Adding a BigCommerce chatbot with Script Manager

A BigCommerce chatbot comes from an app in BigCommerce’s App Marketplace, or from a script you add yourself in Script Manager, under Storefront › Script Manager. BigCommerce’s guide ties Script Manager to Stencil themes rather than to a plan, and three of its settings decide where the chat appears and who sees it. We read BigCommerce’s help centre and marketplace, and each chatbot’s pricing page, on 23 September 2026.

Deacon is an AI customer support agent that goes onto a BigCommerce store as one script in Script Manager. It answers your shoppers in seconds from your own pages, and it shows you what they ask about most, so you know what to fix and what to stock next. The free plan gives you 50 answers a month, needs no card and has no end date.

The chatbot apps BigCommerce lists, and what they cost

The App Marketplace’s AI Chatbots category listed 16 apps on 23 September 2026. Sorted by popularity, LiveChat came first, rated 4 out of 5 from 27 reviews. ChatBot.com, from the same company, is the first result in a web search for “bigcommerce chatbot”, and its BigCommerce guide adds its chat through Script Manager. Here’s what each gives you before you pay, from their own pricing pages that day.

The meters differ. LiveChat charges for each person on your team, and ChatBot.com counts a resolution for each conversation where its AI solves at least one question. Deacon counts answers, one per reply, and a conversation takes about 2 of them, so 50 answers covers about 25 conversations. LiveChat alternatives compares LiveChat with more tools.

Where a chatbot’s script goes in BigCommerce

BigCommerce’s Script Manager guide walks through the form. A store with several storefronts finds Script Manager in Channel Manager instead, one for each storefront.

1. Go to Storefront › Script Manager and click Create a Script.
2. Give it a name, and set Placement to Footer.
3. Set Location to Storefront pages.
4. Set Script category to Functional.
5. Set Script type to Script, paste the whole tag and click Save.

BigCommerce caches scripts for 20 seconds, so give it a moment before you look at your store. Three of those settings are worth understanding.

Storefront pages keeps the chat off checkout

Storefront pages covers every page except checkout and order confirmation, and All pages adds those two. The guide calls checkout a payment page, and says that to meet PCI DSS any script there needs at least one integrity hash, which is fixed to one version of the file. When the script’s maker updates it, the guide says, the old hash stops working. Some chatbot guides, ChatBot.com’s among them, suggest All pages, so choose the location yourself.

The script category decides who sees the chat

When you switch on BigCommerce’s cookie consent banner, shoppers can opt out of whole categories of scripts. The guide lists live chat under Functional, so a shopper who turns Functional off doesn’t see the chat. A script left without a category counts as Essential, which the guide keeps for scripts the store needs to work.

Paste the tag, not its address

Script type offers a URL or the script itself. A URL gives BigCommerce only the file’s address, so choose Script and paste the whole tag, with any settings it carries. The field needs the <script> tags, or it shows “Enter a valid script”.

Catalyst, Multi-Storefront and the old Footer Scripts box

The guide says BigCommerce’s headless Catalyst storefronts load Script Manager’s scripts too. With Multi-Storefront, each storefront has its own Script Manager and its own address. Older stores may still keep scripts in the legacy Footer Scripts box, which still works, though BigCommerce suggests moving them to Script Manager so the consent banner can sort them.

Your store’s trial address

On a trial, your store’s address looks like store-mystore.mybigcommerce.com, BigCommerce’s guide to web addresses says. A chatbot that runs only on the domains you allow needs that address listed until your own domain is connected.

What Deacon does on your BigCommerce store

Shoppers ask the same things before they buy. Do you ship to Canada, how long do returns take, which size should I order, will this part fit my model. Your product pages and policies answer most of it, but shoppers don’t find the answer, so they email you or leave. Deacon answers them in seconds, at any hour, from the pages you choose and in whatever language each shopper writes in. An answer taken from one of your pages often links to it.

Deacon can’t see your BigCommerce control panel, so orders, live stock and refunds are out of its reach. A question about one shopper’s order gets a polite decline and a box for their email. When your pages don’t cover a question, Deacon says it doesn’t know rather than guessing, and asks for their email the same way. If they leave it, or ask for a person, you get an email. Reply from Deacon’s dashboard, and if they still have the chat open, your reply appears there under your name.

Then Deacon gets better. Every question your pages didn’t cover waits in the dashboard with an Answer this button, and what you write becomes part of what Deacon knows. It can answer the next shopper who asks, so the more you answer, the less often you’re needed.

You also learn what shoppers need, from everyone who asks rather than the few who email. Every conversation is saved and searchable by what shoppers asked. Topics groups the questions, counts how many people asked and labels most of them, such as a pricing question, a how-to or a feature ask, so a gap in your product pages shows up as a count. The same script counts your visitors, where they came from and the goals they reach, on Analytics › Website.

Every feature is on every plan, the free one included, and there’s no badge to pay to remove. Nothing is billed past your plan’s answers, no plan upgrades itself, and every plan answers with the same model, so no credits run out faster on a better one. The pricing page has the paid plans.

Adding Deacon to BigCommerce

Deacon isn’t a marketplace app, so it goes in through Script Manager. The snippet it gives you looks like this, with your own key in place of the placeholder. The key sits in the tag’s data-key, which is why Script type has to be Script rather than URL.

<script src="https://heydeacon.com/widget/v1/loader.js" data-key="pk_your_widget_key" async></script>

It takes a few minutes on a store with a Stencil theme.

1. Sign up with your email or Google. The free plan needs no card.
2. On the Install page, add your store’s domain. Your first domain creates your snippet, and it covers your address with or without www. On a trial, add your mybigcommerce.com address too, and on Multi-Storefront, add each storefront’s domain.
3. In BigCommerce, go to Storefront › Script Manager and click Create a Script. Choose Footer, Storefront pages, Functional and Script, paste the snippet and click Save.
4. In Knowledge Sources, choose Add website and give Deacon your store’s address. It lists the pages it finds, each one unticked. Tick your shipping, returns and FAQ pages and your best-selling products, and leave the cart and account pages unticked. One crawl lists up to 100 pages, so add other product pages one link at a time. Save, then press Retrain agent.
5. Ask it your customers’ questions in the Playground before anyone else sees it.

What to check after you save

These five checks take a couple of minutes.

1. Wait 20 seconds for BigCommerce’s cache, then open your store in a private window.
2. If your cookie consent banner is on, accept Functional scripts and look for the chat button.
3. Look at the See it live card on the Install page. It says whether Deacon has been seen on your real domain, and Check again looks once more.
4. Ask one question your pages answer and one they don’t. The first should get an answer, and the second an honest “I don’t know” with a box for an email address.
5. Ask where an order is. Deacon should decline and ask for an email, so you can look it up in BigCommerce.

Questions about BigCommerce chatbots

Is there a chatbot app for BigCommerce?

Several. The App Marketplace’s AI Chatbots category listed 16 on 23 September 2026, with LiveChat the most popular. A chatbot that isn’t an app goes in as a script in Script Manager.

Which BigCommerce plan do I need for a chatbot’s script?

BigCommerce’s guide ties Script Manager to Stencil themes, not to a plan. Catalyst storefronts can load its scripts too.

Should a chatbot run on the checkout page?

Not usually. BigCommerce asks for an integrity hash on any script on a payment page such as checkout, and a hash breaks when the script is updated. Storefront pages keeps the chat everywhere else.

Which script category should a chatbot use?

Functional. BigCommerce’s guide gives live chat as an example of it, and a shopper who opts out of Functional scripts through the cookie consent banner won’t see the chat.

Can Deacon look up a BigCommerce order?

No. Deacon can’t see your control panel, so it answers from your store’s pages and never sees an order, a refund or a stock level. A shopper who asks about their own order gets a decline and a box for their email, so you can reply. AI chatbots for ecommerce covers the chatbots that connect to a store’s orders.

What happens when Deacon’s free answers run out?

The chat keeps working. A shopper who asks gets a short reply saying Deacon can’t look into that one right now, and is asked for an email unless they’ve already left one in that conversation. You can still read and reply to every conversation, nothing is billed and your plan doesn’t upgrade itself.