Is HubSpot’s free chatbot builder really free?
Yes and No.
It’s like a lot of freemium offerings. The HubSpot Chat builder is free with a few caveats.
The Chatbot builder that you use to create the chatbot is free. However, some of the underlying services it connects to are not. And the free features are basic.
The Chatbot builder is a free tool on HubSpot’s Sales hub. You can also sign up for a basic free CRM account. And then yes, it would be a powerful way to set up a basic lead generation flow on your website for free.
You can create and customize a basic chatbot with automated messages. You can use it for live chat. And it can be integrated with popular messaging platforms like Facebook Messenger and Slack.
However, if you want to use more advanced features like custom design, chat routing, or custom data collection, you will need to upgrade to one of HubSpot’s paid plans.
Some of the advanced concierge services and searchable knowledge base services, are available on the Service Hub professional plan.
Still, the free version is a great way to get started with chatbots.
If a chatbot is something that you would like to experiment with in your business right now, then lead generation may be the best business goal to start with. The HubSpot Chatbot builder is a great free tool to use for that experiment.
As a second phase, you might extend to layering on other customer experiences with HubSpot’s Chatbot. Or, possibly replace it with a different chatbot product entirely it that is preferred.
You can innovate based on your needs and what you learn from the experiment.
