AI chatbots for Shopify in 2026, compared

The main AI chatbots for Shopify fall into three groups. Shopify Inbox is free and now has an AI agent of its own. Help desks such as Gorgias, Tidio and Intercom add AI billed per resolution or per conversation. Chatbase, SiteGPT and MagizAI are chatbots trained on your content, and they differ most in what they can do with orders.

Every price and limit below comes from each vendor's own pricing page, Shopify App Store listing or help center, checked on 22 October 2026. Prices change often, so look again before you pay.

Does Shopify have its own AI chatbot?

Yes. Shopify Inbox, Shopify's own chat app, includes an Inbox agent that answers shoppers. Shopify's help center says it answers questions about products, shipping, returns, sizing and policies, helps a customer check an existing order once they sign in, adds recommended products to the cart, and replies in the customer's language. For complex or sensitive chats it hands over to your staff with the context; if nobody is available, it gives the customer your store's email address.

There are limits. It needs the Basic, Grow, Advanced or Shopify Plus plan and the new customer accounts, it works only in your online store's chat window, and shoppers see a notice that they are chatting with AI, which you cannot remove or change. For many small stores that is enough. How Inbox, Shopify Magic and Sidekick differ has its own guide.

Shopify AI chatbots at a glance

What each one does on Shopify

Tidio

Tidio's pricing page has a $0 tier with 50 billable conversations a month, meaning chats a person on your team replies to, and Starter at $24.17 a month billed yearly. Its Lyro AI agent is paid separately: 50 Lyro conversations once, then from $32.50 a month billed yearly for 50 a month. A Lyro conversation counts once, however many replies it takes. Tidio's App Store listing says Lyro recommends products from what is in stock, adds them to the cart and answers order status questions in the shopper's language. Product recommendations need a paid Lyro quota, and native Shopify actions are ticked from Growth. Questions Lyro cannot answer go to a person, Tidio says.

Gorgias

Gorgias is an ecommerce help desk whose App Store listing says your team can edit orders, refund and cancel inside tickets. Gorgias's pricing page starts at $10 a month for 50 tickets (Starter, billed monthly), or $40 with AI Agent and 30 automated interactions. Its comparison table prices an automated interaction at $1.00 on Starter, $0.90 on Basic and Pro and $0.85 on Advanced, and AI actions such as cancel, discount and apply start on Basic. Its billing guide counts an interaction as automated when the customer needs no person within 72 hours, and says a ticket fee and an automation fee can both apply when AI Agent resolves a ticket alone. Its docs say AI Agent replies in over 80 languages and hands over when it cannot respond confidently.

Intercom with Fin

Intercom's pricing page charges per seat, from $29 per seat a month billed yearly on Essential, shown at $19 for new customers, plus $0.99 for each Fin outcome. An outcome is counted when the customer confirms the issue is solved, asks for nothing more after Fin replies, or Fin completes a workflow, including one that ends in a hand-off, at most once per conversation. If Fin cannot answer or the customer asks for a person, the page says you pay nothing. Its App Store listing says Fin helps shoppers find products and resolves order questions with live data, while your team edits shipping details and issues refunds from the inbox. Intercom's help center lists more than 40 languages for Fin's answers.

Chatbase

Chatbase's pricing page starts at Hobby, $40 a month or $32 billed yearly, with 700 message credits. Each AI request costs credits that depend on the model, and an action can add requests. Its help desk inbox, where a person takes over, is listed from Standard at $150 a month. Its App Store listing goes further on Shopify than most: product search by text or photo, adding to the cart, checkout links, order tracking and exchanges drafted for your team to approve, on your store and on WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger. The listing also shows a $0 tier with 50 credits.

SiteGPT

SiteGPT's pricing page starts at $59 a month, or $39 billed yearly, for up to 4,000 GPT-4.1-mini messages or 400 GPT-4.1 messages, and says there is no $0 tier. A live inbox for taking over from the AI comes with its iOS app from the Growth plan. SiteGPT's own Shopify guide says it has no Shopify app, goes in with one script in theme.liquid, and does not look up orders, refund or add to the cart. Its FAQ says it answers in other languages.

MagizAI (ours)

Our chatbot installs the same way: one line in theme.liquid, nothing from the App Store. It learns your products by scanning your store's pages through the sitemap, up to 60 pages a scan repeated weekly, or from a CSV file, and suggests them as cards on Starter and higher plans. To answer "where is my order?", you connect Shopify with an Admin API access token and your store's server signs the customer in to the chat. Both steps usually need a developer. It then reads that customer's recent orders and their status, and changes nothing. Chats it cannot settle move to your team's inbox with the whole conversation, and replies follow the shopper's language. Setup is on our Shopify page, with line-by-line comparisons against Gorgias and Tidio.

Per resolution, per conversation or flat: how AI is billed

• Per outcome or resolution (Intercom, Gorgias): you pay when the AI closes a chat. Read each definition, since Intercom counts a completed hand-off workflow and Gorgias can add a ticket fee.
• Per AI conversation (Tidio): one charge for each conversation the AI joins, whatever the outcome.
• Credits or messages (Chatbase, SiteGPT): the cost of an answer depends on the AI model you pick.
• Flat: Shopify Inbox lists no AI charge. Our managed plans stop AI replies at the monthly cap instead of charging more, and on your own AI key we set no cap; see our pricing page.

How to choose an AI chatbot for your Shopify store

• A small store with simple questions on Basic, Grow or Advanced: try the Inbox agent first. It is free on its listing and checks orders once a customer signs in.
• A store whose team handles returns, cancellations and refunds every day: Gorgias or Intercom. Both install from the App Store and let your team change orders without leaving the inbox. Budget for per-resolution fees.
• A store that wants live chat on a small budget and AI later: Tidio, whose $0 tier includes live chat, with Lyro bought separately.
• A store that sells in chat on WhatsApp, Instagram or Messenger: Chatbase's listing names all three, and Gorgias and Tidio list them as inbox channels.
• A store whose questions come from long policies, guides or PDFs, or that runs more than one site: a content-trained chatbot such as SiteGPT, Chatbase or ours. Check what it can do with orders before you count on it.

Whichever you shortlist, load your real products and policies into each trial and ask the ten questions your customers ask most. Then ask about an order once signed in and once signed out. When the AI should step aside, our guide to hand-off helps you set the rules.