# Siena AI Alternative for Shopify: $750/mo + $0.90/Ticket

> Siena AI costs $750/mo plus $0.90 per ticket. Arbyn offers a free plan for 150 conversations/mo or unlimited for a flat $99/mo on Shopify.

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

## How Siena AI charges

Platform fee, plus $0.90 per ticket. $750/month for the platform, then $0.90 for every ticket the AI automates, both published on their own pricing page. No named tiers, no published seat price, no annual option, and the final contract is quoted by their sales team on your ticket volume and team structure. The floor is the part to notice: the $750 is charged before a single ticket is automated.

Siena publishes two numbers and no tiers: $750 a month for the platform, and $0.90 for each ticket the AI automates on top. Those are their rates. Ours is $99 a month, unlimited, with a $0 Starter plan underneath it. This page also concedes the thing most compare pages would hide: Siena takes real Shopify actions with nobody in the loop, and we make you click once first.

## Where Siena AI beats Arbyn

- Siena acts on money without asking, and that is a real capability we do not have. Their own blog says it flatly: "Siena doesn't need human intervention to complete any of these actions", naming cancellations, refunds and free replacements. Arbyn puts a one-click approval in front of every money-moving action. If you want refunds going out untouched, Siena does that today and Arbyn does not.
- Siena edits orders and line items and changes customer emails through its Shopify integration. Arbyn does not edit orders or line items at all. That is a flat capability gap and we are not going to dress it up.
- Siena is live on more channels than we are: website, email, SMS, Instagram Direct, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and X. Arbyn is live on support email and on-site chat, with SMS on the roadmap and Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp still to come. If your volume lives in social DMs, they cover you today.

Siena also does sales, so we are not going to run the line that they answer questions while we sell. Their Shopping Agent page sells recommendations, add-to-cart buttons in live chat, proactive nudges at visitors showing intent, and a revenue dashboard that ties those conversations back to sales. Arbyn does all of that too, which makes none of it a difference. The two sales surfaces we could not find anywhere on their page are the product quiz and the bundle builder. They also run a reviews agent that moderates and replies to product reviews automatically, and Arbyn does neither.
Siena sits on top of the helpdesk you already run. Gorgias, Zendesk, Kustomer, Gladly, Dixa and Intercom are all on their integrations page, so a team with years of macros and views keeps every one of them. Arbyn does not layer onto a helpdesk. Their $750 also buys expert onboarding and a dedicated Slack channel, which is a real implementation service that Arbyn, being self-serve, does not offer. And their meter is candid about itself: they deliberately bill per ticket rather than per resolution, and they have published an argument for why outcome-based pricing is worse for the buyer. We disagree with metering at all. We are not going to call them sneaky about it.

Stay with Siena if you want refunds and cancellations going out with nobody in the loop, if you need order editing, or if your volume lives in Instagram and WhatsApp DMs today. Come to Arbyn when you want the same real Shopify actions with a one-click money control in front of them, and a bill that stays $99 whatever your ticket count does.

## Where Arbyn wins

### $99 is the whole bill, not the floor

Arbyn Agent is $99 a month: unlimited conversations, unlimited AI resolutions, nothing metered, with a $0 Starter plan underneath it that covers 150 AI conversations every calendar month on full features. Siena publishes a $750 monthly platform fee and $0.90 for each ticket the AI automates. Those are their rates. This is our arithmetic: at $0.90 a ticket, Arbyn's entire $99 bill buys 110 automated tickets on their meter, and the $750 has not been paid yet.

_At zero tickets, their published floor is more than seven times Arbyn's entire monthly bill._

### The money-moving action waits for one click

Arbyn updates a shipping address on its own. It cancels the order, issues the refund, applies a discount so the checkout already carries the code, sends a gift card, reships and starts the return the moment you approve, and then Arbyn performs the real Shopify mutation and confirms it to the customer. The approval is a deliberate money control, not a missing step, and every action is written to the Shopify order timeline.

_Siena fires refunds, cancellations and free replacements with no human in the loop. If that is what you want, they do it today and we do not._

### Install it yourself this afternoon

Arbyn installs from the Shopify App Store and reads your orders, catalog, policies and shipping zones, then answers in your store's voice from the first conversation. The $0 Starter plan is permanent, with every feature switched on. Siena has no Shopify App Store listing: it connects through its own Shopify integration, and their pricing page asks for your details so their team can come back with a number.

_Their $750 buys expert onboarding and a dedicated Slack channel. That is a real service, and it is also a sales cycle._

## Cost at real volumes

| Scenario | Volume | Their cost | You save with Arbyn |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solo store | 500 automated tickets/mo | $1,200/mo | $1,101/mo |
| Growing DTC | 2,000 automated tickets/mo | $2,550/mo | $2,451/mo |
| Scale / BFCM | 5,000 automated tickets/mo | $5,250/mo | $5,151/mo |

Source: [siena.cx/pricing](https://www.siena.cx/pricing). Verified July 2026 against Siena's own pricing page, which publishes "Access Siena's core AI engine and unlimited sandbox for $750/month" and "Automate tickets at just $0.90 each", and gates the final quote behind their sales team on your ticket volume and team structure. The rates are theirs. The multiplication in every scenario is ours, and a negotiated contract may not match the published list. That the meter is the ticket the AI handled, not the ticket it resolved, is confirmed on Siena's own post on conversation-based pricing. Their autonomous Shopify order actions are confirmed on their Shopify integration page, and we state them as fact on this page. The Support and Implementation line on their pricing page carries no figure, so we publish none. 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.