Kustomer bills for a conversation its AI only opened. Arbyn charges $99, flat.
Their meter is not the resolution. Kustomer's own help center says a conversation becomes billable once their AI is involved at any point, including a response it attempted but never sent, and a conversation it merely viewed or opened. Arbyn is $99 a month, unlimited conversations, with a $0 plan under it.
The real bill
What you’d actually pay.
Three real scenarios at three real volumes, using Kustomer's published 2026 pricing and the automation rate their own team recommends. Arbyn is $99 flat at every one.
We are not going to pretend otherwise. One Enterprise seat at their published floor is $89, and 16 engaged conversations at their published $0.60 is $9.60, so their bill is $98.60. That is 40 cents under Arbyn Agent's $99, and at that volume they are the cheaper paid tool. Solve 89 + 0.60N = 99 and the crossover is 16.67 conversations: from the 17th onward Arbyn's flat $99 is cheaper and never stops being. The saving shown is against Arbyn Starter, which covers 150 AI conversations a month for $0, so the store that fits inside their window fits inside our free plan for nothing. The rates are theirs. The single seat and the near-zero AI volume are our assumptions, and both are the most generous reading of their own numbers.
The seat barely moves. The AI meter is what grows. One Enterprise seat at $89 plus 1,000 engaged conversations at their published $0.60 is $689. Worth sizing before you commit: the meter counts conversations their AI touched, not conversations it solved, so a month where the AI attempts a lot and finishes little still bills the same. Their rate. Our assumption of one seat, which understates them: a second Enterprise seat is another $89, and the rep copilot is another $40 per user per month on top.
Peak season is when a per-conversation AI meter runs hardest, because the conversation is the unit. One seat plus 5,000 engaged conversations at their published $0.60 is $3,089, and at this size you are almost certainly past one seat. One caveat we will carry rather than bury: $0.60 is the list rate on their pricing-details page, and their help center says engaged conversations are "billed at the rate outlined in your Kustomer order", so a contracted store may pay a different number. We can attribute the rate. We cannot universalise it.
Verified July 2026, read first-party in the same session this was written. THEIR RATES, from kustomer.com/comprehensive-pricing-details, a page headed "Current pricing:" and stamped "Last Updated: December 19, 2025": AI Agents for Customers at "$0.60 / engaged conversation" on both Enterprise and Ultimate; AI Agents for Reps at "$40 per user / month"; HIPAA Compliance at "$25 per user / month"; Kustomer Voice "Starting at $0.02 / minute"; data storage at "$50 per GB per month"; outbound messages at "$0.025 per message (only for conversation pricing program)"; and a WhatsApp fee of "20% of Meta's per-template message fee" passed through on top of Meta's. THEIR SEAT PRICES, from apps.shopify.com/kustomer, verbatim: "From $89 per month, per user for Enterprise and $139 per month, per user for Ultimate", followed by "All charges are billed in USD." Those are the only first-party per-seat dollar figures that exist anywhere: the current Enterprise/Ultimate table on their own pricing-details page carries no price row, and kustomer.com/pricing publishes no price and no named tier at all, only "Flexible pricing that fits your business needs" and a "Schedule Demo" button. Both seat figures are prefixed "From", so they are floors, not prices, and every use on this page keeps the word. The engaged-conversation definition, the Smart Routing gate, the spam, AI Summaries, Copilot and Voice carve-outs, the 24-hour threading rule and the line "Engaged conversations are billed at the rate outlined in your Kustomer order" are all quoted from help.kustomer.com/engaged-conversations-r1CGisY21g, which is why we attribute $0.60 as their list rate and never as what every customer pays. OUR ASSUMPTIONS, in a separate sentence so you can tell them apart: one Enterprise seat, the published list rate, and no annual commitment assumed either way, because their listing states no commitment term. One seat understates them. We publish no seat minimum, because no Kustomer-owned page states one. We publish no rate for their legacy or conversation-based plans, because they publish none. AI meter verified against kustomer.com/comprehensive-pricing-details.
Pricing model decoded
Two meters. And the seat price is not on their pricing page.
Kustomer's actual pricing page publishes no price of any kind and no named tier. It shows "Flexible pricing that fits your business needs" over a feature table and routes you to "Schedule Demo". The only first-party seat figures anywhere are on their Shopify App Store listing, and both are prefixed "From". The AI rate is published, on a separate pricing-details page, and it meters the conversation rather than the resolution.
Engaged is not the same word as resolved. Their help center defines the meter, verbatim: "Once the AI automation is involved at any point in a conversation, the conversation is considered engaged." AI engagement is true when "An AI automation attempted to generate a response, regardless of whether it was ultimately sent", when "A human agent hands the conversation off to an AI automation", and when "An AI automation team viewed or opened the conversation, even without sending a response." In fairness, there is a gate on the front of it: for Concierge, "The conversation is marked engaged only if Smart Routing determines that the conversation's intent should be handled by your AI Automation." So Smart Routing decides the AI should take it, and from that moment the conversation is billable even if the AI never sends anything and resolves nothing.
The published rate is not necessarily your rate. Their help center, verbatim: "Engaged conversations are billed at the rate outlined in your Kustomer order." So $0.60 is the list rate on their pricing-details page and the real one is set in a contract. We attribute it. We do not universalise it, and neither should anyone selling against them.
On SMS and social, a gap starts a new billable conversation. Billing is per conversation thread. Their help center gives Facebook, Instagram, Twilio SMS and Messagebird SMS a "24 hour window after the most recent message from user in this channel", and "Kustomer will start a new conversation if more than 24 hours have passed since the most recent message from that customer on the same channel." A customer who replies the next morning is a second conversation.
The meter is not indiscriminate, and we will say so. Three published exclusions, verbatim from the same page: a conversation marked as spam "is not considered an Engaged conversation"; "Responses or summaries generated by AI Summaries or Copilot automated actions are not billed as engaged conversations"; and "Kustomer Voice calls are not considered engaged conversations", because the customer-facing AI is not generally available on Voice. Those are real, they are theirs, and leaving them out would mean we had not read the page.
You cannot get a price from Kustomer's pricing page. kustomer.com/pricing publishes no price of any kind and no named tier: "Flexible pricing that fits your business needs" over an undifferentiated feature table, with a "Schedule Demo" CTA. On their pricing-details page, the legacy seat-based plans (Professional, Business) have a Price row that literally reads "Talk to Sales", and the legacy usage-based plans (ProfessionalAI, EnterpriseAI, UltimateAI) list "Users: Unlimited" and "Conversations: Unlimited" with no rate published anywhere for them. A seat-free shape exists. Its price does not exist in public. Arbyn's two prices are $0 and $99 and they are on our pricing page.
Side by side
Feature for feature. Honestly.
Where Kustomer and Arbyn actually differ. Not marketing checkboxes, just real features that work today, as of 2026.
| Capability | Arbyn$99 flat | Kustomer |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Flat $99/mo | Per human seat per month, plus $0.60 per engaged conversation for the customer-facing AI. The rep copilot is another $40 per user per month. |
| Cost predictability | Fully flat | Two meters, and neither number is firm. The seat price is prefixed "From", and the AI rate is "billed at the rate outlined in your Kustomer order". |
| Unlimited conversations | Yes | No. The conversation is the billable unit once their AI is involved in it. |
| Unlimited AI resolutions | Yes | No, and the meter is not resolutions. Their help center bills a conversation the AI merely viewed or opened, or attempted a response on that was never sent. |
| Email + chat + IG + FB | Email + chat, IG/FB soon | Yes, plus WhatsApp, SMS and voice. Genuinely broader than Arbyn today. |
| Acts inside Shopify | Yes, in-thread | Their listing sells "Direct Order Refunds/Cancellations from Kustomer Timeline", plus order view and order search. The Timeline is the human agent's workspace, and nothing they publish says the AI performs the action. |
| Replies in your voice | Voice Fingerprint | No brand-voice model named on their pricing pages or their AI agents page. |
| Free plan | Yes, 150/mo | No. Their App Store listing reads "Free to install. Additional charges may apply." Seats start "From $89 per month, per user". |
| Setup time | In minutes | Not published. Professional-services implementation and a Customer Success Manager are included on both current tiers. |
The honest part
Where Kustomer actually wins.
A page that only says “we win” is a sales pitch, not a comparison. So here are three things Kustomer 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 Kustomer is genuinely ahead, stated plainly.
Kustomer is a serious platform with a real data model behind it, and a regulated or enterprise buyer will have a checklist it passes and we do not. Audit log, message redaction and multi-region disaster recovery are on both current tiers. Language coverage runs to 20 on Enterprise and all offered languages on Ultimate, with automatic detection. A Customer Success Manager comes with both. If you are staffing a contact centre rather than trying to stop staffing one, that is the shape of the tool you want.
Their AI meter also has published carve-outs, and leaving them out would mean we had not read the page. Verbatim from their help center: a conversation marked as spam "is not considered an Engaged conversation"; "Responses or summaries generated by AI Summaries or Copilot automated actions are not billed as engaged conversations"; and "Kustomer Voice calls are not considered engaged conversations". There is a gate on the front of it too: for Concierge, "The conversation is marked engaged only if Smart Routing determines that the conversation's intent should be handled by your AI Automation." So the meter is not indiscriminate. The problem is what happens after that gate opens. From that moment the conversation is billable even if the AI never sends anything and resolves nothing, because their own page counts engagement when "An AI automation attempted to generate a response, regardless of whether it was ultimately sent" and when "An AI automation team viewed or opened the conversation, even without sending a response."
The disagreement is the shape of the bill and who takes the action. Kustomer charges for every person on your team, charges again for every conversation its AI touches, and its own Shopify listing puts the refund and the cancellation in the Timeline, which is where a human agent works. Arbyn charges $99 a month, flat, with no seat fee and no per-conversation fee, and $0 for your first 150 AI conversations every calendar month. Arbyn updates a shipping address on its own. You approve a cancel, a refund, a discount, a gift card, a reship or a return with one click, and then Arbyn performs the real Shopify mutation and confirms it to the customer. That approval is a deliberate money control, not a missing feature. Arbyn does not edit orders or line items, and we say so on our own page.
Stay with Kustomer if you need voice, WhatsApp and social live today, if you are staffing a support floor that needs skills-based routing and SCIM, or if your store handles fewer than 17 AI conversations a month on a single seat, where their $89 floor genuinely beats our $99. Switch to Arbyn when you are done paying a seat fee and a per-conversation AI fee to answer the same conversation once, when you want the AI to perform the Shopify action rather than surface it for a person, and when you want the AI selling as well as supporting.
- 01At one Enterprise seat with almost no AI, they are cheaper than us. Their floor is "From $89 per month, per user" against Arbyn Agent's $99, and the crossover is 16.67 engaged conversations a month. Under 17, Kustomer costs less. We are not going to hide that. Arbyn Starter covers that same store for $0.
- 02Voice, WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger are live for them and are not for us. Kustomer Voice is a real telephony channel starting at $0.02 per minute across the US and Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Australia, with no upfront cost and no long-term commitment. Arbyn has no voice channel at all, our SMS is in beta, and Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp are still to come.
- 03It is a genuine CRM and a genuine enterprise platform, and Arbyn is not trying to be either. Custom objects up to 100M, 100 custom klasses, 300 custom attributes per klass, skills-based routing, Team Pulse real-time supervision, SAML SSO and SCIM on Ultimate, data masking in beta, and a HIPAA-enabled subscription at $25 per user per month. They also carry 5.0 stars from 24 Shopify App Store reviews. It is a small base and we are not going to spin it: the stores that reviewed them are happy.
Where Arbyn wins
Three reasons store owners actually switch.
One number, and nothing meters
Arbyn Agent is $99 a month at any volume: unlimited conversations, unlimited AI resolutions, no seat fee, no per-conversation fee, no minimum. Arbyn Starter is $0 a month with 150 AI conversations every calendar month, resetting on the 1st, on the full feature set. There is nothing to forecast because there is nothing that moves.
Kustomer bills a conversation whether or not it was solved. Their help center counts a conversation as engaged when the AI "attempted to generate a response, regardless of whether it was ultimately sent", and when it "viewed or opened the conversation, even without sending a response."
Arbyn performs the Shopify action
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. Arbyn does not edit orders or line items, and we say so.
Kustomer's Shopify listing sells three order capabilities, verbatim: "Full View of Customer Orders via Shopify Data Integration", "Direct Order Refunds/Cancellations from Kustomer Timeline" and "Efficient Order Data Access and Search within Kustomer". The Timeline is the human agent's workspace, and nothing they publish says the AI performs any of it. Their platform does expose REST calls inside workflows, so a technical team could build a mutation, but that is a project you own and maintain, not a shipped capability.
It sells, not just supports
Arbyn runs product quizzes, a bundle builder, discount offers and in-chat upsells, recovers an abandoned cart the moment the shopper opens the chat, and attributes revenue on every order it sources. All live, on the same $99, and on the $0 plan too.
Kustomer's AI agents page reaches for revenue language, naming "CSAT, upsell rate, customer lifetime value" and "turning every touchpoint into an opportunity to drive retention and revenue", but ships no product quiz, bundle builder, in-chat upsell, discount offer, abandoned-cart recovery or revenue attribution behind it. Their AI is scoped to resolving inbound conversations.
Arbyn vs Kustomer: common questions
Not at every volume, and we will not pretend otherwise: below a certain volume Kustomer 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. Kustomer is priced from $89 per seat, plus $0.60 per engaged conversation, 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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