A founder's guide to the Gorgias startup program in 2025

As a startup founder, you’re probably an expert at spinning plates. You're trying to build an incredible product, find customers, and keep the lights on, all at the same time. A huge part of that is giving your first customers a great support experience, but the best tools often feel like they're priced for companies with much deeper pockets.

That’s where offers like the Gorgias startup program pop up, promising a helping hand when your budget is tight.

But a discount for a few months is just the start of the story. In this guide, we’ll get into the nitty-gritty of what the Gorgias startup program actually gives you. More importantly, we’re going to look past the initial savings to figure out what a startup really needs to build a support system that’s efficient, predictable, and ready to scale as you grow.

What is Gorgias?

At its core, Gorgias is a customer service helpdesk designed specifically for e-commerce businesses. The whole idea is to pull all your customer conversations, from email, live chat, social media DMs, and texts, into one single dashboard. No more hopping between a dozen different tabs to see who's asking what.

A look at the Gorgias dashboard, which unifies customer conversations from multiple channels.

Its biggest selling point is how tightly it connects with e-commerce platforms like Shopify, Magento, and BigCommerce. This means your support team can see a customer's entire order history and shipping information right next to their support ticket. It’s all about giving your team the context they need to solve problems quickly without having to dig for information in another system.

What is the Gorgias startup program?

The Gorgias startup program is their way of making the platform a little easier for early-stage companies to swallow. It’s not a forever discount, but it is a nice temporary boost to get you started without having to pay the full price right away.

What you get with the Gorgias startup program: Breaking down the discount

The deal itself is pretty simple: you get your second and third months of any paid plan for free.

Let’s be clear on how that works. It’s not a discount that chips away at your bill each month. You pay for your first month as usual, and then Gorgias covers the cost for the next two. After that, you’re back to paying the standard rate for whatever plan you picked. You almost always find this offer through a partner, like a venture capital firm, an accelerator program, or one of those platforms that bundles software perks for startups.

How much is the Gorgias startup program actually worth?

The real cash value of this deal completely depends on the plan you sign up for. If you’re on the Starter plan, the savings are pretty small. But if your business needs one of the higher-tier plans, the discount can actually be quite significant, saving you close to two thousand dollars.

Here’s a quick look at what that means in actual numbers:

As you can tell, the program really shines if you’re a startup that already has enough customer volume to need the Pro or Advanced plan from the get-go. For a small team that needs the Advanced plan’s features, saving $1,800 is a real extension of your runway.

How to apply and check your Gorgias startup program eligibility

Getting into the Gorgias startup program isn’t really about filling out a formal application. It’s more about being connected to the right network. Here’s what you need to know.

Who’s eligible:

• You have to be a brand-new Gorgias customer. If you’ve used them before, this offer isn’t for you.

• You need to be an early-stage startup. The exact definition of "early-stage" can be a little fuzzy, but the partner you apply through will usually be the one to verify this.

• You must sign up through a recognized partner portal. This is usually your accelerator, a VC in your network, or a platform that collects startup deals.

The process:

1. First, you’ll need to find a partner program that actually offers the Gorgias perk.

2. Follow their specific instructions for claiming the deal. This usually means clicking a special sign-up link or using a promo code.

3. Sign up for your Gorgias account with that link or code.

4. Once you’ve paid for your first month, the free credit should show up automatically on your invoices for the second and third months.

A closer look at Gorgias pricing plans

For a startup, understanding how Gorgias structures its pricing is really important. A lot of helpdesks charge you per support agent, but Gorgias uses a ticket-based model. This means your monthly bill is tied to the number of "billable tickets" your team handles.

Here are the latest pricing plans:

Is the Gorgias startup program the best choice for your startup?

A discount is always nice, but experienced founders know that the initial price is only part of the equation. The best tool isn't just the one that's cheap today, it's the one that provides real value over the long haul, is easy to set up, and can actually grow with your business.

The hidden costs of a 'free' start

Those two free months from the Gorgias startup program feel great, but what happens when the bill for month four arrives? Because of the ticket-based pricing, your costs can jump without warning. A successful marketing campaign or a busy sales season could easily push you over your ticket limit, and you’ll be hit with overage fees that start chipping away at your cash. That kind of unpredictability is exactly what a startup trying to manage a tight budget doesn't need.

This is where modern AI platforms can offer a much more stable path forward. Take eesel AI, for example. It offers straightforward pricing based on the features you need, with no fees per resolution. You know exactly what you’re paying every single month, no matter how many customers you help. That kind of predictability is a huge relief, letting you focus on growing your business instead of anxiously counting support tickets.

The challenge of getting value fast

A discount doesn’t mean much if you can’t get the tool working for you quickly. Gorgias is a powerful platform, but setting up all the rules and macros to fit your business can take a serious amount of time and effort. As a founder who’s already wearing ten different hats, that’s time you probably don’t have.

This is a huge advantage of a tool like eesel AI, which is built so you can get it running yourself in just a few minutes. With one-click integrations for your helpdesk, you can connect your existing tools and start automating support almost instantly. There’s no complicated setup process or waiting around for an onboarding specialist. You can build, test, and launch an AI agent on your own schedule and start seeing value on day one.

Beyond e-commerce: The need for flexible, unified knowledge

Gorgias is fantastic for e-commerce, but what if your company’s knowledge is scattered everywhere? Most businesses rely on internal wikis in Confluence, project plans in Notion, and important documents in Google Docs to keep things running.

A truly smart AI needs to be able to tap into all of that information. eesel AI is designed to connect all your knowledge sources instantly. You can plug it into your helpdesk, sure, but you can also connect it to your internal docs, your Slack conversations, and even your past support tickets. This creates one central brain for your company, allowing the AI to give better, more accurate answers for both customers and your internal team. That makes it a much more versatile tool for any kind of startup, not just e-commerce brands.

eesel AI can connect to various knowledge sources beyond the helpdesk, creating a unified information hub for your startup.

De-risking your decision with simulation

For any startup, choosing a new piece of technology feels like a bit of a gamble. A discount might lower the financial risk, but it doesn't get rid of the risk that the tool just won't work the way you hoped. What if you spend weeks setting everything up, only to find out it can’t automate the kinds of questions you get most often?

This is where eesel AI's simulation mode is so useful. Before you let the AI talk to a single customer, you can test it on thousands of your past support conversations in a completely safe environment. The simulation gives you a clear report card on its performance, showing you exactly what its resolution rate will be and how much time it's likely to save your team. It lets you make a decision based on real data, not just a sales pitch, which is something a simple discount can’t offer.

eesel AI's simulation mode lets you test its performance on past conversations, de-risking your decision by providing data-backed performance insights.

Think beyond the discount: Focus on long-term value

The Gorgias startup program is a solid offer that can provide some real financial relief for a new business. Getting two months of a top-tier helpdesk for free is definitely an opportunity worth considering.

But when you're building a company for the long haul, true growth comes from efficiency, predictability, and having control over your tools. Modern AI platforms offer a bigger strategic advantage because they're faster to set up, have clearer pricing, and are flexible enough to adapt as your business evolves. A discount helps your budget in the short term, but a tool that saves you time, gives you predictable costs, and lets you test your decisions with confidence will deliver far more value over time.

As you weigh your options, try to look past the immediate perks and choose the solution that will set you up for sustainable success.

Ready for an AI support solution that you can set up yourself in minutes and test with confidence? See how eesel AI gives you total control over your support automation. Start your free trial today.