterprise plans requiring direct contact with Drift for a personalized quote.

Drift goes beyond just live chat. While traditional chat tools only connect visitors with support agents, Drift combines AI-powered chatbots with real-time conversation routing. This means your website can qualify leads, book meetings, and answer support questions 24/7 without human intervention. The platform's AI also scores visitors based on engagement, helping your team focus on high-value prospects instead of treating all conversations equally.

Setting up Drift is pretty straightforward for most websites. You'll add a simple JavaScript code snippet to your site, which many users can do in about 10 minutes. The more time-consuming part is customizing your chatbots and conversation flows. Drift provides templates to get you started, but expect to spend a few hours configuring your playbooks to match your sales process. Most teams can be up and running with basic functionality in an afternoon.

Yes, Drift connects with most popular business tools. It has built-in integrations with major CRMs like Salesforce, HubSpot, and now SalesLoft (since they acquired Drift). It also works with marketing automation platforms, email tools, calendar apps, and Slack. These connections let Drift share contact info and conversation details with your other systems automatically. If you use a less common tool, you might need to connect through Zapier or use Drift's API.

Absolutely! This is one of Drift's main strengths. The AI chatbot handles conversations 24/7, even when your team is offline. Visitors can book meetings directly on your calendar without any back-and-forth emails. The chatbot can qualify leads, answer common questions, and route urgent matters to on-call team members if needed. You can customize how aggressive or helpful the bot should be during off-hours, and all conversations are saved for your team to review later.

Drift's AI works in several ways to boost your sales. First, it handles initial conversations to qualify leads based on rules you set. It can ask questions about company size, budget, or needs to identify good prospects. The AI also assigns engagement scores to visitors, helping your team focus on the most promising leads. For returning visitors, Drift remembers past conversations and can personalize the experience. This automation saves your sales team time while still making website visitors feel heard and valued.