Drift alternatives for a small business website

Replacing a chat widget starts with one question: what job did it do on your site? Then you pick the tool built for that job. This page sorts the options by job, for a small business that takes inquiries through its website.

Qualiform makes this page, so read the section on Qualiform as carefully as the rest. This page does not describe Drift's plans, prices, features, or current status. Those can change. Read Drift's own site, and your own account or contract, on the day you decide.

Who is this for?#

This page is for a small service business with a chat widget on its website. That could be a design studio, a contractor, a venue, or a small software company. You are looking for something to replace the widget, or you are deciding whether to replace it at all.

It is not for a large sales team with several people chatting with visitors all day. It is also not for a support team helping existing customers. Those jobs need tools built for live replies, and this page says so where it matters.

If you have not yet decided what makes an inquiry worth a call, start with the guide to qualifying leads from your contact form. Every option below works better once your rules are written down.

What job did your chat widget actually do?#

Think back to why the widget went on your site. Was it there so people could chat? Or was it there to catch visitors who would not fill in a form, and to find out which of them were worth a call?

Most chat widgets end up doing one or more of these four jobs:

1. Answering questions live. A visitor asks something, and a person replies while they are still on the page.
2. Booking a call. The visitor ends up with a time on your calendar.
3. Sorting new inquiries. It asks what they need, their budget, and their timing, so you know who to reply to first.
4. Helping existing customers. It handles orders, accounts, and problems.

Here is a test you can run today. Read the last month of chats. Mark each one with the job it did. The job with the most marks is the one your replacement has to do well. If most chats were new inquiries that you later sorted by hand, you were using the widget to qualify visitors, not to chat.

What are the kinds of Drift alternatives?#

This page compares kinds of tools, not named products. A small business replacing a chat widget usually ends up with one of these five. The rows are not ranked, and Qualiform is listed last.

For named tools, see the side-by-side pages for HubSpot Forms and Calendly, and the guide to Typeform alternatives.

Which kind fits which job?#

Each kind gets the same three lines: what it is best for, what it does with a new inquiry, and when to pick it.

Plain contact form#

• Best for: A business that gets a few inquiries and reads every one.
• What happens to a new inquiry: It lands in your inbox. You read it and decide.
• Pick it when: You reply to each inquiry yourself within the day, and sorting them takes no time. The post on when a plain form is better than a chatbot goes deeper.

Booking page#

• Best for: Visitors who know what they want and only need a time.
• What happens to a new inquiry: It becomes a meeting, often before you know anything about the job.
• Pick it when: Almost every visitor is worth a call. If many are not, put questions in front of the calendar. The guide on putting a qualifying form before your booking calendar shows how.

Live chat with a person#

• Best for: Questions that a person should answer right away.
• What happens to a new inquiry: Someone on your team talks with the visitor and decides what happens next.
• Pick it when: Your team can cover the hours your visitors arrive, and the chats turn into work.

Chatbot with scripted paths#

• Best for: Guiding visitors through a fixed set of choices.
• What happens to a new inquiry: It follows the path you drew, one set question after another.
• Pick it when: Your visitors' needs fit a few set paths. The glossary entry on skip logic explains how set paths work.

Conversational form#

• Best for: Sorting new inquiries that are very different from each other.
• What happens to a new inquiry: The visitor types in a short conversation. Their answers are scored by your rules, and the lead is sent to a next step.
• Pick it when: Visitors leave out the details you need, and you want the same rules used for everyone. The glossary entry on conversational forms has a full definition.

How does a conversational form qualify a visitor?#

Here is how it works in Qualiform, step by step.

1. The visitor types instead of filling in boxes. Each time they write, the AI reads it, answers anything they asked, and asks for one thing still missing.
2. The AI saves what it learns. The lead is saved after every message. A visitor who leaves partway still leaves what they said.
3. Code scores the lead, not the AI. Each question you score counts for its share. The shares add up to a score out of 100. The same answers always get the same score while your rules stay the same. A question nobody answered is left out, never counted as zero.
4. The score picks one of five rules. Each rule has a cut-off and an ending, from offering your soonest times down to a polite no. The AI is told what to offer, never why. A rule can offer times from your own hours or share your scheduling link. No time is offered until you save the Booking tab once.
5. Your team hears about it. When a conversation finishes, a lead email goes to the people you choose. Leads can also go to Slack, Microsoft Teams, HubSpot, or a webhook.

The AI also closes messages that are not about your work, such as recruitment, vendor pitches, and link building. It closes them politely, and no lead email is sent.

What does a worked example look like?#

Here is the starting setup of Qualiform's Design or web studio template. Change any of it to fit your work.

A budget like "about 20 grand" or "15k to 20k" is read as an amount. Your smallest project is checked against its low end. An answer like "not sure yet" stays unanswered, so it does not lower the score.

The template's rules decide what each score is offered:

The rule that tells a visitor they are not a fit starts switched off.

How do you switch without losing inquiries?#

Do these in order.

1. Name the job. Use the chat test above. Replace the job the widget did most.
2. Write your rules. Decide what makes an inquiry worth a call: a budget above an amount, like $2,500, a type of work, or a place.
3. Set up the new tool. In Qualiform, start from the template closest to your business. It asks up to three things only you know, such as your smallest project.
4. Try it yourself. In Qualiform, use Preview. The AI answers for real, it costs nothing, and it sends nothing. Go through it several times with different answers.
5. Set up booking. Save the Booking tab once, with your hours or your scheduling link.
6. Choose who hears. Pick the people who get each new lead.
7. Update your privacy policy. Name the new tool and say the conversation is with AI.
8. Put it on your site. Qualiform goes where your contact form was, with two lines of code, or on its own link. Your old widget may have shown on every page, so decide where visitors will find the new one.
9. Remove the old widget last. Keep inquiries coming in until the new setup is live.

What are the common mistakes?#

• Replacing a chatbot with another chatbot by habit. If the widget's job was sorting inquiries, judge the new tool on sorting, not on chatting.
• Copying every old question. A question no rule uses gives you nothing.
• Skipping the rules. Without written rules, any tool asks vague questions and gets vague answers.
• Never trying it as a visitor. Fill it in yourself with a strong inquiry and a weak one. Check that each lands where you would have put it.
• Forgetting who hears about leads. Set this before visitors arrive. In Qualiform, every conversation is saved even if nobody is emailed, but someone still has to look.
• Trusting prices from a roundup. Read each tool's own pricing page on the day you decide.

When is this not worth doing?#

Some jobs need a different tool, and Qualiform is the wrong shape for them.

• Helping existing customers. Qualiform is not a support chatbot. Its one job is qualifying and routing a new inquiry.
• A person replying live. In Qualiform, the AI has the conversation. If you want your team typing replies, use live chat.
• A few inquiries a month. If you read and answer each one within the hour, scoring adds setup without saving time.
• Visitors who should not talk to an AI. If your clients would not be comfortable, or your privacy policy cannot say the conversation is with AI, use a plain form.
• Many free forms. Qualiform's Free plan keeps one live form and 25 conversations a month. Starter is $20 a month for 100 conversations, Growth is $60 for 350, and Scale is $100 for 600.

How do you know it is working?#

Run the new setup for a few weeks of real inquiries. Then read each lead next to what happened to it: a call, a project, or nothing.

Check two things. First, did the work you won come from leads near the top? Second, did the people who were not a fit still get a quick, polite reply? If a job you won scored low, one of your questions or its share is wrong. In Qualiform, the line written on each lead shows which answers moved the score.

To set the cut-offs, read how to set a lead score threshold. To decide what each score leads to, read lead routing rules for a small service business.