Gorgias Alternatives: 8 Help Desks Compared by How They Bill

Gorgias bills the whole account by billable tickets, so the right alternative depends on which meter fits your month. Gorgias Basic is $50 a month billed annually for 300 tickets, and adding agents does not change that figure. Busy months add overage at $0.40 per ticket on Basic, as our Gorgias pricing guide shows. Per-agent help desks such as Zendesk and Freshdesk win when a small team answers a lot of tickets, while Gorgias wins when many people share a modest volume. Re:amaze and eDesk are the closest e-commerce specialists, and Help Scout lets an email-first team start at no cost. Pick the billing model first. Features come second.

Why buyers start looking past Gorgias

The meter is the usual trigger. Every conversation that gets a reply from an agent, a Rule or AI Agent counts once as a billable ticket, and overage runs $0.40 per ticket on Starter and Basic or $0.36 on Pro and Advanced ^[1]. AI Agent adds a second meter: 30, 30, 190 or 530 automated interactions included a month by plan, then $1.50 per automated interaction, and every AI Agent resolution also uses a helpdesk ticket. No published setting pauses the helpdesk at the limit. Bills simply follow volume.

Platform is the second trigger. AI Agent, Shopping Assistant and Order Management work only with a connected Shopify store. Magento 2 needs Pro or higher and has no built-in order actions, BigCommerce starts on Basic, and WooCommerce gets sidebar data only. A store off Shopify gets the helpdesk without the AI order handling that Gorgias leads with. There is also no free plan: the trial runs 7 days, needs no card and includes all features, and Starter at $10 a month is billed monthly only.

Read the review platforms with their bias in mind. Trustpilot reviewers for Gorgias are mostly unhappy customers, so treat that page as a map of complaint themes rather than a trend. Support, billing charges and account access lead the list, which lines up with the ticket and AI meters and with automatic renewal. Fees are non-refundable under the Master Subscription Agreement, except where the law requires or at Gorgias's discretion. The mobile app store ratings rate the phone app, which cannot place calls, not the web helpdesk.

The billing unit matters more than any list price. A seat-priced tool costs the same in a quiet month and a holiday peak, while a ticket meter costs the same whether two people or forty answer. Holiday peaks hit ticket meters. Hiring hits seat meters. Before comparing features, count your agents and your replied conversations for the busiest three months of last year, because those two numbers decide which column wins.

Zendesk and Freshdesk: paying per agent instead

Zendesk

Zendesk charges per agent a month: Support Team is $19 billed annually or $25 monthly, Suite Team $55 or $69, and Suite Professional $115 or $149 ^[2]. Support Team covers email ticketing plus public social channels, with no live chat, messaging or help center; those and voice start on Suite Team, so a Gorgias-like setup begins there. AI agents come in every plan, with 5 automated resolutions per agent a month on Support Team and Suite Team and 10 on Suite Professional. Admins choose between overage and a pause when the allowance runs out. Zendesk's own Shopify app is free and handles orders, refunds and cancellations from the sidebar.

The arithmetic turns on headcount. Five agents on Zendesk Suite Team come to $275 a month billed annually, against Gorgias Pro at $300 a month billed annually for 2,000 tickets, by our arithmetic. Six Zendesk agents reach $330, so the per-agent model wins up to five agents at that volume and loses above it. At 300 tickets or fewer, Gorgias Basic at $50 a month billed annually costs less than one Suite Team seat at $55. Zendesk's included AI resolutions narrow the gap, since Gorgias AI Agent is an extra line. The trial lasts 14 days with no card, there is no free plan or mid-term downgrade, and Zendesk's charges are non-refundable except in the cases its Customer Agreement lists. Our Gorgias vs Zendesk comparison covers the rest.

Freshdesk

Freshdesk charges per agent a month: Growth is $19 billed annually or $23 monthly, Pro $55 or $66, Enterprise $89 or $107. Plain Freshdesk has no live chat. Live chat, WhatsApp, Instagram and SMS sit in Freshdesk Omni, where Growth is $29 billed annually or $35 monthly, Pro $79 or $95, and Enterprise $119 or $143. Every agent on an account is on the same plan. The Freddy AI Agent gives new customers 500 sessions once per account, then costs $49 per pack of 100 sessions, and unused purchased sessions do not carry over. When sessions run out the AI agent stops answering, whereas Gorgias bills overage instead.

Ten agents on Freshdesk Omni Growth cost $290 a month billed annually, just under Gorgias Pro at $300, and eleven reach $319, by our arithmetic. The trial runs 14 days with Enterprise features and no card. Freshdesk has no self-serve free plan, though Customer Success can move a small account of up to 2 agents into its Free program. Our Freshdesk alternatives guide maps the rest of that field.

E-commerce specialists: Re:amaze, eDesk and Richpanel

Re:amaze

Re:amaze charges per team member a month: Basic is $29, or $26.10 billed annually, Pro $49 or $44.10, and Plus $69 or $62.10 ^[3]. Its Starter plan is a flat $59 a month for unlimited team members, capped at 500 responded conversations a month. Basic covers one brand, while Pro and Plus allow unlimited brands. AI Agent includes 5, 10 or 20 resolutions per user a month by plan, then $0.85 per additional resolution, and the page still marks its AI as beta. Billing is month-to-month with no cancellation fees, and the 14-day trial includes Plus features without a card.

Starter is the closest thing to Gorgias's meter at a flat price. At 500 conversations a month, Re:amaze Starter stays at $59 while Gorgias Basic billed monthly reaches $140 with 200 tickets of overage, by our arithmetic. Each vendor defines its own unit, so compare how both count a reply before you trust that gap.

eDesk

eDesk charges per agent a month: Essential is $45 billed annually or $55 monthly, Growth $99 or $125, Professional $129 or $159, and Enterprise is custom. It connects Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento, WooCommerce and PrestaShop alongside marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay and Walmart, with 1, 5, 10 or unlimited connected stores by plan. AI Agent sits in every plan at $0.99 per outcome, charged once per ticket and never when it does nothing. Essential lacks auto-responders and SLA timers. The 14-day trial needs no card but runs in Safe Mode, where messages are not stored or sent, and eDesk gives no refunds for cancellations or downgrades. It suits a marketplace seller better than a Shopify-only brand.

Richpanel

Richpanel prices its help desk per agent, and every subscription runs on a yearly contract. Its migration wizard imports data from Gorgias, Zendesk, Help Scout and Kustomer, which lowers the switching cost. Richpanel claims guaranteed savings of 30% against Zendesk or Gorgias. Its own order-management table still marks the cancel-order, edit-order and returns flows as coming soon, so check which order actions work today. Ask for a written quote before you sign the yearly term.

Help Scout, Kustomer, Gladly and the CRM suites

Help Scout is listed at $25 for Standard, $45 for Plus and $75 for Pro per user a month, with annual billing shown as 16% off ^[4]. Its Free plan covers 5 users, one inbox and one Docs site. User caps are 25 on Standard and 50 on Plus, while Pro is unlimited with a minimum of 10. The AI add-on costs $0.75 per resolution, new accounts get three months of free unlimited AI Answers, and a monthly spending cap switches AI off once it is hit. Phone and SMS work only through integrations. The 15-day trial on Standard and Plus needs no card, and non-profits and B Corporations qualify for discounts.

Kustomer and Gladly publish no prices. Kustomer quotes after a two-minute assessment, bills voice, SMS and WhatsApp pay as you go, and lists a 99.9% uptime SLA with credits plus a HIPAA add-on. Gorgias states no percentage uptime SLA. Gladly's pricing page is a demo request, pitching one AI across service and shopping. HubSpot Service Hub, Salesforce Service Cloud and Zoho Desk are the CRM-led route. They suit a company that already runs sales on one of them. Gorgias is a help desk, not a CRM, and HubSpot reaches it through a partner-built HTTP integration, so many brands keep both rather than replace one.

Comparing AI meters and leaving cleanly

Compare AI costs on overage prices only, after each allowance runs out. Gorgias charges $1.50 per automated interaction, and the same interaction also uses a helpdesk ticket. Zendesk charges $2.00 per automated resolution pay-as-you-go or $1.50 committed. Re:amaze charges $0.85 per extra resolution, eDesk $0.99 per outcome and Help Scout $0.75 per resolution. Freshdesk sells packs of sessions, a different unit. At 300 extra resolutions a month, Gorgias costs $450 plus 300 tickets and Zendesk pay-as-you-go costs $600, by our arithmetic.

Leaving Gorgias takes planning. Annual plans renew automatically and need written notice at least 30 days before the term ends, so set a reminder 45 to 60 days ahead. There is no mid-term downgrade. Request your data export within 45 days of termination, because Gorgias deletes customer data within 90 days. Help Center articles cannot be exported directly and need a support request.

The bottom line

Choose a Gorgias alternative by how your costs grow. If your ticket count climbs faster than your headcount, a per-agent desk such as Zendesk or Freshdesk Omni tends to cost less, up to roughly five or ten agents at Gorgias Pro's volume. If many people handle modest volume on Shopify, Gorgias's account price and order actions are hard to beat. Re:amaze Starter fits a small team that wants a flat bill, eDesk fits marketplace sellers, and Help Scout fits an email-first team that wants to start free.