Sleekflow vs Respond.io: 6 Key Features Compared - Which is Better?

Deciding between Sleekflow vs respond.io to manage your instant messaging conversations and do marketing and sales over chat? On the surface, both platforms look similar, so knowing which to choose can be tough. We break down the key differences along with pros and cons so you can make the best decision for your business.

Sleekflow vs Respond.io: A Side-by-Side Comparison

When you’re choosing a conversation management platform, you’ll want to make sure it supports the channels your customers use most, offers sales and marketing automation to help you scale, provides prompt support when needed and can be trusted for security and stability no matter how many messages you send and receive.

First of all, let’s look at an overview of how Sleekflow vs. respond.io compares on the features that matter most.

Sleekflow vs Respond.io: A Summary

WhatsApp Capabilities

	Sleekflow	Respond.io
WhatsApp BSP	✅	✅
WhatsApp Catalog	❌	✅
Broadcasts	✅	✅
WhatsApp Business Calling API	❌	✅

Omnichannel Capabilities

Sleekflow	Respond.io
WhatsApp, SMS, Facebook Messenger, LINE, WeChat, Instagram, Telegram, Viber, Webchat	WhatsApp, TikTok, SMS, Facebook Messenger, LINE, WeChat, Instagram, Telegram, Viber, Webchat, Email, Custom Channel

Marketing and Sales Automation

	Sleekflow	Respond.io
Chat Automation Workflows	⚠️ (only for WhatsApp)	✅
Click to Chat Automation Triggers	✅	✅
Lead Lifecycle Tracking	❌	✅
Reports	⚠️ (limited)	✅

AI Features

	Sleekflow	Respond.io
AI Agent	❌	✅
AI Assisted Message Drafts	✅	✅
AI Knowledge Sources	PDF	Document uploads and web resources

Platform Stability and Security

	Sleekflow	Respond.io
ISO 27001	✅	✅
Supports High Message Volume without Lagging	❌	✅

Customer Support

	Sleekflow	Respond.io
Onboarding Support	⚠️ (limited)	✅
Availability	⚠️ (mainly via email, limited chat support for higher-tier plans)	✅ (24/5 live chat, 24/7 AI agent)

To see a detailed breakdown of how Sleekflow vs respond.io compare in terms of pricing plans and value for your investment in a solutions, check out our Sleekflow Alternative article.

Sleekflow vs Respond.io: A Deep Dive Into 6 Features

Now that you’ve seen an overview of the basic features, we’ll get into the details of the benefits and limitations of Sleekflow vs. respond.io for growing businesses like yours.

Sleekflow vs Respond.io: WhatsApp API Capabilities

As the most popular communication channel in many countries, WhatsApp is a must-have for doing marketing and sales over chat. Growing businesses benefit from using WhatsApp API rather than WhatsApp Business App as it enables multi-user access along with robust broadcast and automation capabilities.

As WhatsApp API doesn’t have a front-end interface, you’ll need to connect it to a messaging platform like Sleekflow or respond.io. The extent of the features you can use depends on your provider, so it’s important to make the right choice.

WhatsApp BSP

Both Sleekflow and respond.io are WhatsApp Business Service Providers, which means they have partnered with Meta to provide access to WhatsApp API. Meta charges conversation fees for certain business-initiated messages regardless of your provider.

However, some providers also charge additional fees for WhatsApp numbers, so this is an important factor to consider when choosing a BSP.

Sleekflow charges US$15 per month for each WhatsApp Business phone number you connect.

Respond.io on the other hand, allows you to connect any number of WhatsApp Business phone numbers at no additional charge. The process is simple, and our customer service team is ready to guide you if you run into any issues.

Meta Catalog Integration

Sending product photos via WhatsApp helps leads make a decision faster. Meta Catalogs allow you to upload items and descriptions to Meta Business Manager to easily send them in a message or use in ads shown on Instagram or Facebook.

However, not all conversation management platforms integrate with Meta Catalogs. Sleekflow does not integrate with Meta Catalogs but instead has its own catalog feature. Respond.io directly integrates with Meta Catalogs so you can instantly access catalog images from Meta Business Manager and send them in messages.

WhatsApp Broadcasts

One factor many customers look for in a conversation management platform is the ability to send broadcasts or bulk messages. The WhatsApp API is essential for this, as it allows you to send broadcasts to thousands of contacts, whereas the WhatsApp Business App only permits sending broadcasts to 256 contacts at a time.

Both Sleekflow and respond.io have WhatsApp API broadcasting capabilities so you can send business-initiated template messages to segmented audiences. Select audiences for retargeting, promotions, reminders and more.

WhatsApp Business Calling API

Want to upgrade to WhatsApp API without losing voice calling? The WhatsApp Business Calling API is now available in Beta to users in 24 countries, but Sleekflow doesn't support it.

Respond.io, on the other hand, is part of a select number of BSPs that does. Easily move from chat to call for quick clarification with a customer and close deals faster.

Sleekflow vs Respond.io: Omnichannel Capabilities

While WhatsApp is the most popular channel for many businesses, omnichannel capabilities remain important. An ideal conversation management platform allows you to manage messages and communicate on any channel, including email and custom channels, without limitations.

Channels Available

Sleekflow allows users to connect to WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, Telegram, Viber, WeChat, SMS, LINE and Webchat. While this covers most popular channels, if you’re using TikTok, email or require a custom channel, it may not be sufficient.

Respond.io supports WhatsApp, Tiktok, Instagram, Facebook, Telegram, Viber, WeChat, SMS, email, LINE, Webchat and custom channels. For custom channels, use our developer API to connect respond.io to any channel.

Sleekflow vs Respond.io: Marketing and Sales Automation

To reach more leads and manage high volumes of inquiries coming in over chat, automation is essential. Here’s how Sleekflow vs respond.io compare in terms of automating marketing and sales.

Chat Automation

Both Sleekflow and respond.io provide businesses with no-code automation builders known as Flows and Workflows, respectively. Sleekflow allows users to execute a limited number of automations per month; respond.io has no limits on the number of Workflows that can be executed.

While both platforms enhance your marketing and sales capabilities like instant responses, qualification questions, answering FAQs and appointment booking, Sleekflow’s workflows only support WhatsApp. Respond.io’s workflows allow you to use these advanced automations across channels.

Click to Chat Ads

Want to get new leads into your inbox? Click to chat ads are the fastest way to get a large, targeted audience to send you a message. With Meta, you can create ads displayed on Facebook and Instagram that click to WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger.

Both Sleekflow and respond.io have automation triggers that are compatible with click to chat ads. That means that you can set automatic replies, keep track of how many conversations are coming into the platform from ads and more.

Respond.io also supports TikTok Messaging Ads, allowing you to reach new audiences on TikTok and convert them through ads.

Lead Lifecycle Management

To prioritize leads, retarget customers and recognize the cause of dropoffs to make improvements, it's important to understand the entire customer journey. Agents should have instant context when they enter a chat so they can tailor the conversation according to the lead's status.

Sleekflow doesn't offer detailed lifecycle tracking, so important leads may be overlooked. It's also difficult to identify why leads drop off after they started a chat.

With respond.io's Lifecycle feature, you can label leads according to status, including New Lead, Hot Lead, Customer, or any custom stage you create. Lost stages also help businesses categorize leads that have gone cold or were not qualified, to identify areas for improvement such as response times or to optimize ads to target higher quality leads.

Reports

When you’re doing marketing and sales over chat, you’ll want to see the results of your efforts, for example, by tracking how quickly conversations are being responded to and which channels the most leads are coming in on.

Sleekflow’s reporting and analytics capabilities are only available for the highest tier plans. These advanced plans allow you to track the number of conversations, new contacts, response time and messages sent and received. You can also add filters to do more detailed analytics.

Respond.io, on the other hand, has robust reporting capabilities available for any plan so you can maximize efficiency and focus on channels that convert. Discover which channels are the most popular with your audience, manage workload, track agent and team performance and measure broadcast effectiveness.

Sleekflow vs Respond.io: AI Features

Since the advent of generative AI, the number of AI-powered platforms have exploded. Everyone wants to take advantage of the opportunities AI offers, but how can you best do that? Sleekflow boasts of its AI capabilities; how do they compare to respond.io?

AI Agent

Sleekflow does not offer an AI Agent feature at this time. Respond.io offers an AI Agent that you can train with your own knowledge sources, so you can reply to messages 24/7, even when human agents aren’t available.

Use AI agent to answer common questions or even complete a sale. Use Workflows automation to route customers to a human agent when necessary.

Assistance in Drafting Messages

Both Sleekflow and respond.io include GPT-powered assistance in drafting messages, for faster, more accurate responses. Agents can ask AI to compose a reply and choose to send as is or edit it. They can also quickly draft a message and ask AI to polish the tone or grammar to keep responses consistent and professional.

Learns from Your Own Business Documentation

AI responses are more accurate when based on your own business knowledge. Sleekflow allows businesses to upload documents to train AI. Respond.io not only supports uploading documents but also has a URL crawler so the AI can learn from your entire website instantly.

Sleekflow vs Respond.io: Security and Stability For Scaling Your Business

When you’re scaling your business, security and stability are vital to any platform you choose. Data breaches and platform crashes can have a serious impact on your reputation. You want to ensure your customer data remains confidential and that messages keep coming through smoothly.

Security Features

Both Sleekflow and respond.io are ISO 27001 certified, offer 2FA and provide the option to mask sensitive customer information so you can rest assured all data is secure.

Ability to Handle High Volumes of Messages

While Sleekflow supports low conversation volumes well, it tends to lag under pressure. Businesses receiving high volumes of messages prefer respond.io as its purpose-built infrastructure processes millions of messages every day with no downtime.

This also helps us guarantee 99.999% platform uptime and reliability, eschewing issues platforms like Sleekflow face such as severe outages, including a month of downtime for WhatsApp Cloud API, Messenger and Instagram in February 2024

Sleekflow vs Respond.io: Customer Support

Getting started on a new platform is a learning process, so you’ll want to know that the one you choose can support you through onboarding and help optimize your experience for success. If you have any issues, you don’t want to leave your leads and customers hanging while you’re waiting for a response from support. Here’s how Sleekflow vs respond.io compare on support.

Onboarding Support

When your enterprise has complex needs, a dedicated customer success manager can make all the difference.

Sleekflow offers some onboarding support to yearly subscribers, but this only includes one hour of training on WhatsApp API.

With respond.io, you’ll get personalized support for planning and setting up Workflows, connecting to WhatsApp API, integrating with third-party tools and more.

Availability

Sleekflow only offers email support to customers on lower tier plans and limited chat support to those on higher tier plans. Respond.io offers 24/5 live chat support and 24/7 AI agent support to all customers, so if you need any assistance, you’ll be sure to get it fast.

Sleekflow vs Respond.io: Make the Right Choice for Your Business

Sleekflow and respond.io offer similar platforms in that both are focused on enhancing marketing and sales over chat. But when you dig deeper into the features, respond.io stands out as the better choice, especially if you require multichannel automation and dedicated support and are aiming to scale.

Sleekflow lacks key features like TikTok integration, Meta Catalogs, multichannel automation and AI Agent. Their support is also limited, which means you’ll be kept waiting if you have an urgent inquiry. If you’re managing high volumes of messages, there’s also the risk of facing significant lag.

Respond.io also supports the new WhatsApp Business Calling API to provide better value for businesses looking to enhance their sales and marketing efforts.

For businesses aiming to scale, respond.io ensures every message is delivered on time. We offer automations and broadcasts on every channel and provide dedicated chat support to all customers at any time.

To get full experience of what respond.io can do for your business, sign up for a free trial or contact us for a customized demo today.

Further Reading

If you’ve found this article helpful, here are some more for you to check out:

• An Advanced Sleekflow Alternative for Large Businesses

• Respond.io Alternative: 4 Respond.io Alternatives to Consider

• Business Messaging: A Guide to Messaging for Business