Answer Store Questions With an AI Agent and a Clear Handover

The short answer: if your Shopify store gets a few hundred chats a month and most of them ask where an order is, how returns work or which size to pick, the first agent costs nothing: Shopify Inbox is a free app with an AI agent you switch on, it runs on the Basic plan and above, and it shares order details only after the shopper signs in (App Store listing, Shopify Help Center). Pay for Tidio's Lyro, or for Text, the product LiveChat now sells, when you need order lookups without a sign-in, tickets after hours or more channels in one inbox: Lyro starts at $39 a month for 50 conversations and Text at $25 per user a month with 10 AI resolutions (monthly billing, checked on 26 October 2026 on the Tidio and LiveChat pricing pages). What it saves is the first reply to questions your own pages already answer; what it must not take is anything with money or a complaint in it.

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The job: a shopper writes "where is my parcel" at 22:40, the agent answers from the order, and a refund request reaches a person with the conversation attached. The per-tool setup is in How to use Tidio and How to use LiveChat; this page is the job across Shopify and the two paid options.

Work out three things before any agent goes live:

1. What each meter counts. Tidio counts a Lyro conversation the first time Lyro responds in a new conversation, and a billable conversation once a person replies (Tidio pricing). Text counts a resolution only when its agent solves at least one question (Text AI Agents article). For example, 400 chats a month with Lyro answering first in 260 and a person replying in 140 needs Lyro's 300 package at $210 and Growth's 250 tier at $59: $210 + $59 = $269 a month. Two people on Text's Growth plan cost 2 x $99 = $198 with 200 resolutions included. Shopify's agent adds $0 to either.
2. The pages the store already has. Shopify's agent answers from your products, policies and page content, which it treats as separate sources from its training (training article). A returns page that says two different things produces an agent that says both. Fix the page first, and check that the store uses new customer accounts, since the Inbox agent does not work with legacy ones (assignment article).
3. A baseline from the last four weeks. Chats per 100 orders, the share about order status, the median wait for a first reply, and how many chats ended with a person. Those four numbers are what the last section compares against.

The workflow, from first message to a person

1. The trigger. A shopper opens the store chat. In the Shopify admin, go to Sales channels > Inbox and switch the Inbox agent on with the assignment set to handle conversations only when your staff is unavailable; the other two choices are all conversations or never (assignment article). Starting outside staffed hours means your team still answers daytime chats while someone reads the agent's work.

2. The agent step. The agent reads the question against your catalogue, policies and pages and decides whether it has an answer. For an order, it asks the shopper to sign in before it shares any order information, and it replies in the language the shopper writes in, per the same article. Every chat carries a notice that it is powered by Shopify and that the shopper is talking to AI, and you cannot remove or reword it.

3. The handover. When the shopper asks for a person, or the conversation needs staff attention, it moves to the Unassigned folder with the agent's context attached. When staff handoff is not available, the shopper gets your store's sender email address instead, because the agent cannot send email for you (conversations article). Set availability hours to the hours someone reads that folder.

4. The human check. Each morning, the person who owns returns reads yesterday's agent chats and rates each reply up or down, editing or rewriting the ones that missed. That feedback does not change what the shopper already saw, and a suggested persona never applies until someone compares it and clicks Save (training article). A wrong fact gets fixed on the policy or product page, because rating replies does not change the agent's store knowledge.

5. The output. Answered chats close in Inbox, handed-over chats wait in Unassigned with context, and refunds, damage and payment problems stay on the staff side, since Shopify describes the agent's job as common shopping questions.

When the free agent stops being enough

Two gaps send stores to a paid tool: shoppers who will not sign in, and questions that arrive somewhere other than the store's chat widget, which is the only place Shopify's agent works (assignment article).

Tidio. Lyro's Get order status template calls your Shopify store's API and returns the order details and tracking link once the shopper gives an email address and an order ID, plus the zip code by default, a phone number, or nothing (Action templates). The template is open to Plus and Premium subscribers and to selected Lyro AI Agent subscribers; the pricing table makes your first Action free and gives full access with a paid Lyro quota (Tidio pricing). Handoff has one setting for online hours and one for offline hours, and choosing Create a ticket puts a ticket with the transcript in the Unassigned folder of the Tickets inbox (Lyro article). Custom handoff audiences send chosen visitors straight to a person. Plans are in the Tidio entry.

Text by LiveChat. Text's Shopify page says its agent answers "where is my order" from live store data and hands a case that needs a person over with full context (Text for Shopify). The Transfer to human skill sends the chat to a teammate or a chosen team, and when nobody is free within 30 seconds the agent can create a ticket instead (AI Agents article). Plans are in the LiveChat entry.

What decides between them: Tidio's self-serve plans include 10 seats and bill by conversations, while Text bills each user (Tidio pricing, LiveChat pricing). Several people who each take a few chats sit better on Tidio; two people taking many sit better on Text.

Tell shoppers it is an AI

Article 50(1) of the EU AI Act requires AI systems meant to interact directly with people to be built so those people are told they are dealing with an AI system, unless that is obvious, and Article 50(5) asks for that information clearly and at the latest at the first interaction; the Regulation applies from 2 August 2026 (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 on EUR-Lex). The LiveAgent entry walks through the rule. Shopify's notice is built in. Lyro AI Agent subscribers can rename Lyro (Lyro article), and Text's agent takes a custom name and avatar (AI Agents article); rename either and the greeting has to say, in its first line, that this is an AI assistant and how to reach a person.

Two questions for counsel. Article 50(1) puts the design duty on the provider of the system, so if your team builds its own agent on a model API, ask whether that makes you the provider. And ask what your privacy notice must say about order data an agent reads in chat.

The free version

On any plan from Basic up, Shopify Inbox runs with or without the agent, its listing names quick replies, FAQs and order updates among its features, and the agent above comes at $0 (App Store listing). Basic costs $39 a month, or $29 a month billed yearly (Shopify pricing). Tidio's Free plan covers 50 billable conversations a month and 50 Lyro conversations once, and Lyro stops when those 50 are spent (Lyro limit article); Text offers 14 days without a card (LiveChat pricing).

For a store whose shoppers sign in, the free agent does the whole job. The paid tools buy an order lookup by email and order number, a ticket when nobody is online, and more channels in one inbox.

What it costs a month

Prices in USD on monthly billing, checked on 26 October 2026 on the Shopify, Tidio and LiveChat pricing pages and the Shopify Inbox listing.

How to know it worked

• The measure. Order-status and product chats that ended without a person and that the morning reviewer signed off, as a share of all chats on those topics. A closed chat the reviewer would not sign off counts as a miss.
• The baseline. The four numbers from the last four weeks: chats per 100 orders, the order-status share, the median first-reply wait and the share ending with a person.
• A holdout, as near as these tools allow. None of the three splits shoppers at random, so alternate the setting weekly for four weeks: agent on all conversations, then on staff-unavailable hours only. It is weaker than a random split, and a sale week spoils it.
• The question that moved. Count order emails per 100 orders over the same weeks. If email rises while chat looks calmer, the agent moved the question instead of answering it.

The figure on the vendor's page

Text's Shopify page reports that visitors who chat place orders at a 266% higher rate than visitors who only browse, and the same page says chat reaches shoppers who were already close to buying (Text for Shopify). A figure built by comparing people who chose to chat with people who did not credits the agent with intent the shopper brought along, which serves the company selling the agent better than the store buying it. Your own baseline and your reviewer's sign-offs are the comparison that answers your question.

FAQ

Can the agent refund or cancel an order?

Keep both with a person. Shopify's article has the agent handing complex or sensitive questions to staff and lists no refund action (assignment article); Lyro's handoff audiences and Text's Transfer to human skill route such cases to people.

What if the shopper will not sign in?

Shopify's agent does not share order information without it. Hand the chat to a person, or use Lyro's order template, which checks an email address, an order ID and, by default, a zip code instead (Action templates).

Can the same agent answer Instagram and WhatsApp?

Not Shopify's, which stays in the store's chat widget. Tidio's pricing table lists Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp integrations, and Text's pricing page lists omnichannel on Essential (Tidio pricing, LiveChat pricing). Messaging channels bring Meta's own windows and fees, covered in the DM agent use case.