Drift AI vs Chatbase vs Helply: Features and Pricing Compared

Choose Drift AI if you are a large enterprise with a huge budget that only cares about sales, but be ready to pay over $30,000 a year for a tool that ignores customer support.

Choose Chatbase if you want to quickly build a bot from a PDF for a small project, but be careful—it is known to give wrong answers ("hallucinations") and gets expensive very fast.

However, Helply is the best AI agent for customer support because it solves all these problems. It works everywhere, supports over 40 languages, doesn't make things up, and integrates directly with your professional helpdesk to solve tickets and save you money.

Drift AI

Drift AI (now owned by Salesloft) is a "conversational marketing" platform. Its main goal is to help sales teams get more leads.

It is built for large companies with big budgets who want to turn website visitors into pipeline revenue.

While it is powerful for sales, Drift is not a customer support tool. It is incredibly expensive and lacks the features needed to help customers with problems. It is designed to sell, not to serve.

Features

• Fastlane. This feature lets VIP buyers skip forms and book meetings instantly.
• Visitor Scoring. It identifies high-value companies visiting your site so sales reps can jump in.
• Intelligent Routing. It sends leads to the right sales person based on rules.
• Integrations. It connects well with sales tools like Salesforce and Marketo, but it does not integrate deeply with support helpdesks.

Pricing plans

Salesloft does not publish detailed pricing on its site; pricing is provided through sales consultations.

Pros

• Good for Sales Teams. If your only goal is to book meetings for a sales team, Drift is good at it.
• Real-Time Scoring. It helps sales reps know who is on the site right now.
• Strong CRM Connections. It syncs well with Salesforce.

Cons

• Extremely Expensive. The starting price is around $2,500 per month. This is far too high for most businesses, especially when tools like Helply offer better support features for a fraction of the cost.
• Not for Support. Drift lacks basic helpdesk features. It doesn't handle support tickets well and doesn't integrate with knowledge bases to answer questions automatically.
• Requires Staff. Drift works best when you have humans ready to answer chats instantly. If you don't have a large team, the tool loses its value.
• Complex Setup. Users report that it is hard to learn and set up. You often need technical skills to make it work right.
• Walled Garden. It tries to keep you inside its own system rather than connecting easily with the support tools you already use.

Who it's for

• Large enterprise companies with huge budgets.
• Sales teams that need to book demos and don't care about customer support.
• Companies with a dedicated team of people just to answer chats.

Who it's not for

• Almost everyone else.
• Support Teams. It lacks the tools to help customers solve problems.
• Small to Mid-sized Businesses. The $30,000/year price tag is unreasonable for most.
• Companies wanting automation. Drift relies heavily on human sales reps jumping into chats.

Chatbase

Chatbase is a tool for people who want to build their own bot quickly. It is known for being a "wrapper" around ChatGPT.

You upload your files (like PDFs or Word docs), and it creates a bot that answers questions based on that text.

While it is fun and fast to set up, Chatbase is essentially a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) project.

It is great for a quick experiment, but it lacks the safety, reliability, and deep integrations that professional businesses need.

Features

• Train on your data. You can upload documents, paste text, or link your website, and the bot will learn from it.
• Multi-Channel. You can put the bot on your website or connect it to apps like Slack and WhatsApp.
• Integrations. It connects to tools like Zapier, Make, and Zendesk, though users report these connections can be tricky to set up perfectly.
• Actions. You can teach the bot to do simple tasks, like looking up an order status, if you know how to set it up.

Pricing Plans

Chatbase charges based on "credits." Every time the bot answers, it costs credits. This can get expensive very quickly if your bot gets popular.

Note: Even on paid plans, you often have to pay extra fees to remove the "Powered by Chatbase" branding or to add more team members.

Pros

• Fast Setup. You can upload a PDF and have a working bot in about 10 minutes.
• Good for DIY. If you like tinkering and building things yourself, it is a flexible tool.
• Custom Data. It is easy to train the bot on a specific document or manual.

Cons

• Hallucinations. This is the biggest risk. Because it uses basic AI models, Chatbase bots are known to "hallucinate," or make up wrong answers confidently. For a business, giving a customer wrong information is dangerous.
• Hidden Costs. The pricing looks low at first, but costs pile up. You have to pay extra to remove their branding, pay extra for more agents, and pay huge jumps if you go over your message limit.
• Limited Customization. You cannot easily design complex chat flows or rules. If the AI gets confused, you have few ways to fix it.
• Not a Full Support Tool. It does not have a real ticketing system or deep two-way sync with helpdesks. It’s mostly just a Q&A bot.

Who it's for

• Hobbyists and DIYers. People who want to play with AI and build a custom bot quickly.
• Internal Teams. Companies that want a simple bot to answer questions from an employee handbook.
• Small projects. Simple websites that just need a bot to answer "What are your hours?"

Who it's not for

• Professional Customer Support. The risk of the bot giving wrong answers (hallucinations) is too high for serious brands.
• High-Volume Businesses. The credit-based pricing gets very expensive compared to unlimited plans from other providers.
• Teams needing reliability. If you need 100% accurate answers and safe handoffs to human agents, a DIY tool like Chatbase is risky.

Helply

Helply is an AI support agent built for professional support teams. It is a powerful tool designed to save you time, lower your costs, and make your customers happier.

The main difference between Helply and other tools is that Helply connects to the tools you already use. It does not force you to switch to a new system.

It integrates with your existing helpdesk (such as Zendesk, Freshdesk, Help Scout, or Groove) to automatically resolve tickets.

Helply works everywhere your customers are: on your website, in your help center, and inside your messaging apps. Thus providing instant, accurate support 24/7.

Key Features

• Smart AI That Learns. Helply uses advanced AI to learn from your past conversations. It doesn't just look for keywords; it understands what your customers need and gives them personal, accurate answers.
• Seamless Helpdesk Integration. Helply automatically solves common (Tier-1) support tickets before they reach your human agents. This lets your team focus on the hard stuff.
• Knowledge Bridge (Auto-Updates). Helply actively finds "knowledge gaps"—questions it cannot answer yet. It then drafts new help articles for you. This keeps your documentation fresh and makes your whole support system smarter every day.
• Global Multi-Language Support. Helply fluently supports over 40 languages. You can instantly support customers all over the world without hiring new staff.
• Action-Taking AI. Helply does more than just talk. It can connect to tools like Stripe or Shopify to check order status, issue refunds, or update account details automatically.
• Fast, No-Code Setup. You can connect Helply to your helpdesk and start solving tickets in minutes, without needing a developer.

Pricing Plans

Helply offers transparent, flexible pricing that scales with your business. You pay for the value you get, without the hidden fees or confusing "credits" that other tools use.

Pros

• Keep Your Professional Tools. You don't have to delete Zendesk or Freshdesk. Helply makes the tools you already love even better.
• Massive Time Savings. By solving repetitive tickets automatically, your agents save hours of work every day.
• Better Documentation. It is the only tool that helps you write new help articles based on what customers are actually asking.
• Instant Global Support. You can act like a global enterprise with support in 40+ languages.
• Safe and Accurate. Unlike DIY bots that might "hallucinate," Helply is built for business accuracy and reliability.
• Custom Brand Voice. You can easily adjust the AI's tone to sound exactly like your brand (friendly, professional, or playful).

Cons

• Built for Pros. Helply works best when connected to a helpdesk. It is not a "standalone" chat widget for a hobby site; it is a professional tool for teams that want real results.
• Requires a Knowledge Base. Like any smart AI, Helply needs good information to work well. However, its "Knowledge Bridge" feature helps you build this content faster than any other tool.

Who it's for

• Professional Support Teams. If you use Zendesk, Help Scout, Freshdesk, or Groove, Helply is the perfect upgrade.
• Growing E-commerce Brands. Stores that need to automate "Where is my order?" tickets and recover abandoned carts.
• Global Businesses. Companies that have customers in many different countries and speak many languages.
• Efficient Leaders. Managers who want to lower support costs while improving response times.

Who it's not for

• People who want a generic, standalone bot. If you want a basic bot that replaces your entire support system with a weaker one, Tidio might be a better fit—until you outgrow it.

Verdict

Choosing the right tool depends on your goals. Drift is for sales, Chatbase is for DIY projects, and Helply is for professional support.

Here is how they compare.

Helply is the only tool designed for professional support teams. It works with the tools you already use, supports over 40 languages, and actively improves your knowledge base.

It provides enterprise-level AI that is safe, accurate, and affordable.

Stop wasting your agents' time on repetitive tickets. See how Helply can transform your customer support.

Book your FREE demo today!