Zoho SalesIQ bundles live chat, visitor tracking and chatbots into the Zoho suite for a few dollars per operator. Darwin does one thing, booking meetings from your website, and works on it every day. Here's how they compare.
DarwinAI website chat focused on answering buying questions, booking meetings, and improving chat openings.Best for
Less suited to
Live chat staffed by operators inside the Zoho suite.
Zoho SalesIQLive chat, visitor tracking and chatbots inside the Zoho suite.Best for
Less suited to
A chat that tests and improves its own openings.
| Side by side | Darwin | Zoho SalesIQ |
|---|---|---|
| Self-improvementHow each product improves the openings that start sales conversations. | ||
| Self-improves to book more meetings | Yes Creates tests. Promotes qualifying winners. Tests again. 1 With automation enabled, on eligible pages within your plan. Tests need enough traffic; a lift is not guaranteed. | Not documented Operator-configured greetings and bots; A/B tests and an autonomous opening loop are not documented. 23 Answer Bot greetings and codeless bots are configured manually. |
| Writes new openings for each page | Yes Creates opening variants from page context. 1 For pages with automation enabled and sufficient traffic to run an experiment. Every plan includes unlimited optimized pages. | Manual setup Opening and trigger messages are written by the operator and targeted by rules. 24 Targeting conditions decide where a message shows; the copy is authored manually. |
| Tests and keeps better openings | Yes Tests opening variants and can promote a better performer. 1 Requires enough evidence; an experiment may have no winner. | Not documented Automatic promotion of a better opening is not documented. 2 No message-testing workflow appears in the reviewed guide. |
| Starts the next test automatically | Yes The next opening experiment builds from the current winner. 1 Automation must be enabled and the page eligible. This does not guarantee improving results. | Not documented An automatic cycle of generating, testing and replacing openings is not documented. 2 Changes are made and published by the operator. |
| OnboardingWhat the product prepares for you before you go live. | ||
| Learns from your website | Yes Darwin discovers the relevant pages on your website and prepares its knowledge base from them. 5 Initial setup selects key pages for speed; more pages can be imported later. | Webpage resources Webpages can be added as Answer Bot resources. 267 The operator adds each URL, up to 2,000 per portal; SalesIQ does not crawl subpages or whole domains. Listed on Enterprise. |
| Drafts your sales settings | Yes Prepares business information and assistant settings from the website. 5 The user can review and refine the generated draft. | Limited Zia AI agents can be drafted from a written prompt; drafting from the website is not documented. 289 Create with Zia AI generates an agent's role, instructions, knowledge and tools for review; bot settings are configured by the operator. |
| Matches chat to your brand | Colors & fonts Extracts brand colors, fonts and assets for the chat design. 5 Brand detection is a draft: available fonts, contrast and source-site access affect the result. | Website font The chat window uses your website's font by default; colors are picked manually. 10 Logo comes from the company profile. |
| Writes your first chat opening | Yes Drafts the first chat opening from the business context. 11 Drafted during assisted setup; approve it, edit it (120-character limit) or ask Darwin for a revision. | Manual setup Welcome and greeting messages are written by the operator. 210 Separate online and offline messages. |
| Review before going live | Yes The assistant draft can be reviewed and refined before installation. 11 Calendar connection, testing and website installation remain separate completion steps. | Yes Bots and the widget can be tested in a preview window. 210 Preview is on the right-hand side of setup. |
| PricingUSD, before tax, monthly billing. With Darwin you pay per credit. With Zoho SalesIQ you pay per operator, and each plan caps your chatbots. | ||
| Lowest monthly platform fee | $0/mo Free has no monthly subscription fee. 12 No card needed to start; credits are charged after the first five free ones. A credit is one booked meeting or qualified request. | $0/mo The Free plan has no monthly fee. 7 3 operators, 100 chat sessions and 10K tracked visitors per month. |
| Introductory offer | 5 free credits The first five credits are free, once. 12 A credit is one booked meeting or one request that passes your fit rules. Not a monthly allowance; a card is needed once all five are used. | 15 day trial A 15-day free trial without a card. 7 Free plan remains afterwards. |
| AI usage charge | $30/credit Free charges $30 per credit after the first five. 12 A confirmed booking or a request that passes the fit rules is one credit. Conversations and leads that fail the fit rules are never charged, and there is no plan fee. | Add-ons by plan Chatbots are limited by plan, with add-ons for more bots and bot sessions. 7 A per-conversation AI charge is not shown; confirm add-on rates on the pricing page. |
| Paid plans start at | $299/mo Growth is $299 per month on monthly billing. 12 Includes 10 credits a month. Annual billing is two months free ($2,990 a year); credits and extra-credit charges stay monthly. | $10/operator/mo Basic is $10 per operator per month on monthly billing. 7 $7 on annual billing; Professional $17 and Enterprise $25 monthly. |
| Included on paid plans | 10–25 credits/mo Growth includes 10 credits a month; Agency includes 25, pooled across up to 200 client workspaces. 12 Unused included credits roll over for one month. Growth can also be bought with 35, 60 or 110 credits a month, and Agency with 50, 75, 125, 275 or 525. | 1–10 chatbots Basic includes 1 chatbot; Professional 5; Enterprise 10. 7 Bots and operators, not bookings. |
| Additional paid-plan usage | $8–$25/credit Extra credits cost $25 each. Choosing more credits each month lowers the rate: on Growth, $20 at 35 credits, $16 at 60 and $12 at 110; on Agency, $10 at 275 and $8 at 525. 12 Charged automatically each month at the current rate, after the monthly included credits and in addition to the plan fee. | Add-ons by plan Chatbots are limited by plan, with add-ons for more bots and bot sessions. 7 A per-conversation AI charge is not shown; confirm add-on rates on the pricing page. |
Your first five meetings or requests are free. After that each is $30, or Growth is $299 a month with 10 included.
Facts checked Oct 5, 2026 to Oct 20, 2026. Plans and integrations can change. Not documented means the reviewed sources don’t establish a capability; it doesn’t prove the feature is missing. Sources and method
Eighty-five seconds on what Darwin does: learns your business from your site, books the meeting inside the chat, and keeps rewriting the opening until more people talk.
On Professional and Enterprise, with Zoho Bookings connected, an operator can click Appointments and share a link, and the visitor books from inside the chat. Zoho also says Zobots can schedule appointments, and a built-in meeting scheduler on Basic and up lets operators set meetings from a chat. Darwin offers a time in the conversation and completes the booking in whichever scheduler you've connected. With both, check what gets recorded as a finished booking.
313171819There's a Free plan with three operators, 100 chat sessions and 10,000 tracked visitors a month. Paid plans start at $10 per operator per month on monthly billing and include one chatbot; Professional and Enterprise raise that to five and ten, and Answer Bot needs Enterprise.
7Published by Darwin, using the official documentation linked below. This is a comparison of documented capabilities, not a hands-on benchmark. “Not documented” means the reviewed sources do not establish that capability; it does not prove absence. Zoho SalesIQ prices are per operator on monthly billing and chatbots are limited by plan; a chat session is not a booked meeting. Setup means preparing a draft, not automatically installing it.
Source access and fact-check dates are recorded separately for each source below.
Darwin · Accessed
Rechecked 2026-10-05.
Explains automatic launch, automatic promotion and the next test starting from a winning opening.
Fact checked · Review dueCreates opening variants from page context.
Fact checked · Review dueTests opening variants and can promote a better performer.
Fact checked · Review dueThe next opening experiment builds from the current winner.
Fact checked · Review dueDocuments the website opening optimization loop.
Fact checked · Review dueZoho · Accessed
Answers from Articles, FAQs & webpages plus Small Talks; greeting configured by the operator; preview window.
The greeting message is configured by the operator; no testing loop is described.
Fact checked · Review dueThe greeting the bot sends is configured by the operator for a set condition.
Fact checked · Review dueNo A/B testing or winner selection is described.
Fact checked · Review dueMessages are edited and re-activated manually.
Fact checked · Review dueSalesIQ resources include webpages; the guide itself does not describe crawling.
Fact checked · Review dueOperators configure the Answer Bot's profile, resources, response, behaviour and fallback themselves.
Fact checked · Review dueConfigure the greeting message the bot sends.
Fact checked · Review dueTest your bot in the preview window.
Fact checked · Review dueAnswers from Articles, FAQs & webpages and Small Talks.
Fact checked · Review dueZoho · Accessed
Bot platforms (codeless, scripts, Zia skills); Zobots can qualify leads, schedule appointments and perform actions.
Bots are built on codeless, script or Zia platforms.
Fact checked · Review dueZobots handle chats, qualify leads, schedule appointments and create support tickets.
Fact checked · Review dueBots can create support tickets and perform business actions.
Fact checked · Review dueZobots can 'schedule appointments'.
Fact checked · Review dueZoho · Accessed
Proposed additional source: operators add trigger rules with audience conditions such as current page URL, landing page or UTM values, and type the chat-invite message themselves.
Fact checked · Review dueDarwin · Accessed
Rechecked 2026-10-05. URL updated 2026-10-19: the docs page moved (the old address redirects here).
Discovers relevant website pages and prepares the knowledge base.
Fact checked · Review duePrepares business information and assistant settings from the website.
Fact checked · Review dueExtracts brand colors, fonts and assets for the chat design.
Fact checked · Review dueZoho · Accessed
Proposed additional source: each URL is added individually (max 2,000 per portal); SalesIQ crawls only that exact page and says it 'does not crawl subpages or entire domains'; updates need a manual resync.
Fact checked · Review dueZoho · Accessed
Free: 3 operators, 100 chat sessions, 10K visitors. Basic $10, Professional $17, Enterprise $25 per operator per month billed monthly ($7, $12.75, $20 annual). 1, 5 and 10 chatbots by plan; Answer Bot on Enterprise; 15-day trial, no card.
Proposed additional source (existing key): 'Train bot using web URLs' is listed as new under Enterprise.
Fact checked · Review dueFree plan with 3 operator licenses and 100 chat sessions.
Fact checked · Review due15-day free trial. No credit card required.
Fact checked · Review dueChatbot counts by plan and add-on rows for chatbots and bot chat sessions.
Fact checked · Review dueBasic US$10 per operator per month billed monthly.
Fact checked · Review due1, 5 and 10 chatbots by plan.
Fact checked · Review due'User-based plans' priced per operator, listing visitor insights, chatbots, Zia Agents (new, from Basic) and Answer Bot (Enterprise).
Fact checked · Review duePlans list support and sales features.
Fact checked · Review dueZoho · Accessed
Proposed additional source: agents are created in Agent Studio 'Using Zia or from scratch', configured with name, role, instructions, tools and knowledge base, then deployed into SalesIQ as operators.
Fact checked · Review dueZoho · Accessed
Proposed additional source: 'Create with Zia AI' auto-generates an agent's model, description, role, instructions, knowledge base and tools from a written prompt for review; no website-based drafting is described.
Fact checked · Review dueZoho · Accessed
Widget color, company logo, welcome message, position, font (website font by default) and custom CSS.
The chat window uses the website font by default; colors are selected in a preview.
Fact checked · Review dueAdd a welcome message in personalization settings.
Fact checked · Review dueCheck how the widget will appear in the preview window.
Fact checked · Review dueDarwin · Accessed
URL updated 2026-10-19: the docs page moved (the old address redirects here).
Darwin prepares the opening from your website and shows it in a card to approve (Looks good), edit (120-character limit) or revise by message; the page no longer says it uses the experiment writer's requirements.
Fact checked · Review dueThe assistant draft can be reviewed and refined before installation.
Fact checked · Review dueDarwin · Accessed
Darwin's own pricing page after the move to credits (Free, Growth, Agency): plan fees, credits included, extra-credit prices, add-ons, annual billing and what uses a credit. Read from the live page; the release script checks the page before it records the access time.
Free has no monthly fee; its first 5 credits are free, then each credit is $30.
Fact checked · Review dueThe first 5 credits on Free are free, once; a card is needed after that.
Fact checked · Review dueFree charges $30 a credit after the first five; leads that fail the fit rules are free.
Fact checked · Review dueGrowth is $299 a month, or $2,990 a year, with 10 credits a month included.
Fact checked · Review dueGrowth includes 10 credits a month and Agency 25, pooled; unused credits roll over one month.
Fact checked · Review dueExtra credits are $25 on Growth and Agency; choosing more credits each month lowers them to $20, $16 or $12 at 35, 60 or 110 on Growth, and to $8 at 525 on Agency.
Fact checked · Review dueDarwin · Accessed
Rechecked 2026-10-05.
Describes the visitor-to-meeting flow.
Fact checked · Review dueDocuments public booking links, inline contact collection, embed limitations and confirmation-tracking requirements.
Fact checked · Review dueDarwin · Accessed
Describes the included Darwin product areas.
Fact checked · Review dueDarwin · Accessed
Documents the conversion-focused reporting workflow.
Fact checked · Review dueZoho · Accessed
Proposed additional source: the Summer '26 release leads with Zia Agents ('agentic intelligence') that pick up chats and answer from records, files and connected apps.
Fact checked · Review dueZoho · Accessed
Operators share an Appointments link in chat; visitors book; requires a Zoho Bookings account with admin permissions.
The operator clicks Appointments and shares a booking card; the visitor books, reschedules or cancels in the chat; the integration 'will cover' bot and operator chats and needs Zoho Bookings admin permission.
Fact checked · Review dueZoho · Accessed
Proposed additional source: the plan table ticks the Zoho Bookings integration on Professional and Enterprise only (dash on Free and Basic) and the new Meeting scheduler on Basic, Professional and Enterprise.
Fact checked · Review dueZoho · Accessed
Proposed additional source: operators can create face-to-face or online meetings linked to a chat, from the dashboard or from an ongoing conversation (Schedule a meeting).
Fact checked · Review due
