# AeroChat Alternative for Shopify: AI Responses Capped by Plan

> AeroChat caps AI responses on every paid Shopify tier: 500 on Basic, then a $300 minimum credit pack or the next tier up. Arbyn is $99/mo flat, unlimited, or $0 for 150 AI conversations.

Source: https://arbyn.app/compare/aerochat

## How AeroChat charges

Capped AI responses, tiered by plan. $0 for 100 AI responses/mo (Shopify App Store only) up to $349/mo for 5,000, then $699/mo ("Contact Us") for 10,000+. Every paid tier also caps agent seats (3 to 50+) and knowledge-base storage (1GB to 50GB+), and there is no small top-up: the cheapest pre-purchased credit pack is 10,000 AI responses for $300.

AeroChat meters the AI response, not the conversation, and caps it hard by plan: 500 on Basic, 2,000 on Growth, 5,000 on Advanced, before Enterprise starts at $699/mo. Go one response over and the only ways back are a $300 minimum credit pack or the next tier up.

## Where AeroChat beats Arbyn

- AeroChat Basic genuinely undercuts us at low volume. $49 a month for 500 AI responses is cheaper than Arbyn Agent's $99, for a store that stays under that cap. Below that, Arbyn Starter is $0, and we are not going to pretend a comparison at the very bottom of the market favors us.
- More live channels than Arbyn ships today, but only from AeroChat's own Growth tier ($149/mo) up. Instagram DMs and comments, Facebook Messenger, and Telegram are all live now on Growth and above, and WhatsApp is live from their Basic tier ($49/mo). Arbyn is email and on-site live chat right now. WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger are on our roadmap; Telegram is not on ours at all.
- Setup really is fast. Per AeroChat's own FAQ, most stores are live in under 30 minutes, and a Shopify store connects in one click with the catalog syncing automatically.

AeroChat's meter is the "AI response," not the conversation, and they do not publish anywhere what one unit actually covers, whether that is one bot reply or something coarser. We are not going to guess a ratio and dress it up as their number, so the scenarios on this page compare tier boundaries in AeroChat's own unit, at their own published prices, against Arbyn's flat $99. If a store's support runs long, multi-reply threads, each one likely burns more than one "AI response," which would only tighten AeroChat's caps further. We cannot prove that, so we are not claiming it either.
Basic ($49/mo, 500 AI responses) is a real, working plan for a small, low-volume store, and it beats Arbyn Agent on sticker price at that volume. The catch is what happens the moment a store goes one response over: AeroChat's own pricing page has no small top-up. The cheapest pre-purchased credit pack is 10,000 responses for $300, twenty times Basic's entire monthly cap, so in practice the affordable path is a full tier upgrade, not a top-up.

Switch to Arbyn anyway when: your AI response volume has started deciding which tier you're forced onto, or you need the AI to actually cancel the order, issue the refund, apply the discount, send the gift card or reship the order once you approve it, not just report its status.

## Where Arbyn wins

### Flat, at any response volume

Arbyn Agent is $99 a month whether the AI sends ten responses or ten thousand. There is no response cap, no credit pack to buy, and no forced tier upgrade when a busy month runs long threads.

_No credit pack. Ever._

### It acts on the order, not just tracks it

AeroChat's own feature catalog stops at order status: payment, fulfilment, and delivery progress, read-only. Arbyn cancels the order, issues the refund, applies the discount, sends the gift card or reships the order once you approve it, and logs the action to the Shopify order timeline.

_Read-only lookup vs. a logged action._

### Start at $0, no seat count to watch

Arbyn Starter is $0 a month, 150 AI conversations, every feature on, with no agent-seat limit to bump into. AeroChat's cheapest paid plan caps you at 3 agent seats before a $49/mo add-on for five more.

_150 conversations, full features, $0._

## Cost at real volumes

| Scenario | Volume | Their cost | You save with Arbyn |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small team | 600 AI responses/mo | $149/mo | $50/mo |
| Growing DTC | 2,200 AI responses/mo | $349/mo | $250/mo |
| Scale / BFCM | 5,200 AI responses/mo | $699/mo+ | $600+/mo |

Source: [aerochat.ai/pricing](https://aerochat.ai/pricing). Pricing verified July 2026: Free ($0/mo, 100 AI responses, web chat only, Shopify App Store listing only), Basic ($49/mo or $468/yr, 500 AI responses, 3 agent seats, 1GB knowledge base), Growth ($149/mo or $1,428/yr, 2,000 AI responses, 10 seats, 5GB), Advanced ($349/mo or $3,348/yr, 5,000 AI responses, 25 seats, 10GB) and Enterprise ($699/mo minimum, "Contact Us," 10,000+ AI responses, 50+ seats, 50GB+) are all published on AeroChat's own pricing page, and the Free/Basic/Growth/Advanced figures are corroborated on their Shopify App Store listing. The $300/10,000, $1,250/50,000 and $4,000/200,000 pre-purchased AI-response credit packs and the $49/mo five-seat add-on are from the same pricing page. Verified against

## Pricing

- **Arbyn Starter** - $0/month, permanently free. 150 conversations / month. Resets 1st of each month.
- **Arbyn Agent** - $99/month flat, unlimited conversations. Or $990/year (2 months free, saves $198, 17% off).
- **There is no trial.** Billing starts immediately on the Agent plan. The free Starter plan is permanent.
- The conversation cap is the only difference between plans. There is no feature gating.

## Channels

Live today: **support email** and **on-site live chat**. That is the complete list.

SMS, Instagram DMs, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Voice are on the roadmap and are NOT live. Arbyn does not edit orders or change line items. Money-moving actions (cancel, refund, discount, gift card, reship, return) require the store owner's approval, and then Arbyn performs them. Running them fully autonomously is a beta authorization and is in development. Shipping address changes are already autonomous.

## What Arbyn does on a Shopify order

- **Change the shipping address**: Live. Arbyn does this on its own. Arbyn updates the shipping address on the Shopify order itself, inside the conversation, and writes the change to the order timeline.
- **Cancel an order**: Live. You approve it, then Arbyn cancels the order. Anything that moves money waits for the store owner's approval. That is a deliberate control, not a missing feature. Once you approve, Arbyn fires Shopify's order cancellation itself and confirms it to the customer.
- **Issue a refund**: Live. You approve it, then Arbyn issues the refund. Arbyn prepares the refund against the original payment method and sends it to you. On approval it files the refund in Shopify. You can cap the value it is allowed to prepare, per channel.
- **Apply a discount**: Live. Arbyn creates a real Shopify discount and applies it to the cart, handing the shopper a checkout with the code already on it. It can also issue a discount code on an order once you approve it.
- **Send a gift card, or reship an order**: Live. You approve it, then Arbyn does it. Arbyn creates the gift card, or raises the replacement order, in Shopify once you approve.
- **Start a return**: Live. You approve it, then Arbyn opens the return. Arbyn opens the return in Shopify on your approval.
- **Look up a gift card or store-credit balance**: Live. Arbyn does this on its own. "Do I have store credit left?" is a question most support tools answer with a human. Arbyn reads the balance itself, for a verified customer or from the code they give you, and reports the masked card, the balance and the expiry. If there is no card, it says so rather than guessing.
- **Handle a subscription question**: Live. You choose what it does. Arbyn knows which of your products are sold as a subscription, shows that on the product card in the conversation, and sends a subscriber to their subscription management page to pause, skip or cancel. It answers how your subscriptions work from your own knowledge, but it does not read an individual customer's contract, so it will not state their renewal date or status. Most cancels are a customer with product piling up, and the fix is getting them to the page where they can slow the cadence down. Reading the contract itself is on the roadmap.
- **Answer support email and live chat**: Live. Arbyn reads every inbound support email and every chat, works out the intent, pulls the live Shopify context, and replies in your brand voice.

Money-moving actions (cancel, refund, discount, gift card, reship, return) require the store owner's approval, and then Arbyn performs them. Running them fully autonomously is a beta authorization and is in development. Shipping address changes are already autonomous.