AI agents compared: AI SDRs that sell, support agents that serve, and voice AI that calls — pricing, free tiers and honest verdicts for US businesses.
AI agents are the fastest-growing AI category for US businesses: software that doesn't just answer questions, it does the work — prospecting buyers, answering support tickets, and making phone calls. The market splits four ways. AI SDRs like 11x.ai, Artisan (Ava) and AiSDR run outbound sales on autopilot, while Regie.ai keeps humans in the loop. Clay and Apollo.io supply the data and enrichment layer underneath them, and Instantly plus Lavender handle sending and coaching. On support, Intercom Fin and Zendesk AI resolve tickets without a human touching them. Bland AI and Vapi bring the same idea to phone calls. And if you want your own, Lindy and Relevance AI let you build custom agents with no code.
Our honest take: start with augmentation before autonomy. A $29/mo Lavender coach or a free Clay tier teaches you what good looks like before you hand a $2,000/mo autonomous SDR your domain reputation. Autonomous agents are powerful but unforgiving — bad targeting at machine speed means burning your market 10x faster. Prices change often — always confirm on the official site before buying.
Selling agents (AI SDRs) find prospects, write personalized outreach, follow up and book meetings. Support agents answer customer questions from your help center and docs. Voice agents make and take phone calls — appointment setting, lead qualification, order updates. Builder platforms let you assemble a custom agent for any buying or selling workflow without writing code.
AI chatbots are the most-used AI tools on the planet, and the gap between the best and the rest is wider than marketing suggests. In our hands-on tests, Claude writes the most natural prose, ChatGPT remains the best all-rounder thanks to browsing, image generation and custom GPTs, Gemini wins for Google Workspace users, and DeepSeek is the standout free option with genuinely open weights. Perplexity is our pick when you need answers with real citations.
Free tiers matter more than most people realise. ChatGPT's free plan throttles at peak times, Claude's free tier has strict daily caps, while DeepSeek and Microsoft Copilot are generous enough for daily use. Before paying $20 a month, run your real tasks on two or three free tiers side by side — most people only need one subscription, and our comparison table above shows exactly where each chatbot wins and where it falls short.
We signed up for each tool's free tier, ran identical test tasks, and ranked them on output quality, ease of use, pricing fairness and free-tier generosity. Prices change often — always confirm on the official site before buying.
Aitopkit