Clari and Salesloft are not deprecating Drift next quarter. They took it offline for security remediation in September 2025, then announced on March 5, 2026 that it is being sunset for good, with 1mind named as the replacement nobody asked to switch to.
I spent an afternoon doing the math on what nine years of Drift customers are actually being told, and the honest answer is: not much. Salesloft's own newsroom post uses the phrase "gradual sunset" and stops there. No cutoff date. No line about what happens to a contract you signed in 2025. Several migration vendors are quoting a 60 to 90 day window as if it were official. It is not. It shows up on a landing page selling a 3 day migration service, not on anything Salesloft has published.
Quick picks: Intercom if you want the closest AI resolution replacement and can absorb enterprise pricing. Tidio or HubSpot if you want to keep paying nothing while you figure out the rest. Qualified if Drift's Playbooks were actually an ABM tool for you, not a chat widget.
Pricing and features below were checked directly against each tool's own pricing page on September 8, 2026.
Why Drift customers are looking now, not later
Three separate things are pushing people out at once, and they are not the same problem.
The first is trust. In August 2025, attackers used stolen OAuth tokens tied to the Drift integration to reach Salesforce data across more than 700 organizations, an attack the Cloud Security Alliance traced to a threat actor identified as UNC6395. Salesloft took Drift offline that September to rebuild it. It came back. Then Salesloft killed it anyway six months later.
The second is money. Drift's Premium plan is listed on G2 as starting at $2,500 a month, which lines up with the roughly $30,000 a year floor that customers describe across review sites. That was the price for a chat widget with playbooks attached, not a full platform.
The third is simpler: the product you paid for is going away, whether or not you were unhappy with it. A thread on Intercom's own community forum, posted by a user migrating off Drift in June 2026, lays out the practical problem well. Conversation history exports are hitting Drift's API rate limit of 600 requests per minute, and the poster estimates two to three weeks for a full pull of transcript data, not the afternoon most people assume it will take.
If you are also revisiting the rest of your outbound stack while Salesloft consolidates its own product line, the same pricing transparency problem shows up in Outreach.io's alternatives, which stopped publishing seat prices around the same time, and in Apollo.io's alternatives if enrichment and prospecting are part of the same budget conversation.
What's the real deadline for leaving Drift?
There isn't a published one, and that is worth saying plainly instead of repeating a number that sounds official.
Salesloft's newsroom announcement, dated March 5, 2026, describes a "gradual sunset" and says existing clients will be referred to 1mind as the successor. That is the entire commitment in writing. The 60 to 90 day figure that keeps showing up comes from third party migration tool vendors, one of which runs a landing page titled "Migrate to Docket in 3 Days," which has an obvious reason to manufacture urgency.
Until your account team gives you a written date, treat your contract terms as the only real deadline you have, and ask directly rather than planning around a number a vendor invented.
What happens to your contract and billing before that
Salesloft has not published anything on this either, which is a bigger gap than the missing deadline.
What is confirmed: Drift's own pricing page now redirects straight to Salesloft's platform page with no pricing shown at all, so there is no self serve way to check your renewal terms online anymore.
If you are inside a multi year contract, the standard move with an acquired and sunset product is to ask your account rep for either a prorated exit or a like for like credit toward another Salesloft product, since that is common practice when a vendor kills a paid tier without notice. Get it in writing before you commit budget to a replacement. A verbal assurance from a support queue for a product being wound down is worth exactly nothing later.
Getting your Drift conversation history out before it goes dark
Contact records export cleanly through Drift's standard CSV tool. Conversation history is harder. The Intercom community thread mentioned above hit Drift's 600 requests per minute API ceiling while pulling transcripts, and put full extraction at two to three weeks for an active account, not a single afternoon export.
If your team leans on old conversations for training data, tagging patterns, or dispute records, start that pull now, separately from picking a replacement tool. The two projects run on different clocks.
Is 1mind actually a full replacement for Drift?
Not automatically, and the honest answer depends on what you actually used Drift for.
1mind is real, and it is the only successor Salesloft named directly, calling itself the "exclusive AI successor to Drift" in its own announcement.
Founder Amanda Kahlow describes it as merging into Salesloft's existing revenue workflows rather than functioning as a standalone chat tool. 1mind publishes no pricing anywhere, the entire funnel runs through a demo, and it is built to sell into accounts already running the full Clari plus Salesloft stack, not a team that just wants a chat widget back on their homepage.
If Drift was one piece of a bigger Salesloft deployment for you, 1mind is worth the call. If Drift was standalone chat with some playbooks bolted on, a straight alternative from the list below gets you back online faster, without a second enterprise sales cycle.
The 10 Drift Alternatives, grouped by what you actually need
For teams running real account based plays through Drift's Playbooks
Qualified
Qualified is the closest match to what enterprise B2B teams used Drift's Playbooks and meeting routing for: identifying named accounts on the site and routing them to a rep in real time.
Its pricing page publishes no dollar figures anywhere, three tiers named Premier, Enterprise, and Ultimate, all ending in "schedule a demo." Built natively for Salesforce shops, which most of Drift's enterprise base already were.
Intercom
Intercom is the broadest single swap. Its Fin AI agent resolves conversations at $0.99 per outcome on top of seat pricing that runs $29, $85, or $132 a month depending on the tier, and every tier includes Fin from the start.
No free plan, but the resolution based pricing means a slow month costs less than a flat enterprise contract, unlike what Drift charged.
1mind
1mind is the one Salesloft actually named as Drift's successor, covered in detail above. The short version if you skipped ahead: a real product, enterprise pricing you have to ask for, and a platform commitment rather than a chat widget swap.
For teams that want AI chat without signing another year long deal
Tidio
Tidio keeps a usable free plan at 50 conversations and 10 seats, then moves to $24.17 a month for the Starter tier and from $49.17 for Growth. Its Lyro AI add on starts at $32.50 a month on its own if you only want the bot, not the full seat based plan.
Knock AI
Knock AI is built specifically to replace lead qualification and pipeline chat, priced at $2,000 a month for its Pipeline Foundation tier and $3,500 for Pipeline Acceleration, both published outright rather than gated behind a demo.
Worth a look if the AI qualification piece of Drift mattered more to you than the live chat widget.
For teams already paying for HubSpot or the rest of the Salesloft ecosystem
HubSpot
Hubspot's offers a real free live chat tool with HubSpot branding attached, and removing that branding runs from $7 a seat a month on Marketing Hub Starter. If your CRM already lives in HubSpot, this closes the gap for close to nothing.
Warmly
Warmly pairs website visitor identification with inbound chat, the piece of Drift's pitch that leaned hardest on knowing who was on your site before they typed anything.
Pricing runs annual and is not cheap: $10,000 a year for AI web deanonymization alone, $20,000 for inbound chat, $30,000 for the full autopilot tier.
This is a fit for teams that were already spending Drift money at that scale, not a downgrade play.
For teams that just want a chat widget and nothing else to manage
Chaport
Chaport keeps a real free plan at 2 operators, then $29 a month for Pro with 4 operators, or $99 for unlimited operators and chatbots. No AI tax.
Olark
Olark charges $29 per agent a month for human only chat with no AI features at all, or $400 a month flat for its AI website agent covering one seat and unlimited AI conversations. Its own pricing language is blunt about the model: pay for agents, not for usage.
LiveChat
LiveChat starts at $19 a person a month billed annually, moving to $49 for the Team tier and $79 for Business, each adding more visitor tracking and reporting.
A 14 day trial with no card required if you want to test it against your actual traffic before committing.
Dirft Alternatives Comparison table
Tool | Starts at | Free plan | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
Intercom | $29/seat/mo plus $0.99 per Fin outcome | No, trial only | AI resolution at scale |
Qualified | Demo only, no published price | No | Enterprise account based pipeline |
1mind | Demo only, no published price | No | Teams that want Drift's named successor |
Tidio | Free (50 conversations) | Yes | Small teams testing AI chat |
Knock AI | $2,000/mo | No | AI qualification and pipeline chat |
HubSpot | Free (branded) | Yes | Teams already running HubSpot |
Warmly | $10,000/yr | No | Visitor intent plus chat at scale |
Chaport | Free (2 operators) | Yes | Small teams, tight budget |
Olark | $29/agent/mo, chat only | Trial only | Human only chat, flat pricing |
LiveChat | $19/person/mo (annual) | Trial only | Established support teams |
Did the security breach change what you should pick?
If Salesforce data access was part of what Drift touched at your company, yes, it should factor in. The August 2025 attack moved through OAuth tokens tied to the Drift integration specifically, not a general chat vulnerability, so any replacement that also wants deep Salesforce or CRM write access deserves the same scrutiny you would give any new integration today: check what data scopes it actually requests, not just what it claims to need.
Qualified and Intercom both publish security and compliance documentation directly on their sites.
1mind, being new and demo gated, has published far less for anyone to check independently. Not yet, anyway.
Choosing by segment
If Drift was mostly a chat widget with a nice logo attached, start with Tidio or HubSpot. Both are free to test this week, and neither asks you to sit through a sales call to see the price.
If Drift's Playbooks were doing real account routing work for a B2B sales team, Qualified is worth the demo, and it is the closest like for like swap for that specific job. Intercom sits right behind it if you want AI resolution handled the way Fin already does for thousands of other teams, without waiting on a scheduled call to find out what it costs.
If your team is AI sales agent curious and already deep in the Clari plus Salesloft stack, take the 1mind call, but go in knowing it is a platform commitment, not a chat widget swap.
If budget is the whole reason you are reading this, Chaport, Olark, and LiveChat all publish real numbers you can act on today, none of them close to Drift's old $2,500 a month floor.
FAQ
Why is Drift shutting down?
Two things happened close together: a September 2025 OAuth breach that hit 700 plus organizations connected through the Drift integration, and Salesloft's own pivot toward 1mind's AI agents. Salesloft's public reason given is the second one.
What's the best Drift alternative overall?
There is no single answer. Qualified is closest for account based routing, Intercom is closest for AI resolution, and Tidio or HubSpot cover a straight chat widget swap for free.
How much did Drift cost before the shutdown?
G2's listing for Drift shows its Premium plan starting at $2,500 a month, consistent with the roughly $30,000 a year figure customers describe across review sites. Drift's own pricing page no longer shows any figures at all.
Is there a free Drift alternative?
Yes. Tidio, HubSpot, and Chaport all run real free plans, not just trials, though each caps conversation volume or operator seats at some point.
Do these Drift alternatives integrate with Salesforce and HubSpot?
Qualified and Intercom both build natively for Salesforce. HubSpot obviously integrates with itself. Tidio, Chaport, Olark, and LiveChat connect to both through Zapier or their own app marketplace listings rather than a first party build.
Does the Drift security breach affect which alternative I should pick?
Only if the tool replacing it also wants deep CRM write access. Check what data scopes any new chat tool actually requests before connecting it, the same way you should have for Drift.
Where to start
Export your conversation history first, today, regardless of which tool you pick. That clock started running in March and nobody at Salesloft has told you when it stops.
Then match the tool to the job Drift was actually doing for you, not the job its marketing said it did. A chat widget, an ABM router, and an AI qualification engine are three different products that happened to live under one logo, and the fifteen highest ranking pages on this topic mostly miss that distinction.