A practical guide to setting up a Gorgias auto reply
Kenneth Pangan
Katelin Teen
Last edited October 22, 2025
Expert Verified
If you're in ecommerce, you know the feeling: the constant ping of new customer questions, day and night. Keeping up is a massive challenge. An instant reply isn't just a nice little extra anymore; it’s essential for managing customer expectations and giving your support team a break to focus on the tricky stuff.
If you’re using Gorgias, you have a couple of built-in options to automate responses. You can go with simple, rule-based messages or dip your toes into more advanced AI-powered chats.
The real trick is knowing which tool is right for the job. This guide will walk you through exactly how to set up a Gorgias auto reply, explaining what each method can do and, maybe more importantly, where they fall short.
What is a Gorgias auto reply?
In the world of Gorgias, an "auto reply" isn't just one single feature. It’s a job you can handle with two different tools inside the platform:
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Rules: This is your classic, trigger-based system. You set up simple "if this, then that" logic to automate repetitive tasks. Think of it like a very literal assistant that follows your instructions to the letter.
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AI Agent: This is the newer, smarter tool in the box. Instead of just following commands, the AI Agent tries to understand what a customer is actually asking for (their intent) and have a real conversation to solve their problem.
While both can send automated messages, they’re designed for different kinds of work and come with their own quirks and costs. Let's dig into how each one works.
Setting up a Gorgias auto reply with rules
The most direct way to get auto-replies going in Gorgias is by using Rules. This feature is built on simple "IF-THEN" logic, which is great for handling predictable, straightforward situations. If a support ticket matches the conditions you’ve set, the rule fires off an action, like sending a template message.
A view of the Gorgias interface showing the 'if-then' logic used to create a rule-based Gorgias auto reply.Common rule templates for a Gorgias auto reply
Gorgias gives you a few templates to get started with the most obvious use cases. Here are a couple you’ll likely use right away:
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Outside business hours: This is probably the first one everyone sets up. You can create a rule that automatically replies to any message that comes in after your team has logged off. The message can let customers know you’ve received their request and tell them when you’ll be back online. It’s a simple way to manage expectations and show you’re on top of things, even when you aren't.
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Order status inquiries (WISMO): "Where is my order?" is the question that haunts every ecommerce store. You can make a rule that scans for keywords like "order status" or "tracking" and then uses Shopify variables to automatically pull the customer's tracking link and send it over. This can be a huge time-saver, but it has one big catch: it only works if the tracking number is already available in Shopify. If the order is still being packed, the rule might get confused or send a reply that doesn't help.
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Auto-tagging and internal notes: Rules aren't just for talking to customers. You can use them to keep your inbox organized by automatically adding tags (like "Urgent" or "Return Request") or leaving internal notes for your team. It’s all part of the same automation engine that helps keep your workflow from getting messy.
Limitations of a rule-based Gorgias auto reply
As useful as they are, rules have some clear downsides that you'll start to feel as your store gets bigger:
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They're brittle: A rule is only as clever as the keywords you feed it. If a customer asks, "When will my package get here?" instead of "Where is my order?", your rule might completely miss it. You end up playing a constant game of whack-a-mole, trying to add every possible phrasing just to keep the automation afloat.
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They don't scale well: Managing a few rules is simple. Trying to juggle hundreds is a recipe for a headache. As you add more, they can start to overlap or conflict with each other, making it a nightmare to figure out what went wrong when a customer gets a weird response.
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They lack context: Rules can only see what’s inside Gorgias and its direct connections like Shopify. But what if the answer to a customer's question is in your internal knowledge base on Confluence or a shipping policy doc tucked away in Google Docs? Rules can't see that information, so they can't answer the question.
Using the Gorgias AI Agent for advanced auto replies
To get around the limits of rigid rules, Gorgias introduced its AI Agent. This is their answer to the problem, designed to be a much smarter solution that can figure out customer intent instead of just hunting for keywords. The goal is for it to handle more detailed conversations and actually get things done for your team.
Key capabilities of the AI Agent
The AI Agent is meant to be more than just a fancy auto-responder; it’s supposed to act like a digital member of your team.
A screenshot showing the Gorgias AI Agent providing an advanced Gorgias auto reply to an order status query.-
Answering FAQs: It can tackle common questions about your products, return policies, shipping times, and more by using the information already inside your Gorgias helpdesk.
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Taking actions: This is where it gets more interesting. The AI Agent can connect with your ecommerce platform to do things like process returns, issue refunds, or even edit a customer's order without a human having to step in.
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Personalization: It can even take things a step further by generating a unique discount code to make an unhappy customer happy again, or by recommending products based on what someone is asking about. A support ticket can suddenly become a sales opportunity.
The catch: Platform lock-in and pricing
The Gorgias AI Agent is definitely a big leap from basic rules, but it comes with two major trade-offs you need to be aware of.
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Your knowledge is stuck: The AI Agent mostly learns from information within the Gorgias and Shopify bubble. If you have detailed product guides, troubleshooting steps, or internal policies living anywhere else, like a company wiki in Notion or technical specs in a PDF, the AI Agent can't see them. This creates blind spots and limits the range of questions it can answer correctly.
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The pricing can get weird: The AI Agent is priced on a per-resolution basis. You pay every single time it successfully closes a ticket. This can lead to some eye-watering bills, especially during busy seasons like Black Friday. We'll get into the details next.
Gorgias auto reply pricing explained
Figuring out the costs of Gorgias automation is really important, because it's not just about your monthly subscription. When you start using the AI Agent, you’re suddenly juggling two related costs: helpdesk tickets and AI resolutions.
| Feature | How It's Billed | Pro Plan Example | Cost Implication |
|---|---|---|---|
| Helpdesk Tickets | Included up to a monthly limit, then you pay overage fees. | 2,000 tickets/month included | Your base cost is predictable, but overages can sneak up on you during busy months. |
| AI Agent Resolutions | You pay for each resolution. This is an extra cost on top of your plan. | $0.90 per resolution (on an annual plan) | Your costs go up with every ticket the AI solves, making your budget hard to predict. |
| An automated resolution is also a billable ticket | Each AI resolution also uses up one of your plan's included helpdesk tickets. | An AI resolution costs $0.90 + 1 helpdesk ticket from your monthly bucket. | This "double-dipping" means you'll burn through your included tickets faster, pushing you into paying extra fees sooner. |
A better alternative: Unify your knowledge with eesel AI
The headaches with Gorgias's native tools, brittle rules, trapped knowledge, and unpredictable costs, are exactly why many businesses look for a dedicated AI platform. Instead of making you switch helpdesks, eesel AI acts as a smart layer that plugs right into your existing setup, giving you a whole lot more power and control.
Go beyond the helpdesk with unified knowledge
The biggest problem with most built-in helpdesk AI is that it only knows what's in the helpdesk. eesel AI works differently by connecting to all of your company knowledge, no matter where it is.
This image shows how a better Gorgias auto reply solution like eesel AI can connect to all knowledge sources, not just the helpdesk.-
Connect everything: You can seamlessly integrate eesel AI with Gorgias, but you don’t have to stop there. Hook it up to your knowledge bases in Confluence or Notion, your internal docs in Google Docs, and more. This gives the AI a complete view of your business, letting it answer a much wider range of questions with confidence.
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Learn from your best agents: From day one, eesel AI can train on your past support tickets. It automatically figures out your brand's voice, tone, and the answers your team has already used to solve problems, all without needing weeks of manual configuration.
Test with confidence and maintain full control
Letting an AI talk to your customers can feel like a big leap of faith. What if it says the wrong thing? eesel AI is built to give you total peace of mind before you go live.
The simulation mode in eesel AI allows you to test your Gorgias auto reply on historical tickets before going live.-
Risk-free simulation: Before you flip the switch, you can run eesel AI in a simulation mode over thousands of your old tickets. It will show you exactly how it would have responded, giving you a clear picture of its performance and resolution rate. This is a powerful feature that most platforms, Gorgias included, just don’t offer.
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Gradual rollout: You don't have to automate everything all at once. With eesel AI, you have fine-grained control. You can start small by letting it handle just the simple "Where is my order?" questions and have it pass everything else to your human team. As you get more comfortable, you can slowly let it take on more, all at your own pace.
Simple, predictable pricing
Maybe the best part is that eesel AI's pricing model is built to be predictable.
- No per-resolution fees: eesel AI plans are based on a flat monthly fee for a generous number of AI interactions. You’ll never get a surprise bill at the end of a busy month. This makes budgeting a breeze and means you aren't punished for automating more of your support.
Choosing the right Gorgias auto reply for your store
Gorgias gives you a solid set of built-in tools for setting up auto-replies. Rules are good for simple, repetitive tasks, and the AI Agent is a clear step up for handling more detailed conversations. But at the end of the day, these tools live inside a walled garden, can be tough to scale, and come with a pricing model that can make costs hard to pin down.
For stores that want a more powerful, flexible, and budget-friendly solution, a dedicated AI platform is the way to go. eesel AI connects to all your knowledge sources, gives you the tools to test without risk, and offers a predictable price that grows with your business, all without making you leave the helpdesk you already know.
Ready to see how you can automate support with confidence? Start your free eesel AI trial today.
Frequently asked questions
You can set up rule-based auto-replies using "IF-THEN" logic in Gorgias. This is ideal for predictable situations like outside business hours messages or basic order status inquiries using predefined templates.
Rule-based auto-replies are brittle, meaning they rely strictly on keywords and can miss variations in customer phrasing. They also don't scale well with numerous rules and lack context beyond Gorgias itself, limiting their ability to answer complex questions from external knowledge.
The AI Agent is designed to understand customer intent, offering a more advanced Gorgias auto reply. It can answer FAQs, take actions like processing returns, and personalize responses, going beyond simple keyword triggers.
The AI Agent's main limitations include platform lock-in, as it primarily learns from Gorgias and Shopify data, ignoring external knowledge bases. Its pricing model, based on per-resolution fees, can also lead to unpredictable and potentially high costs.
The Gorgias AI Agent is billed on a per-resolution basis, which is an extra cost on top of your plan's included helpdesk tickets. Each AI resolution also consumes one of your monthly helpdesk tickets, potentially increasing your overall expenses during busy periods.
Gorgias's native auto-reply tools, especially the AI Agent, primarily learn from information within Gorgias and Shopify. They generally cannot access detailed knowledge or policies stored in external platforms like Notion, Confluence, or Google Docs, creating knowledge blind spots.
