Starlix vs Gorgias: an AI agent for Shopify stores without a helpdesk bill
Five hundred AI-answered chats a month sounds like a small store's problem. On per-interaction pricing it's about $450 a month for the AI alone, before the helpdesk underneath it. That gap is the whole story of this comparison.
Short answer: Gorgias is a complete ecommerce helpdesk, with tickets, macros and revenue reporting, and its AI Agent is billed per interaction on top (about $0.90 to $1.00 each). Starlix is an AI agent for your store's chat and messaging, with a free plan and paid plans from $19.99/month for 100 AI conversations. If you need a full ticketing helpdesk for a large team, Gorgias is built for that. If you want an AI agent that answers shoppers and checks orders, Starlix costs a fraction per conversation.
We make Starlix. Gorgias figures come from Gorgias's pricing page as of October 2026.
Pricing side by side
| Starlix | Gorgias | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes, 50 AI conversations/month | No (7-day trial) |
| What you pay for | AI conversations | Helpdesk tickets + AI interactions |
| Entry | $19.99/mo: 100 AI conversations | $10/mo helpdesk: 50 tickets, 30 AI interactions |
| Mid | $68.99/mo: 500 AI conversations | $300/mo yearly ($360 monthly): 2,000 tickets, 190 AI interactions |
| AI beyond the plan | $0.40 per conversation | $0.90 per interaction yearly, $1.00 monthly, $1.50 overage |
| Ticket overage | Not applicable | $0.36–$0.40 per ticket |
A worked example
Say the AI handles 500 conversations a month. On Gorgias, 500 AI interactions at $0.90 is about $450, plus a helpdesk plan. On Starlix, 500 AI conversations is the Pro plan at $68.99. Your numbers will differ, and Gorgias includes a helpdesk Starlix doesn't try to replace, but a gap that size is worth checking against your own volume.
What each product is
Gorgias is a helpdesk: email, chat and social messages land as tickets and your team works the queue. Its AI Agent handles ecommerce tasks like orders and returns inside that helpdesk.
Starlix is the AI agent in front of your team. It's trained on your products, policies and docs, answers on your website, WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger, and hands the chat to a person with the full history when it can't help. You keep whatever inbox your team already uses.
Where Starlix is the better fit
You want the AI, not a new helpdesk. No migration, no new queue for your team to learn.
Order questions eat your evenings. Starlix reads live Shopify order data, which means "where is my order?" gets the real status at any hour, not a link to the tracking page.
You want guardrails on actions. AI Actions are marked read, write or irreversible, with optional human approval, which means the agent can check an order on its own but a refund waits for you if you want it to.
You want to start free. Install from the Shopify App Store and test on your own store's questions before paying.
Where Gorgias may be the better fit
You have a team working hundreds or thousands of tickets a month and want a helpdesk built around Shopify, with revenue reporting tied to support. You'd rather buy helpdesk and AI from one vendor, and the per-interaction cost fits your margins.
How to test
List your top ten questions: sizing, delivery dates, returns and order status. Train a free Starlix agent on your store and ask them all. Check that it answered from your own policies and pulled the right order. Then price a month of your volume on both.
FAQ
Does Starlix replace a helpdesk? No. It's the AI agent in front of your team. When it can't answer, it hands the chat to a person with the full conversation.
Can Starlix check Shopify orders? Yes. It reads live order status in Shopify, so shoppers get their actual status in chat at any hour.
Is there a free plan? Starlix has one: 50 AI conversations a month, no card. Gorgias has a 7-day trial.