10 Best WordPress Chatbot Plugins for Your Website in 2024 (Free & Paid)

You are looking for the best WordPress chatbot plugins, aren’t you? We know it’s hard.

Firstly, the tons of WordPress chatbots on the web make it harder to choose the perfect solution for your particular needs. After all, they all promise heaven on a silver platter.

Secondly, many chatbot platforms bombard you with overwhelming features that don’t work. So you waste days learning the software only to drop it because it doesn’t meet your needs.

And thirdly, if feature bloat doesn’t put you off, the extortionist fees charged by some platforms sure will. While you have 100% free WordPress chatbot plugins, some solutions cost an arm and a leg.

But fret none, you came to the right place. You won’t have to waste time and money looking for the best WordPress chatbot plugin anymore.

Today, we cover the ten best WordPress chatbot plugins for 2024 and beyond. The article has free and paid chatbot plugins to cater to newbies and power users.

By the end, you should have all you need to add a chatbot to your WordPress site without stressing.

With that reassurance, I believe we are ready to rock and roll.

Related reading: ChatGPT for WordPress: How WordPress AI Can Help Your Site (+ the Best Plugins).

What is a WordPress Chatbot Plugin?

Chatbots are all the rave nowadays, but did you know the first chatbot (ELIZA) was created in 1966 by Joseph Weizenbaum at MIT?

That’s roughly 18 years before Matt Mullenweg, founder of WordPress, was born. How time flies.

While ELIZA was a giant leap for chatbots, it was nothing like ChatGPT, Bard, or Bing. The modern chatbot is a powerful tool capable of doing many tasks ELIZA never could.

But what is a chatbot? As the word alludes, a chatbot is a chatting robot. In other words, it’s software designed to converse with users as if it were human.

Unlike good ol’ ELIZA, today’s chatbots do more than “chat.” They can book appointments, tell jokes, write songs, code, make things up, learn, and do much more – all thanks to advances in artificial intelligence (AI).

Here’s a quick ChatGPT example:

For a machine, you must agree the jokes are good. You’d think I’m chatting with a friend if you didn’t know better.

Who knew chatbots would be incredible, albeit ersatz companions?

Chatbots use two main approaches to generate human-like responses.

• Train the chatbot AI model – Here, you add canned responses that the chatbot uses to respond to various chatbot triggers, such as keywords, time, first website visits, abandoned carts, etc. That means you need to edit the chatbot responses manually or hire an NLP engineer;
• Machine learning – The chatbot analyzes current and historical data using AI to “decide” the correct responses to the user’s queries.

Today, you will find chatbots everywhere, including on WordPress websites. And how do these website owners add chatbots to their sites?

You guessed it. They use WordPress chatbot plugins.

So, class, what is a WordPress chatbot plugin? A WordPress chatbot plugin is a typical plugin that you use to either:

• Add and host a chatbot on your server or,
• Integrate with a third-party platform to add a chatbot widget to your WordPress site.

Plugins make it easy to add chatbot functionality to your website without coding. I mean. Why reinvent the wheel trying to code a chatbot from scratch?

Later, we will share the best chatbot WordPress plugins perfect for beginners and developers. But first, what are the benefits of adding a chatbot to your WordPress site?

7+ Benefits of WordPress Chatbots

Perhaps adding a chatbot sounds cool, but what is the importance of adding one to your website? You’ll be glad to learn you stand to enjoy several benefits, such as

#1 – Improved Customer Service

Chatbots can help you enhance your customer service instantly. Firstly, chatbots are available 24/7, unlike human support reps. This can improve the speed of customer support immensely.

Secondly, chatbots can answer about 87% of frequently asked questions. It’s primarily why over 69% of customers prefer chatbots to get instant responses.

Using a chatbot also frees your customer support team to focus on other vital tasks.

#2 – Generate More Leads & Sales

A chatbot can ask website visitors to provide a name and email before starting a chat. This is a golden opportunity to populate your email lists and CRM.

Besides, chatbots are adept at qualifying leads before sending them to your sales team. The bots can pose relevant questions to identify the visitor’s needs and where they are in the customer journey.

Generating quality leads and prompting users to complete purchases with well-timed nudges leads to more sales down the line.

#3 – Enhance Time Efficiency

Time is a precious resource we don’t seem to have enough of. As such, businesses try all avenues to maximize time efficiency while delivering on their promise.

You can use live chat to offer timely customer support. The only limitation? Human reps must man live chats.

For a small business, this might not be an issue. However, it is a big problem when your live chat requests increase with the growth of your business.

This is where chatbots come in.

Chatbots work tirelessly and can take on multiple chat sessions simultaneously, which reduces the need to wait for human response.

#4 – Cost Savings

Offering effective customer service is an expensive affair for businesses. A study by HubSpot pegs the average figure at $200 per lead.

A WordPress chatbot can cut your lead generation expenses significantly. To begin with, you can use a chatbot to automate daily tasks such as responding to commonly asked questions, booking appointments, and product research.

Secondly, installing a WordPress chatbot is cheaper than hiring staff for each task or building a platform to handle repetitive tasks.

#5 – Improve User Engagement

Keeping users engaging with your website is one of the biggest goals for any website owner. The longer they stay on your site, the higher your chances of converting.

Chatbots are a splendid way to keep users engaged with your brand. You can use a chatbot to offer faster support, announce sales, entertain users (e.g., Rythm by Discord), and personalize offers to keep visitors engaged.

Further, you can personalize the interaction for every user based on their data. For instance, you can program your chatbot to translate chats into multiple languages, which helps you boost user engagement and reach a wider audience.

#6 – Automated Data & Feedback Collection

The more you learn about your users, the better. With augmented data, you can offer better support and the products your customers need.

However, it is usually confusing to collect data and feedback, especially for beginners. What to do?

Chatbots can help you collect data about user behaviors and preferences. This can help you to refine your marketing strategy. On top of that, the data is crucial for retargeting campaigns.

In addition, you can use chatbots to run surveys, which helps you to improve your product and services.

#7 – Offer Omnichannel Support

Like 74% of online consumers, you’ve probably contacted a brand on multiple channels before purchasing.

That said, you need to be where customers need you. Implement your WordPress chatbot on as many messaging apps as possible.

Many customers prefer to contact customer service on messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Telegram, and social media. It’s convenient and faster than email.

Ensure users can access your chatbot on multiple messaging platforms. The good thing is most WordPress chatbot plugins integrate with messaging apps seamlessly.

#Bonus: These are a few benefits of chatbots. There are many other benefits, including:

• Providing conversational marketing – Chatbots can recommend products, offer discounts, take orders, and take leads through the sales funnel thanks to conversational AI.
• Decreasing bounce rate – The bounce rate is the percentage of people who leave your site without interacting with your content. You can use chatbots to show messages or offers when the user is about to leave. Lower bounce rates lead to longer dwell times and better SEO.
• Proactive customer service – Many brands use passive customer service. They only respond after the customer has reached out. Instead of responding to users, you can initiate the conversation using chatbots. And it works. 68% of consumers love brands that offer proactive customer service.

Let us move on and look at the WordPress plugins you need to add chatbots to your website.

10 Best WordPress Chatbot Plugins for Your Website

In the following section, we will highlight several chatbot plugins for WordPress.

We will cover free and paid chatbot solutions in no particular order since all the plugins offer the features most businesses need.

At the same time, play around with a few plugins to pick the best option for your particular needs.

#1 – Tidio – Live Chat & AI Chatbots

First on our list is the Tidio Live Chat & AI Chatbots WordPress plugin.

Tidio, in itself, is not a chatbot plugin. Instead, it’s an all-in-one customer experience platform that helps you turn passive users into active buyers.

One of their formidable features is their AI-powered plug-and-play chatbot. Tidio chatbot offers you the features to automate sales and customer service without trying hard.

The Tidio WordPress chatbot plugin has 35+ workflows to reduce abandoned carts, offer discounts, recommend products, generate leads, and make shopping fun.

You can start with chatbot templates or use the drag-and-drop visual editor to create custom conversations. On top of that, you have an intuitive dashboard that makes managing your messages easy.

Key Features

• Drag-and-drop visual chatbot builder;
• Clean dashboard;
• Multiple chatbot triggers;
• Easy to install and use;
• Android and iOS apps;
• Personalization;
• 20+ integrations with MailChimp, Klaviyo, Mailerlite, and more;
• Etc.

The free plan supports two operators and 100 monthly outreaches. For more features, go for premium plans that start at $29/mo. They offer a 7-day free trial.

#2 – HubSpot WordPress Chatbots

HubSpot is one of the most popular CRM platforms on the web. It offers robust marketing, sales, and customer service features.

The HubSpot WordPress chatbot is one such feature. Their easy-to-use visual builder lets you create chatbots to answer common questions, qualify leads, and schedule meetings, among other things.

Use pre-built templates or create responses to match your brand and goals. All messages are saved in your HubSpot CRM.

If need be, HubSpot chatbots can redirect conversations to the most relevant member of your support team.

Key Features

• Lead qualification;
• Appointment scheduling;
• 1,000+ integrations, including Facebook and WooCommerce;
• Clean analytics dashboard;
• Mobile access;
• Etc.

HubSpot offers a free-forever plan for basic chatbots. Paid plans start at $20/month with a 14-day free trial.

#3 – AI Engine WordPress Chatbot Plugin

AI Engine by Jordy Meow is a free WordPress plugin to add several AI features to your website, including chatbots.

The AI Engine chatbot uses ChatGPT, DaVinci, and Babbage models, making it one of the most versatile WordPress chatbot plugins.

Even with many features and parameters, the AI Engine chatbot is incredibly easy to set up and use.

The chatbot is fully customizable. You can change aspects such as chatbot icons, user avatars, welcome messages, placeholders, positioning, and styling.

Key Features

• Easy to use;
• Internal API;
• Create custom templates;
• Multi-lingual support;
• Fully customizable;
• And more.

You can start with the free version or spring for the pro version at $49 per year.

#4 – AI Power WordPress Chatbot Plugin

AI Power is a full AI pack for WordPress powered by ChatGPT, DaVinci, and more models.

It offers many nifty AI features, including a content writer, image generator, AI assistant, WooCommerce product writer, SEO optimizer, form builder, chatbot, and more.

The plugin is easy to set up. Enter your OpenAI API key in the plugin settings, and you’re ready to use all the features.

AI Power features a clean user interface that allows you to access all the options you need without being overwhelmed by clutter.

Key Features

• Easy to use;
• 40+ languages supported;
• Seamless integration with your favorite tools;
• Text-to-Speech converter;
• Fully customizable,
• AI training;
• And more.

I was pleasantly surprised by the many features in the free version. Choose the premium version for more features, such as chatbot moderation, integration with Google Sheets, and priority support. Prices start at $9.99/month or $95.88/year.

#5 – WPBot AI Chatbot

WPBot is a superb native WordPress chatbot plugin that’s packed with features. It helps you to create and manage chatbots inside the WordPress dashboard.

You don’t need any technical knowledge to use WPBot. Install the plugin, and it will start chatting with visitors using DialogFlow or OpenAI.

The chatbot allows you to display responses and FAQs or let users email you for more support.

Of all the WordPress chatbot plugins on this list, WPBot is the most feature-rich. It’s a brilliant solution to increase dwell time, boost page views, and lower bounce rates.

Key Features

• Countless interactions;
• Onsite retargeting and remarketing;
• Multiple chatbot triggers;
• Works with any language;
• Seamless integration with Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Telegram;
• Tons of integrations;
• Six design templates;
• Fully customizable;
• Et cetera.

The free lite version is perfect for beginners. It will give you a good general idea of how the plugin works. For more features, spring for the pro version, starting at $49 per year.

#6 – Zendesk Answer Bot

Like HubSpot, Zendesk is an all-in-one customer service platform that lets you collect and make sense of customer data.

Zendesk Answer Bot is one of their flagship products. They claim their AI is built on billions of real-world customer service interactions, and we can’t agree more.

We can expect nothing short of stellar solutions from a company that’s made huge strides in the industry since 2007.

Zendesk chatbot uses deep learning to gather the content and context needed to solve issues and route requests to relevant support reps.

Answer Bot is scalable and multi-lingual, making it perfect for businesses of all sizes. Once implemented, the chatbot continues learning independently to deliver better interactions in the future.

The chatbot also integrates with Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.

Key Features

• Android and iOS mobile apps;
• Multiple integrations;
• Customizations;
• Unlimited chats;
• Templates;
• Automatic translations;
• And much more.

Answer Bot is part of the Zendesk premium suite of features. Prices range from $55/agent/month to $169/agent/month with a 14-day free trial.

#7 – Smartsupp WordPress Chatbot Plugin

Trusted by more than 100,000 customers worldwide, Smartsupp is a reliable WordPress chatbot plugin to grow your sales.

It’s the only chatbot plugin for WordPress that combines bots, live chat, and video recordings to offer personalized interactions when relevant.

Chatbots let you automate repetitive tasks, live chats allow you to add a personal touch, and video recordings help you see where users get lost in your online store.

Think of it as having a shopping assistant that works around the clock.

Key Features

• GDPR compliant;
• Support for seven languages;
• Promote and upsell products via chatbot;
• Welcome messages;
• Lead generation and qualification via chatbot;
• Android and iOS mobile apps;
• Access real-time visitor list enriched with eCommerce data (know who’s buying and the products they need);
• And more.

After creating a free account, you can use the lite version of Smartsupp with limited functionality. Upgrade to a paid package to enjoy advanced features such as statistics, team shortcuts, and video recordings. Prices start at $19.5/month with a 14-day free trial.

#8 – Collect Chat

Collect Chat WordPress plugin is a refreshing addition to this list. It’s a lightweight chatbot plugin perfect for lead generation, appointment bookings, feedback collection, and more.

Thanks to 54 pre-built templates, you can create a chatbot in minutes without coding knowledge. You can customize the templates till you drop or create a chatbot from scratch with the drag-and-drop visual editor.

The Collect Chat WordPress plugin lets you generate and qualify leads, engage visitors, collect vital data, and notify the sales team about hot prospects.

Key Features

• 50+ chatbot templates;
• Drag-and-drop visual builder;
• Unlimited bots;
• Insights;
• Native 3d-party integrations;
• And more.

The plugin offers a free-forever plan with unlimited bots and 50 monthly responses. If you need more features, consider the paid version, with prices starting at $18/month when billed yearly.

#9 – BotPenguin WordPress Chatbot Plugin

If you want to generate more leads, boost engagement, and offer better customer service, you’ll want to try the BotPengiun WordPress chatbot plugin. After all, they have a free-forever plan, so there’s nothing to lose.

BotPengiun takes chatbot automation to the next level but keeps things simple so anybody can implement chatbots with a snap. It doesn’t matter your skill level.

With marketing, Facebook, Telegram, and WhatsApp automation, you can better engage with your customers on autopilot.

With visitor details and analytics, you can quickly tell how customers interact with your chatbots and website.

Key Features

• Marketing, FB, WhatsApp and Telegram chatbots;
• Analytics;
• Multiple ready-to-use templates;
• Rich media options;
• Intuitive dashboard;
• Unified chat inbox;
• Chat routing;
• Intelligent filters;
• Et cetera.

The free plan offers one bot and 2,000 messages/month. Premium plans start at $50/year or $5/month.

#10 – WP Live Chat

WP Live Chat by Chaport is a powerful chatbot plugin that lets you generate more leads, reduce operator workload, and offer instant help 24/7.

The plugin ships with a user-friendly editor to build chatbots in minutes, even without programming skills.

Additionally, WP Live Chat lets you proactively reach out to visitors before they ask a question. This helps you to generate, qualify, and convert leads automatically.

Instead of forcing users to fill out forms, you can collect names, emails, and other information in every chatbot conversation.

Key Features

• Simple chatbot builder;
• Multi-channel support to reach customers on Facebook, Telegram, and Viber;
• FAQs and knowledge base;
• Lead generation and qualification;
• Workflow automation;
• Fully customizable;
• Insights;
• Unlimited chats;
• Unlimited websites;
• Mobile apps;
• Multi-lingual support;
• And much more!

WP Live Chat has a formidable free plan perfect for many use cases. Choose a premium plan to increase operator efficiency, get more control, and make even more sales. Prices start at $19/mo.

WordPress Chatbot Plugins: Honorable Mentions

There are many WordPress chatbot plugins on the web to cover in a single post. Here are some bonus plugins to add to our list.

• HelpCrunch – A full-house solution to catch valuable leads and deliver second-to-none customer service;
• Chatbot with IBM Watson – Add this plugin and train IBM Watson to answer FAQs and help users navigate your website;
• JoinChat – With 600,000 users, this plugin allows you to chat with your users on their favorite channels, such as WhatsApp, Skype, etc;
• Landbot – Grow your revenue, cut operational costs, and delight your customers;
• Zobot – An advanced AI chatbot builder from Zoho SalesIQ to create conversational AI chatbots that boost user engagement;
• WP-Chatbot – WordPress chatbot plugin for Facebook Messenger;
• Crisp – A free and beautiful chatbot for WordPress;
• Live Chat by Formilla – Create custom chatbots to boost sales, increase engagement, and improve support;
• Cliengo – Reach better sales opportunities and offer visitors a great user experience on first contact.
• WoowBot – Chatbot plugin for WooCommerce.

Using plugins is the easiest way to add a chatbot to your site. Most chatbot WordPress plugins are easy to install and use. Many come with visual editors and intuitive dashboards that make creating and managing chatbots a breeze.

Chatbots help you to increase user engagement and increase leads right off the bat. To provide a more personalized experience and boost engagement further, consider using TranslatePress to offer support in multiple languages.

You have nothing to lose. The lite version of TranslatePress is 100% free and supports automatic translations.

Conclusion

Choosing a WordPress chatbot plugin needn’t be challenging. To pick the perfect solution for your website, ensure the plugin is affordable, easy to use, and offers the features you need.

Also, ensure you read the documentation to implement your chatbot effectively. I say this because nothing pushes visitors away faster than a poorly implemented chatbot.

Which is your favorite WordPress chatbot plugin? Did you find the post handy? Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.