K-Chat is a next-gen AI chatbot built for Shopify by deep tech company Kortical. With a strong focus on AI capabilities, it’s designed to provide highly automated, accurate, and human-like responses, handling product searches, order tracking, and common queries using your store data and Shopify information. Ideal for e-commerce, it aims to replace manual support where possible, making customer service efficient and scalable.

• AI-First Expertise: As an AI-focused company, prioritises effective, precise responses with high automation rates, reducing the need for manual support.
• Affordable Conversational AI Automation: Starting at £50, K-Chat includes around 200 automated conversations, making it budget-friendly for high-volume support. It conversationally handles common queries, product searches, and order tracking, and supports over 50 languages.
• Shopify Integration: Built for Shopify, it directly accesses customer, order, and product information for tailored and accurate responses.

• Not a Full Ticketing Solution: While it lacks complete ticketing, K-Chat easily integrates with CRMs like Gorgias, Zendesk, or Freshworks.
• No Live Chat Handover: Focused on automation, it doesn’t offer live chat but for the 15% of queries, it can hand over conversations via email or ticketing system.

Gorgias is a comprehensive customer service platform designed specifically for e-commerce, with a strong focus on Shopify stores. Combining a chatbot tool, ticketing system, and automated support flows, Gorgias centralises customer interactions from all channels, from email, live chat, social media, and messaging platforms into a single dashboard. This allows teams to manage every conversation as a ticket, making it easy to track, segment, and personalise responses for improved support. While Gorgias offers powerful tools for e-commerce businesses, users have noted that its AI features and higher-tier pricing can add up quickly. To get the most of the platform, expect to pay at least £425 ($500+) per month.

• Unified Ticketing System: Every interaction, from emails and contact forms to Instagram DMs and live chat, is converted into a ticket, creating a single, manageable view of all customer communications.
• E-commerce Focused, Built for Shopify: Gorgias integrates seamlessly with Shopify, allowing agents to view customer order details and history directly within the platform.
• Broad Integrations: Integrates with key platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp, plus Zapier for expanded functionality across tools.

• Pricing Complexity and High Costs: Gorgias’ pricing structure can quickly add up, especially with extra fees for additional tickets and AI functionality. The basic plan at £42 ($50) doesn’t cover the AI agent, and even the basic + AI plan at £63 ($75) only includes 300 helpdesk tickets and 30 automated responses.
• Steep Learning Curve: With many advanced features, there’s a lot to learn, and some users find onboarding challenging, especially when setting up complex configurations.

Zendesk is a widely used enterprise customer service platform offering scalable, flexible solutions with focuses on Sales and Support. Known as a comprehensive CRM, Zendesk integrates across platforms like Shopify but is not exclusively tailored for e-commerce. Its features include ticketing, automation, cross-channel support, and AI-driven tools. Zendesk’s conversational AI handles common questions, provides predictive insights, and assists agents with contextual recommendations. Though, the pricing model for automated resolutions has received mixed feedback from users, especially in high-volume e-commerce settings.

• Established Customer Service Platform A comprehensive CRM, ticketing and chatbot platform for various industries.
• Cross-Channel Support: Handles customer queries across multiple channels, including X (former Twitter).
• AI Agent Capability: Available from the starter plan at £15/month, which includes 5 automated resolutions.

• Expensive Automated Resolutions: Even with the Suite Enterprise plan at £139/month, only 15 Automated Resolutions (ARs) are included. Additional resolutions can cost up to £1.75 each, making it costly for high-volume, e-commerce businesses relying on automation. This can discourage self-service, as it may be cheaper to have agents handle simple queries manually.
• Unclear Resolution Tracking: Users report a lack of transparency in how resolutions are counted. Unresolved or abandoned conversations can be marked as "resolved," which may inflate monthly usage and increase costs unexpectedly.
• Not E-commerce Specific: Lacks the e-commerce specialisation that Gorgias offers, especially for Shopify. This includes inability to provide conversational product searches.

Tidio is a well-established customer service chatbot platform that combines live chat, a no-code bot builder, and its latest feature, Lyro, an advanced virtual AI assistant powered by Claude. Lyro AI provides human-like, multilingual responses by learning directly from website content, FAQs, or CSV files without relying on preset options. However, it cannot process images, limiting its ability to answer product-related questions that require visual information. This platform enables natural interactions across channels like WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger.

• Widely Used with Extensive Integrations: Tidio is popular and offers over 30 chatbot templates to easily set up chat flows. It connects with platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp, expanding reach across major channels.
• Easy Setup and Shopify Integration: Tidio’s simple setup and Shopify compatibility make it easy for e-commerce stores to get started.
• AI Chatbot for Human-Like Conversations: Powered by Claude, Lyro AI uses natural language processing to respond naturally in 11 different languages, making interactions feel seamless.

• High Cost for Advanced AI: Accessing Lyro AI starts at £25 + £34 (€29 + €39) for 50 conversations, with a limit of 500 pages for web scraping. For multi-language support and page scraping over 500+ pages, the Tidio+ plan at £640 (€749) is required.
• Lyro AI cannot process images: This limits its effectiveness for product or inventory-related questions.

Shopify Inbox is a free messaging tool by Shopify designed to simplify communication between store owners and customers in real-time. Built directly into the Shopify platform, it’s easy to set up and use, providing immediate access for all Shopify users, regardless of their plan. Especially helpful for smaller businesses and solo entrepreneurs, it includes features like automated responses for common inquiries, access across multiple devices, and basic insights into customer activity.

• Free and Quick to Set Up: Shopify’s own chat app, Shopify Inbox is entirely free and easy to integrate, making it accessible for businesses to get started without hassle.
• Automated FAQs and Order Status Updates: Offers quick replies for frequently asked questions and order tracking, helping customers get instant answers.
• Basic Customer Insights: Displays simple customer details, like cart contents and order history, enabling you to give more tailored responses.

• Not Conversational AI: Shopify Inbox is not a next-gen chatbot, so interactions are not as dynamic or engaging.
• Cannot Filter Notifications: Notifications are sent for every incoming message, which can be disruptive for stores with high message volumes or risk overwhelming users with spam.

Sendbird is a leading messaging platform in the customer service space, known for enabling businesses to add chat, voice, and video interactions to their apps and websites. Recognised as one of the top solutions for in-app communication, it’s highly flexible, allowing larger companies to build fully customised messaging systems tailored to their needs. For faster deployment, Sendbird also offers ready-made chatbot solutions, with integrations including Shopify, making it versatile for businesses of all sizes.

• Ideal for Large Enterprises: A great choice for companies that want to create their own chat infrastructure with full control over design and features.
• Comprehensive Communication Options: Offers chat, voice, video, and AI-powered features for a complete and engaging customer interaction experience.
• Flexible Solutions: Provides both customisable options and ready-to-use chatbot solutions, allowing businesses to choose the setup that works best for them.

• Limited Free Trial and Costly Entry Shopify Plan: The 7-day free trial includes only 5 files or links, and the Starter plan starts at $99/month with 25 links, which may limit usability for businesses with large inventories.
• Not Ideal For Larger Product Catalogues: For e-commerce stores with extensive product lines and high SKU counts, the pricing and link limitations can be restrictive, making it less practical as a simple, off-the-shelf Shopify solution.

Gobot offers a unique shopping experience through interactive quizzes, helping customers find the best products based on their needs. The platform also uses exit-intent technology to detect when customers are about to leave, proactively displaying a guided shopping overlay to reduce abandonment.

• Unique Shopping Quizzes: Engaging, pre-built quizzes help recommend products based on customer needs.
• Exit-Intent Technology: Helps recover abandoning customers with a guided shopping overlay.
• First 5,000 Engagements Free: A generous starting point for businesses to try Gobot at no cost.

• Limited Free Features: Advanced quiz capabilities aren’t included in the free plan, which may be misleading.
• Lack of Transparent Pricing: Full pricing details aren’t available upfront; users must contact Gobot directly.

Maisie AI is a customisable chatbot designed for e-commerce, especially on Shopify. It helps online stores create specific conversation flows that engage customers based on their actions, like how long they stay on a page or the items in their basket. Maisie’s tools allow you to design chat experiences that feel unique to your brand, though setting up these flows may feel complex if you’re new to chatbot building.

• Targeted Conversations: You can trigger chats based on actions like time on page or basket size, which makes the interactions feel relevant and well-timed.
• Design Flexibility: Customise the chatbot’s appearance and messages to match your store’s look and feel, so it blends seamlessly with your brand.
• Ready-to-Use Chatbot Templates: Choose from 18 templates or create your own conversation flows, giving you options for different types of customers and website pages.

• Pre-defined Q&A: While Maisie offers structured conversations, it only allows responses based on preset choices, which means customers can’t ask open-ended questions.
• Setup Can Be Complicated: It relies on pre-designed conversational paths. Configuring the chatbot with different conversation flows, triggers, and settings may be a lot for small business owners or those without technical help.

Relish.AI is a conversational AI platform for e-commerce, enabling personalised, branded shopping experiences across channels like web chat and voice (e.g., Alexa). It offers retailers a turnkey solution to engage with customers naturally and effectively through conversational commerce.

• Affordable Entry Price: The starting plan at $29/month makes the platform accessible for smaller businesses.
• Engagement Tools: Includes features like email and chat support, AI-driven sales campaigns, and a product quiz to increase customer engagement.

• Conversational Features Restricted in Entry Plan: Core conversational capabilities like flows and search are only available starting at $99/month.
• High Cost for Custom AI capabilities: Product-level FAQs, a product quiz, and the pre-trained AI library are only in the $299/month plan, with custom AI training reserved for the $599/month Enterprise tier.

Juphy is a conversational AI platform focused on unifying customer support across multiple social channels into one dashboard. It enables businesses to handle FAQs, product searches, and order tracking in a single view, supporting channels like Instagram, email, and live chat. While Juphy’s next-gen AI offers enhanced response capabilities, users note some limitations in conversational search accuracy and feature accessibility.

• Unified Inbox for Social Channels: Combines messages from Instagram, Facebook and email, simplifying multi-channel support.
• AI Chatbot powered by ChatGPT: Handles FAQs and product queries, though search accuracy can vary.
• Instagram DMs Integration: Seamlessly integrates with Instagram, though available only from £199/month.

• Higher Entry Pricing: The platform starts at £80/month ($99/month), with Instagram AI assistance priced at £160/month ($199/month).
• Inconsistent Search Accuracy: Some users report occasional inaccuracies in the AI’s conversational search, affecting response relevance.