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Drift alternatives: what to use now that Drift is being retired

Salesloft is retiring Drift on 31 January 2027, so B2B marketing and sales teams that run website chat, chatbots and meeting booking on it need a replacement. This guide compares the Drift alternatives worth a look, says who each one suits, and explains what to do before the Drift widget stops working.

We make one of the options, Life Inside, so we have tried to be fair and say where another tool is the better choice. Facts about other vendors were checked on 27 October 2026 and are listed under sources. More comparisons: all alternatives.

Drift vs Life Inside

What you compareDriftLife Inside
StatusBeing retired on 31 January 2027, or earlier if your contract ends firstAvailable, with no lock-in and 3 months' notice
PricingExisting contracts only. Contracts ending before 31 January 2027 run to their end date with no billing changesFrom €249 a month for Interactive Video, €399 for the AI Agent and €449 for both. No lock-in, 3 months' notice. See all plans
Answering visitorsPlaybooks, from decision-tree bots to conversational AIAn AI Chat Agent that answers only from content you approve, and says so when it does not know
Live chat with repsYes: conversations route to chat reps in Drift inboxesNo. The agent points visitors to the right contact or booking link
Meeting bookingBots and reps offer connected rep calendars, with routing rulesGuides visitors to your booking link at the right moment. No calendar routing between reps
VideoDrift Video was retired in 2025Interactive video of real people inside the chat, plus an optional AI Video Agent
Conversation analyticsChat and playbook reports inside DriftAgentLoop: topics, sentiment, lead scoring, knowledge gaps with suggested fixes
CRM and integrationsSalesforce and other integrations, which stop at retirement along with custom Drift API integrationsLeads and conversation data to HubSpot and Salesforce, alerts to Slack, events to GA4, webhooks and REST API

Drift alternatives at a glance

1mind

Best for: Drift customers who want Salesloft's chosen successor

Clari + Salesloft refer existing Drift customers to 1mind under an exclusive agreement. 1mind sells AI agents it calls Superhumans: photorealistic agents that answer buyer questions, give demos, qualify and schedule on the website, and can join sales calls. Its website does not list prices.

Qualified

Best for: Salesforce-centred B2B teams that want an AI SDR for inbound pipeline

Qualified's Piper greets website visitors over chat, voice or video, qualifies them and schedules sales meetings. Salesforce completed its acquisition of Qualified on 1 April 2026, so it suits teams with Salesforce as their system of record.

HubSpot

Best for: Teams that already run marketing and sales on HubSpot

HubSpot's live chat and chatbot builder start free, chats land in a shared inbox in the CRM, and bots can qualify leads and book meetings. On Professional and Enterprise, its AI customer agent costs $0.50 per resolution in HubSpot Credits at the time of writing (October 2026).

Intercom

Best for: Teams that want one platform for support and inbound sales

Intercom combines a Messenger, inbox, ticketing and help centre with Fin, its AI agent. Fin for Sales qualifies leads and books meetings through Calendly or Chili Piper. At the time of writing (October 2026) Fin costs $0.99 per outcome and $9.99 per sales qualification, plus helpdesk seats. See our Intercom alternative page.

Crisp

Best for: Smaller teams that want affordable live chat and an AI agent, built in Europe

Crisp, built in France, offers live chat, a shared inbox and an AI agent called Hugo. Paid plans are priced per workspace rather than per seat and include AI credits. It is made mainly for messaging and support, so check that it covers your Drift playbooks.

Tidio

Best for: Small businesses and online shops that want low-cost chat with AI

Tidio offers live chat, ticketing, rule-based Flows and Lyro, an AI agent that answers from your support content in 48 languages. There is a free plan. If you sell B2B, check its routing and CRM sync against your playbooks. More in our Tidio alternative guide.

Life Inside

Best for: B2B teams that want an AI agent that answers from their own content and shows real video

Life Inside's AI Chat Agent answers from content you approve in 60+ languages and guides visitors to your booking link, and can play interactive video of real people in the same window. AgentLoop pushes leads to HubSpot and Salesforce. It is not a live-chat inbox and not a meeting router.

What happened to Drift?

Drift helped make website chat a sales channel for B2B teams. Salesloft bought it in 2024, then merged with Clari in 2025. Salesloft's own FAQ says the combined company is focusing on what it calls a Predictive Revenue System rather than keeping Drift as a standalone product. Today drift.com redirects to a Salesloft page saying it has transitioned from Drift to 1mind.

Some sites call the product Drift (Salesloft Chat), but Salesloft's help centre still calls it Drift. Salesloft had already retired Drift Video in early 2025.

  • February 2024: Salesloft acquires Drift.
  • 3 December 2025: Clari and Salesloft complete their merger.
  • 5 March 2026: Clari + Salesloft announce a gradual sunset of Drift and an exclusive agreement to refer Drift customers to 1mind.
  • 31 January 2027: Drift is retired. The chat widget, Drift Email and custom Drift API integrations stop working. If your contract ends earlier, access ends then.
  • 30 April 2027: last day to request an export of data still held offline, for contracts running past 31 January 2027.
  • 1 May 2027: all remaining Drift data is permanently deleted.

How to choose a Drift alternative

Salesloft's FAQ names three things to replace: the website chat widget, Drift Email (Siftrock) and custom integrations on the Drift API. For the chat, separate the jobs Drift did for you: answering visitors, live chat with reps, meeting booking and pipeline data for your CRM.

  • If reps take over conversations live, you need a live-chat inbox and routing: Intercom, HubSpot, Crisp or Tidio.
  • If the goal is AI qualification and booking in Salesforce, look at Qualified or Intercom's Fin for Sales.
  • If you want to stay close to Salesloft, 1mind is the referred successor and integrates with the Clari + Salesloft platform.
  • If visitors mostly ask the same questions before they buy, apply or book, an AI agent that answers from your own content does most of the work.
  • Check languages, data hosting and contracts. If you sell in Europe, ask where data is stored and whether you get a data processing agreement.

Is Life Inside a good Drift alternative?

It fits Drift teams whose chat was mostly answering questions and pointing visitors onwards. The AI Chat Agent answers from your website, documents and FAQs, only from content you approve. When it does not know, it says so, and the gap shows up in AgentLoop. It guides visitors to the next step, such as your booking link, in the language they write in. See it for sales and marketing.

What Drift did not offer is real video inside the conversation. The agent can present the right interactive video of your employees or customers, and the visitor keeps chatting afterwards. On customer sites, up to 15% of visitors click the widget. Avarn Security runs an AI career guide that takes candidates from question to application.

It is the wrong fit if reps need to take over chats live or you rely on round-robin calendar routing: Life Inside has no live-chat inbox and does not route meetings. If you used Drift Video for one-to-one sales videos, see our Vidyard alternative page instead.

Setup is one JavaScript snippet, most agents go live within a day, and Life Inside builds the knowledge base with you. Data is hosted in the EU, with a data processing agreement. Book a demo to see it answer from your own content.

Migrating from Drift

  1. Find your real end date. Access ends on 31 January 2027 or when your contract ends, whichever comes first.
  2. Request your data export through your Salesloft Account Manager or Support, before access ends.
  3. List what Drift does today: each playbook, the pages it targets, where chats route, which calendars it books into and what it writes to your CRM.
  4. Pull the most common questions from your transcripts. Your new agent must answer them well on day one.
  5. Test the replacement on a few pages while Drift still runs elsewhere.
  6. Remove the Drift script from every site and landing page. Salesloft says the widget stops functioning after 31 January 2027.
  7. Disconnect Drift from your CRM and other tools, and update reports and lead source fields that refer to it.
  8. Replace Drift Email separately if you used it. Salesloft recommends allGood.

Frequently asked questions

Yes. Salesloft's Drift Sunset FAQ says Drift will be retired on 31 January 2027. Access ends on that date or at the end of your current contract, whichever comes first. The chat widget, Drift Email and custom integrations built on the Drift API stop working at retirement.

Data stays accessible until your contract ends or 31 January 2027, whichever comes first. For contracts running past that date, Salesloft keeps remaining data offline until 30 April 2027 so you can still request an export. Everything left is permanently deleted on 1 May 2027.

Salesloft recommends 1mind for Drift chatbot functionality and allGood to replace Drift Email. You are free to choose any other tool.

It depends on the job. For live chat with reps, look at Intercom, HubSpot, Crisp or Tidio. For AI qualification and booking in Salesforce, look at Qualified or Intercom's Fin for Sales. To stay close to Salesloft, look at 1mind. For an AI agent that answers from your own content, shows real video and reports what visitors ask, look at Life Inside.

Partly. It replaces the answering and guiding part of Drift with an AI chat agent that answers from your approved content in 60+ languages, guides visitors to your booking link and can show interactive video of real people. It is not a live-chat inbox for reps and does not route meetings between calendars.

Yes. AgentLoop pushes leads and conversation data to HubSpot and Salesforce, sends alerts to Slack and events to GA4, and offers webhooks and a REST API for other systems.

Installing a new widget takes minutes; the work is rebuilding what your playbooks did and testing it, so start well before your contract ends. With Life Inside, most agents go live within a day, and the team builds the knowledge base with you.

Sources

Updated 2026-10-27