Gorgias alternative: what each tool is built to do
Gorgias is an ecommerce helpdesk with an AI Agent on top. It gives your team a shared inbox for email, live chat, SMS, voice and social channels, lists more than 150 app integrations on its pricing page, and is built around Shopify. Gorgias Inc. is based in San Francisco.
Sondercase is AI customer service for online stores, and only for the part of support that follows a purchase: “where is my order?”, returns, warranty claims, cancellations, address changes and product or policy questions. It connects your existing support inbox plus WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook, reads live order and tracking data, replies fully automatically if you want, and fully prepares the matching store action for you to approve. Sondercase is built in Dresden by people who run their own online stores.
If you are weighing Sondercase as a Gorgias alternative, the differences sit in six places.
Gorgias pricing vs. Sondercase pricing
Gorgias bills per billable ticket. In Gorgias’ own definition, that is a conversation on any Gorgias channel that includes a message from a human agent, a Rule or AI Agent. The plans on the official pricing page (USD, as of 7 October 2026):
- Starter: $10 per month for 50 tickets
- Basic: $50 per month billed annually, $60 monthly, 300 tickets
- Pro: $300 annually, $360 monthly, 2,000 tickets
- Advanced: $750 annually, $900 monthly, 5,000 tickets
Extra tickets cost $0.40 on Starter and Basic, $0.36 on Pro and Advanced. AI Agent is billed per automated interaction; Gorgias’ pricing FAQ gives $0.90 on an annual contract and $1.00 on a monthly contract (the comparison table on the same page shows $0.85 to $1.00 depending on plan), and $1.50 per interaction above the plan allowance. Voice and SMS are paid add-ons.
Sondercase has flat monthly plans in euros. Every plan includes all features and your whole team; only the volume differs:
- Starter: €39 per month, 150 AI drafts and 15 store actions (about 100 resolved cases)
- Growth: €89 per month, 750 AI drafts and 75 store actions (about 400 resolved cases)
- Scale: €199 per month, 2,500 AI drafts and 250 store actions (about 1,500 resolved cases)
Billed yearly, the same plans cost €29, €69 and €159 per month.
Worked example. A store with 400 support conversations a month, monthly billing, assuming every conversation counts as a billable ticket. On Gorgias Basic that is $60 for 300 tickets plus 100 × $0.40 = $40, so $100 per month for the helpdesk alone. Adding AI Agent on Basic costs another $30 per month for 30 automated interactions; every automated interaction above that costs $1.50, and each one also counts as a billable ticket. The more your AI handles, the higher that line gets. On Sondercase Growth, about 400 resolved cases fit into €89 per month, AI drafts and store actions included, with no per-ticket and no per-resolution fee. The full cost logic of a support case is in what a support ticket really costs.
Store actions: order edits vs. the whole case
Gorgias AI Agent can run native Shopify actions: cancel an order, edit the shipping address, remove or replace an item, reship for free and add an order note. Gorgias’ documentation ties cancellation, address edits and item removal to unfulfilled orders, and notes that cancellations and address changes stay in Shopify and are not passed on to 3PL or fulfillment apps. The free reship action is meant for orders lost in transit or arriving damaged. Its list of pre-built AI Agent actions for Shopify contains no action for refunding a fulfilled order or creating a return label. Further steps come from connected apps such as Loop Returns, ShipStation or Recharge, or from custom HTTP actions you build.
Sondercase covers the case after the parcel has left: refunds, cancellations and address changes in Shopify and WooCommerce, return cases with a returns portal and return labels, and replacement orders. Replies can run fully automatically, for example for order status questions, and you decide that per category. Every store action comes fully prepared, with a confidence score and the reasoning behind it; one click from you and it runs in your store. Uncertain cases go to a human instead of being guessed.
WooCommerce: AI Agent on Shopify only
Gorgias’ compatibility table (updated 23 January 2026) lists AI Agent and Order Management (self-service) as supported on Shopify and not supported on WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento or Prestashop. WooCommerce stores can connect the Gorgias helpdesk, but the AI does not act there.
Sondercase treats both shop systems the same: it reads WooCommerce orders, tracking and customer history live and fully prepares refunds, cancellations and address changes in WooCommerce for your approval. More on the WooCommerce integration.
Returns built in vs. returns through apps
Gorgias’ Order Management lets customers of Shopify stores request a return from chat, the help center or a contact form; your team then approves and processes it, or the flow redirects the customer to the Loop Returns portal. With Loop Returns, AI Agent can also send a deep link to the Loop returns portal and the return shipping status. We found no native return-label creation on Gorgias’ official pages.
In Sondercase, returns are part of every plan: the customer gets a link to the returns portal and their return label through it, and the refund or exchange comes fully prepared and runs in your store once you approve it. The statutory right of withdrawal is treated as a floor your own return policy cannot go below. Details on automated returns.
Channels: broad helpdesk vs. inbox and messengers
Gorgias covers more channels: email, live chat, SMS, voice, social, WhatsApp, TikTok Shop and contact forms. AI Agent on Instagram and Facebook Messenger is in open beta according to Gorgias’ documentation.
Sondercase concentrates on where post-purchase questions arrive: your support email inbox, WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook, all four in every plan. Replies go out in the customer’s language and in your brand’s tone.
Data protection: US helpdesk vs. German provider
Gorgias’ privacy notice says personal information may be processed and stored inside the United States and overseas. Its data processing agreement uses EU Standard Contractual Clauses. According to Gorgias’ security FAQ for AI Agent, data is kept on Google Cloud Platform on the server closest to the merchant, and merchants in the EU get a server in the EU. Its subprocessor list names Google Cloud Platform with the locations United States, European Union and Australia, and further subprocessors such as OpenAI in the United States.
Sondercase is a German company. Data is processed in the EU wherever a provider allows it; third-country processors such as the AI model are covered by EU Standard Contractual Clauses or the Data Privacy Framework. The data processing agreement is concluded automatically at onboarding, and every subprocessor is named in the privacy policy.
Testing Sondercase without risk
You do not have to migrate anything to compare. Enter your store domain in the live demo: Sondercase analyses your store and resolves a real support case using only public store data, without signup. After that, the 14-day trial needs no credit card. You start in draft mode, where no reply goes out without you, and switch replies to automatic once they are right. Refunds are always released with your click. Plans can be cancelled monthly, with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Conclusion
Gorgias is a strong choice for large Shopify-only teams that want a broad helpdesk with live chat, voice and more than 150 app integrations. If your store runs on WooCommerce, or you want returns, refunds and order changes handled in one flow for one flat euro price, Sondercase is the Gorgias alternative built for that. For a wider overview, see Gorgias alternatives compared.