Drift alternatives for small businesses
Salesloft, which owns Drift, says Drift will be retired on January 31, 2027. If Drift is the chat on your website, you need a replacement, and you have a few months to pick one and run it alongside Drift before the switch.
This guide is for small businesses that used Drift to answer website visitors and capture leads. For our side-by-side page, see Drift alternative.
What is confirmed about the Drift sunset
From Salesloft's Drift Sunset FAQ:
- Drift is retired on January 31, 2027, or at the end of your contract if that comes first.
- After that date the Drift chat widget, Drift Email, and custom Drift API integrations stop working.
- Data exports are requested through your Account Manager or Support.
- If no export request is submitted, remaining Drift data is permanently deleted on May 1, 2027.
- Salesloft recommends 1Mind for chatbot functionality and allGood for Drift Email. You don't have to use either.
Salesloft says it will update the FAQ as details change, so check it and your contract before you plan around these dates.
Before you pick a replacement
- Find your contract end date. If it comes before January 31, 2027, that is your real deadline.
- Request your data export. Do it early so you aren't waiting on it near the end.
- Write down what Drift does for you today. Answering questions, capturing leads, booking meetings, routing to sales reps. The list decides which kind of tool you need.
Two kinds of Drift user, two kinds of replacement
You ran a B2B sales motion on Drift
If Drift handled routing by territory, account-based playbooks, and pipeline for a sales team, look at what Salesloft recommends (1Mind) and other conversational sales platforms. That is a different job from a small business front desk, and Formala doesn't try to do it.
You used Drift as the chat on your website
Many small businesses used Drift for the simple version: answer a question, get a name and email, book a call. If that's you, a lighter tool built for small business websites will likely fit better and cost less to run.
What to compare in any Drift alternative
- Who it is built for. Sales teams or small business owners.
- Pricing unit. Seats, credits, messages, or conversations. Pick one you can predict.
- Free plan. Whether you can try it on your real site without a card.
- Lead delivery. What lands in your inbox when a chat ends.
- Human takeover. Whether you can step into a live chat yourself.
- Booking. Whether it books into the calendar you already use.
- Setup time. How long until it answers real visitors.
Other options worth a look
We keep honest comparisons, each leading with what the other product does better, on our compare page. In short:
- Intercom: a full support desk for a team. See Formala vs Intercom.
- Tidio: live chat first, with AI on top. See Formala vs Tidio.
- Chatling: close to Formala on the job itself. See Formala vs Chatling.
- Chatbase: an AI agent builder trained on your content. See Chatbase alternatives.
Where Formala fits
Formala is an AI website receptionist for small businesses, including contractors and home-service companies. It is a finished product, not a sales platform:
- Answers your website chat 24/7 from your business details, FAQs and help articles, and says when it doesn't know
- Asks the qualifying questions you choose, and accepts photos and PDFs
- Books into a connected Google or Outlook calendar (booking)
- Emails you each lead with the full transcript, with an optional webhook to Zapier or your own tools
- Lets you take over any live chat yourself (live takeover)
- Falls back to a plain contact form if the AI is unavailable
- One line of script on the site you already have
What it does not do: answer phone calls, send text messages, route leads to a sales team by territory, run outbound campaigns, or integrate natively with a CRM or Slack. Lead alerts are email.
New to the idea? Read AI receptionist for small business: website chat vs phone answering.
Pricing
| Plan | Price | Conversations a month |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0, no card required | 10 |
| Starter | $19 a month | 150 |
| Growth | $39 a month | 400 |
| Pro | $79 a month | 1,000 |
| Business | $149 a month | 2,500 |
There is no trial. The Free plan is how you try it. Pricing may change; check formala.ai for current numbers.
FAQ
- Is Drift shutting down?
- Yes. Salesloft's Drift Sunset FAQ says Drift will be retired on January 31, 2027, or at the end of your contract if that comes first.
- What happens to my Drift data?
- Request an export through your Account Manager or Support. Salesloft says remaining data is permanently deleted on May 1, 2027 if no export request is submitted.
- What is the best Drift alternative for a small business?
- It depends on what Drift did for you. For enterprise sales routing, look at conversational sales platforms. For a website front desk that answers questions, qualifies leads and emails them to you, Formala is built for that.
- Is there a free Drift alternative?
- Formala has a Free plan with 10 conversations a month and no card required.
- Can I run Formala before Drift turns off?
- Yes. Salesloft says Drift keeps working through your contract end or January 31, 2027, so you can set up Formala first and switch when you're ready.
Try it on the site you already have
One line of code. Free plan, no card required. Start free