Weave vs Podium: which fits your practice?

Podium is a messaging and reviews platform that now sells AI employees on top. Its pricing page lists reviews, phones, website chat, a shared inbox, payments and text marketing, with more than 200 integrations, and says you can "add on AI Employee to any plan" (Podium pricing).

For aesthetics, Podium sells a fuller system: an AI employee called Avery that answers leads across phone, text and social and books appointments with rooms and devices in mind, an AI-powered EMR for charting, scheduling and payments, and an AI business manager called Operator (Podium aesthetics). Its dental page focuses on reviews, texting and payments (Podium dental).

Podium pricing: not published. You get a quote after a demo, and the AI employee is an add-on (Podium pricing).

• Dental, optometry or veterinary practice that wants one vendor for phones and patient texting: Weave. It's built around the front desk of those offices and publishes a starting price.
• Dental office that mainly wants more Google reviews: either works. Compare Weave's review tools with Podium's on a demo.
• Med spa, dermatology or plastic surgery practice: look hard at Podium's aesthetics product, especially if you also need an EMR.
• You want a published starting price before a sales call: Weave lists one; Podium doesn't.
• You want AI answering calls today: confirm availability with both. Weave's AI Receptionist page showed a waitlist when we checked, and Podium's AI employee is an add-on.

Both are packaged platforms. They work best when your practice runs the way the product expects. Two situations come up often:

• Multi-location groups with different rules per office. Ask each vendor how it handles different hours, providers, services and transfer rules at each location, and whether reporting rolls up across them.
• Work outside communication. Neither is built to automate back-office jobs like reconciling payments into your accounting, chasing unscheduled treatment from your own reports, or building owner dashboards across offices.

Disclosure: this part is us. Trilix AI builds custom phone agents and back-office automation for clinics, connected to the practice software you already run where it allows a connection. Our AI for clinics page explains what we build, with clinical questions left to clinicians. We've also built a dental practice demo on sample data covering lead replies, no-show refills, treatment plan follow-up and recalls.

That route makes sense for groups that want one team for phones, follow-up and reporting. For a single office happy with how Weave or Podium works, a packaged platform is usually the better buy. Our separate, disclosed page compares Trilix and Podium directly, and our AI receptionist guide covers published plans across vendors.

• What's the all-in monthly price for my number of locations, phones and texts?
• Is the AI receptionist live today for my specialty, and what does it cost on top?
• Does it book confirmed appointments into my practice software, or send requests to staff?
• How are HIPAA and call recording consent handled, and will you sign a BAA?
• What's the contract length and cancellation notice?
• Can I export my texts, recordings and reviews if I leave?