7 best Zoko alternatives for Shopify WhatsApp in 2026

Why do Shopify stores look for Zoko alternatives?

I've spent two years watching what people type into Google before they buy support software. Searches like "Zoko alternatives" almost never mean "Zoko is bad". They mean one part of the bill or one part of the product stopped fitting. That's what I found going through Zoko for my Zoko review this month too.

Zoko deserves its 4.9 rating from 463 reviews on its Shopify listing. It puts your whole team on one WhatsApp number, lets customers buy from a catalog inside the chat, and every feature sits on every plan. The plans differ only by volume.

The reasons stores leave come down to four things:

• Three bills instead of one. Zoko's plans run $49.99 to $499.99 a month on Zoko's pricing page. You pay Meta's WhatsApp fees directly, and Zoko's AI runs on your own OpenAI account, so its model costs land on a third bill. My Zoko pricing post adds it all up.
• A per-conversation fee on Starter. The cheapest plan charges Zoko's own fee on every conversation. Plus includes 5,000 conversations before that fee starts.
• An AI that knows what you upload. Guru answers from files, text and Q&A pairs you add, and Wismo reads Shopify orders. Guru and Wismo cost $24.99 each plus $0.09 per resolution after 100 free, Sello is $24.99 plus 3% of order value, and Sello speaks English only.
• No email inbox. Zoko covers WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger. If email carries half your support, you still need a second tool, often a helpdesk like Gorgias.

Meta added a new cost for everyone this month. Since October 1, 2026, service replies past the first 1,000 a month per number are billed, per AiSensy's pricing page, and that applies whichever tool you pick. My post on WhatsApp API pricing has the full rate story.

How I picked these alternatives

Before writing, I asked ChatGPT the question a store owner would: I run a Shopify store, use Zoko for WhatsApp chat, broadcasts and AI agents, and I'm thinking about switching. It came back with eight names: DelightChat, Interakt, Wati, respond.io, SleekFlow, Gallabox, AiSensy and BIK. That matches what buyers actually see, so I used it as the shortlist and dropped BIK, which publishes the least about its pricing.

Then I checked each one against the three jobs Zoko does: a shared WhatsApp inbox, broadcasts with cart recovery, and AI agents. Every price below comes from the vendor's own pricing page or Shopify listing, checked on October 21, 2026.

One line in ChatGPT's answer is worth repeating, because it's the mistake I see most: having an AI chatbot doesn't mean a tool can look up a Shopify order. I flag where each vendor documents that and where it doesn't, because answering WISMO questions well depends on it.

The tools don't sit in one line by quality. They sit by what they were built for. The marketing-first ones are strongest on broadcasts, catalogs and cart recovery. The support-first end is strongest at answering questions and passing hard ones to a person. Zoko sits in the middle, which is why no single swap fits every store.

Zoko alternatives compared

Ratings are from each tool's Shopify App Store listing on October 21, 2026, with the review count in brackets.

Which Zoko alternative fits why you're leaving?

Pick the reason that's closest to yours. The shortlist changes more than you'd expect.

If none of these sounds like you, my roundup of the best WhatsApp chatbots covers tools that aren't Shopify-specific.

What does a WhatsApp AI agent cost with each tool?

This is where the alternatives differ most, and where pricing pages say the least. Each vendor bills AI by a different unit: per resolution, per AI message, per credit, per token or bundled into a plan. So I priced the cheapest plan on each tool that puts an AI agent on WhatsApp.

A few things the chart can't show:

• Zoko's $75 is Starter at $49.99 plus Guru at $24.99, then $0.09 per resolution after 100 free and your own OpenAI bill.
• Wati's $253 is Pro at $149 monthly, Astra Pro at $99 and the $4.99 Shopify add-on, per Astra's pricing.
• SleekFlow's $109 is billed yearly, and Gallabox's $336 is billed quarterly, with the $5 Shopify add-on included. Gallabox has no monthly option.
• eesel's $299 covers 500 tickets or chats with the AI model cost included and no seat fee, with unlimited seats, so adding teammates doesn't change the price.

None of these include Meta's WhatsApp fees. I'd also ask each vendor what counts as one billable unit. A "resolution" and a "conversation handled" aren't the same, as my post on deflection vs resolution rate explains.

1. DelightChat

Best for: Shopify brands that want Zoko's mix of support inbox and WhatsApp marketing, plus email, at a lower starting price.

DelightChat is the closest like-for-like swap on this list, and it was ChatGPT's first pick too. It puts WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, email and live chat in one inbox, with the Shopify customer and order details shown beside each ticket. The marketing side covers broadcasts, abandoned cart and checkout recovery, COD confirmation, COD to prepaid, and review requests. It's built in Bengaluru and has been on the Shopify App Store since January 2021.

The AI is a GPT-based assistant that drafts and polishes agent replies. The pricing page doesn't describe it answering customers on its own, learning from a knowledge base, or looking up orders. So treat it as help for your team, not a replacement for Zoko's Wismo.

Pricing

A ticket only counts when a person replies, so auto-replies are free. WhatsApp fees are charged "as is, with no markup", and your first WhatsApp number is included. The AI assistant includes 10K free tokens a month. The 14-day trial needs no card, and annual plans get 30% off through sales.

Pros and cons

What users say

I couldn't find DelightChat reviews on G2 or Capterra, so its 4.9 rating from 224 reviews on the Shopify listing is the main signal. Recent reviews there praise the setup help and pricing.

Verdict: Pick DelightChat if you want Zoko's inbox and marketing in one place and you also answer email. Skip it if you're leaving Zoko because you want an AI that resolves chats on its own.

2. Interakt

Best for: Shopify stores, especially in India, that want WhatsApp marketing, order messages and AI agents on one cheap plan with unlimited seats.

Interakt is a WhatsApp and Instagram platform from Haptik, and it says it's trusted by 100,000+ businesses. On Shopify it covers abandoned cart reminders, order, shipping and cancellation updates, COD double-confirmation, bulk campaigns and catalog sharing in chat. Unlike most tools here, its core plans don't charge per seat.

Its WhatsApp AI Agents come as a set: Customer Support (trained on your website and docs), Sales (suggests products from your Meta catalog), Lead Qualification, and an Order Management agent that "tracks orders, updates delivery, handles returns". The page says it works with Shopify but doesn't say how deep the order lookup goes, so test it with a real order number.

Pricing

Interakt sells through two price lists, and they don't match. Its Shopify listing shows monthly plans:

The website pricing page bills by quarter: Starter $69, Growth $149 and Advanced $189, with AI agents as a $74.99 a month add-on on Growth or Advanced. That add-on includes 100 AI messages, then $0.011 per message. WhatsApp fees are added on top of every plan, and only Enterprise drops the template markup.

Pros and cons

What users say

Interakt holds 4.5 out of 5 from 68 reviews on G2. The common thread is good value once the team learns the tool:

"The overall onboarding experience is smooth and well structured. The platform provides good value for money, with comprehensive feature integration and a user-friendly interface."

Interakt reviewer, G2

Verdict: Pick Interakt if broadcasts and order messages are most of what Zoko does for you and your team is growing. Skip it if you need email in the same inbox.

3. Wati

Best for: Teams where WhatsApp stays the main channel for both campaigns and service, and who want a large, mature platform.

Wati is one of the best-known WhatsApp API platforms, with 16,000+ businesses and a 4.6 from 516 reviews on G2. It covers a shared inbox, broadcasts, no-code chatbots, click-to-WhatsApp ad tools, Instagram and TikTok DMs, and a Shopify app for cart recovery, order updates and COD checks.

The AI comes in layers. Copilot (reply suggestions, summaries, translation) runs on credits included in each plan. Astra, the AI agent, is a separate product trained on your knowledge base, PDFs and website pages. Astra's integration list covers HubSpot, Slack and Salesforce, but not Shopify, and none of the vendor pages say it can look up an order.

Pricing

Add-ons sit on top: the Shopify integration is $4.99 a month, automation triggers $40 per 1,000, AI credits $30 per 1,000, and extra WhatsApp numbers $29 each. Astra has a Free plan for web only, then Pro at $99 and Business at $399 a month. Messages bill on Wati's rate card, and the trial runs 7 days.

Pros and cons

What users say

Reviewers like the Shopify order messages and are less happy that new features land on higher plans:

"Wati has been our messaging platform for over 3 years. What we love most is its integration with our Shopify store and the ability to send automated messages to all our customers with notifications about their orders and shipping updates."

Wati reviewer, G2

Verdict: Pick Wati if WhatsApp is your one channel and you want a mature platform with strong campaigns. Skip it if you need an AI agent that reads Shopify orders out of the box.

4. respond.io

Best for: Growing teams that want capable AI agents across WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok, email and calls, and can live without a native Shopify app.

respond.io has the deepest AI agent feature set on this list, and its homepage announces a fresh $62.5M Series B. Its AI Agents qualify leads, route chats, recommend products and hand off to a person, using knowledge sources you approve. It holds 4.8 from 551 reviews on G2.

The catch for a Shopify store is the integration. respond.io has no Shopify App Store app. Its Shopify integration adds the chat widget to your store and says to use Make, n8n or Zapier for orders and contact data. My respond.io pricing post covers the contact-based billing in more depth.

Pricing

The monthly prices are derived from the page's own yearly totals. Pricing scales with monthly active contacts, from 1,000. Extra AI credits are $15 per 1,000, with a hard cap at 200% of your allowance. WhatsApp fees go to Meta with no markup, and the 7-day trial gives you Growth features.

Pros and cons

What users say

"It could probably be the issue of AI credits, as the 10,000 credits in the plan I'm on might be a bit tight. Increasing that limit could improve the experience."

respond.io reviewer, G2

Verdict: Pick respond.io if a smarter AI is the reason you're leaving and you sell on many channels. Skip it if you want Shopify order flows without building automations. My respond.io alternatives list helps if the price feels high.

5. SleekFlow

Best for: Brands that sell across WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger and Asian chat apps, and want AI agents that can work with Shopify data.

SleekFlow is an omnichannel platform with 10+ channels, including SMS, WeChat, LINE and Telegram, used by more than 7,000 businesses. Its AI layer, AgentFlow, learns from a website crawl, uploaded docs, custom Q&As, SOPs and CRM data. SleekFlow says its agents connect to Shopify to resolve order questions, and the inbox shows Shopify order history beside the chat.

One nice detail for broadcast-heavy stores: SleekFlow only counts two-way contacts. People who get a broadcast and never reply don't count toward your contact limit.

Pricing

Extra contacts are $20 per 100. Each WhatsApp number costs $15 a month in hosting plus per-message fees. The 7-day Pro trial needs no card. SleekFlow's Shopify listing shows a different ladder, from $199 a month, so confirm the price with sales. My SleekFlow pricing post goes through the contact math.

Pros and cons

What users say

"Effective for customer support, sales and mass marketing as multiple users can use the same WhatsApp number to reply customers and send personalised messages at scale while linking it up to Shopify."

Chiu Kwan H., Capterra, 2022

Verdict: Pick SleekFlow if your customers reach you on many chat apps and you want one AI across them. Skip it if you only use WhatsApp and want the lowest bill. See SleekFlow alternatives if you're torn.

6. AiSensy

Best for: Indian D2C brands that mostly need cheap WhatsApp broadcasts and click-to-WhatsApp ads, with an AI agent as an optional extra.

AiSensy is a WhatsApp marketing platform built in India, priced in rupees. Its Free Forever plan keeps the WhatsApp API, the Blue Tick application and a click-to-WhatsApp ads manager, though broadcasts need a paid plan. Its Shopify app is a $1 one-time charge and covers abandoned cart, COD confirmation and shipping updates.

The AI Chat Agent learns from your business details, a website crawl, and uploaded PDFs, docs and catalogs. It can check order status through tool calling you set up against Shopify or another API, so plan some setup time.

Pricing

The AI agent is ₹1,350 a month for 1,000 AI messages, and chatbot flows are a separate ₹2,500 a month. Extra seats cost ₹750 each. India message rates from October 1, 2026 are ₹1.09 per marketing message and ₹0.145 for utility or service, after 1,000 free service messages a month.

Pros and cons

What users say

"This is very good and easy to use; it works like a charm. It is very user-friendly, and the AI agent also helps a lot and works much better than expected."

AiSensy reviewer, Trustpilot

Verdict: Pick AiSensy if you're an Indian brand and broadcasts are the job. Skip it if you need Instagram or email in the same inbox.

7. Gallabox

Best for: Teams that use WhatsApp to capture and qualify leads, and want AI on WhatsApp, Instagram, web chat and voice in one place.

Gallabox leans toward sales: its plans are framed around speed-to-lead and pipeline. It covers a WhatsApp inbox, broadcasts, chatbot flows, Instagram DMs, a web widget and AI voice agents. The Shopify app is a $5 a month add-on for order notifications, cart recovery and broadcasts.

Its Chat AI Agent learns from website URLs and uploaded documents. Gallabox also publishes an unusually open AI rate card: you pick from 15 models, each with a credit cost per reply. Order lookup by the AI isn't documented.

Pricing

There's no monthly billing. AI credit top-ups are $10 per 5,000, extra channels $20 a month each, and Meta's message fees are billed separately.

Pros and cons

What users say

Gallabox holds 4.6 from 169 reviews on G2. One reviewer asks for what many small stores will want, a shorter commitment:

"There should have been a montly plan also , so that many new people can give this a try"

Gallabox reviewer, G2

Verdict: Pick Gallabox if WhatsApp is a lead channel and you want voice AI too. Skip it if you're a small store that wants month-to-month billing.

Bonus: eesel for the support half

Best for: Shopify stores whose WhatsApp is mostly customers asking for help, and who want answers that check the order first.

I'll be upfront: eesel isn't a Zoko replacement on the marketing side. It has no broadcasts, no cart recovery and no WhatsApp catalog. What it does is the part of Zoko's job where Guru and Wismo sit. It's an AI helpdesk teammate that answers customers on WhatsApp, inside helpdesks like Gorgias or Zendesk, and in website chat.

The difference from every AI on this list is what it learns from. eesel reads your help center, docs, website and past tickets, so the answers your team already wrote in past tickets become the starting point. You don't have to rewrite them as Q&A pairs. Before an order question, it looks up the order in Shopify. You can test it on past conversations before a customer ever sees a reply, which my guide to testing an AI agent covers.

Two published stories show what that looks like. Question Beauty runs eesel on Messenger, email and chat in Gorgias: 990 tickets in a month, 960 replies sent by eesel, 290 Shopify orders looked up and 280 tickets closed without a person, in the customer's language. Rúngne, a Norwegian climbing apparel store, runs it across 2,100 Gorgias tickets a month, including Instagram and Facebook comments: 880 tagged, 580 drafts left for the team and 440 replies sent.

Pricing

Teammate scales in monthly batches, such as 1,000 credits for $499 and 2,000 for $849, on eesel's pricing page. The AI model cost is included, so there's no separate OpenAI wallet to top up.

Pros and cons

What users say

eesel's strongest proof is the published customer stories above, with real numbers from production. STIL Classics, a planner and stationery brand, had eesel look up 230 Shopify orders in a month before drafting any replies in Gorgias.

Verdict: Pick eesel if most of your WhatsApp is "where's my order" and "does this fit", and you want those answered from what your team already knows. Keep a marketing tool next to it if broadcasts drive your sales.

Before you switch: five things to test

Moving off Zoko is mostly a WhatsApp project, not a software one. The checks below are where switches go wrong, and the last two are the ones vendors' demos skip. My guide to automating WhatsApp support covers the setup side.

1. Move your WhatsApp number. Your Business API number can move to a new provider. Ask the new vendor how the move works and plan it for a quiet day.
2. Keep your marketing opt-ins. Export your contact list with each customer's opt-in status. WhatsApp marketing needs explicit opt-in, so the record has to come with you.
3. Re-check your message templates. Order updates, cart reminders and broadcasts all run on approved templates. Copy them out of Zoko first, and ask the new vendor which ones need approval again.
4. Test a real order lookup. Give the new AI five real order numbers: shipped, delayed, split, refunded and cancelled. My guide to order tracking with AI lists what a good answer includes.
5. Test the handoff to a person. Ask for a refund and say you're upset. The chat should land with a person, with the context attached. See human handoff best practices for what to look for.

Run the new tool next to Zoko on a second number for a week if you can. My guide to switching support vendors has a phased cutover plan.

Which Zoko alternative should you choose?

If Zoko does most things right and you just want a lower bill or an email inbox, DelightChat is the safest swap, with Interakt close behind for bigger teams. If broadcasts are the business, Interakt, Wati and AiSensy are built for it. If the AI is the reason, respond.io and SleekFlow have the most capable agents, but check how each reaches your Shopify orders. And if you only need free chat on your store, Shopify Inbox costs nothing.

And if your WhatsApp is mostly people asking for help, ask a different question: what should the AI learn from? Every tool on this list trains on what you upload or link. The answers your team already wrote in past chats are usually the best source, and only one tool here learns from those directly. For more Shopify options, my roundups of Shopify chatbot apps and AI helpdesks for Shopify go wider.

Try eesel for your WhatsApp support

If you're leaving Zoko because Guru only knows what you upload, eesel works the other way round. It connects to Shopify and your WhatsApp, learns from your past replies and help center, and checks the order before it answers. Question Beauty's agent sends 960 replies a month on its own and passes refunds to a person with a note. Try eesel free with 100 credits, run it on last month's real questions, and keep Zoko or any tool above for broadcasts.