Drift alternatives: what to use now that Drift is being sunset
Drift is being wound down by its owner. Here is what actually happened, which products genuinely replace it, and how to pick between them — with every price checked against the vendor’s own site.
Drift is being retired. On 5 March 2026 Clari + Salesloft announced “the gradual sunset of its Drift conversational marketing solution” and an exclusive agreement to refer existing Drift clients to 1mind as the successor. No end-of-life date has been published, and drift.com now redirects to Salesloft. The realistic replacements are 1mind (the named successor) and Qualified for pipeline generation, or Intercom, Tidio, Crisp and Chatbase if what you needed was website chat and AI answering.
What happened to Drift
Salesloft acquired Drift in early 2024 — MarTech reported the deal on 13 February 2024, with no financial terms disclosed. Drift continued to be sold as Salesloft’s conversational marketing product for the next two years.
On 5 March 2026, Clari + Salesloft published a press release announcing a partnership with 1mind. The relevant sentence is short and unambiguous: “Clari + Salesloft is announcing the gradual sunset of its Drift conversational marketing solution.” The same release states that “under an exclusive agreement with 1mind, Clari + Salesloft will refer existing Drift clients to 1mind as the successor to ensure a seamless transition.”
Salesloft’s own Drift page now reads “We’ve transitioned from Drift to 1mind,” and the drift.com domain redirects to Salesloft. Existing Drift installs were still working when we checked in August 2026 — nothing broke overnight.
What is missing is a date. No public end-of-life deadline has been given, which is the awkward part: there is no emergency, but there is also no roadmap. Treat Drift as a product to migrate off on your own schedule rather than one to renew into.
One thing we will not do is quote Drift pricing. Drift has not published a self-serve price list we could verify, so there is no honest number to compare against.
The real Drift alternatives, compared
Drift did two quite different jobs for different customers: B2B pipeline generation (routing website visitors to sellers, booking meetings) and everyday chat and answering. Which replacement is right depends entirely on which of those you were buying. Pricing below is as published by each vendor in August 2026.
1mind (opens in a new tab)
AI sales agent platform ("Superhumans"), named by Clari + Salesloft as Drift’s successor.
- Pricing
- Not published — contact sales.
- Best for
- Existing Drift customers who want the vendor-recommended migration path.
Qualified (opens in a new tab)
Agentic marketing platform built around "Piper the AI SDR Agent" for inbound pipeline generation.
- Pricing
- Not published — Premier, Enterprise and Ultimate plans are all quote-based.
- Best for
- B2B revenue teams that used Drift for pipeline generation, not support.
Intercom (opens in a new tab)
Customer messaging and support platform with Fin, its AI agent, on every plan.
- Pricing
- Essential $29, Advanced $85, Expert $132 per seat/month. Fin is $0.99 per resolution. 14-day trial, no free plan.
- Best for
- Teams that want support, marketing chat and a strong AI agent in one platform.
Tidio (opens in a new tab)
Live chat, helpdesk and the Lyro AI agent, installed as a widget on your site.
- Pricing
- Free (50 billable conversations/month). Starter $290/year, Growth from $590/year, Plus from $300/month plus usage. Lyro conversations from $32.50/month.
- Best for
- Small teams and online stores that want a real free tier and cheap entry pricing.
Crisp (opens in a new tab)
Shared inbox and website chat widget, priced per workspace instead of per seat.
- Pricing
- Free (2 seats). Mini $45/month, Essentials $95/month, Plus $295/month — per workspace, extra seats $10/month. 14-day trial.
- Best for
- Small teams that would rather not pay per seat as the team grows.
Chatbase (opens in a new tab)
Build AI support agents trained on your own content and deploy them across chat, email and messaging apps.
- Pricing
- Free (50 messages/month, 1 agent). Hobby $32, Standard $120, Pro $400 per month; 20% off annual. Extra credits $40 per 1,000 messages.
- Best for
- Replacing the "answers repeat questions from our docs" job without a full support suite.
Every price above was read off the vendor’s own pricing page in August 2026. Where a vendor publishes no price, this table says so rather than guessing. Vendors change pricing — check theirs before you buy.
How to choose between them
You want the vendor-recommended path
1mind is the successor Clari + Salesloft named, under an exclusive referral agreement. If you are staying in that stack, start there — but note that neither 1mind nor Qualified publishes pricing, so budgeting means a sales call either way.
Drift was your pipeline engine
If Drift was routing website visitors to sellers and booking meetings, you need an agentic B2B platform, not a support inbox. Qualified and 1mind are the like-for-like options.
Drift was really just your support chat
Plenty of teams used Drift as a chat widget and nothing more. Intercom, Tidio, Crisp and LiveChat all do that job for a published price, and three of them have a free tier or a cheap entry plan.
You only needed it to answer repeat questions
If Drift’s value was “it answers the same eight questions from our docs,” an AI answering product is dramatically cheaper than a platform. Chatbase starts free and Intercom’s Fin charges $0.99 per resolution rather than per seat.
You need a price before you can decide
Only Tidio, Crisp and Chatbase publish a free plan. Intercom and LiveChat publish per-seat prices with a 14-day trial. Qualified and 1mind publish nothing at all.
When Bl1nk is the right answer instead
Bl1nk is not a Drift replacement, and we are not going to pretend it is. Drift lived on your website; Bl1nk’s AI assistant does not and cannot. It lives on a Bl1nk digital business card profile. But a fair number of people searching for a Drift alternative discover they never needed a website chat platform in the first place — their inbound comes from people they meet, and all they wanted was something that answers questions and captures the contact. If that is you, this is worth two minutes.
- It lives on your Bl1nk profile — the page someone opens after tapping your card, scanning your QR code, or clicking your link. There is no script tag and no way to embed it on your own website.
- It is text only. It does not answer phone calls and it does not make them.
- It never prospects. Nothing here sends cold email or works an outbound list.
- It answers only from the knowledge you give it — your website pages, uploaded documents, and Q&A pairs — and says it does not know rather than guessing. That is deliberate, but it does mean you have to feed it.
- Free plan: 300 AI credits a month. Pro: 10,000 credits at $5 per seat per month, or $48 per seat per year. There is no free trial of Pro — the free plan is the trial.
- Most of your inbound comes from people you meet in person or who click a link you shared — events, showrooms, site visits, LinkedIn, email signatures — rather than from website traffic.
- The questions are repetitive and already answered somewhere: your website, a price list, a services PDF, a handful of Q&A pairs.
- What you actually want from the conversation is the visitor’s contact details, captured with a summary of what they asked.
- Drift-class pricing was never realistic for your team and a per-seat number closer to $5 than $85 changes the decision.
See it working before you believe any of this
The link below is a real Bl1nk profile with the assistant switched on — not a mockup. Open it, use the chat button, and ask it something. Then decide whether a card-based assistant solves your problem or whether you need one of the website tools above.
More detail on how the assistant is trained and what it refuses to do: Bl1nk AI.
Frequently asked questions
Is Drift shutting down?
It is being sunset gradually. On 5 March 2026 Clari + Salesloft announced “the gradual sunset of its Drift conversational marketing solution” and an exclusive agreement to refer existing Drift clients to 1mind as the successor. No end-of-life date has been published, and Drift installs were still working when we checked in August 2026.
What is replacing Drift?
1mind. Clari + Salesloft named it as Drift’s successor under an exclusive referral agreement, and Salesloft’s own Drift page now says “We’ve transitioned from Drift to 1mind.” That is the vendor-recommended path; it is not the only one. Qualified covers the same B2B pipeline-generation job, and Intercom, Tidio, Crisp or Chatbase cover the chat and answering job.
What happened to Drift and Salesloft?
Salesloft acquired Drift in early 2024 (MarTech reported it on 13 February 2024, terms undisclosed). Salesloft later combined with Clari, and in March 2026 the combined company announced the gradual sunset of Drift alongside its 1mind partnership. The drift.com domain now redirects to Salesloft.
Which Drift alternative is cheapest?
Of the options with published pricing, Tidio, Crisp and Chatbase all have a free plan, and Chatbase’s first paid tier is $32/month. Intercom is $29 per seat/month at the Essential tier plus $0.99 per Fin resolution. Qualified and 1mind do not publish prices at all. Checked August 2026.
Can Bl1nk replace Drift?
No — and we would rather say so than sell you the wrong thing. Drift was a website chat platform. Bl1nk’s AI assistant lives on a digital business card profile and cannot be embedded on your website. Bl1nk is worth a look only if your leads come from people you meet or from links you share, and what you want is an assistant that answers their questions and captures the contact.
How urgently do I need to migrate off Drift?
There is no published deadline, so there is no need to panic-buy. The practical risk is a product with no active roadmap: feature requests will not land, and integrations will drift out of date. Plan the move over a normal evaluation cycle rather than renewing into it.