Ignore the feature table
Feature tables are written by whoever is selling, and every product in this category has a long one. These four questions separate suppliers faster and none of the answers goes out of date:
1. Is the price in rands or dollars? A dollar price is a price that changes every time the rand does, without anybody telling you. Everything we charge is in rands and does not move with the exchange rate.
2. Is there a contract? In a market changing this fast, a twelve-month commitment is a bet you have no reason to make. Ours is month to month on every product, cancellable at the end of any paid month.
3. Can you export your data and leave? Your customer conversations, your content and your lists should be yours to take. That is what makes leaving possible, which is what keeps a supplier honest.
4. Who answers at 16:00 on a Friday? South African Standard Time is UTC+2 with no daylight saving, so a support desk in another time zone means your fault is looked at tomorrow.
Then do the arithmetic
Whatever you are comparing, the decision comes down to three numbers you already have: how many enquiries you received last month, how many you never replied to, and what an average job or order is worth. The second times the third, times whatever conversion rate you think is honest, is the most that fixing it can be worth to you.
Compare that with the monthly fee. If it does not clear it comfortably, do not buy anything — and be suspicious of anyone who tells you the arithmetic always works. There are businesses whose phone is always answered and whose inbox is empty by close, and they do not need this.
Where to read the longer version
We have written each of these comparisons out properly: a chatbot against live chat, ChatGPT against Claude and where neither is the right tool, AI against people on service, whether AI can replace a receptionist, and why visitors leave without making contact in the first place. Why use a South African supplier covers the rands, POPIA and support-hours argument in full.
If you have decided it IS a chatbot you want, how to choose one you will not regret is the eight checks that separate a good supplier from a bad one, and every question, answered straight covers cost, POPIA, install and what AI cannot do, in one page.
And if the choice is between us and something specific: DoubleDown AI vs Tidio, DoubleDown AI vs Intercom, or a chatbot vs hiring someone — each with every competitor figure taken from their own pricing page and dated. All the alternatives lists the whole field, including building it yourself and doing nothing.