Crisp vs Drift
Which one do AI engines recommend, and how do they differ on price, fit and features?
The short answer
Crisp is the stronger AI pick in Live Chat & AI Support: it has a visibility score of 22.9 versus 1.5 for Drift, and ranks ahead in 33% of the answers that name both.
Choose Crisp if…
- You want the brand AI engines rank higher (22.9 vs 1.5)
- AI answers describe it more positively (57% vs 20% positive)
- Free plan for two seats
- Shared inbox for small teams
Choose Drift if…
- You need SOC 2 Type 2 or ISO 27701 coverage
- You prefer a larger, established vendor (1,001–5,000 employees)
- Deeper real-time engagement features
- Visitor tracking and proactive messaging triggers
AI visibility side by side
Latest weekly run · Nov 3
| Metric | Crisp | Drift |
|---|---|---|
| Visibility score | 22.9% | 1.5% |
| Change vs last week | down−1.4% | up+0.8% |
| Rank in Live Chat & AI Support | #7 | #27 |
| Share of voice | 6.6% | 0.5% |
| Mentions this run | 32 | 3 |
| Positive in AI answers | 57% | 20% |
The stronger value in each row is marked with a ✓.
Visibility score trend
Weekly runs over the last 60 days
Crisp −1.4000000000000021pp · Drift +0.8pp over 1 weekly runs.
Engine by engine
Crisp leads on 3 of 3 engines
Head to head in AI answers
3 engine answers name both brands
| Prompt | Engine | Crisp | Drift |
|---|---|---|---|
| Top live chat tool options for B2B SaaS companies | ChatGPT | #6 | #5 |
| Top live chat tool options for B2B SaaS companies | Perplexity | #8 | #5 |
| Best live chat tool with AI features | Perplexity | #1 | #7 |
Features, pricing & fit
| Dimension | Crisp | Drift |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Flat tiers | — |
| Entry price | Free; paid from $45 / mo | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Deployment | Hosted cloud software (SaaS) | Cloud (SaaS), hosted on AWS in the US |
| Integrations | 100+ | — |
| Compliance | — | SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27701 |
| Support | Help center, Dedicated onboarding and personalized SLA on the Enterprise plan | — |
| Founded | 2015 | 2015 |
| Headquarters | Nantes, France | Atlanta, Georgia, US (parent Salesloft) |
| Employees | 11–50 | 1,001–5,000 |
| Funding | Bootstrapped | — |
| Best for | Small and medium-sized businesses looking for AI-powered omnichannel customer support software | Teams still running Drift who need to migrate before the chat widget is retired on January 31, 2027 |
Plans side by side
Crisp
Drift
Pricing not available.
Pros and cons
Themes from the AI answers that mention each brand
Crisp
- Free plan for two seats
- Shared inbox for small teams
- Flat per-workspace pricing
- AI-powered support and ease of use
- Modern, clean interface
- Contact and automation limits on free tier
Drift
- Deeper real-time engagement features
- Visitor tracking and proactive messaging triggers
- Strong fit for enterprise sales and ABM
- Included in strongest B2B SaaS shortlists
Data collected ·ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode·coverage 98.8%·next run
Cite as: SlateIndex, “Crisp vs Drift”, https://slateindex.ai/compare/crisp-vs-drift, data of Nov 3, 2026. Licence: CC BY 4.0.