AI chatbots for real estate: seven tools agents use, compared

A real estate chatbot has three jobs: answer questions about a listing, find out who is asking and what they need, and book a viewing or a call with an agent. The tools agents actually use split into two kinds. Real-estate platforms such as Lofty, Ylopo and Structurely follow up leads from portals and ads by text, email and phone, and none of them publishes a full price. General chatbots such as Tidio, ManyChat, HighLevel and ChatPal answer people who write to you first, on your website or in messengers, and publish their prices.

We make ChatPal, one of the seven tools below. The list is grouped by situation, not ranked.

What a real estate chatbot has to handle

• Listing questions. “Is it still available?”, “What are the HOA fees?”, “Are pets allowed?” The answer has to come from the listing, and when the listing doesn't say, the bot has to say so instead of guessing.
• Qualifying the lead. Buying or renting, budget, area, timeline, pre-approval. A good bot asks one or two of these at a natural moment, not a ten-question form at the first “hi”.
• Booking a viewing or a call. Either it reads a calendar and books, or it takes the request and an agent confirms. The failure to avoid is a bot that sounds as if it booked when it didn't.
• Handing over. Offers, negotiation, contract questions and anything legal go to an agent, with the conversation attached.

No chatbot on this list can tell a buyer what a house is worth to them, judge whether a neighborhood suits a family, or replace the agent at the showing.

How we chose

We picked tools agents and small agencies use today: three built for real estate and four general chatbots that agents set up themselves. We checked each one on its own website for four things: where its AI answers, whether it qualifies leads and books appointments, what it costs, and whether you can buy it without a sales call. We did not test the other six hands-on. Several real-estate platforms publish no prices at all, and the cards say so rather than quote third-party estimates. Prices were last re-checked on 19 October 2026.

Seven tools, by situation

Where each one answers, and how you pay

The biggest split is the channel. Real-estate platforms chase leads that came in through a portal, an ad or your home-search site, mostly by text and phone. General chatbots wait for the buyer to write first, on your website or in a messenger.

If your leads arrive from Zillow, Realtor.com or Facebook ads and your team lives in a CRM, start with the AI in the CRM you have, or one that plugs into it. If buyers message you on WhatsApp or Instagram about a listing they saw, a CRM's texting AI won't see those messages, and you need a chatbot connected to those channels.

What it costs a small agency

Take an agency with three agents that gets about eight chat enquiries a day on its website and WhatsApp, with four replies in each. That is around 240 conversations and 960 replies a month.

• ChatPal: 960 replies fit the $50 plan (1,500 replies). The free plan's 100 replies cover about the first three days at that pace, enough to see how it handles your questions. Every channel and the calendar booking are on every plan.
• Tidio: Lyro starts at $32.50 a month on annual billing for 50 AI conversations; 240 needs a higher tier, priced on Tidio's page for your volume.
• ManyChat: Pro at $39 a month, or $29 a month billed annually, covers 2,500 active contacts across three channels, enough for this volume. It suits Instagram and Messenger flows more than open questions about a listing.
• HighLevel: $97 for Starter plus $97 for the AI Employee Unlimited add-on is $194 a month, plus Conversation AI usage and $10 if you add WhatsApp.
• Lofty, Ylopo, Structurely: no public price. Structurely's usage rates ($0.07 a voice minute, $0.02 an SMS) come on top of a platform fee you learn from sales.

Prices were checked on 19 October 2026 and are in US dollars before tax.

A real estate chatbot template for an agency

Most chatbots take written instructions: in ChatPal they go in the Instructions card under Configuration. Here is a starting point for an agency. Replace everything in square brackets, and delete lines that don't apply.

You answer messages for [Agency name], a real estate agency in [city or area]. We help people [buy, sell and rent] [homes and apartments].

Answer questions about our listings only from the listing pages and documents you have. If a detail isn't there (HOA fees, pets, parking, move-in date), say you don't have it and offer to have an agent check. Never guess a price, a fee or whether a property is still available.

When someone is interested in a property, find out, one question at a time and only when it fits the conversation: whether they want to buy or rent, their budget, the area, when they want to move, and [whether they are pre-approved for a mortgage].

To see a property, offer a viewing. Viewings run [30] minutes, [Monday to Saturday, 10 am to 6 pm]. Ask for their name and phone number to confirm it.

Hand the conversation to an agent when someone wants to make an offer, asks about negotiation, contracts, inspections or legal questions, wants to list their own property, or asks for a person.

Describe properties and areas by their features: size, price, schools listed on the page, transit, amenities. Never describe an area by who lives there, and never suggest a property or area based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, family status or disability.

Keep replies short. Our office is at [address], open [hours]. Agents can be reached at [phone].

The second to last paragraph is there because the Fair Housing Act covers those characteristics and the practice of steering buyers toward areas. This template is a starting point, not legal advice; check your own obligations with your broker.

In ChatPal, budget, area and move date also work as custom fields under Handoff & leads, so the assistant saves them on the lead and your team sees them on the Leads page. With Google Calendar or Calendly connected, “offer a viewing” turns into real free times the buyer can tap. On Calendly's free plan the assistant shares your booking link instead of booking the time itself.

Questions to ask on the demo call

Three of these tools give you a price only through a demo or a sales call. These questions get you a comparable answer from each:

• Where do the leads have to come from? Some AI works only on leads already in the vendor's CRM or brought in by its own ads. Ask whether it answers a buyer who writes to your WhatsApp or Instagram first.
• What is the full monthly bill for my team? Seats, the AI add-on, usage per minute or message, and any fee on ad spend, written down for your number of agents.
• What happens when it doesn't know? Ask them to show a conversation where the buyer asks something the listing doesn't cover.
• Can my agent take over mid-conversation, and does the AI stop replying when they do?
• Is there a contract term, and what happens to your leads and conversations if you leave?

For the tools with public prices you can answer most of these yourself on a free plan or trial, with your own listings and last month's questions.

Setting one up, whichever you pick

1. Give it the listings. CRM tools read their own data. A website chatbot needs your listing pages or a document per property; in ChatPal you add them under Knowledge, and you remove or update a page when the property sells or is let.
2. Decide what it never does. Quote a price not on the listing, promise availability, answer legal questions.
3. Connect a calendar, or tell it to take viewing requests for your team to confirm.
4. Choose who gets the alert for a new lead or a handed-over chat, and how fast they reply.
5. Test it with real questions from last month's messages before you put it live.

To see what these conversations look like, our example chatbot conversations include a real-estate agency answering “is it still available?” and booking a viewing. For more on collecting contact details without scaring buyers off, read the lead capture chatbot guide. For where AI helps an agent beyond the chat window, see AI for real estate agents, and for ChatPal itself, how it works for agencies.