Pilla vs Sierra
Sierra is an AI agent for your customers across chat, voice and email. Pilla is an AI agent for your staff across the shifts, sites and routes behind them.
Compared against Sierra's own documentation on 21st May 2026
The short version
Choose Pilla if
Pilla wins on a different problem entirely: helping the deskless workers who keep the business running — kitchen openers, store managers, field engineers, cleaning crews — execute their internal workflows reliably.
Choose Sierra if
Sierra is a different shape of company.
Pricing
Pilla
Usage-based pricing. From £29 per month for 1,000 workflow steps, scaling up to £1,749 per month for 1 million steps. Free to start, no per-seat fees. See full pricing.
Sierra
Outcome-based per successful resolution, plus base platform fee and implementation. No published rate.
At a glance
| Capability | Pilla | Sierra |
|---|---|---|
| Drag and drop canvas to build workflows | Yes | No |
| 20 different types of input workflow steps | Yes | No |
| Mobile app to carry out workflow inputs | Yes | No |
| AI workflow steps to automate actions | Yes | Yes |
| Unlimited teams and users | Yes | Not documented |
| In-app user messaging and chats | Yes | No |
How Sierra positions itself
Sierra positions itself as the Agent Operating System for the enterprise — a single platform for building, deploying, and optimising customer-facing AI agents across chat, voice, email, SMS, WhatsApp, and ChatGPT. They sell to large consumer and regulated brands (the Fortune 50 makes up a stated 40% of the customer base) and frame their value as "build once, deploy everywhere": one agent persona and policy set governing every customer touchpoint. The pitch leans heavily on safety (constellation architecture, deterministic guardrails, ISO 27001/42001, PCI Level 1) and on outcomes (pay only when the agent successfully resolves a case). The category they own is enterprise customer-experience automation.
When teams choose Sierra
Sierra is a different shape of company. Prospects pick Sierra when the problem is customer-facing — millions of inbound chat, voice, and email interactions a year that need to be handled by an AI agent at consumer-brand quality. Sierra's strengths there are real: a multi-channel runtime that genuinely deploys one agent across voice and text, an outcome-based pricing model that aligns with deflection economics, deep enterprise security posture (PCI Level 1, ISO 42001, HIPAA BAAs), and the operational maturity to take action against CRM, order, and payment systems with deterministic guardrails. If the buyer's job title is "VP of Customer Experience" at a $10B+ revenue brand, Sierra is built for them and Pilla is not in the room.
When Pilla wins
Pilla wins on a different problem entirely: helping the deskless workers who keep the business running — kitchen openers, store managers, field engineers, cleaning crews — execute their internal workflows reliably. Sierra's surface is conversational and built for end customers; it has no mobile app for frontline workers, no checklist or photo-evidence step, no in-app team chat, no scheduled recurring workflow trigger, and no public template library to start from. Sierra's pricing also starts around $150K/year with $50–200K implementation, putting it out of reach for the SMB and mid-market operators Pilla serves. If the question is "how do my staff know what to do at 6am" rather than "how do we deflect 65% of inbound contacts", Pilla is the right tool.
Full feature comparison
| Pilla | Sierra | |
|---|---|---|
| Workflows | ||
| Recurring workflow templates | Yes | No |
| Ad-hoc workflow creation | Yes | Not documented |
| Reusable workflow blueprints | Yes | Yes |
| Reusable element templates | Yes | Yes |
| Custom tags & categories | Yes | Yes |
| Issue reporting on workflows | Yes | No |
| Activity audit trail | Yes | Yes |
| Public template library | Yes | No |
| Public forms (external submissions) | Yes | No |
| CSV data exports | Yes | Not documented |
| Bulk operations | Yes | Not documented |
| Template impact analysis | Yes | Not documented |
| Template analytics & insights | Yes | Yes |
| Input Steps | ||
| Text input | Yes | Yes |
| Number input | Yes | Not documented |
| Date input | Yes | Not documented |
| Time input | Yes | Not documented |
| Location / clock-in input | Yes | No |
| Checklist | Yes | No |
| Single-choice input | Yes | Not documented |
| Multi-choice input | Yes | Not documented |
| Cascading select | Yes | No |
| Rating scale | Yes | Not documented |
| Photo input | Yes | No |
| Video input | Yes | No |
| Audio note / input | Yes | No |
| File input | Yes | Not documented |
| Signature input | Yes | No |
| Guidance Steps | ||
| Rich text guidance | Yes | No |
| Video guidance | Yes | No |
| Photo guidance | Yes | No |
| AI Steps | ||
| AI context briefing step | Yes | Yes |
| AI decision gate step | Yes | Yes |
| AI decision tree step | Yes | Yes |
| AI automated action step | Yes | Yes |
| Communication | ||
| In-app 1:1 direct messages | Yes | No |
| Group team chats | Yes | No |
| Team-wide broadcasts | Yes | No |
| Photo, video & file attachments | Yes | Not documented |
| Threaded replies | Yes | No |
| Emoji reactions | Yes | No |
| @mention teammates | Yes | No |
| Read receipts | Yes | No |
| Push notifications on new message | Yes | No |
| Messages linked to workflows | Yes | No |
| In-app agent | ||
| Plain-English Q&A on how it works | Yes | Not documented |
| In-product walkthroughs and tutorials | Yes | Not documented |
| Saved chat history & resumable sessions | Yes | Yes |
| Cites help docs and source data | Yes | Yes |
| File feedback, bugs & feature requests from chat | Yes | No |
| Q&A on your workflows | Yes | Yes |
| Q&A on your team's performance | Yes | Yes |
| Q&A across connected integrations | Yes | Not documented |
| Integrations & API | ||
| Native integrations | Yes | Yes |
| 100+ MCP integrations | Yes | Not documented |
| Public REST API | Yes | Not documented |
| Outbound webhooks | Yes | Not documented |
| MCP server (connect Claude / Cursor / other) | Yes | Yes |
| IP allowlist on API keys | Yes | Not documented |
| Custom API rate limits | Yes | Not documented |
| Administration | ||
| User roles (staff / manager / admin) | Yes | Not documented |
| CSV user & team import | Yes | Not documented |
| Tenant-isolated data | Yes | Yes |
| Account-wide audit logs | Yes | Not documented |
| Custom step run allowances | Yes | Yes |
| Annual step run pooling | Yes | Not documented |
| SSO & SAML | Yes | Not documented |
| SCIM provisioning | Yes | Not documented |
| Dedicated success manager | Yes | Yes |
| Custom onboarding | Yes | Yes |
| Service-level agreement (SLA) | Yes | Not documented |
Frequently asked questions
- Is Pilla a good Sierra alternative?
- Pilla wins on a different problem entirely: helping the deskless workers who keep the business running — kitchen openers, store managers, field engineers, cleaning crews — execute their internal workflows reliably.
- What can Pilla do that Sierra can't?
- Checked against Sierra's own documentation, Pilla offers recurring workflow templates, issue reporting on workflows, public template library, public forms (external submissions), and location / clock-in input — none of which Sierra documents.
- When should I choose Sierra over Pilla?
- Sierra is a different shape of company.
- How much does Pilla cost compared to Sierra?
- Pilla is priced on usage, not seats. Plans start free and scale from £29 per month for 1,000 workflow steps up to 1 million steps a month, so you only pay for what your team and Poppi actually run. Sierra has no public free tier; paid pricing is quote-only.
Run your workflows where the work happens
Pilla is a workflow automation app. Start free, no credit card needed.