Switching to Gorgias: What Merchants Wish They Knew First

The billing model is the biggest adjustment

If you're coming from a per-seat tool like Zendesk, Gorgias's pricing works on a different axis and it's worth internalizing before you sign. Gorgias bills by billable tickets per month, not by agent. Add all the reps you want; what you pay against is conversation volume. For a lean team fielding high volume that can be a bargain. For a large team fielding modest volume, it can cost more than seats would.

The regret shows up in the edge cases. On the Shopify App Store, one-star reviews repeatedly describe bill shock: a merchant who tested the platform for a week and then received a $540/month charge they called a "scammy approach," another reporting $700+ in overage fees the company declined to refund, and a larger brand saying they paid roughly $13.5k/year on the Advanced plan before walking away (Shopify App Store reviews). The recurring complaint isn't the headline price — it's what counts as a billable ticket. Auto-replies can count. A customer reply after three days can spin up a new billable ticket. Integrations that create tickets add to the meter. None of that is hidden malice, but it's the kind of thing you want to model before peak season, not explain to your CFO after it.

The takeaway isn't "don't switch" — it's "estimate your true billable-ticket volume, including automation and reopens, and price the tier honestly." We walk through the full model in Gorgias pricing explained.

Gorgias leans on Shopify — plan your integrations early

Gorgias is ecommerce-native, and most of that magic comes from a deep Shopify (and BigCommerce/Magento) connection. The order timeline, refund and cancel actions, and much of the AI tooling assume that storefront link exists. If you're on Shopify, this is exactly why you're switching and it's a genuine strength. If you're not on Shopify, temper expectations: the core help desk still works across email, chat, and social, but the flagship native AI Agent is currently gated to Shopify stores, and some of the deepest automations lose their teeth without the storefront connector.

Either way, list every integration you rely on today — your review app, your subscription tool, your 3PL, your marketing platform — and confirm each has a Gorgias path before you cut over. Reconnecting integrations and rebuilding the automations that sat on top of them is the single most underestimated line item in a migration.

The Zendesk import is lossy — know exactly what it drops

This is the one that surprises even careful teams. Gorgias's native Zendesk importer is real and it works, but it's selective in ways the sales conversation rarely spells out. Per Gorgias's own Migrate from Zendesk and Zendesk migration 101 docs, here's the shape of it.

What comes over: macros, users, tags, and tickets — imported in that order (macros first, then users and tags, then tickets).

What gets left behind: attachments and CSAT/rating information. Gorgias states plainly, "We don't import attachments on tickets nor rating information." If you need image attachments on historical tickets or your satisfaction-score history for reporting, the native import won't bring them.

The 2-year cap: history extends two years maximum. Tickets updated in the last two weeks import first; the rest imports starting two years in the past and working forward. Anything older than two years simply doesn't migrate.

Status collapse: Gorgias has only two statuses, Open and Closed. Your Zendesk On-hold, Solved, and Closed tickets all land as Closed; Pending arrives closed with an automatic tag. If your workflows or reporting lean on granular statuses, you'll rebuild that logic.

Field type changes: integer fields import as decimal; regex and multiselect fields import as text (the original config is saved in the field description); credit-card fields also become text. Any automation keyed to a strict field type needs re-checking.

Speed: the import runs at roughly 720 tickets/hour on average, varying with how many messages each ticket holds — so a large history is a multi-hour (sometimes multi-day) job to plan around.

If attachments or CSAT history matter to you, that's the moment to reach for a paid migrator (Help Desk Migration, ClonePartner) — a few hundred dollars that earns its keep only if you genuinely need what the native tool skips. Otherwise, export your CSAT and any critical attachments from Zendesk before you flip the switch, and remember to turn off all channels in Zendesk once Gorgias goes live so you don't double-handle incoming messages.

The macro rebuild and the setup curve

Macros do import, but many teams treat the switch as a chance to start clean rather than carry over years of overlapping templates — which means an afternoon (or a week) of rebuilding rules, auto-tags, and views. Budget for it. Merchant sentiment on Gorgias's onboarding is genuinely mixed: plenty praise how fast a Shopify store gets to value, while a notable minority cite a steeper-than-expected rules engine and, separately, sales pressure during the trial and renewal windows. Go in knowing both are true. We collect the recurring friction in Gorgias common complaints and problems, and give the balanced verdict in our full Gorgias review.

The honest verdict

Gorgias earns its reputation for Shopify brands. The inbox is ecommerce-native, actions live inside the conversation, and for high-volume/lean-team shops the ticket-based model can genuinely beat per-seat pricing. Those are real, and if that's you, switching is often the right move — start with what Gorgias is if you're still mapping the fit.

The regrets are equally real and entirely avoidable with planning: model your true billable-ticket volume (including auto-replies and reopens), confirm your Shopify dependency and every integration up front, and go into the Zendesk import knowing it caps at two years and drops attachments and CSAT. Export what you can't afford to lose, expect a status and macro rebuild, and hold firm through the sales cadence. Do that homework and the switch is smooth. Skip it and the surprises land after you've already migrated.

Where an AI layer fits after you've switched

Once you're live on Gorgias, the broader category of AI agents for customer service is what turns a thinner macro library into full coverage — reasoning over your help center and past tickets instead of matching a canned template. Macha is one such layer, and it sits on top of the Gorgias you already run — it is not a help desk replacement. It connects to Gorgias as a native integration and reads and writes the same tickets, drafting or sending grounded replies, triaging by intent, and looking up order or account status through a custom tool that turns a REST API into something the agent can call. Two things worth knowing for cost-conscious merchants coming off a billing shock: Macha bills per AI action, not per resolution (see the pricing breakdown, no hard numbers to memorize here), and it doesn't change how Gorgias meters your tickets — it layers reasoning on top. The details of the connection live in the Macha–Gorgias integration.

FAQ

Does switching to Gorgias import my full Zendesk history? No. The native importer caps at the most recent 2 years of tickets, and it does not bring over attachments or CSAT/rating information. Export anything older or in those categories before you migrate, or use a paid migration tool if you must preserve them.

Will my Zendesk statuses and fields survive the move? Partly. Gorgias has only Open and Closed statuses, so On-hold/Solved/Closed all become Closed and Pending becomes closed-with-a-tag. Some field types also change on import (integer → decimal; regex and multiselect → text), so re-check any automation that depends on a strict type.

Why did my Gorgias bill come in higher than expected? Gorgias bills per billable ticket, not per agent, and things like auto-replies, reopened conversations, and integration-generated tickets can add to the count. Estimate your true billable volume — including automation and reopens — before choosing a tier, and revisit it around peak season.

Can I use Gorgias if I'm not on Shopify? The core help desk works across email, chat, and social regardless of platform, but Gorgias is Shopify-native and its flagship AI Agent is currently gated to Shopify stores. Non-Shopify merchants keep the inbox but lose some of the deepest storefront automations.

Do I need to replace Gorgias to add AI after switching? No. An AI agent layer like Macha connects to Gorgias as a native integration and runs on top of it — drafting grounded replies and triaging by intent — while Gorgias stays your system of record. It bills per AI action rather than per resolution and doesn't change how Gorgias meters tickets.

Planning your move and want the AI coverage ready on day one? Start a free trial of Macha and connect it to Gorgias once you're live.