SparkGPT vs Shopify Inbox (2026): Free AI Agent or Pay Per Sale?

What Shopify Inbox does well

Most comparison pages written before mid 2026 describe Shopify Inbox as a basic live chat. That is out of date, and you should start from what it actually does now.

It costs nothing. The App Store listing shows Shopify Inbox as Free, with no paid tier and no usage fees. It has a 4.6 out of 5 rating from 5,809 reviews and has been listed since August 2019.

The AI agent is built in. According to Shopify's help article on assigning the Inbox agent, it can answer questions about product details, availability and pricing, suggest products based on what the customer is looking for, and add recommended products directly to the customer's cart. It replies in the language the customer writes in.

It knows your store without setup. The listing says it connects to your catalog, inventory and policies automatically. If a shopper signs in with Shop, the agent can tailor recommendations using that buyer's preferences and purchase history across Shopify.

It can look up orders. Order lookups work after the customer signs in. For a store where "where is my order" is a big share of chats, this matters.

It has a real handoff. When a customer asks for a person, the conversation moves to your staff with the AI's earlier context. If no one is available, the agent shares your store's sender email address.

If you run a Shopify store on Basic or above, use new customer accounts and want a free AI agent today, turn on the Inbox agent first. It is the fair baseline for any paid tool, including ours.

Where the two products differ

The price gap is obvious. The other differences are smaller, but they decide which tool fits your store.

Who controls what the shopper sees

Shopify's help article states that customers receive a notice that the chat is powered by Shopify and that they are chatting with AI, and that this notice "is displayed automatically and can't be removed or customized."

Telling shoppers they are talking to AI is the right practice, and we recommend it on every site (our guide on whether AI chatbots have to disclose they are AI covers how to word it without hurting conversion). The difference is who writes the wording. With Inbox, Shopify does. With SparkGPT, the agent runs on your site under your brand, and you decide how to introduce it.

The Inbox persona has limits too. Shopify's persona article says you can set tone and service style, but store facts such as return terms, shipping rates and discounts must live in your store content or Knowledge Base, not the persona. The persona cannot override Inbox settings or built in safety behavior, and Shopify says conflicting instructions might be ignored.

Fixed limits on conversations

Shopify's persona article lists fixed conversation limits: 100 messages per conversation for customers who are not signed in, 1,000 for signed in customers, and 50 conversations per customer per day. Few shoppers will hit these, but high consideration products with long back and forth chats are where you would notice them. SparkGPT conversations are unlimited on Growth.

Where it can run

Shopify's help article says the Inbox agent "only operates within your online store's chat widget." Shopify Inbox is available only on the Basic, Grow, Advanced and Shopify Plus plans, and the Inbox agent does not work with legacy customer accounts.

SparkGPT installs with one line of code on any website, Shopify or not:

<script src="https://admin.sparkgpt.ai/widget.js" data-api-key="YOUR_WIDGET_KEY"></script>
      

That matters if you also sell from a WordPress site, a landing page, a booking page or a headless storefront. Our guide to adding an AI sales agent to Shopify covers the Shopify install step by step.

Assisted orders vs a 24 hour attribution window

Both products report sales linked to the AI. They count them differently, and only one of the numbers sets a bill.

Shopify Inbox reports assisted orders. Shopify's conversations article defines assisted orders as "the number of orders placed by customers who interacted with the Inbox agent," alongside assisted sessions, satisfaction rate and average response time. The article does not state a time window. Read literally, an order placed days after a short chat could count. That is a reasonable reporting choice for a free tool, because the number does not change what you pay. It does mean assisted orders will usually look larger than the sales the agent actually caused.

SparkGPT bills on a 24 hour window. When a visitor chats with the agent, the session is tagged. Any purchase that visitor makes within 24 hours is attributed to the agent, listed in the ROI dashboard and charged at 5%. A short window undercounts shoppers who come back on day three, and that is the trade we chose: every dollar of the variable fee maps to an order you can open and check.

If you want to compare the two numbers fairly, our guide on how to measure chatbot attributed revenue explains how window length changes the result and how to run a simple holdout test.

The math: free vs $2.99 plus 5%

Shopify Inbox costs $0. SparkGPT costs $2.99 per month plus 5% of attributed sales. There is no sales level where SparkGPT is cheaper, so a breakeven table like the ones on our other comparison pages would be misleading. The useful question is different: does SparkGPT create enough new sales to cover its fee?

Attributed is not the same as new. Some shoppers who chat would have bought anyway. So work out how much of the attributed revenue needs to be truly incremental for the fee to pay off.

Here is a worked example with stated assumptions. Say your gross margin is 40% and SparkGPT is credited with $2,000 in a month. The bill is $102.99. You need at least $102.99 of extra gross profit, which is about $257 of sales that would not have happened otherwise. That is roughly 13% of the $2,000 attributed. At a 25% margin, the share rises to about 21%.

If you cannot believe that at least one in eight attributed orders is new, stay on Shopify Inbox. If your products need explanation before purchase, such as sizing, compatibility, ingredients or custom work, that bar is much easier to clear, and the research on pre sale chat supports it. Our summary of the evidence on whether AI chatbots increase ecommerce sales walks through the controlled studies.

A month with no sales costs $2.99 on SparkGPT, or $35.88 over a full year. Growth runs on prepaid credits, where 1 credit equals $1, and if the balance runs out the agent pauses instead of billing you more.

Feature comparison

Which one should you pick?

Pick Shopify Inbox if your store runs on Shopify Basic or above with new customer accounts, order status questions are a large share of your chats, you want Shop sign in personalization, or your budget for chat is zero. It is a capable free agent, and a paid tool has to beat it, not just match it.

Pick SparkGPT if you sell from a site that is not a Shopify online store, you want the agent's introduction and voice under your brand, your products need long explanations before purchase, or you want sales from chat counted on a short, stated window that you can audit against your orders.

Test before you decide. Run Inbox with the agent on for two weeks, then SparkGPT for two weeks, with one chat widget live at a time so shoppers never see two bubbles. Ask both agents the same ten pre purchase questions using our pre launch testing checklist. Then compare orders, not chat counts. Our longer guide on when Shopify Inbox is enough and when to switch covers the decision signals in more detail.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Shopify Inbox free in 2026?

Yes. As of October 2026, the Shopify App Store listing shows Shopify Inbox as Free, including the Inbox agent, with no paid tier or usage fees. Shopify Inbox is available on the Basic, Grow, Advanced and Shopify Plus plans, and the Inbox agent does not work with legacy customer accounts.

Does Shopify Inbox have an AI agent?

Yes. The Inbox agent answers questions about product details, availability and pricing, recommends products, looks up orders after the customer signs in and adds recommended products to the cart. It replies in the customer's language and hands conversations to your staff when asked.

How does Shopify Inbox count assisted orders?

Shopify defines assisted orders as orders placed by customers who interacted with the Inbox agent. The help article does not state a time window. SparkGPT counts only orders placed within 24 hours of a chat, and charges its 5% on those orders.

Can I remove the "chatting with AI" notice in Shopify Inbox?

No. Shopify's help article says the notice that the chat is powered by Shopify and that customers are chatting with AI is displayed automatically and cannot be removed or customized. With SparkGPT, you write the introduction yourself, and we recommend it still says clearly that the shopper is talking to AI.

Is SparkGPT cheaper than Shopify Inbox?

No. Shopify Inbox is free, and SparkGPT costs $2.99 per month plus 5% of attributed sales. SparkGPT makes sense only if it creates enough new sales to cover that fee. At a 40% gross margin, roughly 13% of attributed sales need to be truly incremental.

Can I use SparkGPT on a store that is not on Shopify?

Yes. SparkGPT installs with one line of code on any website, and it learns from your site content. The Shopify Inbox agent only runs in the Shopify online store chat widget.

Test it against Inbox on your own store

Enter your store URL at SparkGPT and you will have a sales agent to test on your real catalog in about 10 minutes, free and with no credit card. Ask it the questions your Inbox agent already handles, and the harder ones it does not. When you go live, you pay $2.99 per month plus 5% of the sales it is credited with inside a 24 hour window, and nothing for conversations that do not lead to an order. See the pricing page, the FAQ, or compare another Shopify option in SparkGPT vs Gorgias. Questions? Write to hello@sparkgpt.ai.