Gorgias pricing and plans for 2026: helpdesk from $10 to $900 a month by ticket volume, the optional AI Agent from $27, agent seats, and what 5 people pay.
Key takeaways
- Gorgias sells two ladders from one page. Helpdesk alone runs $10 (Starter, monthly only), $50, $300, and $750 a month on annual billing. Switching on the pricing page's AI Agent toggle (off when the page opened on October 14, 2026; on by default in September) lifts those stickers to $40, $77, $471, and $1,227.
- Two meters decide the real bill. A ticket is billable when anything replies from the helpdesk, including a Rule's automatic reply, at $0.36 to $0.40 each past your plan's bucket. With AI Agent on, automated interactions bill at $1.50 each past a prepaid allowance, and Gorgias's docs count a thread as automated if no human touches it within 72 hours.
- Gorgias does not price per agent, but its own plan guide says Starter and Basic come with three agent seats, and Pro and Advanced take unlimited agents. The bill follows tickets, not people: strong for big rotations on steady volume, expensive for lean teams whose volume spikes.
- The archives show the helpdesk base has barely moved in five years: Basic was $60 a month for a roughly 300-ticket bucket in 2021 and is $60 monthly today. What changed is the AI line on top: in September the page showed it switched on by default, and by mid-October the toggle opened switched off again.
- For comparison, Drag runs $12 to $24 a seat billed yearly ($16 to $30 monthly), with AI included from $18 and no ticket meter: a busy month does not change the seat bill, and only teams that lean on the AI hard top up credits.
Table of contents
The short version: Gorgias prices the conversation, not the person. The helpdesk ladder runs $10 to $750 a month on annual billing (Starter, monthly only, through Advanced), each plan a bucket of "billable tickets" with a $0.36 to $0.40 per-ticket meter past it. On top of that sits the AI Agent, an optional line that adds $27 to $477 a month on annual billing ($30 to $530 monthly) plus its own meter: $1.50 per automated interaction past a prepaid allowance. Agents are not priced per head, though Gorgias's plan guide gives Starter and Basic three agent seats. On a metered model the sticker is a starting estimate, not a price: the bill tracks how busy your inbox was, and for an ecommerce brand that peaks exactly when cash flow is most watched.
Everything below was read from Gorgias's own pricing page and billing documentation on September 2, 2026 and re-checked on the live pricing page on October 14, 2026, with the historical acts cited to archived captures.
What Gorgias costs in 2026
The page prices every plan as a Helpdesk line plus an AI Agent line, with a toggle controlling whether the AI line is included. On October 14, 2026 the page opened on monthly billing with the toggle off, so the first numbers a visitor sees are helpdesk-only; on September 2 it opened with the toggle on. Both ladders, at October 2026 prices (unchanged since September):
| Plan | Helpdesk only | With AI Agent toggled on | Included per month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter (monthly billing only) | $10 /mo | $40 /mo | 50 tickets; 30 automated interactions with AI on |
| Basic | $50 /mo annual · $60 monthly | $77 /mo annual · $90 monthly | 300 tickets; 30 automated interactions |
| Pro ("Most popular") | $300 /mo annual · $360 monthly | $471 /mo annual · $550 monthly | 2,000 tickets; 190 automated interactions |
| Advanced | $750 /mo annual · $900 monthly | $1,227 /mo annual · $1,430 monthly | 5,000 tickets; 530 automated interactions |
Three structural notes. There is no per-seat number anywhere: the page says the helpdesk is "never priced per agent". Gorgias's own plan guide (updated May 14, 2026) is more specific: Starter and Basic come with three agent seats, and Pro and Advanced take unlimited agents. For a brand putting ten people on support rotation on Pro, that is a real economy. Beyond Advanced's 5,000 tickets, a custom Enterprise tier (SSO, audit logs) goes through sales. And the AI Agent allowances price out to 90 cents to a dollar per prepaid automated interaction ($27 for 30 on Basic annual, $171 for 190 on Pro, $477 for 530 on Advanced; $1 each on monthly billing), with overage at $1.50: half as much again as the monthly rate, two-thirds more than the annual one.
The two meters, and Gorgias's own definitions
Billable tickets. Gorgias's billing docs define a ticket as billable "when at least one message in the ticket is sent from your Gorgias helpdesk, whether the message comes from a human agent, AI Agent, or an automatic reply from a Rule." Read that twice: an auto-reply Rule makes a ticket billable. Inbound mail you never answer is free, and so are internal notes and tag changes, but any response, human or automated, starts the meter. Past your plan's bucket, each ticket is $0.40 on Starter and Basic, $0.36 on Pro and Advanced.
Automated interactions. With AI Agent on, the second meter bills when "a customer issue or request is fully handled by AI Agent or another automation feature," under a 72-hour rule: if no human touches the thread within 72 hours of the automation, it counts. Past the allowance, each one is $1.50. The marketing line is "pay only when it resolves a conversation," and the operational translation is that resolution is presumed after three quiet days.
The interaction between the meters deserves a sentence, because it is easy to miss: an AI-resolved thread is both an automated interaction and a billable ticket. Automation does not move work off the ticket meter; it adds a second meter on top of it.
The per-ticket math
| Plan (annual billing, helpdesk only) | Bucket | Effective per ticket, bucket full | Overage per ticket |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter ($10, monthly only) | 50 | 20¢ | 40¢ |
| Basic ($50) | 300 | 17¢ | 40¢ |
| Pro ($300) | 2,000 | 15¢ | 36¢ |
| Advanced ($750) | 5,000 | 15¢ | 36¢ |
Two readings. The average ticket is cheap; the marginal ticket costs more than double the average, so growth is always billed at the top rate. And the bucket only prices out that way when it is full: a Basic store answering 150 tickets pays 33¢ each for the quiet month. Metered pricing punishes both directions, the spike and the lull.
Gorgias pricing, 2021 to 2026: the flat base and the moving default
| Year | Basic sticker | What it bought | Receipt |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | $60 /mo | ~300-350 ticket bucket, banded overage | archived capture |
| 2023 | $60 /mo, $10 Starter floor added | per-ticket overage (~$0.40) replaces bands | dataset act |
| 2026 (June) | $60 /mo base | + $0.40 per-ticket overage | archived capture |
| 2026 (September) | $60 /mo helpdesk-only ($50 annual) | AI Agent toggle, ON by default, lifts the shown sticker to $90 ($77 annual) | live page, September 2, 2026 |
| 2026 (October) | $60 /mo helpdesk-only ($50 annual) | AI Agent toggle off by default; switched on, still $90 ($77 annual) | live page, October 14, 2026 |
The story the receipts tell is unusual for this category: the helpdesk base has barely moved in five years. Basic bought a 300-ticket bucket for $60 in 2021 and buys one for $60 monthly today. What changed is the AI line: in September the page led with Helpdesk plus AI Agent as one combined sticker, toggled on, so the first price a visitor saw was half again the 2021 price with the AI allowance included; by October 14 the toggle opened switched off again. Vendors that never raise the base can still raise the bill; meters and defaults are how.
What a 5-person team pays
A five-person team pays $60 a month on Gorgias Basic if only three of them answer tickets, $360 on Pro if all five do, and $110 on Drag Plus with AI included ($90 billed yearly). Costed on monthly billing, at October 2026 prices. Gorgias's plan price is the team price, but its plan guide gives Starter and Basic three agent seats, so a five-person team where everyone answers tickets is pointed to Pro:
| Setup | 5-person team, monthly |
|---|---|
| Gorgias Basic, helpdesk only (300 tickets, three agent seats) | $60, plus 40¢ per ticket past 300 |
| Gorgias Pro, helpdesk only (2,000 tickets, unlimited agents) | $360, plus 36¢ per ticket past 2,000 |
| Gorgias Pro with AI Agent | $550, plus both meters |
| Drag Starter | 5 × $16 = $80 ($60 billed yearly) |
| Drag Plus, AI included | 5 × $22 = $110 ($90 billed yearly) |
| Drag Pro | 5 × $30 = $150 ($120 billed yearly) |
The honest reading cuts both ways. If only three people answer tickets, Gorgias Basic at $60 covers them; three Drag Starter seats would be $48 ($36 yearly), or $66 on Plus with AI. If all five answer, Gorgias's own plan guide points them to Pro at $360, and Drag Plus at $110 ($90 yearly) is the cheaper route. Add five more people on Pro: Gorgias still costs $360 while Drag Plus reaches $220 ($180 yearly); the lines cross at about 17 people on either billing cycle ($360 against $22 a seat monthly, $300 against $18 yearly). Add a busy month instead: Drag's seat bill does not move, while a thousand extra answered tickets past the bucket cost $360 to $400 in ticket overage, plus $1.50 for each AI-handled thread beyond the allowance. Past that point, headcount growth favors Gorgias's model; volume growth always favors a seat model. Which one describes your next twelve months is the whole decision, and you can model it in the shared inbox cost calculator.
Drag · with Varley
Five people answering, no ticket meter
Drag turns your support Gmail address into a shared inbox: an owner on every email, a warning before two people reply, and response-time reports. Seats from $12, Varley's AI included from $18, and a busy month doesn't change the seat bill. 7-day free trial, no card.
When Gorgias is the right call
An honest paragraph, because the model fits some teams well. If you run a Shopify or ecommerce brand with a large support rotation and moderate, steady volume, unlimited agents on a ticket meter can beat per-seat pricing decisively: on Pro, the twentieth person on the rotation costs nothing more than the tenth. The platform is deeply ecommerce-native (order management inside tickets, revenue attribution, the Shopify ecosystem), and if your automation rate is high and stable, prepaid interactions at roughly a dollar each are at least predictable. The teams that feel the model hardest are lean ones with spiky volume: few seats to amortize, big seasonal peaks, and every spike billed at the marginal rate in the month it happens.
The Drag comparison, plainly
Drag prices the opposite way: $12 to $24 per seat per month on yearly billing ($16 to $30 monthly), with no ticket meter, and with Varley, Drag’s AI, included in the seat from $18. A five-person team on Drag Plus pays $90 a month on yearly billing in November and in February, and tops up AI credits only if it leans on Varley hard; the same team on Gorgias pays by how busy those months were. Drag is a Gmail-native shared inbox rather than an ecommerce helpdesk, so the fit question is real: brands that live in order management may want Gorgias's machinery, and the full Gorgias alternative comparison walks that side. Teams that live in email and want a seat bill that ignores busy months are the case Drag is built for. The 7-day free trial needs no card.
Every archived capture cited on this page comes from our five-year support tool pricing history, where the method and the full vendor set are laid out.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Gorgias cost per month in 2026?
Helpdesk alone: Starter $10 (monthly billing only, 50 tickets), Basic $50 on annual billing or $60 monthly (300 tickets), Pro $300 or $360 (2,000 tickets), Advanced $750 or $900 (5,000 tickets). With the optional AI Agent line switched on, the stickers become $40, $77 ($90 monthly), $471 ($550), and $1,227 ($1,430). Both tickets and AI interactions bill overage past their limits.
What counts as a billable ticket in Gorgias?
Gorgias's docs define it as any ticket where at least one message is sent from the helpdesk, whether by a human, the AI Agent, or an automatic Rule reply. Unanswered inbound mail, internal notes, and tag changes are free. Past your plan's monthly bucket, each billable ticket costs $0.40 on Starter and Basic or $0.36 on Pro and Advanced.
Does Gorgias charge per agent or per seat?
Not per agent: Gorgias's pricing page says the helpdesk is "never priced per agent", and the unit is the ticket. Its plan guide (updated May 14, 2026) adds that Starter and Basic include three agent seats, while Pro and Advanced take unlimited agents. That is the model's genuine strength for large rotations with steady volume, and its cost for lean teams with seasonal spikes, since the bill scales with how busy the inbox was rather than headcount.
Is Gorgias AI Agent required, and how is it billed?
It is optional: on October 14, 2026 the pricing page opened with the AI Agent toggle off (in September it opened switched on). The AI line adds $27 to $477 a month on annual billing ($30 to $530 monthly), prepaying an allowance of automated interactions at 90 cents to a dollar each (30 on Starter and Basic, 190 on Pro, 530 on Advanced). An interaction bills when AI or automation fully handles a thread and no human touches it within 72 hours; past the allowance, each costs $1.50, and the thread still counts against the ticket bucket too.
Co-founder
Building Drag for nearly ten years: shared inboxes, boards, and now the AI and agent layer, all on Gmail, plus HeyHelp for the personal inbox. Writes the honest versions of the comparisons.
