You’re probably on this blog because you’re looking for a powerful and reliable software like respond.io to manage customer conversations. This respond.io alternative blog post will first give you an overview of respond.io to help you understand its capabilities. Then, we’ll explore some respond.io alternatives you can consider and help you decide which platform is the best for your business.
Respond.io Alternative: What is Respond.io?
Respond.io is a customer conversation management platform designed for growing businesses and enterprises that want to capture, convert and retain customers over chat and voice calls.
Built for speed, scale, and flexibility, respond.io supports use cases across industries—from marketing and sales to customer support and transactional messaging. Now that you have an idea of what this platform offers, let’s explore how it can unlock efficiency and impact for businesses with complex operations.
Respond.io Overview: Features and Benefits
Respond.io is a versatile software that has brought significant benefits to its global customers. From streamlining communication across channels to improving sales numbers, respond.io has provided a great return on investment (ROI) for businesses worldwide.
These are some of the things you can do with respond.io.
Centralize All Messaging Channels for a True Omnichannel Experience
Respond.io allows you to connect all the communication channels your customers use. You can connect traditional channels like email, webchat and SMS along with instant messaging channels like WhatsApp, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook Messenger and Telegram.
With the new WhatsApp Business Calling API, businesses now have a voice channel through WhatsApp to close sales quickly and assist customers more effectively.
You can also manage multiple channel accounts like individual WhatsApp accounts or numbers for each branch or outlet. Plus, it lets you connect custom channels, like your business' own messaging apps or e-commerce platform native chat inboxes like Lazada chat.
By centralizing all channels, you can reply to messages from a single omnichannel inbox on a desktop or mobile app. Now that all the channels are centralized, let’s look at a convenient tool to identify returning contacts across these channels.
Merge Conversations from WhatsApp and Other Channels in a Single Thread
When your business is active on multiple messaging channels, it's normal for the same person to contact you through more than one of them. This often leads to fragmented conversations, making it hard to deliver a true omnichannel experience.
Respond.io helps solve this by recognizing returning customers across all channels. You can easily spot duplicate contacts and merge conversations from different channels into one unified thread.
For example, if a customer first reaches out via WhatsApp and later messages you on Instagram, you can easily merge the chats to get the full picture. This not only gives you context, but also helps you spot patterns and make smarter decisions when supporting them.
Up next, let’s explore how respond.io supports your sales and marketing efforts.
Sell and Market on Multiple Channels
Respond.io helps businesses grow by making it easy to market and sell on the messaging channels their customers use most. Whether you're running ads, sending promotions or responding to inquiries, respond.io gives you the tools to manage it all from a single platform—so you can turn more conversations into conversions.
Manage Ad-Driven Conversations
If click-to-WhatsApp, TikTok, Instagram, or Facebook ads are part of your marketing strategy, respond.io makes it easy to handle all incoming conversations from these channels in one place.
The platform automatically identifies which ad prompted a lead’s message, giving your team the context needed to reply with relevance and speed.
Broadcast Messages Across Channels
Once you've engaged leads through ads, continue the conversation at scale with targeted broadcasts. Respond.io supports broadcast messaging across channels like SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, LINE, and Viber.
You can even send messages on the last channel a customer used, making each touchpoint feel timely and personal. Businesses can segment audiences by channel, customize messages to suit platform behavior, and analyze campaign performance with built-in broadcast analytics.
In addition, trigger promotional messages based on customer activity from e-commerce platforms like Shopify. For instance, send abandoned cart messages offering discounts or incentives to re-engage shoppers who didn't complete their purchase.
Track and Manage Every Customer Touchpoint
Respond.io’s Lifecycle feature lets you map out and manage every stage of the customer journey—from first contact to conversion and beyond. This makes it easy to see where each customer stands and what actions your team needs to take next.
Whether you're nurturing new leads, following up with interested prospects or handling post-sale support, Lifecycle stages keep your team aligned and organized. You can customize each stage to match your sales or support process, ensuring no one slips through the cracks.
Lifecycle works hand-in-hand with automation. You can automatically update a contact’s stage based on their actions—like replying to a message, booking a demo or making a purchase. This gives your team real-time visibility and ensures smooth handovers between marketing, sales and support.
Better yet, Lifecycle helps you prioritize high-value conversations. For example, your sales team can instantly filter contacts in the “Interested” or “Qualified” stages and focus on closing those deals—while support teams can concentrate on customers needing urgent help.
And since all your interactions happen in one place, you’ll have the full context for every conversation—no matter which channel they came from.
With each customer clearly mapped in your pipeline, your team can focus on delivering fast, accurate and personalized responses. And that’s where AI steps in. Next, let’s look at how respond.io’s AI tools help your team respond quickly and spot-on.
Streamline Processes in One Visual AI-Powered Automation Builder
Respond.io’s Workflows allow you to automate complex and repetitive business processes in a visual automation builder. You can plan, design and implement a Workflow with any amount of complexity from scratch or via templates.
For instance, you can design specific automation journeys for customers depending on their messages or responses in pre-chat surveys. Then automatically route and assign them to the right team and agent quickly.
Best of all, you can train and add an AI Agent (respond.io’s AI-powered chatbot) to your Workflow and configure it to answer customer questions and collect lead information before passing the conversation to a human agent.
In addition to automating conversations, businesses can automate sales and support agents’ tasks. Let’s explore how below.
Respond Quickly, Accurately and Professionally with AI
With respond.io, agents can leverage AI capabilities to answer inquiries promptly and efficiently. Respond AI Prompts allow agents to refine their messages, ensuring clarity and precision in communication. They can also translate messages into different languages, reducing potential language barriers.
AI Assist, on the other hand, is a game-changer for providing agents with quick replies based on customer context. This rapid access to information allows agents to respond quickly and accurately to customer inquiries, enhancing response times and contributing to a more satisfying customer experience.
Use Salesforce & HubSpot Inside Respond.io to Work Faster
Respond.io connects directly with Salesforce and HubSpot, so you can see and update customer information while chatting—no need to switch between tools. Your team can check contact details, deal status, and notes all in one place to give better, faster replies.
You can also set up workflows to automatically create or update records in your CRM based on how conversations go. This saves time and keeps your data up to date without extra effort.
By syncing everything in real time, your team always knows what’s going on with each customer—making it easier to stay organized and work as a team.
Gain Actionable Insights with Respond.io Reports
Respond.io's Reports module gives your team a clear view of performance across messaging channels, helping you understand what’s working—and what’s not. With nine reporting tabs covering everything from conversations and response times to agent performance and message volume, sales teams can easily track KPIs that matter.
For sales, this means visibility into lead response times, conversation outcomes, and broadcast performance. Managers can identify top performers, spot drop-offs in the sales funnel, and optimize workflows for better conversion rates.
Plus, with filters and export options, it's easy to create custom reports to share with leadership or adapt strategy on the fly.
With a comprehensive understanding of respond.io's capabilities, it's time to explore the most important qualities platforms like respond.io should have – robust platform reliability and stability.
Reliable Platform and Customer Support
Reliable services and excellent customer support from solution providers like respond.io are crucial as businesses rely heavily on the platform to manage their business operations and communicate with customers.
Respond.io offers a dependable platform that is designed to handle high volumes of messages without interruption. It gives businesses the ability to maintain consistent operations and focus on chatting with customers.
In addition to maintaining a stable platform, providing responsive and efficient customer support is crucial.
Respond.io’s support team is available from Monday to Friday, around the clock, and can assist you in English, Spanish, Chinese and Arabic. You can also reach them on multiple channels, including WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, LINE and more.
For after-hours support, AI assistance is also available. Now that you know what respond.io has to offer, let's look at some of its alternatives.
Turn customer conversations into business growth with respond.io. ✨
Manage calls, chats and emails in one place!
4 Respond.io Alternatives to Consider
In this section, we’ll explore four popular respond.io alternatives — WATI, Trengo, SleekFlow, and MessageBird. To help you make an informed decision, we’ll compare these platforms based on the following key factors:
Omnichannel capabilities
Contact identification and merging across channels
Broadcast features
Lead tracking and management
Automation tools
AI capabilities
CRM integrations
Reporting and analytics
Platform and customer support reliability
Let’s dive into the details.
This includes the number of channels they support, the ability to identify returning contacts across channels to prevent siloed conversations, ease of setting up automation, promotional messaging capabilities, platform reliability and customer support availability.
Let’s dive into the details below.
Respond.io Alternatives: Wati
WATI (short for WhatsApp Team Inbox) is a customer engagement platform built specifically for the WhatsApp Business API, although it doesn’t support WhatsApp calls. It allows you to use WhatsApp with multiple users while enjoying all the features available for WhatsApp API, like broadcasts and interactive messages.
Recently, Wati recognized that restricting users to a single channel was holding them back. As a result, they’ve introduced an integration with Instagram DMs, though it comes with some limitations.
Wati might work for businesses that only use WhatsApp and Instagram to talk to customers. However, relying on just two messaging channels can quickly become limiting. Plus, Wati adds extra fees to WhatsApp messages you send, a practice that goes unnoticed by some businesses.
WATI Advantages and Limitations
Pros | Cons |
|---|
Use WhatsApp with multiple teams | Platform limited to WhatsApp and Instagram |
Supports many of WhatsApp's features | No WhatsApp calls |
Set up automation without any coding | Extra charges per WhatsApp message |
Native integrations with Hubspot and Salesforce | No way to track lead progress and status |
| Limited customer support availability |
Wati allows you to set up automation without any coding to automate WhatsApp conversations and agents’ tasks. Its automation builder gets you covered if you’re looking to automate usual business tasks like data collection or appointment booking, but it is not particularly feature-rich.
Wati, unfortunately, does not come with a way to track and manage leads through the funnel. But if you’re simply looking to integrate your CRMs into Wati for convenient customer management, know that it does have native integration with Hubspot and Salesforce.
Wati’s reporting and analytics features are relatively basic. The platform offers standard dashboards that track message volume, operator performance, and ticket resolution times. Users can export reports on demand and schedule weekly summaries for the Team Inbox.
Wati’s customer support is only available Monday to Friday, 9 am to 5 pm IST (GMT +5:30), and you can only reach them by email or WhatsApp. The WhatsApp support can be frustrating because the chatbot makes it hard to talk to a real person.
Lastly, pricing starts at $39 a month for 3 users. But your bill can rack up quickly if you have a lot of users or as your team grows. For medium to large businesses, respond.io is a better alternative to Wati.
Respond.io Alternatives: Trengo
Trengo is a platform that helps businesses manage customer interactions across multiple channels. It is designed for small businesses with simple business processes.
It supports multiple channels, including voice calls, SMS, email, WhatsApp (but not WhatsApp calls), Instagram, Messenger, Telegram, WeChat and custom channels. Plus, it allows businesses to merge conversations from the same channel.
Businesses can send broadcasts via SMS and WhatsApp. Automation is powered by AI HelpMate for instant replies and AI Journeys for building no-code workflows. This setup lets teams automate FAQs, route chats and more without writing code.
While Trengo supports several popular channels, it does not support LINE, TikTok and Viber. If your business is located in regions where these apps are popular, you cannot create a total omnichannel experience on this platform.
With Trengo, you can label conversations, but there isn’t a tool to track and manage leads like respond.io’s Lifecycle.
Trengo Advantages and Limitations
Pros | Cons |
|---|
Supports various channels, including
custom channels | Does not support LINE, TikTok and Viber |
Allows broadcast on SMS and WhatsApp | Does not support broadcast on other popular
channels |
Allows conversation automation | Automation set-up is spread across different features, which can be confusing |
Native integration with Salesforce and Hubspot | Platform often crashes when it receives high volumes of messages |
| Limited customer support availability |
| No WhatsApp calls |
| No way to track and manage leads |
| Reports and analytics are a bit lacking |
Unlike respond.io, Trengo doesn’t allow merging conversations from two different channels. It only allows conversation merges from the same channel.
When setting up automation, businesses have to work on multiple modules, which can lead to confusion or redundancy. If you set up similar automation in both spaces, it may be difficult to determine which is responsible for a particular action or event when something goes wrong.
The good news is that Trengo offers native integrations with both Salesforce and HubSpot, allowing you to seamlessly sync and streamline customer data across platforms.
Trengo offers analytics on conversation statuses, resolution metrics, and number of replies to resolution. It also includes a Live Dashboard for real-time tracking of tickets, agent status, and performance. Reports can be filtered by teams, channels, and labels, but customization options are limited compared to advanced platforms.
Trengo’s most affordable plan starts at $170 per month for five users but doesn’t include chat support. With this plan, customer service is only available Monday to Friday, from 9 AM to 5:30 PM Central European Time (CET, GMT+1). To access live chat or phone support, you’ll need to upgrade to the Pro or Enterprise plan.
This isn’t ideal as the platform often crashes whenever it receives high volumes of messages, so it is not the best option for scaling businesses.
Respond.io Alternatives: Sleekflow
SleekFlow is an omnichannel communication platform that helps brands manage multiple channels from a single platform. Similar to Trengo, it is built for small companies with simple business processes.
Businesses can connect SMS, WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, LINE, Telegram, WeChat, and Viber to their platform to receive messages in one place. It allows broadcasts on SMS, WhatsApp, WeChat and LINE and offers broadcast analytics.
Businesses can use Sleekflow’s rule-based automation, available in Sleekflow 1.0 or its Flow Builder, available in Sleekflow 2.0, to automate conversations from these channels. But if you’re looking for a tool to track and manage leads like respond.io’s Lifecycle, you’re out of luck.
Sleekflow Advantages and Limitations
Pros | Cons |
|---|
Supports most of the popular messaging
channels | Does not support email, TikTok and custom channels |
Supports broadcast on SMS, WhatsApp,
WeChat and LINE | Does not support broadcast on Facebook
Messenger, Telegram and Viber |
Provides automation builder | Cannot handle high volumes of messages |
Native integration with Salesforce and Hubspot | Limited customer support availability |
| No WhatsApp calls |
| Does not have a tool to track and manage leads |
Although Sleekflow is an omnichannel platform, it does not support WhatsApp calls, email, TikTok and custom channels. Additionally, it does not support merging duplicate contacts across channels, which is a must-have feature for businesses that want to provide a complete omnichannel experience.
SleekFlow offers native integrations with both Salesforce and HubSpot, allowing users to access CRM data directly within the messaging platform. However, it does not come with a tool to track and manage leads through the funnel.
On the flip side, Sleekflow does come with a proper analytics module to get insights into agent performance, customize metrics to fit your goals, and evaluate conversion funnels.
Similar to Trengo, it also cannot support high volumes of messages, as it tends to slow down and crash when processing them. Its customer support is also only reachable from Monday to Friday, 9 am to 6 pm Hong Kong Time, GMT +8. So, if there are critical issues outside these hours, businesses cannot contact them.
The cheapest Sleekflow plan costs $149 and it’s limited to 3 users, 5 messaging channels and 5,000 broadcasts. However, Sleekflow charges an additional $15 per month per hosted number.
If your business is growing and needs a platform with advanced capabilities, respond.io is a more scalable solution than Sleekflow.
Respond.io Alternatives: MessageBird
MessageBird was initially developed for SMS, so it is often used for SMS messaging. It also supports many popular communication channels while providing omnichannel features like contact merging. But there are some important downsides.
It does not support TikTok, WhatsApp calls and custom channels, which can impact businesses that have their own messaging channels or apps, or those looking to integrate additional channels with the platform.
Unlike respond.io, which prompts businesses to merge duplicate contacts, businesses have to manually search for the contacts they want to merge, and these can’t be undone.
On Messagebird, businesses can also send SMS and WhatsApp broadcasts and create automation to automate tasks and conversations.
Unfortunately, MessageBird does not have any tool to track and manage the leads’ progress throughout the funnel.
MessageBird Advantages and Limitations
Pros | Cons |
|---|
Supports most of the popular
communication channels | Does not support TikTok and custom channels |
Supports contact merge | Must manually search for contacts you wish to merge
and merges can't be undone |
Supports broadcast messaging on WhatsApp and SMS | Limited broadcast channel support |
Flexible automation | No AI features yet |
| Frequent platform downtime |
| Limited customer support availability |
| No mobile app |
| Pricing can be confusing |
| No WhatsApp calls |
| No tool to track and manage leads |
Despite supporting most popular channels, it only supports broadcasts via SMS and WhatsApp. Plus, setting up WhatsApp broadcasts requires technical knowledge as it is not a native feature. This makes it clear that it cannot fully support instant messaging channel capabilities.
MessageBird offers reporting tools, including a Reporting API and Insights Dashboard for SMS, Voice, and Conversations data. Its Inbox Reporting provides real-time team performance metrics like response times, ticket status and popular tags.
It also comes with its own automation builder to create workflows, but surprisingly, it does not have AI features yet. The platform also experiences downtime 2-3 times a month, disrupting the ability to send and receive messages for several hours.
Additionally, its customer support is only reachable from Monday to Friday, 9 am to 5 pm via email with an estimated first response time of 12 hours for critical issues. For better support, you need to subscribe to a dedicated support plan, which ranges from $500 to $ 5,000 per month.
Unlike other options mentioned in this blog, MessageBird’s pricing is not easy to understand. Its capabilities are divided into three categories (Marketing, Inbox and Reach), each one with its own costs. Thus, calculating the total costs you will incur becomes more complicated.
Respond.io Alternative: Which Alternative is the Best for Your Business
As you can see, some of the alternatives were designed for small businesses with basic needs, while others were tailored to specific channels. Although it may seem like a good idea to use any of their platforms based on your current needs and channels, this will be a problem once you start to grow.
For instance, shifting to a new platform requires a lot of work like data migration, staff training and process reconfiguration. It can disrupt your operations and lead to a temporary decrease in productivity.
Therefore, it’s best to select a scalable solution from the start or one with superior customer support to help you with the process.
Benefits of Respond.io for Large Businesses
Channels | Contact Merge | Lifecycle | Automation and AI | Broadcast | Reports and analytics | Native Integration with Salesforce and Hubspot | Reliability |
|---|
• SMS
• Email
• Webchat
• WhatsApp • TikTok
• Instagram
• Messenger
• Telegram
• LINE
• WeChat
• Viber
• Custom Channel | Automatically
identify
duplicate
contacts across
channels and
prompts
businesses to
merge contacts | Track and manage every customer touchpoint | One visual
Workflow
builder for
flexible and
advanced
automation AI Agent: Automatically replies to common questions AI Prompts: Suggests quick replies for agents AI Assist: Edits messages to improve clarity | • SMS
• WhatsApp
• Messenger
• Telegram
• LINE
• Viber | Highly customizable filters, visual dashboards and exportable data | View Salesforce and Hubspot customer details while chatting with them on respond.io | High uptime and designed to
handle high
volumes of
messages. 24/7 customer support |
Respond.io is one of the most versatile customer conversation management software in the market. It allows you to capture, convert and retain leads with unique features that other alternatives just don’t have.
Respond.io is also one of the few omnichannel solutions that support WhatsApp calls and TikTok. This also applies to its broadcast capabilities, as you’ll be able to send bulk messages not only on WhatsApp but also on many other popular channels, such as Facebook Messenger or Viber.
Its contact merge feature is more sophisticated than the others mentioned in this blog, as it creates automatic merge suggestions across channels. And unlike other solutions on this list, respond.io offers a tool to track and manage leads throughout the funnel.
When it comes to automation, respond.io’s Workflows module enables advanced automated journeys for the most specific business needs. In the AI department, it delivers a trainable AI agent and other practical AI tools to make agents’ work easier.
If your business relies on CRMs like Salesforce and Hubspot, respond.io has got you covered with native integrations for both. If you are using another CRM, you can still integrate it with respond.io through Zapier or Make.
Respond.io’s Reports Module provides in-depth analytics on messaging performance, agent productivity, and customer behavior. It includes visual dashboards, exportable data and customizable filters for actionable insights.
Best of all, compared to its alternatives, respond.io has very high platform uptime and customer support availability to ensure your business operations run smoothly, and you can get assistance whenever you need it. Ready to experience the power of respond.io? Sign up for a free trial and witness its benefits firsthand.
Turn customer conversations into business growth with respond.io. ✨
Manage calls, chats and emails in one place!
Further Reading
Want to explore respond.io further? Here are some readings that might interest you.
Overview
Electronic
Fashion & Apparel
Furniture
Jewelry
Afterschool Activities
Sport & Fitness
Beauty Center
Dental Clinic
Medical Clinic
Home Cleaning & Maid Services
Photography & Videography
Auto Part Retailer
Car Dealership
Travel Agency & Tour Operator
How Homage Achieved a 9% Increase in Care Visit Success with Respond.io AutomationRead Customer Story 
How Srikandi Streamlined Communication for 47 Branches and Accelerated Revenue GrowthRead Customer Story 
