Interakt Pricing: A comprehensive guide on the good, bad, and ugly in Interakt pricing plans

We’ve written this literature for brands wanting to know more about Interakt’s pricing plans. Like most software providers, Interakt has feature-wise pricing tiers publically available on their website.  That’s all nice and fine, but what gets the goat of customers is not reading between the fine print only to realize eventually they got the short end of the stick.

This literature aims to highlight some facts related to Interakt’s plans so that they can make informed decisions.

Interakt’s Starter Plan (21$ per month)

💡 TL:DR:

Interakt’s starter plan is great for businesses getting on WhatsApp for the first time. It does not overload you with features and offers only important features to get started.

It allows unlimited team members, basic automation, basic segmentation, and 1 integration with 3rd party apps, enough for a small business to get the wheels rolling.

However, it does not offer phone / WhatsApp support in this plan. With a new channel like WhatsApp, you may get stuck in your campaigns with lots of questions and no timely support around you. Plus, you don’t get key automation (like abandoned cart recovery), no popups to collect phone numbers, and no conversion analytics. Oh, and you don’t get a WhatsApp widget to embed on your website.

All in all, it's a good plan if your WhatsApp Business maturity is 1 on a scale of 1 to 5. However, if you are an eCommerce venture, it may not fit your needs.

Interakt’s Starter Plan is meant for small businesses getting on WhatsApp for the first time. It does not overload you with features but gives you just enough ammunition to get started.

Here’s a snapshot of what you get with their Starter plan

• Basic chat automation like Welcome Messages and OOO messages: A welcome message that greets contacts and nudges them with the next steps AND OOO messages that auto-respond to questions outside office hours. This automation depth may suffice for some businesses, but for certain categories like eCommerce, this automation is too basic to plug in. For example, Shopify merchants need automation for abandoned cart recoveries, even when they are small businesses. Interakt does not offer these in the Starter plan.
• Basic segmentation: According to Interakt, they offer “basic segmentation” in their Starter plan. Our view on segmentation is this - SEGMENTATION CAN’T BE BASIC. It’s either advanced or nothing. If a growth team has invested time and resources to build a segmentation strategy, they most certainly won’t stop at a basic strategy. Interakt hasn’t explained what “basic” means in their parlance so we can’t dive into specifics.
• Only email support: WhatsApp is a brand-new channel. There are no established playbooks like email or SMS marketing. In such a scenario, businesses need always-on support because they will get stuck during campaigns. For example, sometimes, message templates are rejected by Meta. In this scenario, you need a support team that’s available on tap, to make necessary fixes for template approval. Many such small niggles make it necessary for you to have an expert team at your disposal. Email support takes 2-3 days to get back.
• Basic templates only: This plan offers only basic text templates. You can’t add images, video, location pins, docs, and other rich media in this message template.
• WhatsApp Catalog: Interakt offers WhatsApp catalogs in their base plan which is valuable for small businesses who rely on WhatsApp for orders.
• CTWA Launcher: Interakt allows customers to launch Click to WhatsApp ads under this plan. Customers can set up CTWA ads targeting Meta audiences and direct ad clicks to their WhatsApp inbox, not landing pages.  However, Interakt does not offer any conversion tracking for CTWA ads in this plan.
• Limited Analytics and NO CONVERSION ANALYTICS: In the starter plan, you get some analytics coverage, however, it is limited to top-of-the-funnel reports like deliveries, reads, and clicks. This plan does not offer any conversion analytics so you are left guessing if your WhatsApp campaigns converted.
• YOU DO NOT GET A WHATSAPP WIDGET TO EMBED ON YOUR WEBSITE

💡 If you are looking for WhatsApp marketing software that does not limit you in your base plan, check out QuickReply.ai. It offers advanced automation, deep segmentation, advanced templates, 24/7 WhatsApp support, a wide selection of website popups, account verification (”green tick”), and conversion analytics, in the base plan.

Interakt’s Growth Plan (49$ / month)

💡 TL: DR

Interakt’s Growth plan elevates WhatsApp maturity by offering additional value in chatbots and deeper analytics. This plan also introduces you to “workflows”, a component that enables 2-way interactions.

Other salient features in this plan are “Delayed Messages” (ability to auto-respond if a message is unanswered for a specific time period), “WhatsApp Payments” (ability to collect payments over WhatsApp), “advanced templates” and “advanced analytics”

Our view is that these features are a definitive upgrade from the base plan but features like advanced templates should be offered in the base plan itself.

Here’s a primer on what you get in Interakt’s Growth plan. Also a primer on what you don’t get.

• Delay messages: Auto-responders when a message is unanswered for a specific period
• Automated workflows: Pre-set sequences of messages and actions triggered by specific user interactions or criteria
• Chatbots: Limited to answering questions for 4 webpages
• Link and button tracking
• Advanced templates: Templates that go beyond text and add rich media like images, audio, video etc.‍
• WhatsApp Widget: Finally, you get a WhatsApp widget for your website.‍
• WhatsApp Payments: Payments on WhatsApp, no redirection to payment app‍
• Conversion Analytics: Conversion analytics around number of orders but no details about WHO converted.

What you don’t get?

• QR code scanner: Very high utility for merchants who use QR codes on their packaging to route buyers to WhatsApp.
• ‍Promotional Message Frequency Control: No frequency capping on the number of promotional messages to a contact. High-frequency messaging can ban your number or reduce your deliveries.‍
• Drip campaigns for abandoned carts: Did you know that more than 1 reminder for abandoned carts is the best practice? Here’s some proof - Renee Cosmetics runs a 2-step abandoned cart campaign and its 2nd nudge converts 2X more than the 1st nudge.  In this Interakt plan, you WON’T BE ABLE TO RUN drip campaigns for abandoned carts.‍
• Mass bot coverage: Limiting bots to just 4 pages is a non-starter. A typical digital business loads anywhere between 15-50 pages and giving visitors half-baked bot experiences may not be advisable.‍
• Bot Support: Even though their pricing page claims that they offer “Assisted setup”, human support is no longer available once the setup is concluded. You would be relegated to bot support and as you can imagine, it doesn’t work. Source for this claim? About 50+ customers who have migrated from Interakt to QuickReply in the last 6 months.‍
• No details of WHO converted: Interakt’s analytics will report the number of conversions but they won’t report WHO bought products or signed up a form. This does not let you build segmented lists for contextual communication.

💡 Interakt’s Growth plan is good for you if you want to setup basic automations like abandoned cart recoveries. Mind you, you won’t be able to configure advanced workflows like drip campaigns.

You would get bot support at this tier. You would get conversion reports but you would NOT GET any reports on WHO converted. Without this “WHO”, you would not be able to build advanced segmentation logic for continuous engagement.

Wrapping up

Interakt lets you get onto the WhatsApp bandwagon cheaply. It gives you basic features to leverage WhatsApp for low-maturity conversations and engagement. However, if you don't pay the big bucks, you might as well not go for their starter plans. They limit support, automations, drip campaigns and chatbots, all crucial components for conversational marketing. These basic features would not suffice your use cases and inside 3 months of using Interakt, you would find yourself questioning your purchase.