The best respond.io alternatives for a Telegram-first team are Cavyro if your deals live in DMs and group chats and you want a pipeline with values, Entergram if you run a Telegram support desk with SLA timers, CRMchat if you do cold outreach at volume, and SendPulse or Chatwoot if you want a cheap or free bot inbox. If Telegram is a side channel next to WhatsApp, Kommo, SleekFlow and Trengo stay closer to what respond.io already does.
We build Cavyro, so weigh this list accordingly. Every price below was checked on the vendor’s own pricing page as of September 2026, and we say plainly where our product is the wrong pick.
Why teams look for a respond.io alternative
respond.io is a good product. It has a 4.8 rating from more than 500 reviews on G2, and for a support team handling WhatsApp, Instagram and web chat at volume it earns that. The reasons people leave tend to be specific, and three of them come up again and again.
The price climbs in steps. Starter is $79 a month on an annual plan ($99 month to month) with 5 users. Broadcasts, workflows and AI agents all start on Growth, which is $159 a month annually or $199 monthly. Growth and Advanced also bill by monthly active contacts: 1,000 are included, then $12 per extra 100 on Growth and $15 per 100 on Advanced, plus $12 to $30 for each user beyond the included seats. respond.io’s own FAQ says teams with fewer than 500 conversations a month “may find the starting plans less cost-efficient.”
Telegram is a bot. The pricing page lists the channel as “Telegram Bot”, and their help center says two things that matter for sales teams: contacts must message you first, and Telegram groups “are not supported yet.” Your reps’ real accounts, and the months of chats already sitting in them, never enter the system.
It’s built around WhatsApp and Meta. Templates, calling, ads integrations and the product catalog all point at Meta’s channels. That’s the right bet for most support teams. It’s a lot of product to pay for if your revenue happens on Telegram.
If none of those three bite, stay where you are. If one of them does, here are the tools worth a look.
Cavyro
What it is: a Telegram CRM that mirrors your team’s real Telegram accounts. Chats, groups and channels become contacts, companies and deals with owners, stages and amounts, and the history comes with them.
Telegram support: real accounts over MTProto. Reps keep selling from their own account, customers never see a bot, and a group chat with five people from the buyer’s side becomes one deal with every member tracked. We wrote up how group deals work separately.
Price: Pro is $59 per seat a month, or $49 billed annually, from one seat. Business is $99 per seat ($79 annually) from 3 seats, with higher limits. Every seat gets the whole product: the AI assistant, hosted MCP server, automations, and Telegram and email campaigns with revenue attribution.
Best for: sales teams whose pipeline already lives in Telegram DMs and groups and who want to know what it’s worth: weighted forecast, win/loss, revenue by source.
The catch: Cavyro is Telegram-first. If half your volume is WhatsApp, an omnichannel inbox will serve you better. There’s no ticketing and no SLA timers, and no free plan, only a 5-day trial. We also don’t sell cold-outreach tooling. The full side-by-side is on Cavyro vs respond.io.
Entergram
What it is: a Telegram workspace for support teams, built on mirrored accounts.
Telegram support: real accounts, like Cavyro. Each seat includes 5 connected Telegram accounts.
Price: €29 a seat per month on Basic, €39 on Pro, €5 for each extra account. There’s a 3-day free trial.
Best for: teams measured on response time. Tickets with statuses, breach timers and response analytics are things Entergram does better than we do.
The catch: stages are custom columns and deals have no value, so there’s no forecast or revenue report. Campaigns are one-shot broadcasts, and automation is something you wire up yourself through their API or Make.com.
CRMchat
What it is: a Telegram CRM built around outbound: lead lists, sequences and sending across many accounts.
Telegram support: real accounts, either your own or ones CRMchat provides, with a proxy per account and AI warmup on the Team plan.
Price: a free plan with 1 account and 50 leads. Personal is $20 a month billed yearly. Team is $34 a seat billed yearly, $49 a seat month to month, with the first Telegram account included and $10 for each one after.
Best for: cold outreach at volume, where the job is getting sequences out across a fleet of accounts.
The catch: reporting stops at sent, read and replied, so it won’t tell you what those replies turned into. Warmup exists because account bans happen, and that risk lands on the accounts you send from. Our Telegram DM limits guide covers what triggers them. More detail on Cavyro vs CRMchat.
SendPulse
What it is: a marketing suite with email, a chatbot builder, a CRM and more, billed product by product.
Telegram support: a chatbot you build. There is also an option to connect one personal account, which gets no group chats and no history from before the day you connect it.
Price: the chatbot Free plan covers 3 bots, 500 subscribers and 10,000 messages a month. Pro starts at $12 a month for 500 subscribers ($9.60 billed annually), and the CRM and email are priced separately.
Best for: a bot funnel with flows, broadcasts and in-bot payments. If you came here searching for a SendPulse alternative instead, the same split applies: bot funnel or real accounts.
The catch: the bot only knows people who subscribed to it, so your team’s existing chats stay outside. Costs stack as you add products and subscribers. Details on Cavyro vs SendPulse.
Kommo
What it is: a messenger CRM with real pipelines, Salesbot automation and a long track record, strongest on WhatsApp and Instagram.
Telegram support: a bot you create in BotFather. It sees only conversations people start with it.
Price: $25, $35 or $45 per user per month, with a 6-month minimum and a 14-day trial. Broadcasts and Salesbot flows start on the $35 Advanced plan.
Best for: teams that want one CRM across WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook, with deal pipelines respond.io doesn’t have.
The catch: Telegram stays a bot channel with no path for group-chat deals, and per-user billing adds up. A team of five pays $125 to $225 a month, six months at a time. See Cavyro vs Kommo.
SleekFlow
What it is: an omnichannel inbox with broadcasts, a flow builder and AI agents. Its shape is closest to respond.io’s.
Telegram support: a bot token from BotFather, shared through a link or QR code so customers can start the chat.
Price: Pro is $109 a month billed yearly or $139 month to month, with 10 users and 500 monthly active contacts. Premium is $279 yearly or $349 monthly.
Best for: WhatsApp-first teams that want broadcasts and flows without paying for respond.io’s Growth tier. SleekFlow Pro includes them with 10 users.
The catch: same Telegram model as respond.io, with contact-based limits. You swap vendors without changing how Telegram works.
Trengo
What it is: a team inbox for customer service across WhatsApp, email, Instagram, Messenger and more, with flat plans that include users.
Telegram support: a bot. Trengo’s own help center says customers have to search for the bot’s name rather than your phone number.
Price: Boost is €299 a month billed annually (€349 monthly) with 10 users and 500 conversations a month. Pro is €499 annually. Extra conversations are €15 to €18 per 100.
Best for: support teams that want predictable flat pricing and email in the same inbox.
The catch: it costs more than respond.io Starter at the entry point, and Telegram is a minor channel. This is a support tool, and a sales team will find no deals in it.
Chatwoot
What it is: an open-source customer support inbox you can run on your own server.
Telegram support: a bot token, set up as a Telegram inbox.
Price: the self-hosted Community Edition is free. On the cloud, the free Hacker plan is live chat only, and Telegram starts on Startups at $19 per agent a month.
Best for: a technical team that wants a free respond.io alternative and is happy to host PostgreSQL and Redis to get it.
The catch: you run the servers, updates and backups. It’s a support inbox with no pipeline, and Telegram is still a bot.
respond.io alternatives compared
| Tool | Telegram connection | Starting price (Sept 2026) | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cavyro | Real accounts, groups as deals | $59/seat/mo ($49 annual), from 1 seat | Telegram sales with a real pipeline |
| Entergram | Real accounts | €29 per seat/mo | Telegram support with SLA timers |
| CRMchat | Real accounts (fleet) | Free (50 leads), then $20/mo | Cold outreach at volume |
| SendPulse | Bot, or 1 personal account | Free (500 subscribers), then $12/mo | Chatbot funnels |
| Kommo | Bot | $25 per user/mo, 6-month minimum | Multichannel CRM, WhatsApp-led |
| SleekFlow | Bot | $109/mo yearly, 10 users | respond.io-style inbox for less |
| Trengo | Bot | €299/mo yearly, 10 users | Flat-priced EU support inbox |
| Chatwoot | Bot | Free self-hosted, $19 per agent cloud | Free, if you host it yourself |
| respond.io | Bot, no groups | $79/mo yearly, 5 users | WhatsApp-first omnichannel support |
How to choose
Start with one question: where are your conversations right now?
If they’re sitting in chats and groups your reps have run for months, only three tools on this list can see them: Cavyro, Entergram and CRMchat. Every other option, respond.io included, starts from a bot that nobody has messaged yet. The difference between those two models is covered in what a Telegram CRM is.
From there, pick by what your team is measured on:
- Revenue closed. Cavyro. Deals have amounts, stages and close dates, and reports tie campaigns to won revenue.
- Response time. Entergram, or respond.io if the volume is spread across WhatsApp too.
- Messages sent. CRMchat.
- Leads captured by a bot. SendPulse.
If Telegram is a small slice next to WhatsApp, keep an omnichannel inbox and let Telegram be a bot channel. Kommo gives you pipelines on top, SleekFlow gives you respond.io’s shape for less, and Chatwoot costs nothing if you host it. That trade stops working when Telegram is where the money is. Our Telegram CRM vs shared inbox test tells you which side you’re on.
For the wider category beyond respond.io, see the best Telegram CRM in 2026, or look at how Cavyro turns Telegram chats into pipeline.
FAQ
What is a cheaper alternative to respond.io?
It depends on what you need. For a WhatsApp-first inbox with broadcasts and flows, SleekFlow Pro at $109 a month yearly undercuts respond.io Growth at $159. Chatwoot’s cloud plan starts at $19 per agent. For a Telegram sales team, Cavyro Pro is $59 per seat a month ($49 billed annually) with campaigns, workflows and AI included, which respond.io only unlocks from Growth.
Is there a free respond.io alternative?
Yes, three. Chatwoot’s Community Edition is free and open source if you host it, and it supports Telegram through a bot. SendPulse has a free chatbot plan for 3 bots and 500 subscribers. CRMchat has a free plan with 1 Telegram account and 50 leads. respond.io itself has no free plan, only a 7-day trial.
Does respond.io support Telegram groups?
No. respond.io’s help center says Telegram groups are not supported yet, and contacts have to message your bot before you can reach them. If your deals happen in group chats, look at a tool that mirrors real accounts.
Can I use my own Telegram account instead of a bot?
With Cavyro, Entergram and CRMchat, yes. They connect your team’s real accounts, so existing chats and groups come in with their history. SendPulse can connect one personal account without groups or older history. respond.io, Kommo, SleekFlow, Trengo and Chatwoot all use a bot.
When should I stay on respond.io?
When you run a support team across WhatsApp, Instagram and web chat at volume, and Telegram is one channel among many. That’s the job respond.io is built and priced for, and the alternatives here mostly win on Telegram, not on WhatsApp.