Introduction: Looking for Shopify Inbox Alternatives

Are you outgrowing Shopify Inbox? While Shopify Inbox offers a free and easy-to-use tool, it often falls short when dealing with high traffic, managing large volumes of customer enquiries, or handling multiple stores and extensive product catalogues.

Or perhaps you're simply exploring alternatives because, let’s face it, AI is here and helping shopify stores be more efficient so it makes sense to look around.. If you’re seeking more sophisticated ways to manage customer interactions, tools that incorporate AI-driven features, like automating messaging, handling enquiries across multiple stores, and scaling with your growing business, they are worth considering.

In this article, we’ll break down the pros and cons of Shopify Inbox based on real user reviews from the Shopify App Store and explore popular alternatives like Tidio, Gorgias and KorticalChat. These tools are chosen for their popularity and AI features that can take your customer service to the next level by handling repetitive enquiries, providing personalised recommendations, and engaging customers 24/7. 

We’ll compare the features, pricing, and summarise the reviews to help you find the right solution that grows with your business. 

What is Shopify Inbox?

Shopify Inbox is a free messaging tool designed by Shopify to help store owners communicate with customers in real-time. As part of Shopify’s ecosystem, it integrates seamlessly into your Shopify store, making it easy to set up and manage. Shopify offers this tool to all its users, regardless of the plan, making it an accessible option for small business owners or one person operations.

It’s popular for its simplicity and ability to instantly connect with customers. You can also set up automated messages to handle questions about shipping times, returns policies, or other routine topics, allowing you to offer basic customer support even when you’re unavailable. 

Pros of Shopify Inbox

To give you the most up-to-date insights, we’ve compiled and summarised the most recent 2024 Shopify app store reviews. Here are the key reasons of using Shopify Inbox:

1. Free and Easy Setup to Communicate with Customers

Shopify Inbox is completely free and very simple to set up, making it easy for store owners to start communicating with customers almost instantly. It integrates seamlessly with Shopify, allowing real-time customer interaction. Store owners appreciate how quickly they can respond to inquiries, providing immediate support when it matters most, even when they are away from their desk.

"Makes this one-man operation nearly available all the time, even when I'm not sitting at my computer or at the office."

"It's really quick and easy for customers to make contact and for you to provide a response. A notification pings on my phone as soon as I have a message."

2. Quick Replies and Order Tracking

Shopify Inbox allows you to set up automated replies for frequently asked questions, such as shipping times or return policies, ensuring customers receive quick responses even when you’re not available. Additionally, the tool supports order tracking, making it easier for customers to check the status of their orders through automated responses.

"It's great for chatting with our customers in real-time. The app shows FAQs to the customers, and we can use quick answers for the most common ones."

3. Multi-Device Access 

Shopify Inbox is accessible across multiple devices, which means you can manage customer communications on the go. This is particularly useful if you’re handling everything yourself or need to stay responsive while away from your computer. 

“I like that I can have the app on multiple devices so customers never get missed.”

4. Basic Insights

Shopify Inbox provides simple but helpful insights, like showing you what’s in a customer’s cart and how long they’ve been a customer. This information can help you tailor your responses and better engage with potential buyers.

"Love how you can see what the customer has in their cart. So helpful and how long they have been our customer for. This is very good."

Cons of Shopify Inbox

While Shopify Inbox offers simplicity and basic functionality for smaller operations, users have pointed out several limitations. Based on the most recent reviews, here are the key drawbacks:

1. Struggles with High Traffic and Spam Overload

As your store gains traction and starts to receive high traffic, the sheer volume of customer messages can quickly become unmanageable. Shopify Inbox notifies you every time someone initiates a chat, and when combined with spam, this overload makes it nearly impossible to keep up. Constant notifications—especially mixed with spam and genuine enquiries—can overwhelm your team, making it hard to prioritise important conversations.

"No way to filter through spam gets through, 4 out of 5 emails are spam. And it all goes to your team to respond."

2. Challenges with Managing Multiple Stores

Managing multiple Shopify stores becomes difficult with Shopify Inbox. It doesn't allow you to stay logged into multiple stores at once, forcing you to switch between accounts to manage inquiries from each store separately. This inefficiency can lead to missed messages and slow response times, particularly when handling a large volume of enquiries.

"If you have multiple stores, this app is unusable."

3. Challenges in Efficiently Managing Communications as You Scale

When you're starting out, it’s common to rely on a variety of free tools to handle different parts of your business. You might use one tool for customer chat, another for email marketing, and something else for customer support. This works fine when you're a small business and managing fewer customer interactions.

But as your store grows, your team size, customer base, and the number of communication channels expand. Using these disconnected apps becomes:

• Costly: Free tools often require upgrades or premium plans as you scale, increasing expenses.
• Inefficient: Switching between systems to manage support, inquiries, or marketing wastes time and can lead to missed opportunities.
• Fragmented: Lack of integration across tools makes it hard to track who’s handling what, especially with a mobile team trying to stay on top of communication across different channels.

This is why store owners naturally migrate to a more comprehensive CRM system. CRMs like HubSpot, Klaviyo, or Zendesk allow you to consolidate customer data, support tickets, marketing automation, and team communication into one platform, streamlining workflows as you scale. 

4. Buggy Platform Leading to Lost Leads 

While Shopify Inbox is a free tool, the trade-off is a lack of stability and performance, which is crucial as your store grows. Some users have reported that by the time they receive a customer's message, the customer has already left the store, making it impossible to provide timely responses. For businesses handling a large volume of enquiries, this kind of unreliability can become a significant pain point.

"By the time a customer's message comes through to me, and I try to respond, they have left the store."

Alternatives to Shopify Inbox 

The latest AI models are groundbreaking, they sound so human that they can take over tasks that customer service reps used to handle. From automating repetitive tasks, to providing personalised recommendations, AI powered solutions can significantly reduce the workload of your team while improving the overall customer experience.

That’s why for the alternatives, we’ve focused on AI chatbots that excel in automation and personalised engagement. After all, you’re looking to offer more efficient and scalable support. It’s important to note that while CRM systems are essential for managing customer relationships, the solutions we’ll discuss here are focused specifically on AI Chatbots. 

We’ll compare features, pricing, and summarise reviews of leading tools to help you find the right solution that grows with your business.

Tidio: AI-Powered Customer Service Platform for Shopify

Tidio is a comprehensive customer experience platform designed for Shopify stores, offering live chat, AI chatbots, and ticketing systems to enhance customer service and boost sales. It integrates seamlessly with Shopify, providing store owners with tools to communicate with customers in real-time, automate responses, and manage inquiries across multiple channels.

Pricing

Pros of Tidio

1. Attractive Entry-Level Pricing 

Tidio offers an appealing starting point for businesses new to customer support tools. With a free plan and affordable paid options, it's particularly attractive for small businesses and startups.

"Excellent App. It's free for small businesses."

2. New AI Chatbot Feature

Tidio's AI chatbot, Lyra, is a new feature. It automates responses, manages customer queries, and filters out spam, significantly reducing manual workload.

"This conversational AI significantly simplifies my daily tasks, effectively filtering out unwarranted messages from spammers and persistent salespeople attempting to promote their products in my store."

3. Seamless Shopify Integration and Communication Management 

Tidio integrates effortlessly with Shopify stores, allowing users to manage both email and chat communications from a single platform. This integration streamlines customer support processes and enhances overall efficiency.

"I love Tidio. It's very easy to setup and use on my Shopify store. I was able to help a couple customers via live chat who had concerns about their orders. It's really quick and easy for customers to make contact and for you to provide a response."

Cons of Tidio

1. Pricing Transparency Issues 

While the entry-level pricing is attractive, some users report a lack of transparency in pricing structures, leading to unexpected costs as usage increases. Additionally, the AI chatbot Lyra’s credits can be quickly depleted due to spam messages, further driving up costs unexpectedly.

"The pricing is confusing. It has three tiers, and what's shown on the UI, you end up paying around $100 for chatbots."

2. Expensive Scaling 

As businesses grow and require more advanced features or higher usage limits, costs can escalate quickly, making Tidio less affordable for scaling operations.

"Way Way Way too Expensive and does not work well. You need about $500/mo to run this app."

3. Limited Ticketing System 

While Tidio excels in chat and email support, some users find its ticketing system lacking, especially when handling a high volume of enquiries across multiple channels.

"We've been using Tidio for years but I'm looking for a better solution as we continue to scale. Our staff is familiar with using Tidio for chat, but they're still handling all enquiries via email rather than an organised ticket system."

Summary

Tidio offers a great suite of customer service tools, particularly appealing to small businesses and startups with its user-friendly interface and AI capabilities. Though users appreciate the automated responses through its AI chatbot Lyra, drawback is that a large portion of queries tend to be spam and the cost of using AI for response becomes high. 

Gorgias: Specialised E-commerce Customer Service Platform

Gorgias is a customer service platform specifically designed for e-commerce businesses, with a strong focus on Shopify integration. It offers a unified helpdesk that combines various communication channels, including email, live chat, phone, and social media, into a single interface. Gorgias stands out for its centralised omnichannel support and deep integration with Shopify's ecosystem.

Pricing 

Pros of Gorgias 

1. Centralised Omnichannel Support 

Gorgias consolidates all customer communication channels (email, chat, social media, phone) into a single platform, streamlining support management and providing a unified view of customer interactions.

"I'm very happy to have email, form, chat, phone, WhatsApp and overall I would say we are nailing customer support / sales as a result with Gorgias."

2. Specialised E-commerce and Shopify Integration

Gorgias is built specifically for e-commerce, offering deep integration with Shopify that allows for a unified view of customer interactions and order details. This specialisation sets it apart from general customer service platforms.

"Gorgias is the only option that specialises in ecommerce and the Shopify integration is great. All incoming communications become tickets no matter which channel they come from."

3. Scalability for Growing Businesses 

Gorgias is particularly well-suited for larger e-commerce operations or businesses experiencing rapid growth. Its robust ticketing system and automation features efficiently handle high volumes of customer enquiries across multiple channels, making it an ideal solution as businesses scale.

"Three months and hundreds of tickets later, I am fairly happy with Gorgias. We switched from another major support desk a few years ago and have never looked back. We really value the ability to easily integrate so many of our platforms into Gorgias."

Cons of Gorgias 

1. Expensive Scaling and Unclear Pricing Structure 

As businesses grow and require more tickets, Gorgias can become significantly more expensive. The pricing structure is often reported as confusing or misleading, leading to unexpected costs.

"Great if you like $500+ a month. It is not $60 as advertised."

2. Better Suited for Larger, Established Businesses 

Gorgias' full potential is realised with larger teams and more complex setups, which can be a drawback for smaller businesses or those with limited resources. It may be challenging for companies without dedicated customer service departments or those needing more flexible, on-the-go solutions.

"If you are a by the hour worker who never leaves their desktop computer then maybe it's a decent app but if you are on the go and work virtually from your phone at times then it is the absolute worst, the app has a 1.7 star rating in the apple store's website."

3. Technical Complexity and Steep Learning Curve 

While Gorgias offers powerful features, it can be technically challenging to fully utilise. The onboarding process and learning curve can be overwhelming for some users.

"The onboarding experience was indeed non-existent. My sales rep was good in presenting the features but when it came to the more technical explanations, onboarding and helping me move forward it was unfortunately a bit underwhelming. As such, it did hold me back a month or two even trying to figure Gorgias out."

Summary 

Gorgias stands out as a powerful, e-commerce-focused customer service platform, offering deep Shopify integration and comprehensive omni-channel support. It's particularly well-suited for established businesses with dedicated support teams and higher ticket volumes. However, its strengths come with considerations: potentially high costs as businesses scale, a steep learning curve, and less flexibility for smaller or on-the-go operations. 

KorticalChat 

KorticalChat is an AI chatbot that builds upon the foundation laid by Shopify Inbox, offering the familiar benefits of Shopify integration, while introducing advanced AI capabilities to automate customer support and sales queries. It's AI offering is more cost effective than Tidio and Gorgias and more powerful as an AI first company.

Pricing 

Pros of KorticalChat

1. Easy Setup and Seamless Shopify Integration 

KorticalChat offers the same quick and easy setup process that Shopify store owners appreciate in Shopify Inbox, integrating with a couple of clicks  to your store and providing real-time access to order information and product details. 

Automatically can answer questions 24/7, in seconds, around order tracking, FAQs, returns, product questions and more. Frees up store owners and customer service teams, to focus on growing the business faster.  

"The set-up process was was really easy and straightforward. We have a couple of calls with the team explaining exactly what it was that we wanted from the system. It was really easy for your team to take that on board and turn into a system for us."

2. Advanced Conversational AI with Cost-Effective Automation 

Building on Shopify Inbox's automated responses, KorticalChat takes it further by providing conversational AI capable of handling complex queries with context-aware, empathetic answers. It doesn't just deliver facts, it responds like a human, understanding tone and emotion to offer more personalised and compassionate responses, such as empathising with concerns over delayed orders or offering reassurance.

KorticalChat's innovative approach uses the right AI model for each message type, ensuring cost-effective handling of high message volumes without compromising on quality. This means businesses can automate responses at scale without worrying about spiralling costs or degraded performance when dealing with spam or high traffic.

"Let’s be real—every business gets complaints! Order queries are the bane of my life because customers keep asking where their order is and venting their frustration. It’s tough dealing with those complaints, so it’s amazing that the AI steps in and takes the heat. It’s always friendly and empathetic, and the best part is, I don’t have to handle it!" 

"It’s impossible to get rid of spam messages but at least with KorticalChat, I no longer have to deal with them! I am also not limited to 50 AI messages like other chatbots so it’s amazing!" 

3. AI-Powered Product Discovery, Drives Sales

KorticalChat transforms the traditional product search experience into an intuitive, conversation-based discovery process. Customers can describe products in their own words, just as they would to a shop assistant. The AI interprets these natural language queries, understanding context and customer intent, to search the entire product catalogue efficiently and recommend the product.

"I have a lot of inventory on my site, so it's great that the AI can help customers find exactly what they’re looking for and answer their questions. I can’t always be online to help, so it’s brilliant that the AI can recommend products and even handle technical queries.”

4. Actionable Insights for Continuous Improvement 

KorticalChat provides valuable analytics on customer interactions, uncovering patterns and trends in user behaviour. These insights allow you to identify frequently asked questions, understand customer pain points, recognise gaps in product information, and spot emerging trends in customer interests.

“I super love that I get to know what people are looking for on my site! Helps with my ad and social campaigns!” 

Cons of KorticalChat

1. Not a Standalone Ticketing Solution 

While KorticalChat offers powerful AI-driven customer interaction capabilities, it doesn't replace your existing ticketing or email system. However, it's designed to integrate seamlessly with your current CRM setup.

"We wanted a solution that could act like a real person, providing quick, accurate answers without the long wait for an email reply. It doesn’t handle every question, but when it can’t, the AI automatically sends us an email with the full conversation. It even formats it into a clear script, so we can easily pick up where it left off and respond to the customer. It streamlines the whole process and keeps everything connected with our email system, making follow-ups much smoother."

2. AI Limitations in Complex Scenarios 

While KorticalChat's AI is highly advanced, it can't completely replace human customer support agents, especially for complex or highly nuanced situations. However, it can significantly automate many support tasks, allowing your human team to focus on more complex issues.

"I don’t have time to handle customer support all day, but KorticalChat saves me so much time and effort. Even though queries still get escalated to me, at least I don’t have to deal with them all!"

Summary

KorticalChat offers a significant evolution in customer support and engagement for Shopify stores. It maintains the ease of setup and integration of Shopify Inbox while introducing advanced AI-driven features that enhance the entire shopping experience.

Its conversational AI provides empathetic, context-aware responses, efficiently handling high message volumes without spiralling costs. The AI-powered product discovery feature transforms how customers find products, potentially boosting sales and satisfaction. Additionally, the actionable insights derived from customer interactions enable continuous improvement of your e-commerce strategy.

While KorticalChat isn't a complete replacement for human support or a standalone ticketing system, it’s a helpful tool for Shopify store owners looking to improve their customer service. It ensures there’s always an assistant available to answer questions whether product search or common questions, which helps prevent missed opportunities. 

It's particularly useful for scaling businesses that need an easy, cost effective and automated customer support solution.

Conclusion

As Shopify stores grow and face increasing customer service demands, many are finding that Shopify Inbox, while free and user-friendly, has limitations in handling high traffic volumes and multiple stores. This article explores the AI-powered alternatives: Tidio, Gorgias, and KorticalChat. Each offers advanced features beyond basic customer support, including automated responses and deep Shopify integration. Tidio stands out for its attractive entry-level pricing with comprehensive customer support tool offering, Gorgias for its e-commerce specialisation, comprehensive omni-channel support, and unified ticketing system (though at a higher price point), and KorticalChat for its advanced conversational AI and cost-effective automation. 

While these alternatives come with their own considerations, such as potential scaling costs or learning curves, they offer solutions to the common pain points of Shopify Inbox users. They provide more sophisticated tools for managing customer interactions, automating responses, and gaining actionable insights. The choice between them depends on factors like business size, growth trajectory, and specific needs for AI-powered features and integrations.

If you don’t want to deal with building and setting-up the chatbot yourself, we’re here to help. Let us take care of the setup and optimisation, so you can focus on running your business while we handle the AI-powered customer support for you. Get in touch with the form below to learn how we can streamline your customer service!