There’s no secret that chatbots have become widely popular among companies that want to boost customer service, increase sales, and reduce human efforts.
What’s even more interesting is that everyone now can build a chatbot for anything, regardless of coding skills. Above all, if you would like to keep your business up to date and walk hand-in-hand with the technology, there is a lot of potential in using Facebook Messenger Bots.
Octane AI and ManyChat are two of the most credible chatbots builders available on the web for Facebook Messenger. You can build chatbots either using Octane AI or ManyChat to send messages to your potential subscribers and customers and automate the marketing process through Messenger.
If you’re confused about whether to pick Octane AI or ManyChat as best Messenger bot builder, then you’ve come to the right place. Both chatbot builders offer diversified features and thus, it surely becomes challenging to make the right choice and determine which one is suitable for you.
But, worry not! Here, we’re going to discuss every aspect of Octane AI and ManyChat to help you decide on the best Shopify bot builder for your business.
Before you start learning key differences between Octane AI and ManyChat, it’s good to know what Octane AI and ManyChat are all about.
With Octane AI, you can drive sales, capture quality leads, and boost engagement on your Facebook page. To be precise, it is a reliable eCommerce chatbot platform. You can use it to tap into around 1.3 million monthly Facebook Messenger users.
ManyChat is the Facebook messenger marketing tool that enables you to create bolts for sales, marketing, and support. It allows you to effortlessly grow your Messenger audience by offering a comprehensive set of tools that helps you to turn anyone into a potential subscriber
Let’s start with key features of Octane AI chatbot
- Lets Shopify merchants boost revenue with a messenger bot
- You can set up and operate abandoned cart campaigns
- Lets you send customers receipt and shipping notifications
- Customizable messages
- Makes sales via Facebook messenger
- Website lead capture tool
- Lets you monitor revenue & customer behavior to make better decisions
- Offers targeting and segmentation tools
- Automated abandoned cart recovery
- Automated shipping updates
- Support for native eCommerce integrations
Whereas, a chatbot on ManyChat offers following features
- Lets you integrate messenger and email marketing
- Lets you sell products, nurture leads, book appointments, capture contact information, and nurture relationships via Messenger
- You can connect the chatbot to your favorite tools like Shopify
- Lets you automate your marketing campaigns
- Turn commenters to potential subscribers
- Growth tools to engage target customer
Winner: If you’re looking for features focused on eCommerce marketing, sales, and support, than Octane AI is definitely the right choice for you.
With Octane AI, you can have your chatbot ready to run on your Facebook Messenger page in less than 5 minutes without any coding. It’s even easier than setting up or creating a Facebook page!
Here is a quick workflow of how Octane AI Works -
- First off, create your Octane AI account, where you need to provide your personal or business information like name, email id, etc.
- Then, you need to connect your Facebook page and Shopify to the bot to get started with the process.
- Next, you can enable different opt-in methods or ways your customers can subscribe or access to your bot.
- Now, you can set up a number of automated flows under review settings and that’s all, to begin with, your bot.
- Once your Octane AI chatbot is live, you can track engagement on the dashboard, a place where you can send messages, and whatever type of content to your subscribers. In short, the Octane AI is easy to set up, use and customize.
On the other hand, ManyChat can help you to build a bot in a few minutes. You can create your own chatbot in minutes using its simple and easy drag & drop interface. It offers the Basic and Flow builders, enabling you to create standard chat flow that the bot will follow while communicating with someone. As compared to Basic, Flow one offers more control and flexibility.
Here’s the simple workflow of how to get started with ManyChat-
- First off, you need to sign-in with your Facebook account and provide your business information needed to move forward.
- Then, connect your Facebook page to the bot and you can add more than one Facebook page to the bot.
- Finally, you’ll be ready to do some customization and integrate bot to your favorite tools like Shopify as you want (through Settings option).
As you can now see that getting started with ManyChat is easy and no coding or technical knowledge is required to build your own chatbot.
Winner: In terms of ease of use, both are great. So, you can pick the one that suits your needs and you find the easiest to build your own chatbot.
Both Octane AI and ManyChat can be integrated directly with Facebook Messenger platform.
However, with Octane AI, integration with the best eCommerce apps is a breeze. You can easily conenct with the following platforms.
- Shopify
- Yotpo
- Klaviyo
- Justuno
- Privy
- Gorgias
- ReCharge
- Yext
Whereas, ManyChat allows you to connect to various tools such as -
- Shopify
- Google Sheets
- Zapier
These are the most popular ManyChat integrations, but there are also others including ConvertKit, PayPal, ActiceCampaign, Stripe, MailChimp and a lot more.
Winner: As you can see that Octane AI is definitely better than ManyChat when it comes to choosing the best Shopify Messenger Bot Builder. As compared to ManyChat, Octane AI supports various apps for Shopify, as discussed above.
Both Facebook Messenger bots builders - Octane AI and ManyChat can help you begin conversations with Facebook messenger ads to your target audience.
With Octane AI, you can easily send promotional messages with its “Sponsored Messages”. This enables you to utilize data from the custom audience you have created on your Facebook ads platform. In fact, there are numerous ways to use conversation ads, such as -
- Lead generation by gathering phone numbers and email address
- Newline promotions and discount
- Sales automation
- Games and quizzes
- Interactive and interesting product finders.
In short, you can take advantage of messenger ads to enjoy the better performance as compared to the conventional advertisement.
Winner: Both chatbot builders are incredible in terms of messenger ads, but Octane AI is definitely doing it in the better approach that could benefit you or your business more.
The pricing of Octane AI varies and depends on the Messenger active members and the number of messages you send. However, you can give a try to any plan for 14 days for free.
When it comes to Octane AI pricing, there are three plans:
- Basic - starts from $9/month
It’s recommended for those who are new to chatbot builders. It incorporates all the features you require to get started with Messenger marketing.
- Unlimited Facebook messages (you can send)
- Several eCommerce integrations, which include Shopify
- Automated campaigns
- Opt-in tools
- In-depth reporting
- Broadcasts
- Customer support
- Pro - starts from $200/month
If you’re a fast-growing merchant, this plan is suitable for you. It incorporates everything you’ll need to thrive your business through Facebook messenger and SMS.
- Includes everything present in the basic plan
- SMS messages ($0.02/message)
- Advanced segmenting & targeting
- VIP support
- Expert on-boarding
- Enterprise
If you belong to the high-volume merchants on Shopify Plus or any other eCommerce platform seeking specialized and advanced solutions, then you should go for an enterprise plan. You can request demo or pricing from Octane AI.
However, it includes-
- Everything present in the Pro plan
- Dedicated account manager
- Tailor solutions and service
- SMS bulk pricing ($0.012/message).
When it comes to ManyChat pricing, there are two plans -
- Free
It is recommended for those new to chatbot builders. The free plan offer features -
- Unlimited subscribers
- Standard quick-start templates
- 2 drip sequences
- Audience segmentation
- Four growth tools
- Rich media conversations
- Landing pages and web widgets
- Visual flow builder
- Pro - $10/month
If you’re business with high-growth ambitions and goals, then you can go for Pro plan. It includes features -
- Everything present in the free plan
- Advanced quick-start templates
- Unlimited drip sequences
- Unlimited audience segmentation
- Connect the bot to Facebook ads
- Connect subscriber info
- Advanced automation
- Integration with Shopify, email marketing, CRM, etc.
- 50 free SMS
Winner: When it comes to deciding which one is best for you in terms of pricing, it entirely depends on your specific requirements and budget. Once you have that clarity, you’ll surely be able to pick the one that’s best for your business.
When it comes to choosing between two platforms, it’s quite important to give a glance at their customer support before making a final decision. After all, you’ll surely encounter some issues while using the platform. When it occurs, you need a reliable customer support service.
Octane AI provides useful online “Help Center”, where you can enter your questions or doubts you’re having. In a moment you’ll get a post or article providing you with an actionable and helpful answer. Besides that, there is an additional pop-up chat bubble. You’ll see it at the bottom-right corner each time you come to the Octane AI’s website. Here, all you need to do is to type your questions/doubts and wait to get a response.
Octane AI’s customer support has been considered world-class and runs in the USA, Europe, and Canada. Therefore, it means that you’re bound to pick an agent operating in your time-zone. In addition to that, Octane AI also features blogs addressing a wide range of topics, which include “how to browse abandoned messages to customers on messenger” and a lot more.
Moreover, you’ll find video master classes by Octane AI founder as well as CEO. In short, it’s fair to say that Octane AI’s customer support is quite good and reliable.
On the other hand, ManyChat has no pop-up chat support. But, there is a “Support” feature you can use if you ever have any query for ManyChat bot builder. You can type your queries and you’ll get a response in the form of most relevant article or post describing a solution to your answer. You can even browse through several posts or basic guides on ManyChat. In short, it is the page where you may find all answers to your queries related to ManyChat.
Winner: Both chatbot builders offer incredible customer support. Octane AI and ManyChat have live chat feature with extensive help center and other support sections.
World’s leading agencies and organizations have joined hands with Octane AI to drive more sales and provide better customer experiences through chatbots. There are several benefits in their Partner Program -
- New revenue stream
- VIP Support
- New Leads
- Training and Education
- Shared slack channel for better and quick collaboration
- Exclusive access to better features
- Sales materials and training
- Co-marketing opportunities like blog posts.
- Featured in eCommerce magazine
Some of their partner include MUTESIX, RIGHT HOOK and BVACCEL. They believe messenger bots offer biggest opportunity to target more customers that benefit agencies and merchants in the long-run.
On the other hand, ManyChat offers no dedictaed Partner Program.
Winner - Considering the Partner Program benefits, Octane AI is a sure winner. Businesses and merchants can benefit a lot from this program in both short-term and long-term.
Octane AI offers you a detailed analytics dashboard. It is the place where you will monitor your revenue and manage campaigns. You can track your -
- Sales growth
- Average cart value
- Abandoned cart rate
- Sales conversations
- Open rates
- Recovered revenue
- Your Customer’s FAQs
In brief, your dashboard is a one-stop-shop for all the information you need to know about your store.
On the other hand, when you go to your ManyChat’s dashboard, you can analyze status with three different graphs - active subscribers, subscribers and unsubscribers and net subscribers. Active subscribers portray how many subscribers you’ve right now. Net subscribers portray the number representing subscribers minus unsubscribers for every day. Here, you can even play with time periods. Subscribers and unsubscribers data shows day-by-day statistics for subscribed and unsubscribed users from your chatbot.
It’s time to wrap up the review.
ManyChat is an all-in-one suite incorporating chatbots, pop-ups, live chat, and some automation features. Its features focus on enabling any business to have a right start with Messenger marketing. So, it is a simple messenger chatbot. On the other hand, Octane AI focuses on eCommerce sales, marketing, and support. It includes every feature of ManyChat and more. In short, Octane AI is the right one if you are a merchant looking for a Facebook Mesenger bot. In other words, if you’re selling someone online, particularly on Shopify, then Octane AI is the platform that you need to grow your business.
The best part of using Octane AI is that you get access to most of its features upon installation. Above all, the Octane AI integrates with various eCommerce apps like Privy, Klaviyo and a lot more, unlike ManyChat. That’s why it is surely best Shopify Messenger Bot Builder to have on your side.
However, the final decision depends on what you really want - your requirements and budget. But, make sure to review both the chatbot builders to make the right choice.
You can check out these resources if you want to learn more about chatbots and chat bot examples.
Disclaimer: Some links mentioned in this article are affiliate links that may provide a small commission to me at no cost to you.