Gorgias Channels Explained (Email, Chat, Social, SMS, Voice)

The full channel map

Gorgias splits into two groups, and the split matters because it decides where you go to connect each one. The core conversational channels live under Settings → Channels, and the rest — social platforms and the metered add-ons — connect through Settings → App Store.

Under Settings → Channels you'll find:

• Email — the workhorse. Connect via a Gmail integration, an Outlook integration, or automatic forwarding from an existing support address.
• Chat — the on-site widget for your storefront, covered in depth in Gorgias chat explained.
• Contact form — a fallback form that files a ticket when nobody's live.
• Help Center — your self-serve knowledge base, which deflects before a ticket is ever created.

Through Settings → App Store you connect:

• Social — Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram as one linked integration.
• WhatsApp — a metered messaging channel.
• SMS — a paid add-on for text-message support.
• Voice — a paid add-on that turns phone calls into tickets.

The unifying rule across all of them: every inbound message becomes a ticket, and Gorgias stitches messages from the same customer into a single thread regardless of which channel they arrived on. That's the foundation the rest of the platform — Rules, the customer sidebar, views, macros — is built on. If you're new to the platform entirely, start with what is Gorgias for the bigger picture.

Email: the default, and how it becomes a ticket

Email is where most ecommerce support still lives, and Gorgias treats it as first-class. You connect it under Settings → Channels → Email → Add new email in one of three ways: a native Gmail integration, a native Outlook integration, or automatic forwarding from whatever address you already publish ([email protected]). Forwarding is the universal option — it works no matter what mail host you're on — but the native OAuth integrations give cleaner threading and fewer deliverability surprises.

The moment a message hits that address, Gorgias creates a ticket. No shared Gmail inbox where two agents reply to the same customer and nobody knows; each email is a trackable, assignable record. Replies from the customer append to the existing thread until the ticket auto-closes on inactivity — for email, that window is 10+ days before a fresh message spins up a new ticket, per the Gorgias billing documentation.

Chat and Contact form: real-time and its fallback

Chat is the widget you embed on your Shopify (or other) storefront so a shopper mid-checkout can ask "does this ship to Canada?" without leaving the page. Each conversation becomes a ticket the same way email does, and because the visitor is on your site, Gorgias can attach page context and order data to the sidebar. Setup lives at Settings → Channels → Chat → Add chat.

The Contact form is chat's after-hours counterpart. When no agent is available, the widget can present a form that files a standard ticket for reply later — so an out-of-hours question doesn't evaporate. Both feed the same unified inbox, so an agent never has to context-switch between tools.

Social: Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram

Social is where the quirks start. You connect Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram as one linked integration via Settings → App Store → All apps → Facebook, Messenger & Instagram → Log in with Facebook, authorizing with an account that has Admin, Editor, or Moderator access to the page. Per the Gorgias social channels guide, the integration pulls in a wide spread of interactions as tickets:

• Facebook wall posts and post comments
• Messenger direct messages
• Instagram comments and mentions
• Ad comments on both platforms

That breadth is genuinely useful — an angry ad comment becomes a ticket you can actually resolve — but three limits are worth committing to memory:

1. The 7-day Messenger window. You can only reply to a Facebook Messenger conversation within 7 days of the customer's last message. After that, Meta's API closes the door.
2. Top comments only. Due to an API limitation you can reply to top-level comments on a post, but not to replies-on-comments left by other customers.
3. Silent auto-hides. If you auto-hide comments on Facebook by keyword, that comment is still pulled into the helpdesk without any notification — so moderated content can quietly sit as an open ticket.

Instagram connects through the linked Facebook business account, and reactions are limited too: the API only supports the Like reaction.

SMS and Voice: the metered add-ons

SMS and Voice are paid add-ons, and they bill differently from your core channels, so it's worth being precise. Per the Gorgias billing docs:

• An SMS ticket is counted when at least one outbound SMS is sent from your helpdesk.
• A Voice interaction is billable when at least one phone call takes place between a customer and your helpdesk.

The Voice add-on lets agents make and receive calls that are tracked as tickets right alongside every other channel — so a call transcript sits in the same thread as the customer's earlier email. Both SMS and Voice also use a tighter auto-close window than email: a 3+ day gap of inactivity spins up a new ticket, versus email's 10+ days. Third-party pricing roundups put the Voice add-on in the range of roughly $0.50–$1.20 per ticket and SMS around $0.41–$0.80 per ticket depending on your volume tier (confirm current pricing with Gorgias directly, as add-on rates change).

Here's the per-channel behavior at a glance:

How billing ties the channels together

One rule governs cost across the whole map: a ticket becomes billable when at least one message in it is sent from your helpdesk — whether that message comes from a human agent, an AI Agent, or an automatic reply from a Rule. An inbound message that you never answer doesn't cost you a billable ticket. That's a genuinely fair model, but it has a consequence worth flagging: because any outbound reply — including an automated one — converts a ticket to billable, your automation strategy and your bill are directly linked. Spammy auto-replies don't just annoy customers; they cost money.

The honest limits — and where an AI layer fits

Gorgias's channel handling is legitimately strong: the unified thread is the real value, and the fact that a Facebook ad comment and a phone call land in the same inbox as an email is what makes it a help desk and not five disconnected tools. Credit where it's due.

But notice what the channel layer does and doesn't do. It routes and records messages beautifully — it doesn't answer them. Every ticket, on every channel, still lands on a human who has to read it, look up the order, and write the reply. And the channels each carry constraints the platform can't wish away: the 7-day Messenger window, top-comments-only replies, add-on metering on SMS and Voice, and the fact that a shopper asking "where's order #4471?" over chat gets the same blank-slate treatment as over email — the channel doesn't fetch the answer, it just delivers the question.

This is exactly the seam an AI agent layer fills, and the broader category of AI agents for customer service exists to do the reasoning-heavy work the channel layer can't. Macha is one such layer: it connects to the Gorgias you already use as a native connector and runs on top of it — it does not replace Gorgias or its channels. Once connected, Macha reads and writes the same unified tickets your channels already create: drafting or sending grounded replies across email, chat, and your connected social channels; triaging by intent; and looking up live order or account status through a custom tool that turns your store's REST API into something the agent can actually call — the kind of thing you'd otherwise wire by hand against the Gorgias API. Because Macha's credits are consumed per AI action (not per resolution — see the pricing breakdown), you keep Gorgias as the system of record for which channels exist and what's been said, and add an agent for the part the channel can't do: actually answering.

FAQ

Where do I manage channels in Gorgias? Core conversational channels — Email, Chat, Contact form, and Help Center — are under Settings → Channels. Social platforms (Facebook, Messenger, Instagram), WhatsApp, SMS, and Voice connect through Settings → App Store.

Which channels are add-ons versus included? Email, Chat, Contact form, Help Center, and the Facebook/Instagram social integration are core. SMS and Voice are paid add-ons that bill per interaction, and WhatsApp is metered. Confirm current add-on pricing with Gorgias directly.

How does a message become a ticket? Every inbound message across every channel creates a ticket, and Gorgias merges messages from the same customer into one chronological thread. A ticket only becomes billable once at least one reply is sent from your helpdesk — by a human, an AI Agent, or a Rule.

What are the biggest social-channel gotchas? You can only reply to Facebook Messenger within 7 days of the customer's last message; you can reply to top-level post comments but not to replies-on-comments; and keyword auto-hidden comments are pulled into the helpdesk silently. Instagram connects through the linked Facebook business account.

Can I add AI across my Gorgias channels without replacing Gorgias? Yes. An AI agent layer like Macha connects to Gorgias as a native connector and works on top of your existing channels and tickets — it doesn't replace your help desk. It helps answer faster across email, chat, and connected social channels while Gorgias stays the system of record.

Ready to answer across every channel instead of just routing to one? Start a free trial of Macha and connect it to your Gorgias in minutes.