Overview

Gupshup brings conversational agents, campaign journeys, and human escalation into a single platform. Agents can use live conversational context to book appointments, cancel tickets, or make EMI payments. Teams can configure engagement rules, connect business tools, set guardrails, and establish a trusted source of truth. That makes the platform relevant to workflows requiring action as well as answers; human handoff gives more complex cases an alternative to forcing automation through.

Trigger campaigns and drip journeys extend the platform beyond support, while performance metrics help teams assess those programs. Gupshup says it serves more than 50,000 businesses in 130+ countries and powers 120 billion conversations annually. That stated scale is relevant for large messaging programs, but it does not remove the need to validate costs and channel fit.

Key features

Agent creation and controls: A visual flow builder, AI bot generation, knowledge-base answers, and lead qualification support both guided interactions and agent-led conversations. Rules, tools, guardrails, and a trusted source of truth offer useful ways to constrain behavior; teams still need to configure those controls around their workflows.
Human escalation and routing: Conversation routing and handoff let support teams reserve people for complex cases rather than treating automation as the only path.
Campaign journeys: Trigger campaigns, drip journeys, and performance metrics serve marketing and growth teams as well as support operations. This breadth is useful when customer messaging spans multiple functions, but may be more platform than a team seeking only a support chatbot needs.
Channels and integrations: Channels include WhatsApp, Instagram, SMS, web and app, RCS, and voice. Gupshup lists more than 500 plug-and-play integrations across support, payments, CRM, and commerce, including Salesforce Marketing Cloud, MoEngage, CleverTap, Oracle Responsys, WebEngage, Bloomreach, and Braze; it also describes custom integrations with any platform. This is a strong fit for varied stacks, though the exact integration needed should be confirmed before choosing it.
Security posture: Gupshup displays ISOQAR, AICPA, RBI, GDPR, CCPA, and LGPD certification or compliance marks and describes a periodically reviewed security compliance program. Teams with specific compliance requirements should assess fit against those requirements.

Pricing

The self-serve WhatsApp offer starts at 0.00 USD per contact, but messaging is not cost-free: Gupshup charges $0.001 per message, and WhatsApp fees are billed at actuals and vary by message type and country. Template and session messages each carry the $0.001 Gupshup fee; media over 64KB is free of that fee. The separate “Gupshup messaging fee” plan is 0.00 USD per month and applies to all messages, while retaining the standard $0.001 per-message charge and actual WhatsApp fees. For teams, the practical budget driver is message volume plus WhatsApp charges, not the displayed zero plan price.

Enterprise pricing is custom pricing and requires contacting Gupshup. The published self-serve offer is specifically framed around WhatsApp, so teams planning other channels should establish the applicable costs before committing. No seat quota or trial term is provided for these offers.

Platforms

Gupshup supports API and web access, with multichannel deployment. Its channel mix spans messaging, web and app, and voice, making it better suited to cross-channel programs than teams committed to one narrow touchpoint.

Who it's for

Marketing, performance marketing, commerce and growth, and customer support or CX teams are the clearest fit. It is particularly compelling when a business wants to connect campaigns, action-taking agents, and human support across customer channels. A team that needs only a basic chatbot or cannot forecast message economics should compare narrower or differently priced options first.

Pros and cons

Pro: Agents can act on conversational context, not just answer questions, supporting tasks such as bookings, cancellations, and payments.
Pro: Campaign journeys, human handoff, and broad channel coverage serve marketing and support workflows within one platform.
Pro: More than 500 plug-and-play integrations and custom integration options can accommodate varied CRM, support, payment, and commerce stacks.
Con: The $0.001 per-message Gupshup fee applies alongside actual WhatsApp fees, making high-volume economics a central consideration.
Con: The published self-serve prices address WhatsApp; teams using other channels need to establish their pricing separately.

Alternatives

Customer Service Automation Software is a broader category to explore for support-first needs; RCS Business Messaging Software and RCS Messaging Platforms focus the search on RCS; Communications Platforms as a Service suits a communications-platform comparison; and Messenger Marketing Software or Conversational Marketing Software narrows it to marketing use cases.

Forethought Solve is a support-focused alternative with chat and mobile AI agents, autoflows, custom actions, CSAT collection, ticket-triage models, and multilingual support. Choose it when those support capabilities are the priority; it has no free plan or free trial.
Salesforce Service Cloud is worth considering when Salesforce service and sales flows are the priority: its Starter Suite costs 25.00 USD per month, billed monthly or annually, and includes case and service management, built-in AI, email marketing and analytics, sales flows, and lead routing. It has no free plan.
Pylon is another paid API platform to compare.
Webex App is a freemium option for teams seeking meetings and collaboration across desktop, mobile, and web; its free plan allows meetings up to 40 minutes and 100 attendees.
Hey Support is a web-based freemium option with a free tier capped at 50 conversations per month, one chatbot, and one seat; its Starter plan is 19.00 USD per month, billed annually.
Yellow.ai is a freemium web and mobile option whose free plan includes one AI agent, 500/month included, a two-agent limit, 1,000 records, and one active campaign.
Capacity is a paid alternative with custom pricing and storage tiers of up to 100GB, 1TB, and 2TB across Core, Pro, and Enterprise.
Cognigy is another paid web platform to compare.

Verdict

Choose Gupshup if your marketing, commerce, or support teams need action-taking agents, campaign journeys, and human escalation across channels, and you can model message costs. Its breadth is the central reason to choose it; the per-message fee and separate WhatsApp charges are the strongest reasons to look elsewhere if predictable low-volume pricing or a single-purpose tool matters more.

	Gupshup	Smartly.ai
Free plan	Yes	No
Free trial	No	No
Paid from	Free	—
Open source	No	No
Platforms	api, Web	Web, iOS, Android
Free plan	No	—
Deployment channels	multichannel	multichannel
Visual flow builder	Yes	—
AI bot generation	Yes	Yes
Knowledge-base answers	Yes	Yes
Human handoff	Yes	Yes

Gupshup vs Smartly.ai

Gupshup

Smartly.ai