Freshdesk stacks a seat licence and an AI session pack on one bill. Arbyn charges $99, flat.
The seat licence runs $19 to $107 per agent per month. Freddy AI is bought separately, in packs, at $49 per 100 sessions, and the 500 they include are once per account, ever. We will start with the part that does not flatter us: for a small team that wants human ticketing and no AI, Freshdesk is genuinely cheaper than Arbyn, and we say so plainly below.
The real bill
What you’d actually pay.
Three real scenarios at three real volumes, using Freshdesk's published 2026 pricing and the automation rate their own team recommends. Arbyn is $99 flat at every one.
This is the case where Freshdesk beats us and we are not going to bury it. Their rate: Growth is $23 per agent per month billed monthly, $19 billed annually. Our arithmetic: four people billed monthly is $92, and five people billed annually is $95. Both are under Arbyn's $99. If human ticketing for a handful of people is the job you are hiring for, buy Freshdesk. The next step up breaks it in each case, five people monthly is $115 and six people annually is $114, but that is not the point. At this size they are cheaper and you should know it from us rather than from your invoice.
Three people on Pro billed monthly, and 500 Freddy AI sessions in the month once the one-time 500 are gone. Their rates: $66 per agent per month, and $49 per 100 sessions. The assumptions are ours: three people, the Pro tier, and sessions sold in whole packs, so 500 is five packs. Freddy AI Copilot, if you want an assistant for your human team, is another $35 per person per month billed monthly and is not counted above. Arbyn is $99, unlimited conversations, unlimited seats, nothing metered.
Peak season is when the session meter runs hardest. Same three people on Pro billed monthly, 1,000 sessions in the month. Their rates, our assumptions. To be fair to them: Freshdesk publishes no overage rate and no automatic surcharge. You buy packs, and their words are only "Once exhausted, you need to buy additional sessions based on your requirements." They never publish what happens to the AI at zero sessions, so neither do we. What they do publish is that the packs expire: "The validity corresponds to your payment cycle." Arbyn is $99 in November and $99 in February.
Verified July 2026, read first-party on their own pages in the same session this was written. Seat licence, from the pricing page's own toggle data: Growth $23 per agent per month billed monthly and $19 billed annually, Pro $66 and $55, Enterprise $107 and $89. The page shows the annual number by default. Freddy AI Copilot: $35 billed monthly, $29 billed annually, per agent, a second per-seat charge stacked on the seat licence. The AI meter is quoted verbatim: "First 500 sessions included. $49 per 100 sessions", which is $0.49 a session, on top of the seat licence and not instead of it. The session definition is theirs: "an Email AI Agent session is defined as a 72-hour window starting from the customer's first email. All AI responses within that window count as a single session, regardless of the number of replies." The 500 are a one-time grant: "This is limited to once per account." Pack expiry is theirs: "The validity corresponds to your payment cycle." Freshdesk Omni is a separate product with its own price list (Growth $35 monthly / $29 annually, Pro $95 / $79, Enterprise $143 / $119) and the same AI meter. The scenario assumptions are ours: the number of people, the tier, and that the one-time 500 sessions are already spent. Every rate in them is theirs. Freshdesk has no Shopify App Store listing, so this page publishes no rating or review count for them, and Freshmarketer's is a different product's and is not borrowed here. Verified against freshworks.com/freshdesk/pricing.
Pricing model decoded
One seat licence. Then you buy the AI in packs.
Freshdesk's pricing table reads like a normal per-seat plan, and it is one. The AI is the part that is not on it. Freddy AI Agent is metered per session and sold in packs at $49 per 100, on top of the seat you already bought, and the 500 sessions they include are granted once per account for the life of the account. Freddy AI Copilot is a separate, second per-seat charge. And chat, social and AI Agent Studio itself live in Freshdesk Omni, a different product with a different price list.
The AI meter is a pack, and the crossover is a pack boundary. Their rate is $49 per 100 sessions, sold in whole packs. Our arithmetic on their rate: 200 sessions is two packs, which is $98, one dollar under Arbyn's $99. The 201st session needs a third pack, which is $147. So the AI crossover lands at about 200 sessions a month and it is a step, not a smooth line. Above it: 300 sessions is $147, 500 is $245, 1,000 is $490. Every one of those still has $19 to $107 per person per month sitting underneath it, and $29 to $35 per person on top of that if you want Copilot. In fairness to them, a session is a 72-hour email window and not a reply, so 200 sessions is not 200 replies. That unit is genuinely generous and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
The 500 included sessions never come back. Their words: "We offer 500 sessions with Pro and Enterprise plans to try out Freddy AI agents. This is limited to once per account. Once exhausted, you need to buy additional sessions based on your requirements." On Freshdesk Omni the same grant covers Growth, Pro and Enterprise. It is a one-time grant for the life of the account, not a monthly allowance. Arbyn's $0 Starter carries 150 AI conversations every calendar month and resets on the 1st, so it reads 150, 300, 450, 600 by month four. Their 500 beats our 150 in month one and is overtaken during month four. Then never again.
Freddy AI Copilot is a second charge on the same seat. $35 per agent per month billed monthly, $29 billed annually, stacked on the seat licence you already bought, with a footnote adding "billed annually for all Copilot features". It is a genuinely useful assistant for your human agents and Arbyn does not sell one. It is also the third number on an invoice that started as one.
Chat, social and the AI actions are a different product. Freshdesk Omni has its own price list: Growth $35 per agent per month billed monthly and $29 annually, Pro $95 and $79, Enterprise $143 and $119, with the same AI meter, "First 500 sessions included. $49 per 100 sessions". Their Actions Library doc states the prerequisite plainly: "Your account must be on Freshdesk Omni or have AI Agent Studio enabled." So the AI actions are not in the product you buy at $19 to $107 a seat.
Their own docs say the confirmation gets skipped on email. A human agent in the Freshdesk sidebar can genuinely view orders, view order status, cancel an order and issue a full or partial refund with control over quantities, shipping charges and restocking, and cancel is disabled once payment is made and the items are fulfilled. That doc names nothing else: no discount codes, no gift cards, no reships, no returns, no order editing. For the AI, no Freshworks page enumerates the Shopify actions it ships with, and their Actions Library doc names Shopify only as an example provider, so anything past order lookup, cancel and refund is a workflow you build with their no-code API Action block. And then the same doc says: "Because there is no live conversation, the workflow does not prompt for confirmation interactively - confirmation blocks are skipped for email agents", followed by "Ensure high-impact operations in email workflows have appropriate safeguards at the API layer." Arbyn's one-click store-owner approval on every money-moving action is built in and cannot be skipped, and cancel, refund, discount, gift card, reship and return ship as real Shopify mutations with no build step.
Side by side
Feature for feature. Honestly.
Where Freshdesk and Arbyn actually differ. Not marketing checkboxes, just real features that work today, as of 2026.
| Capability | Arbyn$99 flat | Freshdesk |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Flat $99/mo | Two meters: a per-agent seat licence, plus Freddy AI sessions bought in packs at $49 per 100 |
| Cost predictability | Fully flat | The seat line is flat and forecastable. The AI line is packs you buy up front, and unused packs expire with your payment cycle |
| Unlimited conversations | Yes | Human conversations, yes, if you buy the seats. AI sessions, no |
| Unlimited AI resolutions | Yes | No. $49 per 100 AI sessions, after 500 that are granted once per account, ever |
| Email + chat + IG + FB | Email + chat, IG/FB soon | Email on Freshdesk. Chat, social and WhatsApp need Freshdesk Omni, a separate product with its own price list. Broader than Arbyn either way |
| Acts inside Shopify | Yes, in-thread | A human agent can view orders, issue a refund and cancel an order from the sidebar. AI actions need Omni or AI Agent Studio, and no Freshworks page names the Shopify actions their AI ships with |
| Replies in your voice | Voice Fingerprint | No brand-voice model claimed on their pricing page or their Freddy AI Agent page |
| Free plan | Yes, 150/mo | Their words: "$0 for 1-2 agents for 6 months". Time-limited, so it is an on-ramp, not a standing free plan |
| Setup time | In minutes | Not published |
The honest part
Where Freshdesk actually wins.
A page that only says “we win” is a sales pitch, not a comparison. So here are three things Freshdesk genuinely does better than Arbyn today, no hedging. Take them seriously if they matter to your store. Most Shopify store owners weigh them against a flat $99 a month (or $0 to start) and an agent that can act on the order, and switch anyway.
Where Freshdesk is genuinely ahead, stated plainly.
Freshworks is a large public company that claims "Trusted by 74,000+ Businesses Worldwide" on its own pricing page, and if procurement scoring decides this, that matters and we cannot match it. Their on-ramp is real too: $0 for one to two agents for six months, with 500 Freddy AI Agent sessions included so you can test the AI before you pay for it (Pro and Enterprise on Freshdesk; Growth, Pro and Enterprise on Freshdesk Omni). AI Agent Studio is a no-code builder with an API Action block, so a team willing to do the build work can wire up actions Arbyn does not ship. Arbyn's action set is fixed at what we ship. Freddy AI Copilot is a proper assistant for your human agents, and Arbyn does not sell one.
One more thing in their favour, because the whole page falls apart if we shade it. A Freshdesk AI session is a 72-hour email window, or a 24-hour chat window on Omni, and every AI reply inside that window counts as a single session. That is a genuinely generous unit, and 200 sessions is not 200 replies. Do not let anyone, including us, tell you it is.
The disagreement is the shape of the bill. Freshdesk runs a seat licence and an AI pack meter at the same time, and the 500 sessions they include are a one-time grant for the life of the account, not a monthly allowance. Their words: "This is limited to once per account." Arbyn's $0 Starter carries 150 AI conversations every calendar month and resets on the 1st. Their 500 beats our 150 in month one and is overtaken during month four. After that it never comes back, and ours never runs out.
Stay with Freshdesk if you are running a real support floor that needs SLAs, routing and audit logs, if you need voice and WhatsApp today, or if you are a small human team who wants ticketing and no AI, where they are simply cheaper than us. Switch to Arbyn when the AI session packs have started deciding your bill, when you want the store owner's approval on money-moving actions to be built in rather than something you build at the API layer, and when you want the same agent to sell as well as serve.
- 01They are cheaper than us for a small team that does not want AI. Their rate: Growth is $23 per agent per month billed monthly, $19 billed annually. Our arithmetic: four people billed monthly is $92, five people billed annually is $95, both under Arbyn's $99. If ticketing for a handful of people is all you need, buy Freshdesk.
- 02They are a mature, deep help desk and Arbyn is not trying to be one. SLAs, routing, skills-based assignment, approval workflows, audit logs, custom objects, custom reporting, a customer portal, a knowledge base and 5,000 collaborators are all on their pricing table. Arbyn has none of that ticketing machinery.
- 03They cover far more channels than we do today. Through Freshdesk Omni and Freshcaller you get WhatsApp, social and voice. Arbyn is live on support email and on-site chat, SMS is in beta, and Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp are still to come.
Where Arbyn wins
Three reasons store owners actually switch.
One price. No seats, no packs.
Arbyn Agent is $99 a month at any volume: unlimited conversations, unlimited seats, nothing metered. There is no seat licence, no session pack to size before the month starts, and no second per-seat charge for a copilot. Arbyn Starter is $0 with 150 AI conversations every calendar month, resetting on the 1st.
Freshdesk's 500 included AI sessions are once per account, ever. Their words: "We offer 500 sessions with Pro and Enterprise plans to try out Freddy AI agents. This is limited to once per account." Arbyn's 150 come back every month.
Arbyn performs the action, and the approval cannot be skipped
Arbyn updates the shipping address on its own. Cancel an order, issue a refund, apply a discount so the checkout already has the code on it, send a gift card, reship, start a return: you approve with one click and then Arbyn performs the real Shopify mutation and confirms it to the customer, writing every action to the order timeline. That approval is a deliberate money control, not a missing feature. Arbyn does not edit orders or line items, and we say so.
Freshdesk's own Actions Library doc says the approval gets skipped: "Because there is no live conversation, the workflow does not prompt for confirmation interactively - confirmation blocks are skipped for email agents", followed by "Ensure high-impact operations in email workflows have appropriate safeguards at the API layer." They are telling you to go build the money control yourself.
Arbyn sells. Freddy serves.
Arbyn runs product quizzes, a bundle builder, discount offers, in-chat upsells, abandoned-cart recovery inside the chat, and it attributes revenue on every order it sources. All of it is live, and all of it is inside the same $99. Nothing on Freshdesk's pricing page or their Freddy AI Agent page mentions any of it. Their AI examples are all service-side.
Freshworks does sell marketing, separately: Freshmarketer is on the Shopify App Store at $18 per month or $180 per year. That is email and SMS campaigns, not a live agent selling in the chat, and there is no revenue attribution back to a support conversation.
Arbyn vs Freshdesk: common questions
Not at every volume, and we will not pretend otherwise: below a certain volume Freshdesk genuinely costs less than Arbyn, and this page shows you exactly where that line falls rather than hiding it. What Arbyn gives you instead is a bill that does not move: $99/mo flat for unlimited AI conversations and resolutions, with no per-ticket, per-resolution or per-seat fees, plus a free plan with 150 AI conversations a month. Freshdesk is priced a seat licence, plus ai sessions bought in $49 packs, so their bill climbs with your store while ours stays put. If you are small and staying small, they may well be the cheaper choice. If you are growing, the flat line wins.
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