SmartBot charges by how many products you sell. Arbyn charges $99, flat.
SmartBot's paid plans genuinely do not cap conversations. On BestChat's own pricing page, every paid tier carries the line "Unlimited AI chats." What moves the price is your product catalog, and the cheapest tier that lists AI email reply is $100/mo, more than Arbyn's flat $99.
The real difference
What each one actually does.
SmartBot is not free, and on annual billing it is genuinely cheaper than Arbyn up to 3,000 products. So this is not a price fight. It is about what each tool can actually do when a real conversation lands, and where their bill moves for reasons that have nothing to do with support.
SmartBot's plan is set by how many products it has to index, not by how much support you do. Passing 500 products moves you from Starter to Growth even if your ticket volume never changed. Arbyn's price does not move with your catalogue.
Across SmartBot's Shopify listing and their own site, the furthest their language goes is order tracking. They never claim to refund, cancel or change an order. Arbyn acts on the order inside the conversation and logs it to the Shopify timeline.
AI email reply first appears on SmartBot's $100/mo Growth tier and is not listed on their $30 Starter plan. Arbyn answers support email on the free Starter plan, and their cheapest email-capable tier costs a dollar more than Arbyn unlimited.
Every SmartBot figure here comes from BestChat's own SmartBot pricing page: the five tiers, the product caps, the 20% annual discount, the "Unlimited AI chats" line that appears on every paid tier, the "AI email reply" bullet that first appears on Growth, and the $680/mo Enterprise tier that is published there and not on the Shopify App Store listing. The App Store listing corroborates the Free, Starter, Growth and Pro tiers and carries the 4.7 stars across 409 reviews and the Built for Shopify badge. Both pages checked July 2026. SmartBot's product caps have moved before (200/1,500 earlier in 2026, now 500/3,000), so re-verify before relying on any number here. Verified against bestchat.com/smartbot-pricing.html.
Pricing model decoded
Five tiers. One meter: your catalog.
SmartBot's paid plans really do not cap conversations. On BestChat's own pricing page, every paid tier carries the line "Unlimited AI chats." What moves the price is how many products you list, not how much support you do.
The 501st product costs you $70 more a month. List one more product past the Starter cap and the catalog meter moves you from $30/mo to Growth at $100/mo, whether or not your support volume changed at all.
AI email reply is not listed below the Growth tier. It appears on the $100/mo Growth card and is absent from the $30/mo Starter card on both of SmartBot's own pages. Arbyn answers email on its free $0 plan.
The free plan's 300 chats never come back. BestChat's own wording is "300 AI chats (lifetime)", a one-time allowance rather than a monthly grant, capped at 50 products. The same card does bundle a 7-day Growth preview, which is worth knowing before you judge it.
The App Store listing stops at 20,000 products. The $680/mo Enterprise tier with unlimited products is published only on bestchat.com, not on the Shopify App Store listing. If your catalog is bigger than Pro's cap, the price you pay is not on the listing you installed from.
Annual billing changes the math, and we are not going to hide it. Paid yearly, SmartBot Growth works out to $80/mo, genuinely cheaper than Arbyn's $99 for catalogs up to 3,000 products. Our case there is not price. It is that Growth still never claims to refund an order or change its shipping address, and Arbyn does both inside the chat, the address on its own and the refund on your approval.
Side by side
Feature for feature. Honestly.
Where SmartBot and Arbyn actually differ. Not marketing checkboxes, just real features that work today, as of 2026.
| Capability | Arbyn$99 flat | SmartBot |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Flat $99/mo | Priced by product catalog size, not by conversations |
| Cost predictability | Fully flat | Steps up when you add products, not when support volume rises |
| Unlimited conversations | Yes | Yes on paid tiers. Free plan is 300 AI chats, lifetime |
| Unlimited AI resolutions | Yes | Yes on paid tiers, within what the bot claims it can do |
| Email + chat + IG + FB | Email + chat, IG/FB soon | Chat on every tier. AI email reply first listed at $100/mo. No IG or FB claimed. WhatsApp is a live agent handoff, not an AI channel |
| Acts inside Shopify | Yes, in-thread | No cancel, refund, edit, or address change claimed anywhere. Their language stops at order tracking |
| Replies in your voice | Voice Fingerprint | Learns your FAQs and policies. No brand voice model claimed |
| Free plan | Yes, 150/mo | 300 AI chats lifetime, 50 products, plus a 7-day Growth preview |
| Setup time | In minutes | Minutes. Auto-learns your catalog, pages, and policies |
The honest part
Where SmartBot actually wins.
A page that only says “we win” is a sales pitch, not a comparison. So here are three things SmartBot 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 SmartBot is genuinely ahead, stated plainly.
SmartBot's onboarding is legitimately good. It reads your products, pages, policies, and FAQs automatically and starts answering in minutes, and reviewers say so without being asked. It also genuinely does not meter conversations on any paid tier, so a store that only needs chat answers and stays under 500 products can run it for $30 a month, well under Arbyn's flat price. Paid annually, Growth is $80/mo, which undercuts Arbyn's $99 outright for catalogs up to 3,000 products. We are not going to pretend otherwise.
It also carries a real credential: Built for Shopify certification, 4.7 stars across 409 reviews, and about three years live on the App Store. Starter and up include a WhatsApp live agent handoff, so a conversation the bot cannot finish does reach a person. A store with a small, stable catalog, modest ticket volume, and no need for the AI to touch an order has a legitimate case for picking it.
Switch to Arbyn anyway when: you need AI email replies and not just chat, you need the AI to actually change the shipping address and issue the refund on your approval rather than hand it to a human, or your catalog is past 500 products and still growing.
- 01Onboarding is genuinely fast. SmartBot auto-learns your catalog, pages, and policies with close to zero setup, and reviewers praise it unprompted.
- 02For a small catalog it is cheaper, and billed annually it can beat us outright. Under 500 products, Starter is $30/mo against Arbyn Agent's $99/mo, and Growth billed annually works out to $80/mo, genuinely under our flat price.
- 03The track record is real: 4.7 stars across 409 reviews, Built for Shopify certified, live on the App Store since August 1, 2023.
Where Arbyn wins
Three reasons store owners actually switch.
Flat price, any catalog size
$99 a month whether you sell 50 products or 50,000. SmartBot's price is set by how many products it has to index, not by how much support you actually do, so listing new products can move your bill even when ticket volume never changes.
Cross 500 products and the catalog meter moves you from Starter at $30/mo to Growth at $100/mo, a $70/mo step driven by catalog size alone.
Acts on the order, not just tracks it
Arbyn updates a shipping address inside the conversation on its own, and issues a refund or starts a return on your approval, and writes the action to the Shopify order timeline. Across SmartBot's own listing and BestChat's site, the furthest their language goes is order tracking and other post-sales service. They never claim more than that.
SmartBot's own "Works with" list includes Gorgias, a helpdesk where a person can take those actions. Their docs hand the conversation off. They do not claim to resolve it.
Email included from day one
Arbyn answers support email in your brand voice on the free $0 Starter plan, 150 AI conversations a month, every feature on. The cheapest SmartBot tier that lists AI email reply is Growth at $100/mo, a dollar more than Arbyn's unlimited plan.
AI email reply is not listed below SmartBot's $100/mo Growth tier. It appears on the Growth card and is absent from the Starter card on both of their pages.
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