Eight questions worth asking before you pick one
Most of these never come up until something has already gone wrong — a price nobody charges, a customer answered in a language they don't read, a post's worth of comments quietly lost. Here they are up front, with our answers.
The answers, in plain words
We won't name anyone else's product. The right-hand column is the common way these tools work — judge it against whatever you're looking at.
The question | Speedy Text | The usual approach |
|---|---|---|
Whose words reach your customer? | Yours, exactly as you typed them. The AI answers only from notes you wrote, and anything it drafts waits for your approval before a single person sees it. | A model writes the reply. It sounds fine until the day it invents a price you don't charge. |
What happens when it doesn't know? | It says so, hands the chat to you, and adds the question to a list of what your notes don't cover — so the gap gets filled once and never asked again. | It guesses, or it repeats the same menu until the person leaves. |
Which language does it answer in? | Whichever one the customer wrote in. You write the message twice — Arabic and English — and each reader gets theirs. Nothing is machine-translated. | One language, or a translation of your words that you never read. |
Does a keyword have to be exact? | No. One rule answers the word, any emoji, and a bare full stop — the three things people actually type under a post. | One keyword, one rule. Everyone who typed 🔥 instead is not answered. |
Can you test it before a follower sees it? | Type a comment the way a customer would and see exactly which rule answers, what it sends, and which rules nearly fired and why they didn't. | Publish and hope. You find out from the person it went wrong for. |
What happens to comments that arrive while it's down? | Pick the post and the comments are read back off it and answered now — skipping anyone already replied to. | They are gone. Nobody comes back to a post to see whether you replied. |
What does it cost to find out? | Nothing. Twenty-five replies on your own posts, no card, no trial clock counting down. | A card up front for a fourteen-day trial you have to remember to cancel. |
Who answers when you need help? | A person. The same one who built it. | A form, and a reply in a few days. |
If you only check three things
Every row above is worth asking. These three are the ones that cost you a customer when the answer is wrong.
The answer came from a line you wrote
This is the part worth being fussy about. The AI reads the notes you keep — prices, delivery areas, hours, what you don't sell — and answers from those and nothing else. Ask it something the notes don't cover and it does not improvise: it tells the customer a person is coming, and tells you which question your notes are missing. A figure that isn't in your notes gets the draft thrown away rather than sent.
Each customer answered in the one they wrote in
Every message has two boxes: the one you write, and the same thing in your second language. Speedy Text reads what the customer wrote and picks the matching one — so they get a sentence you approved rather than a translation engine's guess at it. If it cannot tell which they read, the follow-up switches so nobody is asked twice in a language they do not speak. It matters most where a business serves two languages at once, which is most of them outside the English-speaking world.
The person who replies is the person who built it
Write to support and you are not opening a ticket in a queue. You get an answer within a working day from somebody who can change the thing you are asking about, because there is nobody to escalate it to. That is a real advantage of a small company and it stops being true the moment one gets big — worth using while it lasts.
You pay for answers sent — not for people who showed up
ManyChat bills by active contact: one person counts once a month, and they count whether you wrote to them or they wrote to you. Someone messages you, you never answer, and it still comes out of your month. Speedy Text charges when a reply actually goes out, and nothing else.
- Five comments from the same person under the same post count as one — and only the first is answered.
- A message you never answered costs nothing.
- When the month runs out, it stops. It does not keep going and bill you for the overflow — topping up is your decision, never a surprise on the invoice.
It books the meeting, not just the link
When somebody asks to speak to a person, it reads the real gaps in your Google Calendar and offers three times you are actually free. They tap one and it is in your calendar. Nobody leaves the conversation, and nobody has to ask you to send your availability.
- It sees when you are busy — never what you are busy with
- Two people cannot be given the same minute, even tapping at the same second
- If Google refuses, nothing is confirmed and the conversation comes to you — a confirmation for an appointment that exists nowhere is the worst thing it could do
It answers from your words — and throws away anything else
You write down what your business does, once, and the AI answers from it in plain language. Any figure that is not in what you wrote is discarded before it reaches anybody — an invented price is the most expensive thing an automation can say on your behalf.
- No price, policy or date you did not write
- No authority to promise, discount or make an exception — not even when asked twice
- It learns how you write from your own replies, so it sounds like you and not like a robot
The hours, handed back
Every answer that goes out without you is an answer you did not stop to write. That is the whole of it — not a feature, an evening.
- Comments answered while you are filming, driving or asleep
- The same question answered the hundredth time as well as the first
- A conversation reaches you only when it actually needs you
Every reply, on the record
The activity stream lists what went out and what came in, in order, across every connected account — so “is it working” is a page you look at, not a feeling.
- Every comment, reply and DM as it happens
- Anything that failed to send, marked as failed
- Filter to only the failures when you want to check
Judge it on your own comments.
Start free on one account — real comments, real replies, no card. The fastest way to answer any of these questions is to watch it run on a post of yours.