Gorgias alternatives for Shopify stores, compared

The best Gorgias alternatives for a Shopify store are Zendesk and eDesk if you need a full helpdesk, Tidio and Help Scout if you want to start on a free plan, Freshdesk for the cheapest paid seat billed monthly, and Shopify’s own Inbox if free chat with an AI agent is enough. Each one bills differently from Gorgias, which charges for every ticket and again for each question its AI Agent settles. We read every price on the vendors’ own pages on 25 September 2026, in US dollars, and each one links to where we read it.

Deacon is ours, and it’s a different kind of alternative. It’s an AI customer support agent for a store whose inbox fills with the same questions about sizing, delivery and returns, which its own pages already answer. Deacon answers them in seconds and shows you what shoppers ask most. It doesn’t see or change orders, so it takes a helpdesk’s place only when orders aren’t what your customers write about. There’s a free plan, and it needs no card.

Gorgias alternatives side by side

Gorgias is in the last row, so you can hold each one up against it. The last column says whether the tool shows your Shopify orders, which is what Gorgias is built around.

What Gorgias charges, and why stores look elsewhere

Gorgias is a helpdesk built for online shops, and it bills by the ticket rather than the seat. Starter is $10 a month for 50 tickets and 3 seats, on monthly billing only. Basic is $60 a month, or $50 billed yearly, for 300 tickets. Pro is $360 or $300 for 2,000, and Advanced, sold through its sales team, is $900 or $750 for 5,000. Every plan above Starter has room for 500 seats. Each ticket past your plan’s number costs $0.40 on Starter and Basic and $0.36 on Pro and Advanced.

A ticket is any conversation that gets at least one message from your helpdesk, whether a person, AI Agent or an automatic Rule sent it, by Gorgias’s billing guide. It counts once however long the thread runs, but a chat that picks up again after 3 quiet days becomes a new ticket, and so does an email after 10.

AI Agent is priced on top. Each plan includes some automated interactions, 30 a month on Starter and Basic for $30, or $27 on Basic billed yearly, 190 on Pro and 530 on Advanced, and each one past that costs $1.50. An interaction counts as automated when nobody on your team replies within 72 hours, and Gorgias’s pricing FAQ says “Each AI Agent interaction also counts as a helpdesk ticket and is billed accordingly.” So an answer the AI settles on its own uses a ticket and an interaction. Gorgias pricing goes through every plan and prices a month at 300 and at 1,000 tickets.

Those rules are behind most of the reasons a store starts looking.

• The bill follows your volume. A sale or the run-up to Christmas brings more tickets, and each one past the plan costs extra, whoever answers it.
• The AI allowance is small. Thirty interactions a month on Basic is about one a day, and past it each answer the AI settles costs $1.50 on top of its ticket, so the more it does, the more you pay.
• AI Agent needs a Shopify store connected to Gorgias, by its set-up guide, and its actions, such as cancelling an order or applying a discount, start on Basic.
• There’s no free plan. The 30-day trial needs no payment details, and Gorgias’s help centre says an account that doesn’t move to a paid plan is deleted, with its data, after 90 days.

Deacon, for a store that wants its questions answered

Most of what shoppers ask is already on your site. Does this run small? How long does delivery take? Can I send it back? Deacon answers those questions for you in seconds, at any hour and in the shopper’s own language, from your policies, your FAQ and the product pages you choose. It goes into your Shopify theme as one script tag, with no app to install, and Shopify AI chatbots shows where the tag goes. There are no flows to build first.

When your pages don’t cover a question, Deacon says it doesn’t know rather than guessing, and asks for the shopper’s email. You get an email when they leave one or ask for a person, and the reply you type in Deacon’s dashboard appears in their chat while it’s open, under your first name and your store’s.

Then you answer it once. Each question your pages missed waits in your dashboard with an Answer this button, and what you write becomes part of what Deacon knows, so it can answer the next shopper who asks. Save & check shows you the reply Deacon now gives and how many other open questions your answer covers. The more you answer, the less Deacon needs you.

It also shows you what shoppers want. Every conversation is saved and searchable by what they asked, and Topics group the questions, count the people behind each one and label most of them, as a how-to, a pricing question, feedback and so on. When forty people ask whether you ship to Ireland, that’s a line to add to your delivery page. The same script counts your visitors, their sources, goals and funnels, so there’s no second tag.

Deacon doesn’t count tickets, and an answer never costs extra on top of the plan. Every feature is on every plan, and the plans differ only in answers, knowledge, crawled pages and seats. Free gives you 50 answers a month and 1 seat, with no card and no end date. Starter is $50 a month, or $40 a month billed yearly, for 1,000 answers a month and 3 seats. Growth is $150 a month, or $120 a month billed yearly, for 4,000 answers a month and 10 seats. A conversation takes about 2 answers, so Starter covers about 500 conversations a month.

Nothing is billed past your plan’s answers, and no plan upgrades itself. If a month’s answers run out, shoppers are told Deacon can’t look into it right now and asked for their email, unless they already left it in that conversation, and you can still read and reply to every conversation. There’s no “powered by” line to pay to remove.

What a helpdesk like Gorgias does that Deacon doesn’t

A helpdesk is where a support team works, and for a store it does jobs Deacon was never built for.

• It puts email, chat, social messages and often phone calls into one queue, with assignment and routing.
• It shows each customer’s orders beside the conversation, so your team can refund or cancel one without leaving it.
• Its AI can act on orders. Gorgias’s AI Agent can cancel an unfulfilled order, edit its shipping address, remove or replace items and reship a lost or damaged order for free, by its Shopify Actions guide.
• It reports on how fast your team replies and holds it to reply targets.

Deacon does none of that. It never sees your orders, takes no actions in Shopify or anywhere else, and always declines questions about a shopper’s own order or account, which come to you instead. It has no ticketing system, no email inbox, no WhatsApp, Instagram, SMS or phone, and no integrations. If most of your messages are “where’s my order?” or “please change my address”, keep a helpdesk. If they’re about your products, delivery and returns, Deacon answers them. AI chatbots for ecommerce sorts store chatbots by which of those jobs they do, and AI help desks sets out how each helpdesk bills its AI.

Zendesk

Zendesk is the best-known general helpdesk, and it charges by the agent rather than the ticket. Support Team is $19 an agent a month billed yearly, or $25 monthly, for email and ticketing. Messaging and live chat on your site start on Suite Team, at $55 or $69, and Suite Professional is $115 or $149. Its Shopify integration shows your agents a customer’s orders and lets them refund or cancel one from the ticket, on every Suite plan.

AI agents come with every plan and are billed by the automated resolution. Zendesk’s plan comparison includes 5 a month for each agent on Support Team and Suite Team, and past that a resolution costs $2.00 pay as you go, or $1.50 if you commit in advance. There’s no free plan, only a 14-day trial of Suite Professional, though Zendesk for Startups gives early-stage startups a 6-month trial of the Suite for up to 50 agents. Zendesk vs Gorgias sets the two side by side, and Zendesk pricing goes through every plan and add-on.

eDesk

eDesk is the nearest match to Gorgias here, a helpdesk made for online sellers, though it charges by the user. Essential is $39 a user a month billed yearly, or $49 monthly, for 1 online store or marketplace. Growth is $89 or $115 for 5, and Professional $119 or $149 for 10. Each ticket shows the customer’s order history and delivery status, you can adjust orders from eDesk where the platform allows it, and it connects Amazon, eBay and Walmart as well as Shopify, which suits a store that sells in more than one place.

Its AI Agent is on every plan, at $0.99 an outcome. An outcome is charged once per ticket, when the AI answers the customer or takes an action such as a return or a cancellation, and eDesk says there’s no charge when it neither replies nor acts. There’s no free plan, and the 14-day trial needs no card.

Tidio

Tidio is live chat and ticketing with an AI agent, Lyro, and it’s free for a team of up to 10. The free plan covers 50 conversations a month that your team handles, and every account gets 50 Lyro conversations once, not each month. Starter is $29 a month, or $24.17 a month billed yearly, for 100 conversations, and Growth starts at $59, or $49.17, for 250. Growth is also where Tidio’s native Shopify actions for your team begin.

Lyro is priced on its own meter, and sold on its own too, from $39 a month for 50 Lyro conversations, or $32.50 a month billed yearly. Tidio pricing prices every plan and Lyro package, and Tidio vs Gorgias sets the two against each other for an online shop.

Help Scout

Help Scout is a shared inbox built around email, and a small team can start on it for free. The free plan gives up to 5 users one inbox and one Docs site, for up to 100 contacts a month. Standard is $25 a user a month billed yearly, or $30 monthly, and adds live chat, SMS, WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger. Plus is $45 or $54, and Pro is $75 or $90, for 10 users at least. Its Shopify app shows order status and gives refunds from inside Help Scout.

AI Answers, its AI agent, costs $0.75 a resolution on the paid plans, after a 3-month free trial. You can set a monthly cap, and when it’s reached AI Answers switches off until the next cycle. Help Scout pricing goes through each plan.

Freshdesk

Freshdesk is a ticketing helpdesk priced per agent, with the cheapest paid seat on this list when billed monthly. Growth is $19 an agent a month billed yearly, or $23 monthly, Pro is $55 or $66, and Enterprise $89 or $107. After the 14-day trial, a team of up to 2 agents can use the Free Program for 6 months, which covers Freshdesk alone. A free Shopify app from Freshworks shows a customer’s recent orders inside Freshdesk.

Freddy AI Agent comes with every paid plan. Each account gets 500 sessions once, and after that they’re $49 per 100. A session on email is a 72-hour window from the customer’s first email, however many replies the AI sends in it. Freshdesk pricing prices a month for a team of one to three.

Shopify Inbox

Shopify Inbox is Shopify’s own chat app, and it’s free on the App Store. Its Inbox agent answers shoppers from your catalogue, store policies and pages, recommends products, adds them to the cart and, once the shopper signs in, looks up their order. Shopify’s guide to the agent says it needs the Basic, Grow, Advanced or Plus plan and Shopify’s new customer accounts. When none of your staff is free, it gives the shopper your store’s email address. Shoppers also see a notice that the chat is powered by Shopify and that they’re talking to AI, which you can’t remove or change.

Which Gorgias alternative fits your store

It depends on what your customers write to you about, and who answers.

If they write about orders and you have people working a queue, stay with a helpdesk. Zendesk is the general choice, with a Shopify integration your agents can refund and cancel from, and eDesk suits a store that also sells on Amazon or eBay. If you want to start without paying, Tidio’s free plan has 10 seats and Help Scout’s has 5, and Freshdesk has the cheapest paid seat billed monthly. If you’re on Shopify’s Basic plan or above and want free chat with an AI agent, try Shopify Inbox first. If Gorgias suits you apart from the bill, price your month before you move, because a bigger plan can cost less than a month of overage.

If you answer shoppers yourself and they keep asking the same few things about your products, delivery and returns, you may not need a helpdesk at all. Deacon answers those questions in seconds from your own pages, emails you when a shopper asks for a person or leaves an address, and shows you what shoppers ask most. It’s free to start, with no card.

Questions about Gorgias alternatives

What is the best Gorgias alternative for Shopify?

For a store that wants the same kind of helpdesk, Zendesk and eDesk are the closest, since both show a customer’s orders in the ticket and let your team act on them. Tidio and Help Scout cost less for a small team, and both have free plans. If your questions are mostly about products and policies, Shopify Inbox or Deacon answers them without a helpdesk.

Is there a free alternative to Gorgias?

Yes. Shopify Inbox is free on Shopify’s Basic plan and up. Tidio’s free plan covers 50 conversations a month on up to 10 seats, Help Scout’s covers 5 users and one inbox, and Freshdesk’s Free Program covers up to 2 agents for 6 months. Deacon’s free plan gives you 50 answers a month with every feature and no end date. Gorgias itself has only a 30-day trial.

Why does Gorgias charge twice for an AI answer?

Because the conversation is a ticket first. Gorgias’s billing guide says you pay a ticket fee and an automation fee when AI Agent answers without handing over to a person, and only the ticket fee when it does hand over. Within your plan that uses up one ticket and one interaction. Past the allowances it’s $0.40 or $0.36 for the ticket, depending on the plan, and $1.50 for the interaction. Accounts created before 28 May 2025 may still be on legacy pricing, where a ticket counts as one or the other, never both.

Can Deacon replace Gorgias?

For a store whose messages are mostly questions its pages already answer, yes. Deacon answers them on your site in seconds and brings you the conversations that need a person, with nobody working a queue. It can’t replace Gorgias for orders. It never sees an order, takes no actions in Shopify, and has no ticketing, email inbox, social channels or phone.

Can I use Deacon alongside a helpdesk?

Yes, as separate tools. Deacon answers on your website and hands conversations to its own dashboard, with no connection to Gorgias or any other helpdesk, so a shopper Deacon can’t help doesn’t become a ticket there. You could keep a helpdesk for email and orders and put Deacon on your storefront for the questions before they buy.