Gorgias vs Zendesk: The Real Month-to-Month Prices

2026-09-03 · Laurentiu Dobra · 17 min read · Comparisons

Gorgias bills per billable ticket and never per agent; Zendesk bills per agent and meters AI per automated resolution — so no like-for-like number has ever been published for the pair. Here are both vendors' real month-to-month prices, read 3 September 2026, plus the toggle defaults that make the cards read low.

Table of Contents

• The short answer
• What do Gorgias and Zendesk cost month to month?
• Why can't you compare Gorgias and Zendesk price for price?
• What does the Gorgias pricing page show you by default?
• What does the Zendesk pricing page show you by default?
• What does a 3-agent store at 300 tickets a month pay?
• Where does Gorgias genuinely win?
• Where does Zendesk genuinely win?
• Where does Wallu fit, and what does it not do?
• Which one should you pick?
• Frequently asked questions

The short answer

Short answer: Gorgias is the better buy for an ecommerce store with a small support team and a lot of order-status traffic, because it bills per billable ticket and never per agent — 3 user seats on Starter, 500 on every plan above it. Zendesk is the better buy once the operation is large or complicated: routing, multibrand help centres, voice, workforce management and compliance tooling that Gorgias does not attempt, paid for with a per-agent meter. Month to month at list price, three agents handling roughly 300 tickets sit at $90/mo on Gorgias Basic with the AI Agent on, against $207/mo for three Zendesk Suite Team seats; take the same team to twenty agents and Suite Team is $1,380/mo while the Gorgias bill still moves only with ticket volume. The decision is not a feature bake-off — it is a headcount-versus-ticket-volume calculation.

Every price below was read from the vendor's own pricing page on 3 September 2026, and every figure states its billing cycle. Where a vendor does not publish a number, this page says so rather than guessing.

What do Gorgias and Zendesk cost month to month?

Month-to-month list pricing only, so the rows are directly comparable.

Two gaps worth naming. Zendesk defines an automated resolution but does not publish the per-resolution overage rate, offering a "pay-as-you-go option" instead, so nobody can tell you what a Zendesk AI overrun costs. Gorgias publishes its overage rates on the card but no Enterprise price at all.

Why can't you compare Gorgias and Zendesk price for price?

Because the two products meter different things, and no like-for-like number has been published for the pair.

Gorgias bills per billable ticket, defined on its own page as "a conversation started on any Gorgias channel that includes a message from a human agent, a Rule or AI Agent… counts as one billable ticket regardless of the number of messages sent or received in the thread." Its summary line is blunt: "Helpdesk scales from 50 to 5,000 tickets a month, never priced per agent." A second meter sits on top for AI.

Zendesk bills per agent seat, metering AI separately per automated resolution: "you pay only for customer requests that were successfully resolved by the AI agent, without any escalation."

Three consequences decide the whole comparison:

• Your Gorgias bill is flat in headcount and moves with volume. Zendesk is the reverse. Hire two seasonal staff on Gorgias Basic and the invoice does not change; do it on Suite Team and it is $138/mo more, month to month.
• The AI units are not interchangeable. Zendesk counts only conversations that end without escalation; Gorgias counts the interaction. Any table that sets those side by side is comparing two different things.
• The AI allowances scale differently. Gorgias grants a fixed pool per plan (30 interactions on Starter and Basic, 190 on Pro, 530 on Advanced). Zendesk grants them per agent — 5 each on Support Team and Suite Team, 10 on Suite Professional, 15 on Suite Enterprise. Three Suite Team agents share 15 a month; Gorgias Basic gets 30 regardless of who is logged in.

What does the Gorgias pricing page show you by default?

Gorgias applies two defaults at once, and they compound. The billing toggle loads on Annual, as most do. But a second toggle, "Add AI Agent", is on at page load. So the Pro card on first view reads $471/mo — the annual-commitment, AI-included effective rate, billed as "$5,652 billed annually". Month-to-month with AI included, the same plan is $550/mo: a reader who touches neither control sees a number $79/mo below what they would pay without committing to a year.

Three further details competitor comparisons routinely miss:

• Annual means twelve months paid upfront. Gorgias's FAQ: "Monthly plans are billed on a recurring monthly basis, while annual plans are billed upfront for the 12 months." Pro's annual rate is not $471 a month; it is $5,652 on day one.
• Starter has no annual option at all. The card reads "Monthly billing only" in both toggle positions, and the price does not change when you select Annual.
• Gorgias contradicts itself on the AI unit price. Its FAQ says interactions are "$0.90 each on annual plans or $1.00 on monthly plans", its comparison table lists Advanced at $0.85 per automated interaction, and the Advanced card's own arithmetic is $477 for 530 interactions on the annual cycle — $0.90. Get the rate confirmed in writing before signing at that volume.

There is no free plan. The trial is 7 days, all features, no card required.

What does the Zendesk pricing page show you by default?

Zendesk's toggle also loads on annual, though its cards label the cycle honestly — "agent/month paid yearly" versus "paid monthly" — which is better disclosure than most. The first number you see on Suite Team is still $55, and the month-to-month rate is $69; on Suite Professional it is $115 seen against $149 month-to-month. Annually billed, Support Team is $19, Suite Team $55 and Suite Professional $115 per agent per month.

Four details that change the maths:

• Copilot gets no annual discount. The card renders "$50 agent/month paid yearly", but the monthly and annual values are both $50. The label is misleading here; the price is the same either way.
• Contact Center's monthly rate is unpublished. The annual rate is $83 agent/month billed annually; the monthly field carries no value. Do not let anyone divide $83 by 0.8 and quote the result.
• Suite Enterprise + Copilot is sales-assisted. The card says "Talk to Sales" and the number is deliberately withheld.
• A Suite Growth tier exists in the page data but is not shown as a card — $115 agent/month paid monthly, $89 billed annually, 10 automated resolutions per agent. Only four cards render. If Growth is what you want, ask for it by name and verify it is still sold.

The Workforce Engagement bundle is $65 agent/month paid monthly, $50 billed annually. There is no free plan; the trial is 14 days on Suite Professional.

What does a 3-agent store at 300 tickets a month pay?

Month to month, list price, no annual commitment:

Gorgias is the cheaper full-suite desk here precisely because there are three people rather than one — Zendesk's ticketing-only Support Team is cheaper still at $75/mo, but it is not the same product. At a single agent it flips: Suite Team is $69/mo month-to-month against Gorgias Basic's $90/mo. At two agents Zendesk is $138 and Gorgias is still $90, so the crossover sits between one and two seats.

A tier up, the crossover moves. Gorgias Pro is $550/mo month-to-month with AI on (2,000 tickets, 190 automated interactions). Zendesk Suite Professional at three agents is $447/mo month-to-month and only passes Gorgias Pro at four agents ($596/mo). Against Suite Team, Gorgias Pro becomes the cheaper option from about eight agents ($552/mo). These are not like-for-like feature sets — Suite Professional carries reporting and routing depth Gorgias Pro does not, and Gorgias Pro carries 500 seats and native ecommerce ticket data Suite Professional does not — but they are the real month-to-month numbers.

If you prepay, Gorgias Basic is $77/mo effective ($924 billed annually) with AI on, Pro $471/mo effective ($5,652 billed annually), Advanced $1,227/mo effective ($14,724 billed annually).

Where does Gorgias genuinely win?

Shopify-native support. Order, refund and return data lives inside the ticket rather than in a browser tab beside it, and support activity carries revenue attribution. If your agents' day is "where is my order", "can I change the size", "process this return", that context is the product.

It never charges per agent. Starter includes 3 user seats; every plan above it includes 500. A store that wants its warehouse lead, its founder and three seasonal temps all in the helpdesk pays the same as a store with one agent. On a per-agent product that decision is a line item every month.

AI is on every plan, including the $40/mo month-to-month entry: 30 automated interactions on Starter and Basic, 190 on Pro, 530 on Advanced. And the overage rates are published — $0.40/ticket on Starter and Basic, $0.36 on Pro and Advanced — so you can model a bad month.

Where it costs you: no free plan and only a 7-day trial. The ticket meter cuts both ways, so a viral product or a shipping delay pushes you into overage, and 50 tickets on Starter is a small allowance. Annual is a full twelve-month prepay. And Gorgias is not a general-purpose service desk; if your support is not ecommerce, most of what you are buying is irrelevant.

Where does Zendesk genuinely win?

Scale and operational depth. Past roughly twenty agents the question stops being "what does a ticket cost" and becomes "how do we route, staff, measure and audit this". Skills-based routing, multibrand help centres, voice and contact centre ($83 agent/month billed annually), workforce management and QA ($65 agent/month paid monthly, $50 billed annually) and compliance tooling are all things Zendesk sells and Gorgias does not.

The cheapest branded entry for pure ticketing at Basic-equivalent volume. Support Team at $25 agent/month paid monthly ($19 billed annually) undercuts Gorgias Basic and everything above it for a one- to three-person desk that only needs a shared queue — three agents come to $75/mo against Gorgias Basic's $90/mo. It does not undercut Gorgias Starter: that is $10/mo helpdesk-alone or $40/mo with the AI Agent on, flat whatever your headcount, so at two agents Support Team is $50/mo against Starter's $40/mo. The trade on Starter is a 50-ticket monthly cap; the trade on Support Team is that it is ticketing only, not the full Suite.

Breadth and reporting. Zendesk is the default other tools build against, and its reporting and API surface goes deeper than an ecommerce-specific desk needs to. Its trial is 14 days against Gorgias's 7.

Where it costs you: the per-agent meter is unforgiving as you grow, Copilot adds $50/agent/month with no annual discount, the per-automated-resolution overage rate is not published anywhere on the pricing page, Enterprise pricing is withheld, and the ecommerce context Gorgias gives you natively is integration work here.

Where does Wallu fit, and what does it not do?

Wallu solves a narrower problem than either product above. It answers repeat questions automatically across eight channels, from your own knowledge base, with a knowledge-base-only mode that stops it inventing answers, and human handover when it cannot help. Pricing is flat and month-to-month: from $4.99/mo at entry, $19/mo Starter, $49/mo Pro. No seat meter, no ticket meter, no resolution counter.

For the three-agent, 300-ticket store above, Starter at $19/mo is 4.7x under Gorgias Basic's $90/mo and roughly 11x under Zendesk Suite Team's $207/mo at three seats. A tier up — Gorgias Pro $550/mo, Suite Professional $447/mo at three agents, both month-to-month — Wallu Pro is $49/mo. The gap exists because Wallu deflects repetitive questions in front of your desk rather than replacing the desk.

What it does not do:

• It is not a Shopify-native ticket desk. No order, refund or return objects inside the conversation, no revenue attribution on support. If that context is why you are shopping, Gorgias is the answer and this is not.
• There is no free tier. Wallu's trial is 7 days on the $4.99/mo Mini plan. Neither Gorgias nor Zendesk has a free tier either (7 and 14 days of trial respectively), so if a permanently free plan is the requirement, none of these three qualify and you should look at products built that way, such as tawk.to, whose core platform is free with its own branding on the widget.
• The ecosystem is smaller than Zendesk's marketplace or Gorgias's ecommerce catalogue, and WooCommerce sits on Assist Pro rather than the entry plan.
• There is no enterprise tooling. No voice or contact centre, no workforce management, no multibrand help centre, no skills-based routing tier. Past twenty agents with compliance requirements, that is Zendesk's territory.

The honest use case is a store whose volume is mostly repeat "where is my order" traffic, that wants those answered automatically at a fixed price, and that is happy to leave the human desk where it is.

Which one should you pick?

• Shopify store, small team, order-status heavy, several people in the inbox: Gorgias.
• One or two agents who just need a shared queue: Zendesk Support Team at $25 agent/month paid monthly, accepting that it is ticketing only.
• Twenty-plus agents, or voice, multibrand, WFM or compliance: Zendesk. Nothing in the Gorgias range addresses these.
• Volume that spikes unpredictably while headcount is stable: favour the per-agent meter. Headcount that changes while volume is steady: favour the per-ticket meter.
• Mostly repeat questions and a tight budget: a flat deflection layer such as Wallu at $19–$49/mo, with your existing desk left in place.
• Before signing any annual deal: Gorgias annual is twelve months upfront, and its own page quotes both $0.85 and $0.90 per automated interaction at Advanced. Get it in writing.

Frequently asked questions

is gorgias cheaper than zendesk

It depends on headcount, not volume. Three agents on Gorgias Basic is $90/mo month-to-month with AI on, against $207/mo for three Suite Team seats. At one agent Suite Team ($69/mo) is cheaper. Zendesk Support Team at $25 agent/month paid monthly undercuts Gorgias Basic at one to three agents, but it is ticketing only — and it does not undercut Gorgias Starter, which is $10/mo helpdesk-alone or $40/mo with AI, flat, capped at 50 tickets a month.

does gorgias charge per agent

No. Gorgias's pricing page states the helpdesk "scales from 50 to 5,000 tickets a month, never priced per agent." Starter includes 3 user seats; Basic, Pro and Advanced each include 500.

how much is gorgias per month

Month to month with the AI Agent toggle on as the page loads it: Starter $40, Basic $90, Pro $550, Advanced $1,430. Helpdesk alone with AI off: $10, $60, $360 and $900 per month. Enterprise is a custom quote.

why does gorgias show $471 for pro

Because the page loads with two defaults applied at once — the Annual toggle and an "Add AI Agent" toggle that is on. $471/mo is the annual-commitment effective rate, billed as $5,652 upfront for twelve months. Month-to-month with AI included, Pro is $550/mo.

what is a billable ticket in gorgias

Gorgias defines it as "a conversation started on any Gorgias channel that includes a message from a human agent, a Rule or AI Agent… counts as one billable ticket regardless of the number of messages sent or received in the thread." One thread is one ticket, however long it runs.

what is an automated resolution in zendesk

Zendesk's unit for AI billing: "you pay only for customer requests that were successfully resolved by the AI agent, without any escalation." Allowances are per agent per month — 5 on Support Team and Suite Team, 10 on Suite Professional, 15 on Suite Enterprise.

does zendesk have a free plan

No. Zendesk offers a 14-day trial on the Customer Service Suite Professional plan and asks you to contact sales to trial another plan. Gorgias has no free plan either; its trial is 7 days with no card required.

how much is zendesk per agent per month

Month to month at list: Support Team $25, Suite Team $69, Suite Professional $149 per agent. Billed annually those are $19, $55 and $115. Suite Enterprise + Copilot is not published. Copilot is $50 agent/month on either cycle, on top of the seat.

gorgias vs zendesk for shopify

Gorgias for most Shopify stores under about twenty agents: order, refund and return data inside the ticket, revenue attribution on support, and no charge for adding staff. Zendesk once you need routing, voice, multibrand help centres, workforce management or compliance controls — at that size the per-agent cost is the smaller problem.

cheapest alternative to gorgias and zendesk

For answering repeat questions at a flat price, Wallu starts at $4.99/mo, with Starter at $19/mo and Pro at $49/mo month-to-month, across eight channels with knowledge-base-only mode and human handover. It is not a Shopify-native ticket desk and has no free tier — the trial is 7 days on Mini, so it fits alongside a helpdesk rather than instead of one.