Short answer
Install Aide from the Shopify App Store and switch on its chat in your theme editor: the Free plan answers from your catalog and policies and acts on orders for verified shoppers, with 150 AI replies a month. Starter adds 1,000 AI replies for $39 a month.- Install
- From the Shopify App Store, then the Aide chat app embed. No code.
- Free plan
- $0, 2 team members, 1 store, unlimited human conversations.
- Order actions
- Cancel, refund, change the address or start a return, for verified shoppers.
- Under $50
- Starter stays under $50 up to about 1,070 AI replies a month.
- Shopping help
- Product cards from real options and stock, with add to cart.
- Checkout
- Order help on the thank-you page. Chat inside checkout needs Shopify Plus.
A free chatbot that answers FAQs is easy to find. What a Shopify store needs is one that knows the catalog, can find the right order, and can make a change when a shopper asks, without that becoming a risk. This guide sets that up on Aide's Free plan, and shows when paying makes sense.
Set it up in five steps
- Install Aide from the Shopify App Store and connect your store. You start on Free, with nothing to pay.
- Open Aide Chat's installation steps and press Open theme editor. Your live theme opens with the Aide chat embed ready. Switch it on and save, and the chat bubble appears on every page.
- Check that it's live. Aide's page in your Shopify admin shows whether the embed is on, and the dashboard shows "Live on yourstore.com" once a visitor opens the chat. To check right away, open your store and click the bubble.
- Try the agent from its page before shoppers do. Aide answers from the pages it imported from your website and from your products, which sync from Shopify with every option and variant. The preview shows what each answer came from, so a wrong one points to the page to fix.
- Write an article for anything your site doesn't say, such as your same-day shipping cut-off or what counts as final sale. Then turn on the Aide AI Agent.
What shoppers can do in the chat
Most store chats are about an order, and Aide handles those from the order itself, not a template.
Shoppers logged in to their store account are recognised automatically, and their past conversations follow them across devices. Everyone else gives the order number and the email used at checkout, and both must match the same order before Aide shares anything. After five wrong attempts, Aide stops and hands the conversation to your team.
Once the order is verified, Aide can:
- show the order and live tracking, checked directly with UPS and FedEx and through Shopify for carriers such as USPS, with every shipment of a split order
- cancel the order, refund it, change the shipping address, remove an item that hasn't shipped, or add a note
- start a return under your Shopify return rules, or open your returns portal with the order filled in (returns stay off until you turn them on)
A typical exchange: "I ordered the wrong size, can I cancel #1058?" Aide checks that #1058 hasn't shipped, says exactly what it will do, and waits for a yes. The refund that comes with the cancellation waits for a teammate's approval by default.
Shoppers who are still browsing get answers from each product's real options and stock. If a product only comes in colours, Aide doesn't offer sizes, and "in stock" never becomes a delivery promise. Recommendations show as product cards with an option picker and Add to cart, straight into the shopper's own cart.
What your team sees
Every chat lands in Aide's inbox, next to the shopper's orders, shipments, live tracking and their cart as it changes. Teammates can make the same order changes from there, and can also hold fulfillment or send a free replacement.
Inside your Shopify admin, an Aide block on order and customer pages lists the conversations about them. Orders placed after a chat carry a "Bought after this chat" badge, so you can see which conversations turned into sales.
How far Free goes
Free includes 150 AI replies a month. An AI reply is each customer message Aide writes a reply or a draft for, plus each draft, rewrite or summary Copilot writes for your team. Your team's own replies never count. When the 150 are used, AI pauses until next month and your team answers chats as usual. Free shows "Powered by Aide" on the chat.
If the store outgrows that, Starter includes 1,000 AI replies, then charges $0.15 per extra reply, capped at $110 a month. On a $50 budget, $50 minus the $39 plan leaves $11, which buys 73 extra replies.
Starter also removes "Powered by Aide" and allows unlimited team members. It has a 7-day trial and is billed by card. Every plan is on pricing, and the Shopify integration page covers Aide in your Shopify admin, Sidekick and Flow.