The cheapest published option is a free plan, and the cheapest paid flat monthly plan in this set is not an unlimited one. Shopify Inbox is listed as Free. Dori's only published plan is $0 for 200 conversations a month. Among paid plans with a conversation or reply allowance, Tidio's Starter is $29 a month (or $290 a year) and Vorena Lite is $29 a month for 50 conversations. Vorena uses flat monthly plans with a conversation allowance. It is not unlimited. Only Lite and Starter can be bought today. Growth and Scale are coming soon.
A low starting price can be a visitor band, a resolution fee, or a quote. The table keeps the model next to the number. Every figure links to the page it was copied from on 15 October 2026. Full disclosure: Vorena is our product, and its row uses this site's pricing page plus the App Store listing.
Pricing-model table
| Tool | Best for | Pricing model | Starting price | App Store rating | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vorena | Shopify stores that want a concierge for plain-language product discovery, with a known monthly allowance. | Flat monthly plans with a conversation allowance. Not unlimited. | Lite $29/month (100 products, 50 conversations). Starter $99/month (250 products, 500 conversations). 14-day free trial, no credit card. Growth and Scale are coming soon. | No reviews yet | |
| Shopify Inbox | Stores that want Shopify's own storefront chat, including an agent that answers from the catalog and can hand off to staff. | Listed as free. No monthly price is published on the listing. | Free, on the Shopify App Store listing. | 4.6 from 5,818 reviews | |
| Dori | Stores that want a free Shopify assistant with a conversation cap and a product cap, and no paid tier on the listing. | Free plan with a conversation allowance and a product cap. No paid price is published. | $0. 200 conversations a month and up to 500 products. The listing shows no paid plan. | 5.0 from 39 reviews | |
| Carti | Stores that want a conversation allowance, including a free tier, and proactive outreach as Carti describes it. | Flat monthly plan with a conversation allowance, plus a free tier. | Free: 50 conversations a month. Starter $49/month for 250. Growth $99/month for 600. Scale $249/month for 1,750. Paid plans include a 14-day trial. | 5.0 from 5 reviews | |
| Tidio | Teams that want live chat and Lyro in one inbox, with a free conversation allowance and paid packs above it. | Flat monthly plans with a billable-conversation allowance. Lyro is also described at a per-conversation rate on a separate page. | Free plan: 50 billable conversations a month, on the live-chat page. Starter is $29/month on that page and on the App Store listing ($290/year, which the pricing page shows as $24.17/month). The Lyro page says $0.50 per conversation. | 4.8 from 1,356 reviews | |
| Gorgias | Brands that want a helpdesk with tickets, plus an AI agent billed when it resolves a conversation. | Monthly ticket allowance, plus a per-resolution fee for the AI agent. | With AI Agent added, Starter is $40/month for 50 tickets and 30 automated interactions. Helpdesk-only Starter on the same page is $10/month. Automated interactions on Starter are $1.00 each. Ticket overage on Starter is $0.40. | 4.3 from 704 reviews | |
| Alhena | Brands that want a shopping concierge packaged with AI-visibility tools, and will pay overage past the conversation allowance. | Flat monthly allowance, then a per-conversation overage. | Free: 25 conversations a month. Essentials is $199/month billed annually on the pricing page (200 conversations), or $239/month on the App Store listing. An extra conversation is $1.20 on the pricing page. | 5.0 from 6 reviews | |
| Zipchat | Stores that want one agent on the storefront and on messaging channels, priced by AI replies, with a quote-only unlimited plan. | Flat monthly (or annual) plan with a reply allowance. Unlimited replies are a custom quote. | Free on the listing: 120 AI replies a month. Starter is $80/month or $768/year (the pricing page also states $64/month billed annually) for 750 replies. An unlimited plan is quote-only, starting at $2,100/month. | 4.9 from 207 reviews | |
| Dialog | Stores that want a personal shopper priced by a monthly unique-visitor cap, with a free conversation tier underneath. | Flat monthly plan capped by monthly unique visitors. The free plan is capped by conversations. | Free: 200 conversations a month. Then $249/month up to 25,000 unique visitors, $399/month up to 50,000, and $799/month up to 100,000. Paid plans include a 14-day trial. askdialog.com/pricing returned 404 on this date, so these figures are from the App Store listing. | 5.0 from 38 reviews | |
| Rep AI | Stores that want an agent that opens the chat from browsing behavior, and that can price the Shopify app by visitors. | Per-visitor bands on the App Store listing, plus a fee per extra 1,000 visitors. The homepage lists different starting prices. | Listing: free to install for 100 visitors and 100 products a month, then $12 per extra 1,000 visitors. Starter is $104/month for up to 10,000 visitors, or $995/year. Homepage, same day: plans starting at $49, $99, and $118 a month. The two pages do not state the same numbers. | 4.6 from 119 reviews | |
| Manifest AI | Stores that want to test a chat, quiz, and recommendation agent on the free listing, with no paid price published. | Free to test. No paid price is published. | The App Store listing shows a free plan and does not show a paid price. The vendor pricing URL returned the homepage, which also states no plan amount. | 4.6 from 59 reviews | |
| iAdvize | Brands comparing a published monthly price that the vendor sizes by conversation volume and catalog size. | Published monthly price sized by conversation volume and catalog size. Each plan says Book a demo. | Yearly billing shows Essentials at $290/month (the monthly figure beside it is $385) for 500 conversations a month. Starter is $520/month yearly ($690 monthly) for 1,000 conversations. Growth is $1,330/month yearly ($1,770 monthly) for 3,000 conversations. The page says pricing scales with conversation volume and catalog size. | Not taken from the Shopify App Store for this row. | |
| Searchanise (search app) | Stores comparing a search app's meter with an assistant's meter. This is site search, not a shopping assistant. | Flat monthly price sized by active product count. Not per visitor. | Basic is $19/month billed monthly, or $16/month billed annually. A free plan is listed at $0. The page lists product caps from up to 25 products through up to 300,000. | Not used on this row. This is a search app. |
Prices and ratings as of 15 October 2026. Each link is the page the figure came from.
Flat monthly, with an allowance
A flat monthly plan charges the same fee each month for a stated allowance. The allowance can be conversations, replies, or tickets. Hitting the allowance is not free usage. On Vorena, a conversation counts when it starts, and the allowance resets monthly. At the limit, the Vorena chat is hidden from the store until the allowance resets next month or the plan is upgraded. Chats already under way can finish. Lite is $29 a month for 50 conversations and 100 products. Starter is $99 a month for 500 conversations and 250 products. Only those two can be bought. Growth and Scale are coming soon. Plan changes go through Shopify. The pricing page is the full list.
Carti uses the same shape. Its pricing page lists Free at 50 conversations, then $49, $99, and $249. Zipchat's published plans are reply allowances: 750 replies on Starter at $80 a month or $64 a month billed annually. Alhena's Essentials plan is $199 a month billed annually for 200 conversations, and then $1.20 for each extra conversation. The base is flat. The overage is per conversation.
Tidio's live-chat page lists a free plan of 50 billable conversations and Starter at $29 a month. The pricing page shows the annual equivalent, $24.17 a month, for 100 billable conversations. Keep the billing period on the number or the two figures look like a disagreement. They are one yearly total.
Per conversation, or per resolution
Tidio's Lyro page says the price is $0.50 per conversation. That is a different meter from the Starter pack. Gorgias's pricing page says you pay only when the AI agent resolves a conversation. With the agent added, Starter is $40 a month and includes 30 automated interactions, then $1.00 each. Helpdesk-only Starter on the same page is $10 a month. A store that compares Gorgias with a $29 concierge is comparing a ticket-and-resolution bill with a conversation allowance.
Per visitor
Dialog's paid plans, on the App Store listing, are a monthly fee for a unique-visitor cap: $249 up to 25,000 visitors, $399 up to 50,000, and $799 up to 100,000. The free plan under them is 200 conversations, not a visitor cap. Dialog's own /pricing URL returned 404 on this date, so the listing is the source.
Rep AI's listing is a visitor meter with an overage. It is free for 100 visitors a month, then Starter is $104 a month for up to 10,000 visitors, plus $12 for each additional 1,000 visitors. The homepage, the same day, lists plans starting at $49, $99, and $118. Those pages do not match. A store with a traffic spike pays the listing's overage if that is the plan they bought. A conversation allowance does not move because more people browsed and never opened the chat.
iAdvize's pricing page says the price scales with conversation volume and catalog size. It is not a per-visitor rate. Yearly Essentials is $290 a month for 500 conversations, and each plan says Book a demo. The sessions mentioned on the page are described as who the plan is ideal for, not as the line item.
Custom quote
Zipchat's unlimited plan is not on the self-serve grid. The pricing page says to book a demo for a quote starting at $2,100 a month, with unlimited replies. Manifest's listing is free to test and shows no paid price, so there is nothing to quote from the page. If the number you need is not on the page, it is not in this article.
A search app is a different meter
Searchanise is site search, not an assistant. Its pricing page lists Basic at $19 a month billed monthly, or $16 a month billed annually, and a free plan at $0. The plans are sized by how many active products the catalog has, with caps on the page from 25 products to 300,000. That is useful as a contrast: a search bill follows the catalog, a visitor bill follows traffic, and a conversation allowance follows chats that start. Search apps are a separate roundup.
What to compare before you pick the lowest number
- What the meter is: conversations, replies, tickets, resolutions, visitors, or products.
- Whether the starting price is monthly, annual, or a yearly total divided by 12.
- What happens at the cap: a hard stop, an overage, or a quote.
- Whether a second page from the same vendor states a different number.
- Whether the free plan is the only plan, or a small allowance in front of a paid one.
The longer comparison, with App Store ratings, is Best AI shopping assistants for Shopify (2026, compared). What the category is, and how it differs from a chatbot or a search box, is on AI shopping assistant.
