Switch your store chat from Zendesk to Carti
Zendesk's AI agent is part of its helpdesk, so you pay per team seat plus a fee for each conversation it resolves. Carti is made for Shopify shoppers and costs one flat monthly price. It answers their questions, recommends products and adds them to the cart. Keep Zendesk for your team, because when a shopper needs a person, Carti opens a Zendesk ticket.
The switch, step by step
Most of the time goes into testing, and Zendesk keeps answering shoppers until step 5.
Install Carti and let it learn your store
Install Carti from the Shopify App Store and pick a plan (the Free plan works). It reads your products, collections, pages, policies and shipping settings by itself, and the dashboard shows how long that first read will take. Nothing changes on your live store until you switch Carti on in your theme.Connect Zendesk so handoffs become tickets
In Carti's settings, choose Zendesk as the escalation destination. Enter your Zendesk subdomain, the email you log in to Zendesk with, and an API token, which you make in Zendesk's Admin Center under Apps and integrations, then APIs. From then on, when a shopper needs a person, Carti opens a Zendesk ticket with the whole chat in it.Copy over the answers only Zendesk knows
Look through your Zendesk help center for answers that aren't on your store's own site, like a warranty detail or a wholesale rule. Paste them into Carti's FAQs, or upload them as a PDF, Word or text file. Anything already on your site, Carti picks up on its own.Test Carti on a preview theme
Duplicate your live theme, turn on the Carti app embed in the copy, and open its preview. Ask the ten questions your shoppers ask most. If an answer is off, find it in Carti's chat history, where most replies have a Fix this reply option, and write what Carti should say. It uses your answer when shoppers ask something similar.Swap the chat on your live store
In your live theme's editor, open App embeds, turn Zendesk's Web Widget off and Carti on, then save. Shoppers see one chat bubble, and Carti answers from the next visit on. If someone once pasted Zendesk's widget into your theme code by hand, delete that snippet too.Keep Zendesk for your team
Leave the Zendesk app installed, so your team still sees Shopify orders next to its tickets and answers email in Zendesk as before. Your Zendesk AI agent stops getting your store's chats, so check how many resolutions you still need before your plan renews.Check in after a week
Your Carti dashboard shows every conversation and the sales from shoppers who chatted. Each week Carti also drafts new FAQs from questions your shoppers asked, ready for you to review.
What moves, and what stays behind
- Products, prices and stockCarti reads them from Shopify.Nothing to move
- Policies and store pagesRead on install.Nothing to move
- Help center answersPaste or upload the ones that aren't already on your site.Copy over
- Tickets and customer historyThey stay in Zendesk, and Carti's handoffs arrive there as new tickets.Stays behind
- AI agent proceduresCarti answers from your store on its own, so there's nothing to rebuild.Stays behind
- Email and other channelsZendesk keeps handling them for your team.Stays behind
Why stores move from Zendesk's AI agent to Carti
Switch to Carti if
- Your Zendesk bill climbs with every conversation the AI agent resolves, so your busiest months cost the most.
- Most of your chats are shoppers asking about products, sizes, stock or their order, and you want the chat to help them buy.
- You want order status in the chat without custom code. Carti looks up orders on every plan.
- Your team already works in Zendesk. Carti passes shoppers to them as Zendesk tickets, so their day stays the same.
What changes when you move
The differences that matter for your store chat. For everything else, see the full Carti and Zendesk comparison.
| Topic | Zendesk's AI agent | Carti |
|---|---|---|
| Where answers come from | Zendesk's AI agent: Your Zendesk help center, another knowledge base, or a crawl of your site's public pages | Carti: Your Shopify catalog, policies and pages, read on its own, plus your reviews when a reviews app is connected |
| Shopping help | Zendesk's AI agent: A Shopify shopping assistant is in early access for stores Zendesk accepts. Its cart in the chat is view-only, and it gives no size or fit advice | Carti: Recommends products from your live catalog and adds them to the cart when a shopper asks |
| Order status | Zendesk's AI agent: Zendesk's help center says to build a custom API call | Carti: Shoppers check their order in the chat, on every plan, with nothing to set up |
| Chat branding | Zendesk's AI agent: Zendesk's name stays on the chat unless you're on Suite Enterprise, a plan you buy through Zendesk's sales team | Carti: Remove Carti's branding on any paid plan |
| When a person is needed | Zendesk's AI agent: Your agents take over the conversation in Zendesk | Carti: Carti opens a Zendesk ticket with the whole chat, or emails your team if you prefer |
Zendesk details from zendesk.com/pricing and Zendesk's help center.
What the AI costs at your volume
With Zendesk you pay for the seat, then for each conversation its AI agent resolves without a person once you pass the 5 a seat includes each month. Carti is one flat price for a set number of AI conversations. The table assumes half of your AI conversations end as resolutions Zendesk bills for.
| AI conversations a month | Zendesk, one Suite Team seat | Carti |
|---|---|---|
| 250 | Zendesk, one Suite Team seat: $235 prepaid, $295 pay as you go | Carti: $49 on Starter |
| 600 | Zendesk, one Suite Team seat: $498 prepaid, $645 pay as you go | Carti: $99 on Growth |
| 1,750 | Zendesk, one Suite Team seat: $1,360 prepaid, $1,795 pay as you go | Carti: $249 on Scale |
Zendesk prices from zendesk.com/pricing: Suite Team at $55 a seat a month billed yearly ($69 billed monthly), 5 resolutions included per seat each month, then $1.50 for each prepaid resolution or $2.00 pay as you go. Prepaid totals are rounded to the dollar. More resolutions or more seats cost more, and if your team keeps Zendesk, its seats stay on your bill while Carti's price replaces the resolution fees. Carti never charges overage: when a plan's conversations run out, Carti stops answering new chats and points shoppers to your team until the next 30-day cycle or an upgrade.
“Response times went from hours to seconds, and our conversion rate increased by 35%.”
Brendan Davidson, Fans Of Free
Store-wide conversion after installing Carti, March 21 to April 20, 2026. Read the case study
Questions merchants ask before switching
Can I keep Zendesk and add Carti?
Yes. Carti answers shoppers in your store chat, and when someone needs a person it opens a Zendesk ticket with the whole conversation, so your team keeps working in Zendesk. Email and your other Zendesk channels carry on as before.
Can I keep Zendesk's chat running while I try Carti?
Yes. Install Carti and test it on a preview theme while Zendesk keeps answering on your live store. Swap them when you're happy, and avoid showing both bubbles on your live store at once, because shoppers won't know which one to use.
How does Carti's pricing compare with Zendesk's?
On Zendesk's Suite Team plan you pay $55 a seat a month, billed yearly, plus $1.50 prepaid or $2.00 pay as you go for each conversation the AI agent resolves past the 5 a seat includes. Carti's Free plan includes 50 AI conversations every month, and paid plans are $49 for 250, $99 for 600 and $249 for 1,750, with no overage. At 600 AI conversations a month, with half of them resolved, Zendesk comes to about $498 to $645 against Carti's $99.
Can shoppers check their order in Carti's chat?
Yes, on every plan, with nothing to set up. A shopper asks about their order and Carti shows its status and items, with tracking when your store has added it. Zendesk's help center says Shopify order status needs a custom API call you build yourself.
What happens when a shopper needs a person?
Carti answers on its own around the clock. When a shopper needs a person, it opens a Zendesk ticket with the chat transcript for your team. You can send those requests to a support email instead if you prefer.
What about Zendesk's shopping assistant?
Zendesk's Shopify shopping assistant is in early access, and Zendesk picks the stores and sets it up with each one. Its cart in the chat is view-only, and it gives no size or fit advice. Carti recommends products from your live catalog, answers size questions from your product details and adds items to the cart when a shopper asks.
Can I drop Zendesk completely?
Yes, if you only used Zendesk for your store chat. Point Carti's handoffs at your support email, and export any Zendesk data you want to keep, since Zendesk's terms allow exports for 30 days after your subscription ends. Then cancel your Zendesk plan and uninstall its app from Shopify.
Can I switch back if it doesn't work out?
Yes. Turn Carti's app embed off and Zendesk's Web Widget back on in your theme editor. If you also uninstall Carti from Settings, then Apps and sales channels, its chat comes off your store with no code to clean up.
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