Alternatives
Wati alternatives.
Seven tools a small store considers instead of Wati, with what each is for and what it costs, from each vendor's own pricing page on 30 October 2026.
Written by the team behind Thredo, which is first on the list and says so. Wati gets a fair paragraph too: a page that only lists a product's faults is not worth reading.
Why people look
Why a store leaves Wati.
Usually because support was never what it was for. Wati is a marketing platform with an inbox: the AI is credits on top, every extra teammate is a seat, and a store that wanted its order questions answered automatically finds itself paying per user for a broadcast tool. Some leave for a second number so marketing and support stop sharing one.
What Wati still does better than everything below: A mature WhatsApp platform: broadcasts, campaign automations, click-to-WhatsApp ads, Instagram and TikTok DMs, a shared team inbox, 3 to 5 users on the plan. The marketing side is what it is built around and it is strong at it.
The alternatives
Seven, each for a different store.
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1. Best for stores whose customers message on whatsapp and instagram
Thredo
- Price
- $29–$269/mo
- What it meters
- Per reply the agent sends
Where it wins: WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, Telegram, web chat and email on one thread per customer; order tracking that checks who is asking; cash-on-delivery confirmation and cart reminders on WhatsApp; no seats, no per-user fee. About $0.063 a conversation at 4 replies on the $79 plan.
Where it does not: Reads orders but never changes them. No helpdesk layer: no macros, SLAs or CSAT. No broadcasts or marketing campaigns. No SMS or voice.
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2. Best for shopify stores that only need storefront chat
Shopify Inbox AI
- Price
- Free
- What it meters
- Not metered
Where it wins: Included with Shopify, already installed, and it answers product questions from the catalogue with no setup at all.
Where it does not: Storefront chat only: no WhatsApp, Instagram, Telegram or email. No order actions, no helpdesk.
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3. Best for when the agent has to change the order
Gorgias
- Price
- $10–$900/mo helpdesk, plus $0.85–$1.00 per automated interaction
- What it meters
- Tickets a month, plus per automated interaction
Where it wins: Six documented write actions on an order, a full ecommerce helpdesk underneath, and the one every Shopify Plus brand has already heard of.
Where it does not: Two meters: the helpdesk by tickets ($10 for 50 a month up to $900 for 5,000, then $0.36 to $0.40 a ticket) and the agent by automated interaction ($1.00 on Starter, $0.90 on Basic and Pro, $0.85 on Advanced). No documented shopper identity check for an anonymous chat.
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4. Best for teams already running intercom
Intercom Fin
- Price
- $0.99 per outcome, plus seats
- What it meters
- Per resolved conversation, plus seats
Where it wins: The most mature agent in the category, on a platform that does tickets, product tours and outbound too, and since 2026 sold on its own for teams on another helpdesk.
Where it does not: Seats on top of outcomes: $29 to $132 a seat a month, or a minimum monthly commitment of outcomes on the standalone plan. WhatsApp is a pay-as-you-go add-on per message. Priced for teams several times the size of a two-person store.
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5. Best for an agent for any website, not only a store
Chatbase
- Price
- $40–$500/mo, 700–15,000 message credits
- What it meters
- Message credits
Where it wins: The easiest way to put an agent on any site from a handful of documents and pages, with WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, Slack and Shopify on every paid plan, and a very large base of users who will tell you how it behaves.
Where it does not: It is not built around a store: no order lookup with identity checks, no cash-on-delivery confirmation, no cart reminders. Extra credits are $40 per 1,000, a second agent is $300 a year, and taking its badge off the widget is $1,188 a year. No free plan, a 7-day trial.
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6. Best for larger teams standardised on zendesk
Zendesk AI agents
- Price
- $1.50–$2.00 per automated resolution, plus $55–$149 a seat
- What it meters
- Per automated resolution, plus seats
Where it wins: Included in every Suite plan with a handful of resolutions a seat, on the most widely deployed helpdesk there is.
Where it does not: Seats first, then $1.50 committed or $2.00 pay-as-you-go per resolution, with WhatsApp carrying extra fees. Aimed well above a small store.
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7. Best for teams already on freshdesk
Freshdesk with Freddy
- Price
- $19–$89 a seat, 500 AI sessions once, then $49 per 100
- What it meters
- Per seat, plus AI sessions
Where it wins: The first 500 AI sessions come with any plan, so a small Freshdesk team can try the agent without a new line item.
Where it does not: Email-shaped: a session is a 72-hour email window, WhatsApp is not on the pricing page, and the 500 sessions are once per account, not per month.
Prices are each vendor's own published rate on 30 October 2026. Where a vendor publishes none, the card says so.
Questions
Questions people ask before switching.
What is the cheapest alternative to Wati for WhatsApp support?
Thredo, for answering: $29 to $269 a month, no users to count, WhatsApp included, and 50 messages free with no card. Meta's conversation fees are the same whichever tool sends.
Which alternative does broadcasts?
None of the agents on this page. Wati is the broadcast tool, and Interakt and AiSensy are its peers in that category. A store that needs campaigns keeps one of those for its marketing number and uses an agent for answering.
Can Thredo send WhatsApp templates?
Yes, the ones a store needs around an order: a cash-on-delivery confirmation, a review request, a cart reminder, a back-in-stock note. Each goes to one person about one thing they did, from the store's number or from Thredo's on the store's behalf.
Try the first one on your own queue.
50 messages free, no card. The comparison that counts is the one on your own last twenty conversations.
50 messages free. No card.
Prices read from the vendors' own pages, updated .