Pick Gorgias if most of your tickets are order questions and you want Shopify data and app integrations in the agent view without building anything. Pick Zendesk if you have phone, multiple regions, a B2B or wholesale side, and an internal team that wants to configure its own workflows. Pick Gladly if the customer, not the ticket, is the unit you care about and your agents handle long relationships across channels. The usual trap is buying the AI tier first: all three sell one, and all three can create work for you before they remove any.
At a glance
 Gorgias |  Zendesk |  Gladly | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Built for | Shopify DTC support teams handling order and product questions | General support orgs across ecommerce, SaaS and services | Brands that treat support as a customer relationship, not a queue |
| What else it sells | AI agents, onsite chat and shopping assistants, outsourced support service tiers | A full service suite, phone, knowledge base, workforce tools, CRM-adjacent products | Voice, messaging and AI assist inside one customer timeline |
| Strongest at | Shopify order context, macros tied to store actions, breadth of app integrations | Configurability, reporting, phone and multi-region setups | One view of the customer across channels, agent experience on long conversations |
| Common reason brands leave | Cost once you add seats, AI and upsell modules; AI replies that do not resolve | Minimal out of the box; manual work to keep responses useful | Thinner third-party app ecosystem and slower partner integrations |
| Typical switch | To Zendesk or Gladly when scale and phone matter more than Shopify widgets | To Gorgias when the team is small and wants Shopify context by default | To Gorgias or Zendesk when the stack needs integrations the platform does not have |
Gorgias
Gorgias is the default for Shopify brands, and for a reason. Order, refund and subscription data sits next to the ticket. Agents can refund or edit an order without leaving the view. It plugs into the apps most DTC stacks already run, which is why it keeps winning shortlists even when the buyer has used something bigger before.
Two things go wrong. The first is price. Gorgias sells AI agents, onsite shopping assistants and outsourced support service on top of the help desk, and the full bundle gets expensive relative to what a lean CX team uses. Brands that buy the sales and shopping side can conclude the extra modules did not pay for themselves. The second is the AI. The shopping assistant and automated replies are easy to turn on and hard to make good. Poorly scoped automation can open tickets that a human then has to close, which is the opposite of the pitch.
Zendesk
Zendesk is what brands buy when support is no longer just email about where the order is. Phone, multiple brands or regions, a wholesale inbox, SLA reporting a COO will read: it handles all of that and lets an internal admin configure it without a vendor project.
The complaint is that it works but does not do much for you. Out of the box it is a ticket pipe. Macros, routing and help center content all need someone to own them, and without that owner agents end up writing manual responses to the same questions. Its AI story also lags what Shopify-native tools demo, and teams evaluating automation on Zendesk can come away unsure what they are buying.
On the storefront side, FIGS, NZXT and Jackery all show Zendesk.
Gladly
Gladly organizes around the person, not the ticket. One timeline per customer across email, chat, SMS and voice. For brands where the same customer comes back repeatedly, or where agents handle high-consideration purchases and subscription issues, that model cuts the re-explaining that burns both sides.
The gap is the ecosystem. Shopify brands run a dozen apps that need to show context in the agent view: returns, subscriptions, loyalty, shipping protection. Gladly has fewer of those integrations than Gorgias and has been pushing into AI rather than partner work, so integration requests can sit. If your workflow depends on a returns or subscription app writing into the help desk, confirm that integration exists before you sign, not after.
AG1, Brooklinen and KITSCH run Gladly on their storefronts.
How to decide
Two more practical notes. Migration cost sits in macros, help center articles and historical tickets, not in the software. Scope that before the contract. And whichever you choose, the returns and tracking tooling around it moves ticket volume more than the help desk does.
Questions people ask
Is Gorgias or Zendesk better for a Shopify store?
Gorgias if order questions dominate and you want Shopify actions inside the ticket with no setup project. Zendesk if you need phone, several regions or storefronts, serious reporting, and you have someone to own configuration. Small CX teams tend to get value from Gorgias faster; larger support orgs can outgrow it on price and channel coverage.
Why do brands switch away from Gorgias?
Cost as seats and add-on modules stack up, and disappointment with the automation and onsite shopping assistant. Teams that buy AI replies or the sales side can find the lift did not match the invoice. When they leave, it is usually for Zendesk when phone and scale matter, or Gladly when the customer relationship matters more than ticket throughput.
What is Gladly good for compared to Gorgias?
Gladly keeps one timeline per customer across every channel, including voice, which suits repeat buyers, subscriptions and high-consideration products. Gorgias is stronger on Shopify-native actions and on integrations with the apps a DTC stack already runs. If your returns, subscription or loyalty app has to show up in the agent view, check Gladly supports it before you commit.
