Eight chatbots and helpdesks for Shopify, sorted by the one question that decides the choice: do your customers mostly ask about orders they already placed, or about products they have not bought yet? Published prices, linked to each vendor, with every tool's weak spot listed, including ours.
Disclosure: BuiltABot publishes this guide and is included in the comparison. We have marked it clearly, listed its limitations alongside everyone else's, and linked every competitor's own pricing page so you can check our claims. Where another tool is the better fit, we say so.
What Matters for a Shopify Store
Pull two weeks of chats or emails and sort them into two piles:
- Post-purchase: order status, returns, exchanges, address changes. Answering these well needs live Shopify order data. That is helpdesk territory: Gorgias, Re:amaze, Tidio's Shopify app, Zendesk, Intercom.
- Pre-purchase: sizing, materials, compatibility, shipping times to a country, return policy, discount questions. The answers already exist on your product and policy pages. A content-trained assistant deflects these at a flat cost: BuiltABot, Chatbase, or the AI add-ons of the helpdesks above.
Most stores under a few hundred orders a month find the pre-purchase pile is larger than they expected and the post-purchase pile is handled fine by Shopify Inbox plus email. Stores past that point usually need a helpdesk.
The 8 Options at a Glance
1. Shopify Inbox: the free baseline
Install it first. It is free, shows order context next to the conversation, and gives you the two-week sample you need to choose anything else. Its limitation is the obvious one: it is live chat, so deflection depends on someone being there. Suggested replies help; they are not an AI agent.
2. Gorgias: the ecommerce helpdesk
Best for: stores with real ticket volume and a support person or team.
Gorgias is built around Shopify: order lookups, refunds and edits from inside the ticket, macros, and an AI Agent that can act on order data. Pricing starts low for a tiny ticket allowance and scales with tickets; AI Agent resolutions are billed on top. Predictable if your volume is predictable.
Limitations: cost tracks tickets and AI resolutions; more product than a small store needs.
3. BuiltABot (ours): flat-price assistant for pre-purchase questions
Best for: stores whose chats are mostly about products, shipping and policies, and who want a fixed monthly bill.
BuiltABot crawls your store's product, shipping and policy pages and answers from that content only, with source links, in the shopper's language. It captures leads (back-in-stock, wholesale, custom orders), can book consultations or fittings into Google Calendar, Cal.com or Calendly, and hands anything about an existing order to your team with the order number already collected. Install is one script tag in theme.liquid. $29.99/month for one agent and 2,500 messages; no per-resolution fee. Limits on the fact sheet.
Limitations: it does not read Shopify order, inventory or customer data, so it cannot answer “where is my order” itself. It is not a ticketing inbox. If post-purchase tickets dominate, pick a helpdesk.
4. Tidio: live chat plus AI, with a Shopify app
Best for: small stores that want chat, pop-ups and an AI that can see order status in one app.
Tidio's Shopify integration shows order data to agents and to its Lyro AI. The plan price covers the inbox; AI conversations above the included number are billed separately, so the AI line grows with traffic.
Limitations: per-conversation AI pricing; the useful features cluster in higher tiers.
5. Re:amaze: helpdesk at a per-seat price
Best for: stores that want Gorgias-style Shopify integration with simpler per-user pricing.
Re:amaze integrates with Shopify for order context and offers an AI add-on. Pricing is per user per month, which suits one- or two-person teams.
Limitations: per-seat cost; AI billed separately; smaller ecosystem than Gorgias.
6. Chatbase: a trainable widget for builders
Best for: technical founders who want a trainable AI widget and will connect Shopify actions themselves.
Chatbase trains on your content and supports custom actions, so with some setup it can call Shopify. Message-credit pricing starts at $40/month.
Limitations: credits rather than flat; no built-in booking or human-handoff queue; integration work is on you.
7. Zendesk: full support org
Best for: larger stores with multiple agents across email, chat, phone and social.
Zendesk's Shopify app brings order data into tickets, and its AI agents deflect common requests. You pay per agent and per automated resolution, which is reasonable for a team and expensive for a solo founder.
Limitations: per-agent plus per-resolution pricing; configuration overhead.
8. Intercom: Fin AI for product-led teams
Best for: stores that behave like SaaS companies, with a support team and in-app messaging.
Intercom's Fin is among the most capable AI agents available and is billed per resolution on top of seat pricing. It is a strong product aimed more at software companies than at retail.
Limitations: per-seat plus per-resolution; retail-specific workflows are thinner than Gorgias.
Ask it your own product questions.
Start a free 14-day BuiltABot trial, point it at your store, and see which of your pre-purchase questions it answers correctly before you pay anything.
Decision Guide by Store Size
- Under ~100 orders/month: Shopify Inbox plus email. Add BuiltABot or Tidio if pre-purchase questions pile up.
- 100 to ~1,000 orders/month, mostly pre-purchase questions: BuiltABot for flat-cost deflection, Shopify Inbox or email for order issues.
- 100 to ~1,000 orders/month, mostly order issues: Gorgias or Re:amaze; Tidio if you want chat and pop-ups in the same tool.
- 1,000+ orders/month with a support team: Gorgias or Zendesk; Intercom if your support looks like SaaS support.
- Technical founder who wants to own the integration: Chatbase.
For the install walkthrough see adding an AI chatbot to a Shopify store; for the broader market view see Gorgias alternatives.
What is the best AI chatbot for a Shopify store?
It depends on what your chats are about. If most are "where is my order" and returns, choose a Shopify-native helpdesk with order lookups: Gorgias is the specialist, Re:amaze and Tidio are cheaper entry points, Zendesk and Intercom suit larger teams. If most chats are pre-purchase questions (sizing, materials, shipping times, returns policy), a content-trained assistant such as BuiltABot (ours, $29.99/month flat) deflects them at a fixed cost and hands order lookups to a person. Start with free Shopify Inbox to learn your mix.
Can BuiltABot look up Shopify orders?
No. BuiltABot does not read Shopify order or inventory data. It answers from your product, shipping and policy pages, collects the order number when a customer asks about an order, and hands the conversation to your team or sends it by email, Slack or webhook. If live order status in chat is a must-have, use Gorgias, Re:amaze, Tidio or Zendesk.
How do I add a chatbot to Shopify?
Helpdesks with Shopify apps install from the Shopify App Store. Script-based assistants like BuiltABot are added by pasting one script tag into theme.liquid before </body> or into a custom-code section; it takes about fifteen minutes. See our Shopify installation guide for the exact steps.
How much does a Shopify chatbot cost in 2026?
Shopify Inbox is free. Gorgias starts at $10/month for 50 tickets, with AI resolutions billed on top. Tidio starts at $29/month plus AI conversation fees. Re:amaze is $29 per user per month. BuiltABot is $29.99/month flat (1 agent, 2,500 messages). Chatbase starts at $40/month. Zendesk starts at $55 per agent per month and Intercom at $29 per seat plus $0.99 per AI resolution. Published starting prices when checked; confirm on each vendor’s page.
Will a chatbot reduce my support tickets?
Content-trained assistants reliably deflect repetitive pre-purchase and policy questions because those answers already exist on your site. They do not deflect order-status tickets unless they can read order data. Measure your ticket mix for two weeks before choosing; the split decides the right tool.
Is my customers’ data used to train AI models?
Policies differ by vendor; read each privacy page. BuiltABot does not use customer content or conversations to train language models; your data powers only your own agent.
