Gorgias is a helpdesk platform purpose-built for e-commerce, excelling at Shopify integration, automation, and multi-channel support, but it can get expensive and complex as ticket volume scales or for non-retail use.
What's covered:
Gorgias is a customer support helpdesk built for ecommerce brands.
It centralizes customer conversations from email, live chat, phone, and social channels so support teams can streamline responses, automate repetitive tasks, and drive more sales from support.
Gorgias is an AI-powered helpdesk built for e-commerce brands, offering deep integrations with Shopify, Magento, and WooCommerce to unify customer, order, and support data. It automates ticket handling and response suggestions while keeping human agents in the loop.
Ideal for fast-growing e-commerce teams, it’s less suited for non-retail businesses or enterprises needing highly customizable, omnichannel AI workflows.
G2: 4.6/5 (800+ reviews) highly rated for e-commerce integrations, ticket automation, and ease of use
Capterra: 4.7/5 (600+ reviews) scores well for productivity and Shopify support, though some report slow support responses
Trustpilot: 4.2/5 (450+ reviews) positive for intuitive UI, but users mention onboarding complexity and integration bugs
Shopify App Store: 4.4/5 (800+ reviews) consistently high for e-commerce capability, but some reviews cite glitches with updates
Reddit and eCommerce forums: Users praise seamless Shopify experience, macros, and time-saving automations, but express concerns about pricing for higher-volume merchants and limited AI self-service
Used by more than 14,000 e-commerce businesses worldwide. Notable brands include Steve Madden, Kylie Cosmetics, Timbuk2, Electrolux, Princess Polly, MVMT, and Marine Layer.
Prominent case studies highlight Shopify Plus and D2C leaders, with testimonials focusing on time savings, first-response automation, and revenue attribution for support-driven sales.
Plan | Price (monthly) | Key Features |
---|---|---|
Starter | $10 | Up to 50 tickets/month, core channels (email/live chat/social), Shopify integration, 1 user |
Basic | $60 | Up to 300 tickets/month, macro automation, Shopify/Magento & social integrations, basic personalization |
Pro | $360 | 2,000 tickets/month, teams & roles, advanced rules, CSAT surveys, reporting, one-click order actions, 15+ integrations |
Advanced | $900 | 5,000 tickets/month, AI-suggested replies, intent/rule-based automation, priority support, custom roles |
Enterprise | Custom | Unlimited tickets, dedicated success team, advanced security (SSO, audit logs), deep API integration, custom SLAs |
Note: SMS, WhatsApp, and voice are paid add-ons. AI ticketing and automation modules may incur additional fees. All plans are billed annually with monthly options at a slight premium. |
Start by connecting your helpdesk channels and importing recent tickets. Gorgias lets you centralize email, live chat, social, SMS, and voice support in one dashboard.
Go to Settings and link your Shopify, Magento, or WooCommerce store to unlock ecommerce-specific automations ⤵️
Set up Automations and Rules quickly ⤵️
Navigate to the Automation tab. Use Triggers like “Order status update” to automatically send responses based on customer order state. Build Rules to auto-close repetitive tickets and tag conversations by intent.
Integrate your own data sources for better answers ⤵️
Upload macros and canned responses. Sync FAQs from your ecommerce platform or knowledge base. Use Gorgias’s API to bring in real-time order or shipping data for instant customer resolutions.
Leverage AI to boost agent productivity 👇
Turn on Gorgias AI features to summarize ticket history, draft responses, and suggest macros contextually. These AI-generated replies can be fully customized before sending.
Personalize the customer journey with Context Cards ⤵️
Configure Context Cards to display relevant order, loyalty, or subscription data right inside tickets while agents chat.
How to get started: Summary
Here are the five most popular Gorgias features that users consistently praise, based on forum feedback and real reviews:
💡 TL;DR → Gorgias excels in unified support for ecommerce with automation and native integrations, but may not fit users seeking highly flexible AI configuration.
Gorgias scores highly on review sites for its functionality and Shopify integration, but receives less favorable ratings for support and pricing clarity:
Customers specifically highlight Gorgias’s ability to unify support across email, live chat, Facebook, Instagram, and SMS into a single dashboard, increasing agent efficiency for businesses operating multiple storefronts. As one G2 review notes:
“Having all our channels — Shopify, email, and social — in one place is a game changer and lets us reply faster with more context.”
Many retailers appreciate how Gorgias pulls real-time Shopify data directly into each support ticket, allowing agents to issue refunds, edit orders, or check purchase history from within the helpdesk. One Capterra reviewer writes:
“We can see all Shopify data next to each conversation and even automate order lookups and edits — it’s not just another shared inbox.”
Power users praise the highly customizable “rules” engine that enables complex automations based on ticket content, customer history, sentiment, and custom fields. A Shopify Community post reports:
“Macros, rules, and tags allow us to auto-respond to common questions, route VIPs differently, and even escalate issues automatically. It’s far beyond basic autoresponders.”
Gorgias’s reporting is tailored for Shopify stores, combining support metrics with revenue impact. Users say this makes it easier to attribute support actions to sales. According to a G2 review:
“Love how Gorgias links support replies with order data so we can track revenue from each agent’s actions — super useful for e-commerce.”
Some teams find the system complex, particularly if they don’t use Shopify or have a smaller support operation. One Reddit user says:
“Feels like overkill for us as a small team — setup was confusing without a dedicated manager and most features are built for Shopify stores.”
Larger merchants complain about performance degradation as ticket volume increases, especially when running elaborate automation rules. A Capterra review notes:
“The more rules and integrations we set up, the slower tickets load — our agents have noticed a lag with our holiday surge.”
Many customers, especially during peak seasons, report that Gorgias’s own support can lag or feel unhelpful. A Trustpilot reviewer describes:
“It took weeks to get a reply to our billing query. For a support tool, their own support is surprisingly slow.”
While pricing is transparent for smaller plans, some scaling merchants are surprised by rising costs due to ticket-based billing and add-ons. From a G2 review:
“We started affordable but grew past 6,000 tickets and suddenly costs spiked. The model isn’t ideal if your tickets fluctuate or climb quickly, and the upgrades weren’t clearly explained.”
Gorgias uses ticket-based pricing with base monthly fees that scale as your support volume grows.
Choose between these 4 plans:
Add-on | Functionality Added | Pricing |
---|---|---|
Additional billable tickets | Increases monthly ticket volume without upgrading plan | $25 per 100 tickets (Starter, Basic); custom quote for Pro/Advanced |
Voice integration | Adds call center and telephony support features | Starts at $30/month per user |
AI features (e.g. AI Reply Assistant, Article Recommendations) | Automates replies and suggests articles via AI | Custom pricing or available only on higher tiers |
💡 You’ll want to monitor ticket volume, as overages and select AI/voice features can drive up costs quickly beyond your base plan.
Gorgias consolidates email, chat, social media, and SMS tickets into one dashboard, allowing multi-channel support with context-aware workflows for fast resolution.
Leverage rules, triggers, and automation for ticket assignment, tagging, customer segmentation, and automated replies. Automate repetitive actions based on customer intent and ticket content.
Create advanced macros that use dynamic variables (e.g., first name, order number) for rapid personalized replies and complex sequences like refunds, order edits, and status updates.
Natively integrate with Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce, Recharge, Klaviyo, Slack, and Zapier to sync order data, push notifications, and trigger automated actions based on external events.
Push or pull data from custom systems using API and webhooks. Trigger automations based on external CRM, WMS, or logistics system updates for tailored workflow orchestration.
💡 TL;DR → If you care about native ecommerce automation and tight helpdesk integration, Gorgias is a great pick.
If you value broader conversational AI, advanced NLU, or ready-to-deploy generative agents, maybe consider Zendesk, Intercom, or Big Sur AI for plug-and-play options.
Gorgias can handle significant growth in ticket volume and user seats, but both technical and financial scaling have important caveats.
At high velocity, you may find monthly costs snowballing unexpectedly unless you aggressively prune automations, archive spam, and manage views. Multi-brand and deeper automation features are only unlocked on higher plans, so you’ll pay both for tickets and capabilities as you expand.
Technically, Gorgias supports high user and ticket volume with solid uptime. However, as volume grows past 10,000+ tickets monthly, teams report persistent lag and slow search times, especially if you use complex automation rules or handle millions of customer records.
There are API rate limits (documented but not always obvious until you hit them) and search can be a bottleneck for multi-store or enterprise retailers. Bulk updating or tagging tickets at scale is possible via the API but not always seamless for non-technical teams.
Plan for overage tracking from day one and set up alerts if you’re expecting unpredictable growth. If your operation has seasonal spikes, work with Gorgias support to negotiated annual contracts with custom thresholds.
For very high volume or global enterprise needs, test performance at your peak loads, especially if third-party integrations or custom automations are mission-critical.
Short answer: yes.
Gorgias provides pre-built “macros” that work as ready-to-use response templates for common support scenarios, including order status, shipping updates, returns, and more.
These are designed for fast deployment and can be quickly customized to match your support workflows. The platform offers industry-specific macro packs, particularly for ecommerce, that incorporate proven messaging patterns and optimize for typical customer queries.
You can instantly import these macros and tweak them based on your policies. They’re accessible directly inside the Gorgias UI and can be combined with triggered automations or their AI agent for fully hands-off responses. This hands-on templating approach means you can replicate best practices while still tailoring replies to your brand voice.
Tool | Best For | Key Strength | Drawbacks | Pricing |
---|---|---|---|---|
Big Sur AI | Pre-built AI agents & advanced automation | Fast deployment, out-of-the-box AI chat support, multi-channel automation | Limited manual ticket management compared to legacy systems | Starts at $49/mo |
Zendesk | Enterprise-grade support operations | Scalable ticketing, workflow automations, integrations | Steeper learning curve, heavier setup | Starts at $55/mo/agent |
Freshdesk | Multi-channel SMB customer support | Omni-channel, affordable, user-friendly interface | Limited deep AI automation compared to Big Sur AI | Free tier, paid from $18/mo/agent |
Intercom | Conversational support & live chat | Modern UI, robust messaging, AI bot add-ons | Pricing can ramp up quickly; fewer advanced automations | Starts at $39/mo |
Summary:
Each of these Gorgias alternatives has distinct strengths; your choice should align with your goals for support automation, cost, scalability, and preferred channels.
If you want the best turnkey, production-ready chatbot you can deploy quickly, Big Sur AI is the clear choice over Gorgias.
Why?
Big Sur AI is purpose-built for businesses seeking a high-quality, no-code chatbot with seamless setup and an exceptional user experience. Unlike Gorgias, which emphasizes helpdesk ticketing and often requires manual workflow configuration, Big Sur AI is engineered to deliver intelligent, automated support right out of the box.
Here’s what makes it stand out:
If you need a chatbot that “just works,” delivering accurate responses, polished design, and near-zero setup or training overhead, Big Sur AI stands as the best ready-made alternative to Gorgias.
Here’s how you can deploy a fully-trained, customizable AI chatbot on your website in under 10 minutes with Big Sur AI 👇