Buying guide
What is the best AI chatbot or helpdesk for a Shopify store?
Start with Shopify Inbox. It is free, it is already in your admin, and these pages do not recommend uninstalling Shopify products. The real question is what you add once volume outgrows it. Simple Chat if you want the AI inside Shopify Admin at one published rate, $0.29 per closed conversation. Gorgias if support spans social, SMS, and voice and you want one helpdesk for all of it. Tidio if a free widget now, with Lyro conversation packs later, matches how you buy.
Listings and prices checked .
Facts reuse the Simple Chat vs pages. Review counts are not invented for Simple Chat. Confirm current rates on App Store listings and vendor pricing pages.
Included live chat — start here
Free, first-party, and enough for plenty of stores. Inbox covers basic storefront chat with staff replying from Shopify. Start here. Every app below can sit beside it, and these pages do not recommend uninstalling Shopify products.
Pricing. Included with Shopify. No third-party App Store subscription.
Admin-native AI billed per closed conversation
Ours. Simple Chat answers chat and email from your products, orders, policies, and written instructions, and staff work the same inbox from Shopify Admin. The unusual parts: AI address validation before an order change, drafted Shopify Payments chargeback evidence, and subscriptions plus back-in-stock in the same app. You pay when AI closes a conversation. That is the whole bill.
Pricing. $0.29 per AI-closed conversation through Shopify usage billing. No seats. No monthly platform fee. Modeled at 1,000 AI tickets: $290.
Omnichannel helpdesk plus AI Agent
Gorgias is the most-installed third-party helpdesk on Shopify, and the reason is channel breadth: email, chat, social, SMS, and voice in one inbox, with AI Agent layered on top. If support already spills past chat and email, it is the safer pick. Budget for the whole stack, though, not the $10 entry price.
Pricing. Helpdesk plus AI Agent. Modeled at 1,000 AI tickets: $1,200 on annual list prices (Pro helpdesk + AI).
Free chat widget and Lyro AI packs
Tidio sells the widget first and the helpdesk second. The free plan is a real free plan, Flows handle proactive chat visually, and Lyro, its AI, comes in conversation packs, from $39/month for up to 200 conversations on the App Store. The way to start free and add AI by the pack.
Pricing. Three products, three meters. Customer Service bills on human conversations, Flows on visitors reached, Lyro on AI conversations. The App Store lists Customer Service from $29/month, Flows from $29/month, and Lyro from $39/month for up to 200 AI conversations; tidio.com/pricing shows annual rates of $24.17/mo for Starter (100 billable conversations) and Lyro from $32.50/mo for 50.
Direct answers. Updated August 17, 2026.
Inbox. It costs nothing and covers basic storefront chat, which is enough to find out if you need more. Move to a third-party app when you want AI actually closing tickets, a shared email inbox, or channels Inbox does not reach. This page does not recommend uninstalling Shopify products.
Simple Chat, which is built as an embedded app: the inbox itself lives in Shopify Admin. Gorgias and Tidio connect to Shopify from their own platforms. Those integrations can run deep; your staff still work in a separate product.
Gorgias covers the most ground: social, SMS, and voice, often as add-ons. Tidio lists Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp. Simple Chat covers neither. It does storefront chat and email, on purpose.
$0.29 per AI-closed conversation, through Shopify usage billing. No monthly platform fee, no seats. Conversations your team answers, or that the AI fails to close, cost nothing, and development stores can test free.
Named apps are trademarks of their respective owners. Simple Chat is not affiliated with them. Shopify is a trademark of Shopify Inc. Simple Chat is a third-party Shopify App Store app and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Shopify. These pages compare independent App Store products and do not recommend uninstalling Shopify products such as Shopify Inbox. See shopify.com. List prices verified .
