Manychat Review: Is It the Right Chat Marketing Platform for Instagram?

Manychat

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Manychat is a chatbot automation tool built for social media platforms like Instagram DMs, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Telegram. Built for businesses, agencies, and creators, it automates chatbot flows, increases conversions, and drives customer engagement and satisfaction.

Features

• Build automated chatbot flows tailored to your audience
• Segment audience with customer tags and user fields
• Run automated drip campaigns and message sequences
• Create customer keyword triggers and set outcomes to follow up
• Improves customer satisfaction by answering common inquiries and FAQs
• Provides customer support round the clock with live chat integration
• Integrates with CRMs and other email marketing tools like HubSpot, MailChimp, Zapier
• Uses AI to create custom flows based on goals, refine message recommendations
• Leverages AI to improve existing flows and recognize high-intent
• Acquires leads, qualifies, and nurtures them automatically with follow-ups

Pros

• Delivers 24/7 customer support
• Increases conversion rates
• Built-in with AI to tailor personalized messages

Cons

• Cost can be high if you’ve many contacts
• Analytics tools lack reporting features

What Is Manychat?

Manychat is cloud-based chat marketing software that automates two-way conversations on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Telegram. It helps businesses and creators attract more qualified leads, increase sales, and deliver customer support—all from a single platform.

Launched in 2016 and headquartered in San Francisco, Manychat was founded with a mission of transforming how businesses communicate with their users or attract prospects. What started as a messenger marketing platform is now the ideal lead generation and customer engagement tool for businesses looking to automate responses and communication on social media platforms like Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and SMS.

Who Is Manychat For?

Manychat is perfect for anyone wanting to increase customer acquisition and engagement through automated chatbot marketing. Manychat serves:

• E-commerce brands that aim to create a better shopping experience through personalized responses, special offers and giveaways, and prompt customer support – all on autopilot.
  
• Agencies that want to use Manychat as a service for and build custom marketing funnels for their clients – all from a centralized flow-builder/dashboard.
  
• Service-based businesses that need to attract new leads, follow up with prospects, and deliver 24/7 customer support.
  
• Local Businesses that need to streamline customer inquiries, appointment bookings, and promotions via interactive chatbots and advanced campaigns.

How Does Manychat Work?

You can set up automated flows and sequences in Manychat Automations. You can either click on pre-built templates to edit and set up a new customized flow. You can also click on Start from Scratch to build out a flow of actions, outcomes, and messages for the end-user.

All of this happens in Manychat’s singular dashboard, flow builder. It offers drag-and-drop functionality that allows you to edit templates and existing flows or create new ones effortlessly.

You can also set up automated messages or send follow-up SMS or emails. Bot sequences in Manychat create a series of automated direct messages like welcome emails, product recommendations, and special offers. You can also test the automation within the Manychat application or the native platform you’re setting up.

If you’re not comfortable with the flow builder, which allows you to visualize all messages and the entire flow in one go, you can opt for the basic builder, too.

The platform seamlessly integrates with Instagram, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, SMS, and email marketing integrations to automate communication delivery. You can also integrate Manychat with other email automation platforms like MailChimp or HubSpot to automate email or message delivery.

You can also use Manychat’s bot to collect user information, qualify leads automatically, and connect it with the CRM. In fact, you can also segment audiences based on interactions, purchase history, and other attributes.

Manychat Features

Manychat offers a wide range of essential features that can enable businesses to automate chatbot workflows and improve conversions:

Flow Builder

Flow Builder is Manychat’s visual editor for conversations. It allows you to build automation flows, set up triggers and conditions, and visualize entire interactions without the need to switch between single messages. You can also set up personalized messages and emails and train the bot to tag contacts, subscribe them to a sequence, open conversations, or notify admins.

Not only that, but you can also set up different outcomes for customers depending on the conditions they meet. You can also A/B test messages like welcome emails using Randomizer.

Audience Segmentation

Your target audience consists of people with different buying habits and needs. That’s why you need to filter your audience based on their location, demographics, behavior, and last interactions. Manychat’s audience segmentation feature has tags, system fields, and custom fields you can use to create new segments and save them for later use.

You can also mix and match segments you’ve created to deliver advanced campaigns via precise marketing in a few easy steps. For example, you can combine “high-value customer segment” with “recently interacted” to target a valuable set of qualified and interested leads.

Broadcast Messaging

Manychat’s broadcast messaging feature allows you to send personalized messages to a larger set of contacts. This works best for customer engagement and retargeting, unlike new lead acquisition. You can pick an existing flow or create a new one using Flow Builder.

You can send multiple messages via broadcast, too, and assign an outcome for each response. In fact, I use a mix of all channels for setting up broadcasts, as that increases the likelihood of customer engagement.

Automated Responses and Sequences

Manychat’s sequence feature automates a series of messages with varying delays for your users/contacts. You can add newer messages to an existing sequence, delay scheduled times, and enable or disable individual messages.

What I like about creating sequences using Manychat is how the messages are scheduled and sent based on my contact’s time zone.

Omnichannel Support

You can manage all customer interactions across multiple social media platforms on Manychat. Your contacts can reach across any platform and get a personalized, timely response. Providing multiple touchpoints increases customer experience while also adding convenience for us, creators, and businesses to manage all customer interactions from a single dashboard.

I like the fact that I don’t have to switch between different platforms. Manychat allows me to streamline communication and improve response times—all on autopilot.

Customizable Templates

When I started off with Manychat, it was easy for me to set automated flows and sequences simply because there were customizable templates. I didn’t have to create automated flows from scratch, nor did I know how to code for AI chatbots.

These templates set up entire automated flows for me and let me customize every single element – even in the free version. You can click on each message to edit them, and you can preview the entire flow on Instagram or any other platform.

AI-Powered NLP and Response Suggestions

Manychat AI has an AI flow builder assistant. Through this assistant, I will tell my goal, and it builds out my flow in a few seconds. Not only that, it also gives response suggestions and refines messages with AI Text Improver.

The AI step allows you to plug AI into existing conversations and build or arrange new flows you’re creating, too! It has multiple language support, so it always gets the intent of conversations right before suggesting responses.

Analytics and Tracking

All the great features of Manychat would not have been useful without the ability to track and measure their performance. How do you know the ROI of your automated conversations and advanced campaigns?

You can track conversion events that bring you revenue or engagement. To view analytics within Manychat, click on Home > Insights. If you’d like detailed dashboards to track analytical data, you can set them up using DataQuantics or Datadog integrations.

Manychat Popular Product

The popular products of Manychat are Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and more.

Instagram

Manychat enables businesses to automate their Instagram marketing – specifically DMs to streamline engagement and increase lead generation. Businesses and creators like me can create digital marketing campaigns like welcome messages, product recommendation flows, or FAQ responses within Manychat.

In fact, it also qualifies leads and automatically adds them to your database for future marketing campaigns. Setting up automated, personalized responses allows my business to be available outside working hours. This makes up for a seamless and consistent user experience.

Plus, you can also automate comments to go off on triggers like hashtags or keywords so that the conversation never stops!

WhatsApp

WhatsApp is a great social media platform where businesses receive many common inquiries. You don’t want your users to wait for responses—automate welcome messages, follow-ups, and reminders to keep up customer interest and increase conversions.

I use WhatsApp automation to provide my customers with 24/7 customer assistance. However, I can also combine automated messages and live chat to give my customers a better experience. This nurtures leads, answers common inquiries, improves customer discontent, and builds stronger relationships with clients and prospects alike.

Facebook Messenger

Manychat’s chatbot building tool is one of the top integrations for Messenger because it makes it easier to respond to customer inquiries outside of available hours. Instant support, combined with quick, accurate answers, helps improve customer satisfaction.

Plus, I use Manychat to automate flows and sequences on Messenger to reach out to prospects or retarget existing customers for an upsell or cross-sell opportunity. I’ve found chatbot marketing to be much easier to encourage contacts to sign up for events, click on promotional offers, or make purchases.

Deliver meaningful interactions, provide instant customer support, and send them automated sequences for product recommendations or promotional offers – all while you’re away on business.

AI

Manychat is one of the few AI chatbots that truly deliver smarter automations and increase engagement. Built to manage follower interactions faster and get more data for smarter decisions, AI helps you effectively guide leads through the sales funnel. It’s available as an add-on to your Pro plan.

Manychat has three distinct AI tools: Flow Builder Assistant, Text Improver, AI Step, and Intention Recognition. You can use Flow Builder Assistant to build flows automatically once you share the goal you’d like to achieve. The Text Improver is for refining messages, improving copy, and having suggestions across all automations to deliver powerful and personalized interactions.

The AI step has to be my favorite! I can plug it into existing conversations and personalize old chats while creating new flow arrangements and sequences. The Intention Recognition AI tool has also been quite a game changer in delivering accurate answers based on intent. This has been very useful in handling FAQ inquiries.

Its ability to manage a wide range of questions without requiring my intervention, combined with multi-language support, is adding a new edge to all my chatbot marketing campaigns across Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp.

Manychat Use Cases

Manychat offers many use cases for businesses, entrepreneurs, agencies, and creators alike. Here are some important examples:

Lead Generation and Sales Automation

61% of marketers believe lead generation is one of their major challenges. Success on social media, like any platform, requires more than engagement—it’s about creating lead magnets throughout the buyer’s journey.

You can set up bots for Instagram DM, Messenger, WhatsApp, or even Telegram to turn more lookers into bookers. When a lead clicks your campaign CTA, Manychat’s interactive bot qualifies them by asking a few questions. The platform’s lead scoring process helps automate this, delivering personalized offers or answers.

Since deals often require multiple touches, you can use Manychat to send reminders, offers, and follow-up sequences to nurture and convert leads.

Customer Support and Engagement

Providing 24/7 customer support traditionally can mean high staffing costs, and extended response times. Automating personalized customer support via interactive bots can cut down costs, improve conversions, and ensure accurate, consistent responses every time.

Manychat’s automated flows, combined with AI recommendations, let you deliver personalized customer support and handle common FAQ inquiries. This not only helps you scale customer support operations but also improves customer retention at the same time.

You can program the bots to deliver tailored communication based on customer data to make each interaction seamless. In fact, in addition to round-the-clock customer support, I like how the option to switch to live chat on platforms like WhatsApp makes customers feel heard and attended to.

You can program certain responses to trigger admin notifications. When you receive those, you or team members can jump onto chats and guide customers.

Event Reminders and Appointment Scheduling

Event reminders can keep Instagram or Facebook users excited about product launches, upcoming events, and debuts. You can add reminders to static posts or stories on both Instagram and Facebook using Manychat.

Customers will need to opt in for event reminders, and they’ll receive three notifications leading up to the event. Plus, Manychat enables businesses to take appointments and reservations on social media platforms automatically.

I mostly use Manychat’s event reminders to ensure they never miss a meeting or an event.

Post-Purchase Follow-Up

Automated follow-ups, such as thank-you notes, product usage tips, review requests, and special offers, can improve customer satisfaction and bring repeat business. Once someone makes a purchase, you should send a confirmation message, a shipping confirmation, and an out-for-delivery message.

Once they receive the product, you can ask for product reviews, roll out coupons for upgrades or cross-sell opportunities, or keep them informed about new product releases or updates. This is particularly great for building a strong relationship with your customer base and having them keep coming back for more!

What are the Benefits of Manychat?

The benefits of Manychat are as follows:

Increased Customer Engagement

Manychat can increase customer engagement by helping you create automated flows that send personalized messages to customers and prospects based on triggers. These triggers can be a sign-up, a monthly cadence, their interactions, or even purchase behaviors.

To nurture leads and keep them engaged, you can send promotions, product launches, reminders, welcome emails, or festive wishes. You can also increase customer engagement with the help of audience segmentation. The more segmented your audience is, the more highly relevant messages and offers you can send.

You can also run conversational surveys, loyalty programs, and broadcasts to keep you interested and involved with your brand.

Streamlined Lead Conversion

Manychat streamlines lead conversion in multiple ways. Its chatbot interacts with prospects in real-time, qualifies them, captures their contacts, and adds them to the database automatically.

Once a lead is created, follow-ups are generated automatically according to the sequences you’ve put in place so that no lead slips away. In fact, I really like how the data transfer between different CRMs and email marketing platforms like HubSpot or Mailchimp is seamless and superfast. Not to mention, all of the processes are automatic, helping maintain an organized and qualified database.

Enhanced Customer Support

For small to medium-sized businesses or even popular creators, monitoring customer support messages or responding to them promptly might become a tedious task.

However, if you’re late in responding to customer grievances, you might anger the dissatisfied customer more and ultimately lose your business. With Manychat’s interactive chatbot, you can provide customer support 24/7 for common inquiries, frequently asked questions, and problems they might be facing.

Sometimes, it might all be in your FAQs, but every customer likes a touchpoint they can reach out to. And the faster the response, the better! Manychat responds to all queries around the clock so that your customers are satisfied and retention rates remain high.

Time and Resource Efficiency

When done manually, lead management and customer support can result in high staffing costs and longer response times.

Manychat automates lead management, creation, and customer support. By doing that, you save time training resources. You can automate sequences for the most common inquiries and integrate them with live chat for more complex issues.

For managing leads, Manychat automatically updates leads to CRMs and email marketing platforms, saving you downtime. You can start contacting these leads immediately with personalized offers, discounts, and welcome messages.

Manychat saves you time by automating repetitive tasks. Powered by its AI, your prospects and customers receive accurate responses tailored to their needs, thereby ensuring added efficiency.

Real-Time Messaging and Instant Responses

How fast you respond to your customers or prospects today makes all the difference. When a prospect reaches out to your business on Instagram DM and asks a question, send them an appropriate response immediately via Manychat’s automated sequences.

It is true that you can do it manually for a handful of prospects. But not when you plan to scale your operations and receive 15+ queries daily. Plus, if you’re unavailable 24/7, you might lose the customer or have to work too hard to nurture the lead and convert them into the funnel.

I like how Manychat helps automate welcome emails for new customers, provides customer support for existing customers, and nurtures leads through personalized messages and offers – all from a single drag-and-drop interface.

Customization and Personalization Options

Manychat has templates for everything. If you want to send welcome emails or special offers, it’s all there – in the template library. But what’s fantastic is how easy these templates are to customize in the flow builder.

I can also send a personalized greeting card using Manychat. Plus, its AI tool – AI Step, can add personalized user fields, system fields, and bot fields so that you can tailor an automation sequence for each lead. Add names or previous interactions in user fields, leverage system subscriptions or IDs to be more contextually aware of your contacts, and deepen engagement by tailoring each conversation that goes out!

This level of personalization might help your business stand out among the competition due to the exceptional service you provide.

Manychat Pricing

Manychat uses a freemium pricing plan with 2 paid plans, starting from $15/month.

Plans	Monthly Pricing	Offerings
Free	$0	Unlimited custom flows to engage up to 1,000 contacts, 10 customer Tags
Pro	$15	Unlimited Growth Tools and Keywords, Unlimited Tags, Custom Fields, & advanced Segments, Analytics & Insights tools, 24/7 Email support
Elite	Custom pricing	Dedicated onboarding, Strategic recommendations, Priority support

I suggest you check out the free trial and pick a pro or elite plan based on your needs. If you’re an enterprise, a big business, or an agency, the elite plan might work better for you. Pro is for all creators, SMBs, and local businesses who want to unlock the full strength of chatbot automation—and the free model isn’t suitable.

Pros and Cons of Manychat

This section takes a detailed look at the pros and cons of Manychat.

Manychat Pros

• Increases conversion rates
• Improves customer engagement
• Delivers efficient 24/7 customer support
• Has AI suggestions to refine conversations
• Has AI to check for intent and tailor personalized messages

Manychat Cons

• Cost is a problem, as it charges you based on contacts you have
• Analytics tools aren’t the most developed to give you a full picture of data
• There’s no website widget or an omnichannel widget for managing all channels

Manychat Integrations

Manychat integrates with all the tools you work with once you have a Pro or Elite subscription:

Zapier

You can connect Manychat to 1500+ apps with Zapier without needing any coding skills. This allows you to use Manychat with email marketing tools and CRMs of your choice. This integration helps you add a lead to the CRM, collect phone numbers and names inside the bot, and register contacts to events and webinars using a single tap.

Google Sheets

You can save, update, and retrieve customer data from Manychat using Google Sheets. There’s a limitation of 150 requests per 60 seconds, but that shouldn’t be too big of an issue. That’s because this doesn’t affect data import for triggers or actions performed on Manychat.

ActiveCampaign

You can send customer data that you collect on Manychat to ActiveCampaign for automated email marketing and customer relationship management. You can trigger email campaigns from ActiveCampaign once the user has shown interest or triggered specific actions.

HubSpot

HubSpot is a popular CRM and marketing automation tool. You can manage leads better by integrating to HubSpot. You can send leads from Manychat to HubSpot for managing them, and nurturing them more. You can then create or update their contact profiles, trigger emails or workflows, submit subscriber to HubSpot forms. You can then upload updated data back to Manychat as well.

MailChimp

MailChimp can receive automated lead data from Manychat and trigger emails while simplifying the larger contact management process for you. You can also sync contact information between these two platforms for advanced campaigns and send personalized follow-ups via email.

ConvertKit

You can create, update, tag, and sequence contacts in ConvertKit and then use the updated data on Manychat for more targeted campaigns. You can primarily use ConvertKit for lead nurturing and email automation. As a creator, I use ConvertKit more because of its easy segmenting features based on user behaviors or purchase attributes.

Manychat Support

Manychat’s support is robust, and they offer many options to ensure you’ve all the help you need:

Email Support

You can reach out to Manychat email support by submitting a ticket for resolving specific issues, or troubleshooting. Email support is available to Pro and Elite users of Manychat.

Help Center

Manychat’s Help Center is a self-serve resource for users like you and me. There are articles, guides, tutorials, and FAQs you can look into without submitting a ticket. It has detailed documentation on how to create automated bots and sequences or even how to integrate with 1500+ apps and every best practice available to use ManyChat better.

You can also get help from Manychat Bot on the Help Center to help you find things faster.

Video Tutorials

Go to Manychat Help > Video Tutorials to see detailed videos on each step, each product feature you use. You’ll find how-tos, and process instructions for anything you’re trying to do on Manychat.

Live Chat Support

You have the Manychat bot on its Help page, ready to assist you with specific queries or help you find steps, resources, and troubleshooting guides.

Community Forum

Manychat has a powerful community full of product experts who can help you with the ins and outs of the product. Know how to use Manychat, what are its best practices, ask questions, share your ideas, and be inspired.

Manychat Alternatives

Here are the top Manychat alternatives that you can use:

Tidio

Tidio is an AI-driven customer solution perfect for small and medium-sized businesses that has a single solution for lead generation, nurturing, and customer support.

Gorgias

Gorgias is an AI-powered CX automation platform that’s suited for e-commerce platforms. It’s good for businesses that need omnichannel support and integrations like Shopify.

Livechat

Livechat is designed for sales and customer success teams to provide live chat support for e-commerce businesses. It has powerful reporting and analytics features that combine with robust integrations like Shopify and are powered by Copilot’s AI.

Here’s a quick comparison of top Manychat alternatives.

Manychat Alternatives	Key Features	Ideal for	Pricing
Tidio	Real-time chat widget on the website with automation for lead generation, order tracking, and support	SMBs, SaaS businesses	Starts from $29/month for the starter pack
Gorgias	Multi-channel support with seamless integrations with e-commerce platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, and Magento	E-commerce businesses, retail businesses/enterprises	Starts from $300/month for the pro plan
Livechat	Chat automation and support with the most advanced reporting and analytics features that help you track traffic, goals, and customer details in real-time and historically	E-commerce businesses or customer service teams	Starts from $20/month for the starter plan

Who Should Use Manychat?

Manychat is perfect for the below-mentioned businesses:

E-commerce Businesses Focused on Social Media Engagement

With Manychat’s functionality available on Instagram DMs, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger mainly, it’s perfect for e-commerce businesses looking to foster social media engagement.

They can send welcome emails to new customers/subscribers, send personalized automated message flows to nurture existing customers, or even answer common inquiries to simplify decision-making in the purchase process.

You can also send product recommendations, get them to sign up for live sessions or webinars with a single tap, and respond to comments automatically. This will help your business show up outside business works, enabling customer satisfaction through and through.

Service-based Businesses Offering Appointment Scheduling

If yours is a service-based business like a salon, a gym, or a clinic, you can automate appointment schedulations and reservations through Manychat. Design a flow that’ll automatically collect customer details and time and set up instant reservations. Manychat collects user information and qualifies leads before setting up appointments, ensuring you waste no time with irrelevant leads.

Manage them from one single dashboard and streamline business operations, even when you’re not at your desk. You can also send customers appointment reminders. If someone has any queries, they can also get quick answers and more help with Manychat’s improved AI-powered responses.

Digital Marketers and Agencies

If you’re a digital marketing agency, you can automate the lead nurturing process by collecting lead information from social media platforms, segmenting them into relevant cohorts, and sending them personalized messages to engage them.

You can also connect Manychat to CRMs and other marketing automations tools like HubSpot, MailChimp, and ActiveCampaign to segment audiences further based on their buying behaviors, past interactions, or demographics.

And of course, you can send them automated campaigns with personalized offers to trigger follow-up messages, ensuring no client drops off in the funnel.

Creators

For creators like me, Manychat has tools that help engage with subscribers, monetize content, and grow brand. With automated messages, I can send out personalized messages, content updates, and exclusive offers to fans, making them feel more valued.

It’s also very useful for selling merchandise or products via social media, where automated flows can guide subscribers or new leads through the sales funnel, driving faster and better sales.

In fact, automated flows can help you keep users updated with frequent updates and provide paid subscribers with early access to videos or other insider-only content.

Who Shouldn’t Use Manychat?

Manychat is not suitable for anyone who’s looking for a website widget, as it only connects to social media platforms at the moment:

Businesses Seeking Multichannel Automation Beyond Social Platforms

Manychat is not for e-commerce business that require multichannel automation on their website, voice, webchat, or on their Shopify, WooCommerce, or Magento site.

It’s only perfect for businesses that use Instagram, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, SMS, and email as channels for outreach and engagement.

Organizations with Highly Complex Customer Support Needs

Manychat is not equipped to handle support processes that require in-depth technical troubleshooting, escalations to specialized agents, or ticketing systems for enterprises or businesses that require a multi-tiered support process.

It’s not suitable for real-time support with a high degree of human involvement or for handling intricate workflows.

Manychat Verdict

Manychat is a chatbot-building platform popular for automating customer chat, communication, and messages across social media platforms like Instagram DM, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, or Telegram.

It primarily targets businesses, creators, and agencies, giving them the necessary tools to generate leads, improve conversion rates, drive customer engagement, and increase customer satisfaction.

Manychat’s AI makes it a powerful offering, refining automated flows or messages, creating automated flows, checking intent, and tailoring messages for the end user. It has a lot of useful integrations to apps like Zapier, Google Sheets, Datadog, ConvertKit, MailChimp, and others to make your workflow seamless.

Additionally, ManyChat has a free plan that works for about 1000 contacts and gives you a good idea of its features. A free trial is also available if you want a peek at its pro plan.

Overall, I liked Manychat despite its limitations, such as the lack of e-commerce integrations or complex customer success processes.

Manychat receives the Geekflare Excellent Innovation Award for streamlining business operations, increasing conversion rates, attracting, nurturing, and qualifying leads while keeping existing customers of a business engaged. In fact, it’s competitively priced and offers a free plan that’s definitely worth exploring for businesses and creators who rely on Instagram DM, Facebook Messenger, and other social media platforms for business.