SparkGPT vs Zipchat (2026): Pay Per Reply or Pay Per Sale?
The short answer: Zipchat is a well reviewed AI sales agent for Shopify stores that charges by the reply. Its plans start at $80 a month for 750 AI replies on monthly billing ($64 a month billed yearly), and Zipchat's own pricing FAQ says "each outbound AI message counts as one reply," whether or not the shopper buys. SparkGPT is an AI sales agent that charges $2.99 per month plus 5% of attributed sales, using a public 24 hour attribution window, with unlimited conversations. If chat already drives a lot of revenue in your store, Zipchat's flat reply plans can cost less. If you want a bill that only grows when the agent sells, SparkGPT costs $2.99 in a month with no sales.
We checked Zipchat's pricing page, its pricing FAQ, its Shopify App Store listing, its increase sales page and its success stories page on October 17, 2026. All Zipchat prices below are as of October 2026.
What Zipchat does well
Zipchat is a serious product, and it is built for selling, not only for support.
Merchants rate it highly. The Zipchat AI Chatbot & Live Chat app has a 4.9 out of 5 rating from 208 reviews on the Shopify App Store, carries the Built for Shopify badge and has been listed since May 2023.
It sells across channels. Every plan covers website chat, email, WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger. The app lists cart recovery, cash on delivery verification, discounts, upsells, cross sells and review requests, plus a helpdesk with ticketing and a unified inbox.
It publishes named results. Zipchat's success stories include Burger Motorsports, with more than $1.45 million in revenue it describes as attributed to Zipchat, and Vaonis, with more than $150,000 in AI generated sales. These are vendor reported figures, but they come with company names, which is more than most chatbot vendors offer.
It has a free tier on Shopify. The App Store listing shows a Free plan with 120 AI replies a month. Paid plans include a 7 day free trial, and Zipchat's pricing page offers a 30 day money back guarantee on the first payment.
If you want one AI agent that answers on your site, in WhatsApp and in Instagram DMs, and you have the chat volume to justify a monthly reply allowance, Zipchat is a strong choice.
Zipchat pricing as of October 2026
From Zipchat's pricing page and Shopify App Store listing:
| Zipchat plan | Monthly billing | Billed yearly, per month | AI replies per month | Approx. conversations | Extra replies |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free (Shopify App Store only) | $0 | Not offered | 120 | 50 | Not listed |
| Starter | $80 | $64 | 750 | 300 | $49 per 250 replies |
| Pro | $300 | $240 | 3,000 | 1,250 | $49 per 250 replies |
| Scale | $600 | $480 | 6,000 | 2,500 | $49 per 250 replies |
| Scale Plus | $1,200 | $960 | 14,000 | 6,000 | Twice as many replies for the same pack price |
| Unlimited | From $2,100 | Custom | Unlimited | Not listed | Not applicable |
Three details matter more than the headline price.
A reply is every AI message. Zipchat's FAQ defines a reply as "any response the AI sends to a visitor or customer." Its own plan sizes assume about 2.5 replies per conversation, since 750 replies is listed as about 300 conversations. Longer, more detailed product conversations use the allowance faster. A competitor's breakdown published by Chatty estimates that at 3.5 replies per chat, a store on Starter would move from $80 to $178 a month once extra packs are added.
Overage is a pack, not a pause. When you run out, Zipchat sells $49 per 250 replies and says that "upgrading to the next plan is almost always more cost-effective." The pricing page does not say whether the agent stops answering if you buy neither.
WhatsApp has its own fee. Zipchat's pricing page notes that Meta charges per country for the first message in WhatsApp marketing campaigns, about $0.02 per chat started in the US.
SparkGPT pricing
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Build and test one agent, no credit card required, cannot go live |
| Growth | $2.99 per month plus 5% of attributed sales | One line of code deployment, unlimited conversations, order level ROI dashboard |
| Done For You | Custom | Full setup, brand matched design, Shopify or custom site integration |
When a visitor chats with the agent, the session is tagged. Any purchase that visitor makes within 24 hours is attributed to the agent and listed in the ROI dashboard, and the 5% applies only to those orders. A month with 2,000 conversations and no attributed sales costs $2.99, or $35.88 over a full year.
Growth runs on prepaid credits, where 1 credit equals $1. If the balance runs out, the agent pauses instead of billing you more.
Attribution: a headline number, or the bill?
Both companies talk about revenue the AI brings in. The difference is what that number does.
Zipchat reports attributed revenue but does not publish the rule. Its increase sales page says brands average 16.4% chat to sale conversion and shows a sample order "attributed to this conversation." Its success stories use labels such as in chat revenue, additional sales and AI generated sales. We could not find an attribution window, a definition of which orders count, or how returns are handled on the pricing page, the FAQ, the increase sales page or the success stories page. That does not mean the numbers are wrong. It means you cannot check them against a stated rule before you buy, and none of them change what you pay, because the bill is set by replies.
SparkGPT publishes the rule because it is the bill. The window is 24 hours from the chat, and the 5% is charged only on orders inside it. We chose a short window on purpose. It misses shoppers who come back on day three, so it undercounts rather than overcounts, and every dollar of the variable fee maps to an order you can open in the dashboard.
If you trial both, ask Zipchat for its attribution window in writing and compare the two dashboards against your Shopify orders for the same week. Our guide on how to measure chatbot attributed revenue explains how window length changes the number and how to run a simple holdout test.
The math, including where Zipchat wins
SparkGPT costs less in any month where attributed sales stay below the Zipchat bill minus $2.99, divided by 0.05. The table uses monthly billing.
| Example Zipchat month | Bill | SparkGPT is cheaper below this much attributed sales |
|---|---|---|
| Starter, billed yearly | $64 | $1,221 |
| Starter | $80 | $1,540 |
| Starter plus one extra reply pack | $129 | $2,520 |
| Pro | $300 | $5,940 |
| Scale | $600 | $11,940 |
| Scale Plus | $1,200 | $23,940 |
Three scenarios:
A small store with long product questions. The store has 400 chats a month at 2.5 replies each, which is 1,000 replies, so it needs Starter plus one pack for $129. The agent is credited with $1,800 in sales. SparkGPT costs $2.99 plus $90, which is $92.99.
A growing store on Pro. Zipchat costs $300. The agent is credited with $4,000 in sales, so SparkGPT costs $202.99.
A store where chat already sells a lot. On Starter at $80, the agent is credited with $10,000 in sales. SparkGPT costs $502.99, and Zipchat is clearly cheaper. Once attributed sales pass the line in the table, a fixed reply plan is the better deal.
The question is which risk you want to carry. With reply billing, a slow month or a flood of questions from browsers who never buy still uses your allowance. With SparkGPT, a slow month costs $2.99 and a great month costs more, because you are paying a share of sales that actually happened.
Feature comparison
| SparkGPT | Zipchat | |
|---|---|---|
| Primary job | AI sales agent on your website | AI sales and support agent across chat, email and social |
| What triggers a charge | An attributed sale (5%), plus $2.99 base | Every outbound AI reply, within a monthly allowance |
| Entry price for a live agent | $2.99 per month | $80 per month, or $64 billed yearly |
| Conversations | Unlimited on Growth | About 300 on Starter |
| Published attribution window | 24 hours after a chat | Not published on the pages we checked |
| Attribution used for billing | Yes, the 5% is charged on it | No, billing is by reply |
| When the allowance runs out | Agent pauses, no overage | Buy reply packs or upgrade |
| Channels | Website chat | Website chat, email, WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger |
| WhatsApp cart recovery | Not included | Included |
| Helpdesk and team inbox | Not included | Included |
| Free tier | Build and test one agent, no credit card | 120 replies a month, Shopify App Store only |
Which one should you pick?
Pick Zipchat if you sell heavily through WhatsApp or Instagram, you want cart recovery messages on WhatsApp, you need a shared inbox for a support team, or your chat already brings in enough revenue that a fixed reply plan is well under 5% of it. Our comparison of WhatsApp and website chat can help you decide whether that channel matters for your store.
Pick SparkGPT if your main gap is pre purchase questions on your website, your product questions run long and you do not want each answer to cost you, or you want to pay only when a chat leads to an order you can audit. If you sell on Shopify, our guide to adding an AI sales agent to Shopify covers the setup.
Test before you decide. Run the same ten pre purchase questions through both agents on your own catalog, using our pre launch testing checklist. Count how many replies Zipchat uses per conversation, because that number decides your real Zipchat bill.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does Zipchat cost in 2026?
As of October 2026, Zipchat Starter costs $80 a month for 750 AI replies, or $64 a month billed yearly. Pro is $300 for 3,000 replies, Scale is $600 for 6,000 and Scale Plus is $1,200 for 14,000. A free plan with 120 replies is available only through the Shopify App Store.
What counts as a reply on Zipchat?
Zipchat's pricing FAQ says a reply is any response the AI sends to a visitor or customer, and each outbound AI message counts as one. Its plan sizes assume about 2.5 replies per conversation, so a store with longer conversations uses its allowance faster.
Does Zipchat charge based on sales?
No. Zipchat reports revenue attributed to its AI, but the bill is set by the number of AI replies. SparkGPT charges $2.99 per month plus 5% of sales made within 24 hours of a chat, so its variable fee moves only with attributed sales.
Is SparkGPT cheaper than Zipchat?
It depends on how much chat sells. Against Zipchat Starter at $80 a month, SparkGPT is cheaper while attributed sales stay below about $1,540. At $10,000 in attributed sales, Zipchat Starter is cheaper. In a month with no sales, SparkGPT costs $2.99.
Does SparkGPT work on WhatsApp like Zipchat?
No. SparkGPT is a sales agent for your website chat. Zipchat covers website chat, email, WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger, and offers WhatsApp cart recovery. If most of your buyers message you on WhatsApp, Zipchat covers that channel and SparkGPT does not.
Can I try SparkGPT before switching from Zipchat?
Yes. Build and test one agent free on your real store content, with no credit card required, and compare its answers with Zipchat before going live. Going live is one embed snippet in your theme, and setup takes about 10 minutes.
Test it 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. 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.
Build your agent free and see what it sells
Paste your URL and get a working sales agent in about ten minutes. Test it against the questions your customers actually ask. It costs $0, needs no credit card, and never expires. When it goes live, you pay $2.99 a month plus 5% of the sales it is credited with.
Build My Agent Free →No credit card required. Your agent is ready to test in about 10 minutes.