Shopify Inbox alternatives for Australian stores, with AUD prices

The best Shopify Inbox alternative for most small Australian stores is Matey if you want an AI chatbot built and kept accurate for you, Tidio if you want the cheapest one you set up yourself, and Crisp if you want a cheap shared chat inbox for a small team. Stores with a support team should look at Gorgias or Re:amaze.

Below are all five, with their prices in Australian dollars, who each one suits, and its drawbacks, plus what Shopify's 2026 Inbox update changed. Matey builds custom AI chatbots for Australian online stores, so we're one of the options, and we'll say when Shopify Inbox is still the better call. For what every kind of chatbot costs, see chatbot cost.

What are the best Shopify Inbox alternatives?

The best Shopify Inbox alternatives for Australian stores are Tidio, Matey, Crisp, Gorgias, and Re:amaze.

Prices are from each company's own pricing page, on monthly billing where it's offered, converted at the Reserve Bank's rate of about A$1.43 to the US dollar (RBA). Matey's price is in Australian dollars. Crisp and Re:amaze don't name a currency on their pricing pages; they're overseas companies billing in US dollars, so we've treated their prices that way.

1. Tidio

Tidio is a live chat app with an AI chatbot called Lyro, and it's the cheapest Shopify Inbox alternative with AI that you set up and train yourself. It works on Shopify and most other website builders.

Best for: small stores with a short list of common questions and an owner who likes tinkering.

Drawbacks: you do the setup, the training, and the fixing. The AI is billed by the conversation, so your busiest month costs the most.

Price: the Free plan covers 50 conversations with your team a month and 50 Lyro AI conversations, once. Starter is US$29 a month (about $41) for 100 conversations. Lyro on its own is US$39 a month (about $56) for 50 AI conversations, US$210 (about $300) for 300, and US$700 (about $1,001) for 1,000.

2. Matey

Matey is the Shopify Inbox alternative for stores that want an AI chatbot built for them, around the way the store actually runs. A matey reads your whole catalogue every night, checks stock before it recommends anything, shows products with their prices in the chat, and adds them to the cart.

• Built from your own data. Your catalogue, prices, stock, policies, buying guides, and FAQs, plus the rules your staff know but nobody wrote down.
• You don't train it. We build it, install it, and keep it accurate. Tell us what's wrong and it's usually fixed within a few hours.
• Customised however you want. Its name, its tone, what it never says, and who it hands over to.
• It can keep Shopify Inbox. When a customer needs a person, a matey opens your Shopify Inbox chat with the customer's request already written as the first message, so your team keeps the inbox it knows. It can hand over by email instead.

A first version is usually ready within 24 hours, and a matey works on Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Neto, Magento, Wix, Squarespace, and custom sites.

Best for: stores with a real catalogue, lots of "which one should I buy?" questions, and an owner with no time to train a bot.

Drawbacks: a matey isn't a helpdesk. It doesn't give you an email inbox, look up or refund orders, or answer your Instagram messages. And it isn't free, which Shopify Inbox is.

Price: a flat $149 AUD a month, or $1,490 a year, for stores with under 10,000 products. Stores with 10,000 or more are $249 a month, and catalogues of 25,000 or more are quoted. Every matey is built and installed free, the first month is free, conversations are unlimited, and you cancel with an email.

3. Crisp

Crisp is a shared chat inbox for websites with an AI agent called Hugo, and it's the cheapest Shopify Inbox alternative for a small team that wants one inbox for chat and email. It charges a flat price per workspace, not per person or per chat.

Best for: small teams who want website chat and email in one place, at a price that doesn't grow with every new staff member.

Drawbacks: the free plan has no AI at all, and the AI chatbot comes in on Essentials. Its AI runs on credits billed by usage, and Crisp doesn't publish what one AI answer costs, so a busy month is hard to price in advance.

Price: Free covers 2 seats with no AI. Mini is US$45 a month (about $64) per workspace, with US$5 of AI credits. Essentials, which adds the AI chatbot, is US$95 a month (about $136) with US$25 of AI credits. Past the credits, AI is pay as you go.

4. Gorgias

Gorgias is a helpdesk built for Shopify stores, with an AI Agent that answers and resolves customer questions, and it's the Shopify Inbox alternative for stores with a support team. It brings chat, email, SMS, and social messages into one inbox, with the customer's Shopify orders beside every ticket.

Best for: stores with two or more people on support and an inbox full of "where's my order?"

Drawbacks: it's built for a support team, so a one-person store pays for rules and views it never uses. Its AI is charged per automated interaction, in US dollars.

Price: Starter is US$10 a month (about $14) for 50 tickets, or US$40 (about $57) with the AI Agent and 30 automated interactions. Basic is US$60 (about $86) for 300 tickets, or US$90 (about $129) with AI. Each automated interaction past your allowance is US$1.50 (about $2.15).

5. Re:amaze

Re:amaze is a helpdesk for online stores, now owned by GoDaddy, with an AI agent included in its per-seat plans. It's the cheaper like-for-like Shopify Inbox alternative for a store that wants a proper support inbox.

Best for: small teams that need email, chat, and social messages in one inbox and find Gorgias too dear.

Drawbacks: it's priced per team member, so the bill grows with your team, and the AI allowance is small.

Price: Basic is US$29 a team member a month (about $41), with 5 AI resolutions a member included, then US$0.85 (about $1.22) for each extra one. Paying yearly saves 10%.

What changed in the Shopify Inbox update?

Shopify rebuilt Inbox in 2026 around its own AI, the Inbox agent, and changed how customers start a chat. That's why so many stores went looking for a Shopify Inbox alternative this year.

• The AI Inbox agent arrived. It answers from your catalogue, policies, pages, and Knowledge Base, recommends products, adds them to the cart, and looks up orders for signed-in customers. It's off until you turn it on, and it only works on stores that use Shopify's new customer accounts.
• The pre-chat form went. From July, the new chat stopped asking visitors for a name and email before they wrote in. One merchant on the Shopify Community forum warned other stores after a customer wrote in about what could have been a $500 sale and left no way to reach her. Shopify support told merchants it was a privacy change.
• Sign-in took its place. On new customer accounts, a customer has to sign in with a six-digit email code before they can message your staff, if you require it. Reviewers on the Shopify App Store said casual shoppers won't do that to ask one question.
• The contact form came back as a setting. Shopify later added a way to collect contact details again, under Sales channels, Inbox, Overview, then Chat settings in your admin.

Why do Australian stores look for a Shopify Inbox alternative?

Australian stores usually look for a Shopify Inbox alternative because it lost them customers' contact details, and because its AI only knows what's in Shopify.

• Missed follow-ups. A question that arrives after you've knocked off is no use if the customer left no email.
• It hands over a lot. When the Inbox agent can't help, it passes the chat to your staff. If nobody's around, the customer gets your store's email address and has to write in themselves.
• It only knows Shopify's data. Buying guides on your blog, a hire calendar, sizing your staff know by heart, or the rule nobody wrote down all sit outside what it reads.
• You can't take your chats with you. Shopify told a merchant in an App Store review reply that Inbox has no way to export chat history.
• It's Shopify's chat, not yours. Customers see a notice that the chat is powered by Shopify, and Shopify's help centre says it can't be removed or changed.

Is there a free Shopify Inbox alternative?

Yes, but none of them give you free AI for long. Tidio's Free plan covers 50 conversations with your team a month, and its 50 free AI conversations are a one-off. Crisp's Free plan gives you 2 seats of live chat with no AI at all.

Shopify Inbox is still the only option here with an AI agent that's free every month. If free is the priority, fix its contact-details setting before you switch.

How much does a Shopify Inbox alternative cost?

A Shopify Inbox alternative costs from free to over $700 a month for the same busy store, depending on how it charges for AI. Here's what it costs a one-person store whose AI answers 300 chats a month, on each tool's monthly billing, from its own pricing page.

The numbers move with your volume, your plan, and the exchange rate, so run your own busiest month through each pricing page before you choose. Black Friday, Christmas, and EOFY are the months that count. Per-answer pricing is cheap when you're quiet and dear when you're busy.

Who should stay on Shopify Inbox?

Stay on Shopify Inbox if you get a handful of chats a week, your questions are simple, and someone's around to answer what the AI hands over. Shopify Inbox is the better call when:

• Free matters most. Nothing else here gives you an AI agent for nothing, every month.
• Your answers are all in Shopify. Your product pages, policies, and FAQ page already say everything customers ask.
• Customers sign in with Shop. The Inbox agent can personalise recommendations from a shopper's sizes and past orders, and look up their orders once they sign in.
• You answer chats on your phone. The Shopify Inbox app for iOS and Android is a good, simple way to reply on the go.

If you stay, get customers' contact details back. In your Shopify admin, go to Sales channels, then Inbox, then Overview. Under Chat settings, click Require customer sign-in (new customer accounts) or Customer pre-chat form (legacy accounts), and turn it on.

Matey vs Shopify Inbox: what's the difference?

Matey and Shopify Inbox both answer shoppers with AI, but Shopify Inbox is a free chat app you set up yourself, and a matey is a custom AI chatbot built and kept accurate for you.

You don't have to choose one or the other. Plenty of stores keep Shopify Inbox as the inbox their team answers and put a matey in front of it. Here's a matey on a made-up outdoor store, putting a first camping kit together for a family on a budget:

How do you switch from Shopify Inbox without losing chats?

Switch from Shopify Inbox by setting up the new chat first, then turning Inbox off in two places, and only uninstalling it once your open chats are done. Our guide on how to turn off Shopify Inbox has every step, including hiding it on phones.

1. Set up and test the replacement before you touch Inbox, so your store is never without chat.
2. Save the chats you need. Inbox has no export, so copy or screenshot anything you want to keep.
3. Turn off the chat button. In your Shopify admin, go to Online Store, click Edit theme, select App embeds, turn off Online store chat, and click Save.
4. Turn off the Inbox agent. Go to Sales channels, then Inbox, and turn the Inbox agent off.
5. Uninstall it when you're ready. Go to Settings, then Sales channels, click the three dots beside Inbox, then Uninstall.

If your new chat is a matey, you can keep Shopify Inbox for hand-overs. Do step 4 so Inbox's AI stays out of it, skip steps 3 and 5, and we hide Inbox's own button so the two never sit on top of each other.

What does the Privacy Act mean for a Shopify Inbox alternative?

Any Shopify Inbox alternative holds your customers' personal information: their names, emails, order numbers, and whatever they type. If your business is covered by the Privacy Act, you're responsible for personal information you send overseas, so ask every tool where it stores your chats (OAIC).

Shopify Inbox is no exception. Shopify's help centre says Inbox agent chats are processed to generate answers and to improve the Inbox agent over time, and that stores with their own privacy policy should say so in it.

How do you choose a Shopify Inbox alternative?

Use the Matey chat switch test: seven checks before you leave Shopify Inbox or sign up for anything else.

1. Read your last 50 chats. Count how many were before the sale (sizing, stock, which one) and how many after (where's my order, returns).
2. Count the ones that went nowhere. How many customers left no email, or got handed over with nobody there?
3. Price your busiest month in Australian dollars. Black Friday, Christmas, or EOFY, not an average week.
4. Ask it a question only your staff know. "Does the size 10 run small?" or "Will this fit a 2019 Hilux?" If it can't answer, it can't sell.
5. Message it at 9pm. See what happens when it needs a person and nobody's around.
6. Check who does the setup and the fixing. You, your team, or the people who built it.
7. Ask where your chats are stored, and whether you can take them with you if you leave.

If you're weighing up a helpdesk too, our guide to Gorgias alternatives compares them in AUD. Want to see a matey answer real shopping questions? Ask the matey in the bottom right corner of this page.