Introduction
This text introduces the differences, advantages and disadvantages of live chat software with Slack integration that provide SignalZen, Chatlio and Social Intents.
Choosing between an apple and a pear is a child's play, but when we must pick a brownie or a chocolate cake – that becomes a bit more challenging. The next level up is color of your new car – Jet Black Metallic or Volcano grey Metallic? Let's be honest - deciding between two seemingly good options is not exactly a walk in the park. Especially when your boss is breathing down your neck asking for the best option of a live chat software provider with Slack integration.
What to do? Find a proper comparison that doesn’t fit with the expression the more the better but points out the tools and features that meet rationality and functionality. And here goes one!
Apples vs Apples
We pulled two competitors out of the hat that offer chat software with Slack integration and are very close to our service and implementation quality level - Chatlio and Social Intents. Social Intents here and on for everyone’s convenience will be replaced with acronym "SI". There will be no small print, we put all cards on the table and reveal some tricky similarities and differences.
A small remark before we start: while Chatlio and SI are ancient members of the market, SignalZen is an energetic, moving forward and resolute startup that is about to make full appearance across the threshold.
Let's get going with our comparison.
Pricing
SignalZen and Chatlio offer a four-week free trial. SI for the time being chosen to give two weeks trial only. During the trial, SignalZen offers three different operators, widget, subdomain and up to fifty chats. What happens after trial period? With Chatlio or SI you would have started using a monthly plan for $29 that includes unlimited operators and only 1 widget. There's a slight difference in subdomains and chats category – for $39 (if billed yearly) SI offers one domain, and two hundred chats. Chatlio for $29 per month gives you unlimited subdomains & two hundred chats.
Next level upgrade to the Basic plan will cost you $69 monthly at SI (if billed anually) and Chatlio, but SignalZen offers you the Basic for $25, i.e., around 65 percent saving. At this point you ask yourself, what's the catch and what am I getting for my money?
There's no trick, we simply know that small businesses not require that many items so be it all inclusive, therefore we don’t offer too many extras to magnify the price.
Let’s do the math: five operators, widget WITHOUT ADS, one subdomain, auto messages, pre-chat form and UNLIMITED CHATS = $25.
Our competitors offer unlimited operators’ function for $49 (Chatlio) and $69 (SI) Basic plan, but chat number is limited to one thousand. SI for this price adds you two widgets and two domains while Chatlio thinks one widget is enough but opens the gate to unlimited domains. The difference between all three competitors lies in the section of triggers, auto-messages and reply shortcuts. Every company has developed this section in a different manner, but all three discussed offer a possibility in a certain level to automize the conversation.
Let's jump quickly to Pro plan where SignalZen offers unlimited operators, unlimited chats, ten widgets without ads, ten subdomains, auto-messages, pre-chat form and adds a tool of saved replies for $35. Our competitors rise their price to $99, significantly drop the quantity of widgets and put the limit of three thousand chats. SI here adds a version of Chatbot that allows to make a flow of predefined of Q & A.
To finish – SignalZen Business plan costs a a few dollars more than the Basic from SI and Chatlio – $55 to be exact! The most common word in the description of this plan is UNLIMITED: operators, widgets, subdomains, chats + every tool from Pro plan. And what's the price for SI and Chatlio Business plan - you'd ask. $199 for unlimited operators & domains, five to twelve widgets, five thousand to six thousand chats.
We compare, you decide, but cost benefits are obvious.
SignalZen
| Trial | Basic | Pro | Business |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Up to 1 month Free Up to Unlimited chats Unlimited widgets Unlimited bandwidth Limited Support Up to Unlimited subdomains Up to 5 operators Premium Support Free CSS customization Triggers and automessage |
Unlimited chats Unlimited widgets Unlimited bandwidth Premium support Up to 1 subdomains Up to 5 operators Free CSS customization Triggers and automessages |
Unlimited chats All features Unlimited bandwidth Unlimited widgets Premium support Up to 10 subdomains Unlimited operators No "Powered By" ad Saved Replies Free CSS customization Triggers and automessages |
Unlimited chats All features Unlimited bandwidth Unlimited widgets Premium support Unlimited subdomains Unlimited operators No "Powered By" ad Saved Replies Free CSS customization Triggers and automessages |
| Free | $25 monthly ($249 yearly) | $35 monthly ($345 yearly) | $55 monthly ($539 yearly) |
Chatlio
| Trial | Starter | Basic | Pro | Business |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Up to 1 month Free Up to 200 chats per month Up to 1 widget Unlimited bandwidth Unlimited domains Up to 2 operators |
Up to 200 chats per month Up to 1 widget Unlimited bandwidth Unlimited domains Free CSS customization Up to 2 operators |
Up to 1000 chats per month Up to 1 widget Unlimited bandwidth Unlimited domains Unlimited Operators Free CSS customization Triggers and automessages Saved replies No "Powered By" ad |
Up to 3000 chats per month Up to 2 widgets Unlimited bandwidth Unlimited domains Unlimited Operators Free CSS customization Triggers and automessages Saved replies No "Powered By" ad |
Up to 5000 chats per month Up to 5 widgets Unlimited bandwidth Unlimited domains Unlimited Operators Free CSS customization Triggers and automessages Saved replies No "Powered By" ad |
| Free | $29 monthly | $49 monthly | $99 monthly | $199 monthly |
Social Intents
| Trial | Starter | Basic | Pro | Business |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Up to 2 weeks Free Up to 200 chats per month Up to 1 widget Up to 2 operators Up to 1 domain |
Up to 200 chats per month Up to 1 widget Up to 2 operators Up to 1 domain |
Up to 1000 chats per month Up to 2 widgets Unlimited operators Up to 2 domains Saved replies |
Up to 5000 chats per month Up to 5 widgets Unlimited operators Up to 5 domains Saved replies No "Powered By" ad |
Up to 10000 chats per month Up to 10 widgets Unlimited operators 10 domains Saved replies No "Powered By" ad |
| Free | $49 monthly ($468 yearly) | $79 monthly ($708 yearly) | $132 monthly ($1188 yearly) | $265 monthly ($2388 yearly) |
Integrations
It would be fair to dive deeper and investigate possible integrations that offer all above analyzed providers.
Remember at this point SignalZen is a newbie in market. Nevertheless, our service is compatible with all main systems – Slack, Wordpress, Shopify, Drupal, Joomla & Zapier.
Well begun is half done, isn't it?
Now, let's divert to our colleagues. SI is proud to include to SignalZen integration list MS Teams, Dialog Flow, BigCommerce, but eliminates Drupal and Joomla. Chatlio has most enriched list of platforms including all mentioned above and includes all and appends even more including Squarespace, Tumbrl, Weebly and Segment.
But wait, why choose us? Here's the benefit. We can offer you a 2-type integration: Still that enables the user to chat via threads and Noisy that allows him to do it through channels. Clients may try both and chose the right one to suit their needs. This is a significant advantage, because our colleagues can only offer you the Noisy version.
Features
Let's go through the main features that all players can offer.
One that all three of us can proudly deliver is definitely – Slack commands. It can't be other way around – we are talking about competitors that use Slack integration.
Next in line Styled widgets with multiple layouts. Yes, SignalZen and Chatlio is more open when it comes to personalized appearance of the widget – you can choose a color, position on the window and customize other traits. SI do not make much effort in letting you personalize much of the environment, but there are some things you can do, e.g., configurate the widget behavior (enable/disable features) or customize text on the widget.
Now communication, let's go through the process. When visitor opens the website, pop up is auto triggered to catch the eye, this function is available with SignalZen, Chatlio and SI.
Screenshot sending is a different story; only SignalZen and Chatlio enables this action as well as the file attachment. For the convenience of all interacting parts SignalZen offers and advanced build of form for prerequisites while Chatlio gives only a prompt email and name registration form. Chatlio also offers you a reminder for every 30 secs. if nobody has replied to the question this can be really irritating at times.
Conversation transcript is possible if your provider is either SignalZen or Chatlio.
When the conversation is over Chatlio and SignalZen systems allows you to close it, Chatlio is one step ahead – once a chat is closed, the rating request is given for a visitor.
Metadata defining in the code to pass to operators by visitors is available with SignalZen and Chatlio, but not supported by SI.
Working hours can be set on SignalZen and Chatlio – visitor can send a message out of hours, but he'll get an auto-answer that the agent replies during specified times only. Meanwhile, SI offers to hide a chat button when the operator is not available.
Translation to other languages is available on SignalZen and Chatlio, but activation way is different on each platform. SignalZen makes it easier via Console, Chatlio makes translations available just via JS API. SI speaks one language.
SignalZen enables saved reply template suggestion and shortcut via command, Chatlio has the same function and adds question groups that are triggered with multiple conditions at certain times or saved replies via Slack button with dropdown. Here SI presents a DialogFlow configuration which then enables another category of conversation – ChatBot.
As far as you can notice features category is way more developed by SignalZen and Chaltio. Nevertheless, SI offers you other apps/widgets, e.g., a mailer app which is kind of unique in our comparison.
Advantages and Disadvantages of SignalZen
The biggest advantages of SignalZen are:
- Fair pricing (savings);
- Mobile App (Neither Chatlio nor SI can offer this option);
- Two different types of Slack integration (Still and Noisy).
And some little disadvantages that we are resolving so fast that you will never know they were there:
- Less integration diversity than competition;
- Some features are still working on a basic level;
Chatlio can offer you only Slack oriented service, a big set of features and awesome designs, but it doesn’t have a mobile app and offers only new channels route for working with chats - all of this comes at high price.
SI design and administration parts are rather outdated, feature set is very limited, no mobile app, but broader range of marketing services, e.g., a mailer, as previously mentioned and a support for MS Teams like for Slack. And again, all this for a very high price.
Any questions? Shoot us a message!
