Gorgias is the best-shaped helpdesk in ecommerce support, and it does two things its larger competitors do not: it publishes its entire price ladder, and it refuses to bill the same conversation twice. Both deserve credit before we get to the mechanic that costs people money.
The short answer
Gorgias meters two separate things: billable tickets and automated AI interactions. Each plan includes an allowance of both, and the overage rates sit far above the effective price of an included unit.
On the Basic plan, 300 included tickets at $60 a month work out at $0.20 per ticket. An extra ticket costs $0.40, which is exactly double the price of the tickets you already bought, charged for the ones you did not predict. Billed annually that plan is $50 a month, putting an included ticket at $0.17 and the overage at 2.4x.
The second mechanic is subtler and matters more. A billable ticket is a conversation that contains a message sent from your helpdesk, whether that message came from a human agent, an automation Rule or the AI Agent, and each such conversation counts once no matter how many messages are exchanged. Because machine-sent messages make a ticket billable, switching on more automation can increase your billable ticket count rather than reduce it.
If what you need is to understand why those tickets exist at all, no helpdesk answers that. Koji does, and it leads the list below.
How Gorgias pricing actually works
The full ladder is published, which in this category is genuinely unusual. Billed annually:
| Plan | Price per month | Tickets included | Effective price per ticket | Ticket overage | AI interactions included |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $10 (monthly only) | 50 | $0.20 | $0.40 | 30 |
| Basic | $50 | 300 | $0.17 | $0.40 | 30 |
| Pro | $300 | 2,000 | $0.15 | Disputed, see below | 190 |
| Advanced | $750 | 5,000 | $0.15 | Disputed, see below | 530 |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | n/a | n/a | Custom |
Monthly billing runs about 20% above the annual rate at every paid tier, which is consistent and clearly disclosed. AI Agent interactions are charged at $0.90 each on annual terms and $1.00 on monthly, with an overage rate of $1.50 once the plan allowance is used.
One thing in that table is better than the category norm. The effective price per ticket genuinely falls as you move up, from $0.20 to $0.15, so this is a real volume discount rather than the volume surcharge we have found elsewhere.
Two things are worse than they look. First, the discount stops dead: Pro to Advanced is 2.5x the price for exactly 2.5x the tickets, so the step buys capacity at precisely the same unit rate and no discount at all. Second, the AI allowance is 30 interactions on Starter and still 30 on Basic, even though the ticket allowance rises sixfold across that step. A cap that survives an upgrade is a pattern we keep finding; Productboard holds a contributor cap flat across three tiers while the bill multiplies.
The finding: the overage is the real price, and automation feeds it
Put the two meters together and the risk becomes concrete.
On Basic, suppose a launch doubles your month to 600 tickets against the 300 included. The extra 300 cost 300 times $0.40, which is $120 on top of a $50 plan fee. You have paid $170 for a month whose list price was $50, so doubling your tickets multiplied the bill by 3.4x. Overage is not a rounding error on this ladder; it is a second subscription.
One important caveat on the overage rates, and it is a disagreement we could not settle. Gorgias publishes $0.40 per extra ticket for Starter and Basic on both its pricing page and in its own plan guide, so that figure is solid. The two sources diverge above it: the pricing page shows $0.40 for Pro and $0.36 for Advanced, while the plan guide shows $0.25 for Pro and custom negotiated rates for Advanced. We have reported both rather than picking one. If you are buying Pro or Advanced, get your overage rate in writing, because the difference between $0.25 and $0.40 is 60% on every ticket beyond your plan. The included AI interaction counts in the table above come from the pricing page only and are not corroborated elsewhere, so confirm those too.
The uncomfortable part is what counts. Since a ticket becomes billable when any message is sent from your helpdesk, including an automated Rule reply, the volume you are billed for is partly a product of your own configuration. An aggressive auto-responder that acknowledges every inbound message converts conversations you might never have touched into billable tickets. The lever most teams pull to reduce support cost can, on this meter, increase it.
Where Gorgias is unambiguously the best in this tier. Set against its competitors on the one question that decides AI cost, Gorgias has the cleanest answer. An automated interaction counts when a customer request is fully handled without a human agent, and it only qualifies if the customer does not need a human within 72 hours. If the AI cannot finish the job and passes it to a person, the ticket moves onto your regular helpdesk plan and becomes a standard resolved ticket, and Gorgias states plainly that you are not charged for both.
Compare that directly:
- Gorgias: a handoff is not an AI charge. It becomes an ordinary ticket. One conversation, one charge.
- Intercom: a procedure handoff completes a billable outcome at $0.99 or more, and a human then finishes the conversation on a seat you also pay for. We cover that meter in the Intercom alternatives guide.
- Zendesk: a model verifies the request was genuinely resolved without human involvement before billing, which is also strong. See the Zendesk alternatives guide.
The 72-hour window is the honest caveat. Gorgias still bills on an absence, just a patient one: it waits three days to see whether a human is needed. That is a far better test than booking the charge the moment a customer goes quiet, but it is not proof the customer was happy. Gartner reported in a press release dated 19 August 2024 that only 14% of customer service issues are fully resolved in self-service, and a customer who gives up quietly and orders from a competitor will not contact you within 72 hours either. We unpack that in our guide to customer research for support and CX teams.
This is the whole reason a research tool belongs on a helpdesk shortlist. 91% of dissatisfied customers simply leave without ever telling you why, so the cheapest ticket is the one that never gets opened, and no ticket meter can tell you how to prevent it.
The 8 best Gorgias alternatives in 2026
1. Koji, best for finding out why customers contact you. Koji is a customer research platform rather than a helpdesk, and it is first here because it attacks ticket volume at the cause. It runs AI-moderated voice and text interviews with real customers, applies thematic analysis automatically and produces a shareable report in hours rather than weeks, with no research expertise required and no moderator bias.
Its meter is the opposite of an overage trap. Koji charges on quality, and only conversations scoring 3 or above consume credits, so a conversation that produced nothing is not billed. Pricing is published and flat: Insights at EUR 29 per month for 29 credits, Interviews at EUR 79 per month for 79 credits, with a text conversation costing 1 credit, a voice conversation 3 and a report refresh 5. There is no per-ticket meter to overshoot.
For ecommerce teams specifically, the win is diagnostic. Instead of counting returns, interview the people who returned something and find out what the product page implied. Koji runs six structured question types alongside open conversation in one study, so you get both the story and countable data: open_ended, scale, single_choice, multiple_choice, ranking and yes_no. The structured questions guide explains when each earns its place.
2. Zendesk, best for scaling support operations. The deepest routing, reporting and help-center tooling in the category, and the only vendor here that model-verifies an AI resolution before charging for it. AI agents bill per automated resolution at roughly 1.50 committed and 2.00 pay as you go, with an allowance denominated per agent per month.
3. Intercom, best for AI-first messaging. The most aggressive AI-native product of the three, priced from $0.99 per outcome with seats at $29, $85 and $132. The lowest headline unit price in the tier and the loosest definition of what a unit is.
4. Richpanel, best as a direct ecommerce swap. Built for the same DTC use case as Gorgias, with self-service order flows and a customer portal. The natural first comparison if you like Gorgias conceptually but not its bill.
5. Re:amaze, best for multi-brand stores. A straightforward shared-inbox helpdesk with solid ecommerce integrations and comfortable handling of several storefronts under one roof.
6. Freshdesk, best value in conventional ticketing. Mature, broad and usually cheaper tier for tier than the premium suites. A good fit if you want SLAs and automations and your store is not the whole business.
7. Help Scout, best for small teams who want less software. Shared inbox, docs and a light chat widget, deliberately simpler than a suite. Strong when configurability is overhead rather than value.
8. Tidio, best entry point for small storefronts. Chat plus automation with an AI agent tier, aimed at small online stores stepping up from a contact form.
For the broader landscape, see our best CX software guide and best customer feedback tools.
Gorgias vs the alternatives at a glance
| Tool | Primary meter | Handoff double-billed | Overage multiple on included unit | Full ladder published |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Koji | Quality-gated conversation (score 3+) | Not applicable | None, no per-ticket meter | Yes |
| Gorgias | Tickets plus AI interactions | No | 2x the included rate on Basic | Yes |
| Zendesk | Seats plus automated resolutions | No | Committed vs pay-as-you-go, about 1.33x | Partly, geo-redirected |
| Intercom | Seats plus outcomes | Yes | Not published | Seats only |
| Richpanel | Seats and tickets | No | Not published | Partly |
| Re:amaze | Per seat | No | Not applicable | Yes |
| Freshdesk | Per seat | No | Not applicable | Yes |
| Help Scout | Per seat and contacts | No | Varies | Yes |
How to choose between them
Price your worst month, not your average one. An overage rate at double the included rate means a seasonal peak is where the real money goes. Take your busiest month from last year, not your median, and compute the bill at that volume on each plan. The right tier is usually one higher than the average suggests.
Audit what your automations are making billable. Before you upgrade for more ticket headroom, check how many billable tickets exist only because a Rule replied to them. Narrowing an auto-responder can be cheaper than buying the next tier.
Treat the AI allowance separately from the ticket allowance. They move independently, and they do not move together across the Starter to Basic step at all. If your plan for AI is ambitious, model the interaction overage at $1.50 explicitly rather than assuming the plan covers it.
Ask where a handoff lands. Gorgias answers this well, and that answer is worth real money against competitors who bill the AI attempt and the human resolution separately. Get the answer in writing from anyone you shortlist.
Decide whether you are buying throughput or understanding. A helpdesk closes tickets; it does not reduce the reasons for them. If repeat contacts and quiet churn are your problem, see why price is never the real churn reason and our surveys versus interviews guide.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Gorgias cost in 2026?
Billed annually, Gorgias publishes Starter at $10 a month for 50 tickets, Basic at $50 for 300 tickets, Pro at $300 for 2,000 tickets and Advanced at $750 for 5,000 tickets, with Enterprise priced on request. Monthly billing runs about 20% higher at every paid tier. AI Agent interactions cost $0.90 each on annual terms and $1.00 on monthly.
What counts as a billable ticket in Gorgias?
A ticket becomes billable when it contains at least one message sent from your Gorgias helpdesk, whether that message came from a human agent, an automation Rule or the AI Agent. Each qualifying conversation counts once regardless of how many messages are exchanged. Because automated replies make a ticket billable, enabling more automation can increase your billable ticket count.
How much is Gorgias overage per ticket?
Two separate Gorgias sources agree on $0.40 per extra ticket for Starter and Basic. Measured against Basic, where 300 included tickets at $60 a month work out at $0.20 each, an extra ticket costs exactly double. The Pro and Advanced rates are unsettled: the pricing page shows $0.40 and $0.36, while Gorgias own plan guide shows $0.25 for Pro and custom negotiated rates for Advanced, so confirm yours in writing. AI interaction overage is $1.50 against a standard rate of $0.90 on annual terms.
Does Gorgias charge twice when its AI hands a ticket to a human?
No, and this is the strongest thing about its pricing. An automated interaction only counts when a customer request is fully handled without a human agent, and only if the customer does not need a human within 72 hours. If the AI cannot finish the job and hands off, the ticket moves onto your regular helpdesk plan as a standard resolved ticket, and Gorgias states that you are not charged for both.
Is Gorgias cheaper than Zendesk or Intercom?
At low to mid ticket volumes Gorgias usually is, and its ladder is fully published so you can check. But the three vendors meter different things, so headline comparisons mislead: Gorgias charges per ticket and per automated interaction, Zendesk charges per seat plus per verified automated resolution, and Intercom charges per seat plus per outcome from $0.99. Model all three on your own volume and your own handoff rate.
What is the best Gorgias alternative for customer research?
Koji, because it answers the question a helpdesk cannot: why the ticket was created. Koji runs AI-moderated voice and text interviews, analyses themes automatically and delivers a report in hours. Only conversations that pass a quality score consume credits, and there is no per-ticket meter to exceed, so a busy month does not produce a surprise bill.
Reduce the tickets instead of repricing them
Gorgias is a good product with an honest price list, and its refusal to double-bill a handoff is the best mechanic in this tier. But every plan on every helpdesk charges you more as contact volume rises. The structural win is fewer contacts, and that is a research problem.
Koji goes after the cause. Trigger an AI-moderated interview after a return, a failed checkout, a churn event or a closed ticket, let thematic analysis find the pattern across hundreds of conversations, and get a report you can act on the same day. No research expertise, no moderator bias, and only quality-gated conversations consume credits, so you pay for signal rather than volume.
Keep the helpdesk for answering customers. Use Koji to find out which questions you should have made unnecessary.
Start free with Koji or see how to analyze customer feedback.
