Smith.ai vs. BirdEye

Smith.ai’s Web Chat offers comprehensive coverage. Through a combination of our AI technology and live, North America-based agents, we’re available to field all of your chats, 24/7, so you can focus on higher-value tasks. We are a full do-it-for-you solution — making sure your customers get the service they need. With BirdEye Webchat, your team needs to be available to answer chats. Their solution is more expensive and offers fewer capabilities, too. 

BirdEye requires an annual contract. You can’t get Webchat with their Starter Plan either. It’s only offered with a Growth plan or higher, and pricing starts at $399 a month — and that’s only if you pay for the whole year upfront. If you pay monthly, it jumps to $449 a month. Plus, consider the salaries you need to pay staff to manage the chat software — especially if you’re expecting 24/7 coverage. The costs keep adding up. 

With Smith.ai’s live chat, you are never locked into a contract. We have month-to-month billing and you only pay per chat. Plus, we block spam, sales, and incomplete chats at no cost. All plans come with both our AI technology and live agents included. We offer an à la carte plan where you only pay for the chats you use, or you can opt for our Starter plan, which is $140 for 20 monthly chats.

Getting started is easy with Smith.ai. We offer white-glove setup where our Onboarding team takes care of everything for you. We set up your no-code playbooks, add Q&A, design your widget’s branding, and customize instructions for our agents. Plus, it’s easy for our AI to ingest your website’s content and become trained on your brand and its products and services. Using large language models, it references these data sets to quickly and accurately answer questions from customers. For anything that requires the human touch, our bilingual agents are available to step in and take over.

It’s not that simple with BirdEye Webchat. You have to set up the chat yourself, they don’t have playbooks, they don’t use a no code builder, and they don’t train the chat with your data. It’s more of a hassle than it needs to be and it’s a lot less personalized, too.

Our technology sets us apart. BirdEye Webchat gathers your lead’s contact info and then routes it to a member of your team for handling. We use AI and live agents to address customer needs, every time. We integrate with hundreds of CRMs, scheduling software, and we connect with Make and Zapier — giving you access to thousands of more workflow solutions. We also offer analytics in your client dashboard for you to easily view transcripts and the performance of your chats and playbooks. 

If you’re looking for 360-degree coverage, add our Virtual Receptionists to any chat plan, starting at just $292.50/mo. Our 24/7 receptionists work in unison with AI to handle every call with friendliness and professionalism. We can also act as an extension of your SDR team with our Outreach Campaigns. Starting at $600/mo, our receptionists make outbound calls on your behalf — along with follow-up texts and emails — to create new sales opportunities for your team. 

For live North America-based agents, custom AI technology, hundreds of software integrations, and 24/7 coverage, Smith.ai is the superior choice over BirdEye Webchat.