If you’re a Shopify store looking for a Gorgias alternative, this guide has what you need. Based on Gorgias’s actual billing structure and what real G2 reviewers say, we break down everything that actually matters in the decision: feature-by-feature comparison, pricing structure and predictability, scalability, AI accuracy, and how tickets are handled.
How Gorgias Pricing Actually Works
Gorgias runs on two separate meters, not one. Here’s what each charges:
| Fee | What it's for | Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Base Plan | Ticket volume (all channels) | $10–$750/mo, tier-based |
| Ticket Overage | Tickets beyond your plan | $0.32–$0.40/ticket |
| AI-Agent Resolution | Each conversation the AI closes on its own | $0.90 (annual) / $1.00 (monthly) |
| AI Overage | Resolutions beyond your included allowance | $1.50/resolution |
What Gorgias Actually Counts as an “AI Resolution”
- A resolution is a conversation the AI handles start to finish on its own — the customer asks, the AI answers, the conversation gets closed, no human involved.
- That count isn’t final the moment it happens — Gorgias only confirms it as a billable resolution after 72 hours pass with zero human involvement in the conversation.
- If a human steps in anytime within that 72-hour window, it’s counted only as a normal ticket, not as an AI resolution. So you’re not double-charged for handed-off conversations, only for fully-automated ones.
Where the Double Charge Actually Happens
- The AI resolution fee is billed separately from your ticket plan — it’s an add-on, not included.
- Every AI-resolved ticket counts as a helpdesk ticket at the same time it counts as a resolution. So a single, fully-automated conversation is billed twice. Once as a ticket, once as a resolution.
- This only applies to the fully-automated case. Hand-offs to a human are billed once, not twice.
- The real effect here is the billing unpredictability. The better your AI performs, the more of your conversations hit both meters at once. At 1,000 AI resolutions a month on the Pro plan, the real bill runs close to $1,200, not the $300 sticker price.
Where BigRadar Works Differently
| Particulars | Gorgias | BigRadar |
|---|---|---|
| Meters | Ticket plan + separate AI resolution fee | One flat plan, one meter |
| Double-billing risk | Yes, on fully-automated conversations | No — a resolved conversation is billed once |
| Overage rate | $1.50/resolution | $0.79/resolution |
| Seats & conversations | Counted toward plan limits | Unlimited on every plan |
The Math: 300 Tickets a Month, Real Numbers
Assumptions, stated upfront:
- 300 total support tickets/month — the exact allowance on Gorgias’s Basic plan
- 45% AI resolution rate across all 300 conversations = 135 resolved by AI
- Gorgias on the Basic plan ($60/mo, monthly billing)
- BigRadar on the Growth plan ($49/mo, 500 AI resolutions included, unlimited seats and conversations)
| Particulars | Gorgias (Basic) | BigRadar (Growth) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base plan | $60/mo (300 tickets included) | $49/mo (unlimited seats & conversations) | |
| AI resolution fee | 45% of 300 (135) × $1.00 = $135 | Included in flat fee — $0 | |
| Total monthly cost | $195 | $49 | |
| Monthly savings | - | $146 |
Figures reflect monthly billing on both platforms. Annual plans may lower these rates further.
Reading it in plain terms:
- At 300 tickets and zero AI use, Gorgias’s Basic plan is genuinely $60 — no hidden cost.
- The moment AI starts resolving conversations, a second bill appears on top of the first, growing with every resolution.
- BigRadar’s $49 doesn’t move at this volume. One number, one bill.
What Gorgias Gets Right
Three things, genuinely. Not filler before the pitch.
- Gorgias integration with shopify is one of the best in the market. An agent can act on Shopify orders, not just see them. an agent can view orders, cancel items, issue refunds, and edit orders without ever leaving the helpdesk. This is one of the reasons why Gorgias has 15,000+ ecommerce brands on it.
- The macro and automation engine is mature. A skilled CX operator can meaningfully cut handle time using it, without needing engineering support to set it up. This isn’t a new feature bolted on, it’s had years to get good.
- It tracks revenue, not just resolution. Gorgias attributes which support conversations actually lead to a purchase. A reporting layer most general-purpose helpdesks simply don’t build, because most of them aren’t built for ecommerce specifically.
None of this cancels out the billing structure in the last section. It just means the frustration people feel with Gorgias isn’t “this tool is bad” — it’s “this tool is good, and the bill doesn’t match what I’m actually using it for.” That’s a different problem, and it’s the one worth solving.
Your Bill Shouldn’t Grow Just Because Your Store Had a Good Month
Here’s the part of Gorgias’s pricing that has nothing to do with AI at all.
Every Gorgias plan has a hard ticket ceiling — 300 on Basic, 2,000 on Pro — and every ticket past that line costs extra. Doesn’t matter who answered it. A human-only ticket, zero automation involved, still counts against the cap and still triggers overage the moment you cross it.
Which means a 3x jump in order volume can mean a 3x jump in ticket volume — and a 3x jump in cost, even with your team working the same hours, answering everything themselves, touching AI zero times.
BFCM is the clearest example: order volume spikes, ticket volume spikes with it, and the bill can double or triple in a single month with no change in headcount.
BigRadar doesn’t meter conversations at all. Every plan includes unlimited tickets, unlimited seats, unlimited channels. The only thing that ever costs extra is AI resolution volume past your plan’s cap. And even then, it’s $0.79 against Gorgias’s $0.90–$1.50.
What this actually means in a spike month:
| Particulars | Gorgias | BigRadar |
|---|---|---|
| Ticket volume triples, all human-handled | Bill grows — every extra ticket is billed | Bill stays flat — conversations are unmetered |
| Ticket volume triples, AI-handled | Bill grows twice — ticket overage and AI fee | Bill grows once — only if AI resolutions exceed the cap |
| Add 2 seasonal agents for the month | Free (Gorgias doesn’t charge per seat either) | Free |
That middle row is the one worth sitting with. It’s not that BigRadar’s AI is better — we’re not claiming that. It’s that the thing being metered is different. Gorgias meters the conversation. BigRadar meters the automation.
BigRadar vs. Gorgias: Full Feature & Pricing Comparison
Here’s exactly what each platform charges and includes.
| Features | Gorgias | BigRadar |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Ticket-volume tiers + separate AI-resolution fee | Flat plan + AI-resolution meter only |
| Starting price | $10/mo (Starter — 50 tickets, capped at 3 seats) | Free plan available; paid plans from $49/mo |
| AI resolutions included | None in base plan — billed separately from resolution one | 500 on Growth ($49), 1,500 on Pro ($99) |
| AI resolution overage | $1.50/resolution | $0.79/resolution |
| Ticket/conversation overage | $0.32–$0.40/ticket beyond plan cap | None — conversations unmetered on every plan |
| Seats | Unlimited from Basic ($60/mo) up; Starter capped at 3 | Unlimited on every plan, including free |
| Live chat, email, WhatsApp | Yes, all native | Yes, all native |
| Native email marketing campaigns | No. points users to third-party tools (Klaviyo, Attentive, Postscript) | Yes, built in |
| Native WhatsApp broadcast campaigns | No. WhatsApp is built for two-way support, not mass send | Yes, built in |
| Shopify order actions from the helpdesk (cancel, refund, edit) | Yes | Yes, deep integration |
| Revenue-per-conversation reporting | Yes, Pro plan and above | Yes |
BigRadar Is Built For You If…
If you’ve made it this far in this guide, you’re probably one of three people. You just got a Gorgias invoice that didn’t match what you budgeted for. Or you turned the AI off after it told a customer something wrong, and you haven’t turned it back on. Or you’re still on the fence about buying a helpdesk at all, and you’re trying to get this decision right before you commit. Whichever one you are — here’s what’s actually built for that.
Your bill is one number, every month, period.
Not a ticket fee plus a resolution fee plus an overage tier you have to track. Just one number. If you’ve ever opened a Gorgias invoice and had to work out which line item did what, this is the difference. Flat plan, one meter, nothing stacking silently in the background.
A good month doesn’t punish you.
Order volume triples during BFCM, your ticket count triples with it. And on BigRadar, that doesn’t move your bill unless your AI resolution volume specifically crosses your plan’s cap.
Your team can grow, add seasonal help, work longer hours during the spike. None of that costs you anything extra. The bill tracks automation, not activity.
Every conversation, one inbox.
Chat, WhatsApp, and email land in the same place, tied to the same customer history. No tab-switching to piece together what someone already told you on a different channel.
Marketing lives in the same platform as support.
Email and WhatsApp campaigns are built in. Not a separate subscription, not a second tool your team has to learn and pay for on top of support.
The AI is trained on your store, not a script.
If you’re the reader who turned off an AI because it gave a customer the wrong answer. That frustration is real, and we’re not going to pretend otherwise.
What we can tell you honestly is how ours is built: trained on your actual product catalog, your FAQs, your past conversations, not a generic response engine bolted onto a helpdesk.
You can start on the free plan.
If you’re still comparing options and don’t want to commit to anything yet, you don’t have to. Try it on real conversations without adding your card.
What Actually Happens When You Switch
“What happens to our existing conversations?” is usually the first question that stops a CX lead from moving forward. Fair question — here’s the honest answer.
The short version: switching helpdesks doesn’t mean starting from zero, and it doesn’t mean going dark while you do it. Here’s how it typically works, and where BigRadar fits.
Your history comes with you.
Standard practice for helpdesk migrations is importing ticket history, customer profiles, and tags from the old platform, in some cases going back years.
Macros and saved replies transfer too, not just conversations.
The stronger migration tools in this space move macros, tags, and users alongside tickets — not just a raw conversation dump you have to reorganize from scratch.
There’s no dead period where support goes offline.
This is the part people worry about most and get wrong most often. Switching a chat widget is an embed-code change, not a site outage. The standard approach in this industry is running both systems in parallel briefly so nothing gets missed during the handoff, not a hard cutover.
How long it actually takes depends on your size, not on how simple the marketing page makes it sound. Simple, self-serve migrations for smaller stores are often described as taking a single afternoon; more complex, high-volume setups in this category can run one to several weeks.
What the switch looks like, step by step:
- Connect your Gorgias account and Shopify store to BigRadar
- Review what’s importing — tickets, tags, customer profiles, macros — before anything goes live
- Run both systems side by side briefly to confirm nothing’s missing
- Switch the chat widget embed code over
- Gorgias stays accessible as a read-only archive for a defined period, not deleted on day one
FAQ
How much does BigRadar cost?
Growth is $49/month with 500 AI resolutions included, and Pro is $99/month with 1,500 included. Both plans come with unlimited seats and unlimited conversations — the only thing metered is AI resolution volume.
What happens if I go over my AI resolution limit?
Extra resolutions are billed at $0.79 each — well under Gorgias’s $0.90–$1.50 overage range. There’s no ticket cap or seat limit to worry about hitting on top of that.
Is BigRadar built for Shopify stores?
Yes. This comparison and BigRadar’s current focus are specifically built around Shopify D2C brands.
Can I try BigRadar before committing?
Absolutely. Start with a 14-day free trial, no credit card required, and there’s also a free plan if you’re not ready to commit to a paid tier yet.
Will I lose my Gorgias conversation history when I switch?
No. See “What Actually Happens When You Switch” above for the full breakdown of what carries over.
Is BigRadar’s AI actually reliable, or does it make the same mistakes Gorgias’s AI does?
BigRadar’s AI model “Ethan” is trained on your actual product catalog, FAQs, and past conversations, not a generic script. This makes it more reliable and user-friendly which ultimately increases the AI response rate.
What People Actually Say
About Gorgias, in their own words:
It’s priced too high compared to the rest of the market and it’s support is not helpful.
~G2 review, July 2026Sometimes the AI feature is not answering customers’ questions in a helpful way and they get frustrated. Or the AI agent closes a conversation that needs further attention from the team.
~G2 review, July 2026The AI/bot has sent incorrect responses to customers, closed tickets without proper replies, or failed to respond entirely—resulting in customer complaints about lack of follow-up.
~Shopify App Store review, March 2026
We were paying over $13.5k per year… we were charged $14,000 on TOP of $13.5k/year. Their AI automation feature auto-bills you over and over, to the point without telling us until its WAY too late.
~Shopify App Store review, March 2026
See For Yourself
You didn’t start reading this because of a marketing headline. You started because a bill didn’t add up, or an AI said something wrong to a customer, or you’re just done guessing what next month’s invoice will look like.
Here’s the actual offer: one predictable bill, live chat, WhatsApp, and email in one inbox, an AI trained on your own catalog, and you can see all of it before you commit to anything.
Start your 14-day free trial. No credit card required.
Or start on the free plan if you’re not ready to commit to anything yet.