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Best Ada Alternatives

Written by Paddy Stobbs

Co-Founder & CEO

Edited by Steph Leung

Product & Operations Lead

Updated onMar 14, 2025
Ada has established itself as a leading AI-powered customer support platform, offering businesses an intelligent virtual assistant that can handle customer inquiries around the clock. With its advanced natural language processing capabilities, Ada helps companies automate routine support tasks, reduce response times, and scale customer service operations without proportionally increasing headcount. However, depending on your specific business needs, several alternatives might better serve your customer support requirements. Help Scout excels in knowledge base management with built-in solutions that Ada lacks. Crisp offers a more comprehensive small business support package with a faster setup process. For organizations prioritizing human agent support, Zendesk for Service provides robust ticketing and agent productivity features that Ada doesn't match. Shopify merchants might find Gorgias more suitable with its deep ecommerce integration and order management capabilities. Meanwhile, Slack-centric teams could benefit from Channeled's native integration with the popular messaging platform. This comparison explores how these alternatives stack up against Ada across different customer support scenarios.

Best alternatives to Ada

For help center and knowledge base management:

Help Scout product logo

Help Scout

Stackfix Rating:

6.9 / 10

Help Scout offers advantages over Ada in help center and knowledge base management through three key features. First, Help Scout provides a complete, built-in help center solution with customizable branding and layouts, whereas Ada requires integration with external knowledge base platforms. Second, Help Scout’s help center analytics offer valuable insights into article performance and customer behavior, including tracking successful searches and failed queries. Third, Help Scout’s AI-powered translation feature supports content localization across multiple languages, making knowledge accessible to a global audience. These capabilities make Help Scout a more comprehensive choice for organizations seeking to build and maintain an effective self-service knowledge base.

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For small business customer support:

Crisp product logo

Crisp

Stackfix Rating:

6.9 / 10

Crisp is a comprehensive small business customer support solution with a functional interface and helpful support. While Ada focuses primarily on AI-powered support, Crisp delivers a complete helpdesk platform with comprehensive capabilities. Crisp’s shared inbox enables quick ticket management, and its customizable help center with support for 50+ languages helps businesses scale efficiently. The platform’s live chat feature includes innovative elements like co-browsing for real-time troubleshooting and live translation, making it valuable for growing businesses. Additionally, Crisp’s straightforward setup process takes under 10 minutes, versus Ada’s more complex 15-minute initial configuration that requires additional time for AI training.

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For traditional customer support with human agents:

Zendesk for Service product logo

Zendesk for Service

Stackfix Rating:

5.5 / 10

Zendesk for Service provides a comprehensive solution for traditional customer support with human agents through its robust ticketing system, advanced routing capabilities, and extensive agent productivity features. While Ada serves effectively as an AI chatbot, it lacks core functionality like ticket management, agent performance tracking, and help center creation that are essential for human-based support teams. Zendesk’s powerful automation tools, including omni-channel routing and customizable workflows, enable efficient ticket handling across all support channels. Additionally, its deeply customizable help center with semantic search and team publishing workflows offers a robust self-service option that goes beyond Ada’s current capabilities.

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For ecommerce support on Shopify:

Gorgias product logo

Gorgias

Stackfix Rating:

6.0 / 10

Gorgias stands out as an alternative to Ada for ecommerce support on Shopify through its platform integration and comprehensive feature set. Its industry-leading Shopify integration enables deep functionality, including a customizable Shopify sidebar, Shopify-specific macros, and automated handling of common ecommerce requests like order tracking and delivery rescheduling. While Ada requires a separate helpdesk platform for human agent interactions, Gorgias provides a complete solution with a shared inbox, comprehensive analytics, and native live chat capabilities. For Shopify merchants seeking an all-in-one customer support solution, Gorgias delivers ecommerce-specific capabilities compared to Ada’s AI-only approach.

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For slack-based customer support:

Channeled product logo

Channeled

Stackfix Rating:

5.9 / 10

Channeled emerges as a compelling alternative to Ada for Slack-based customer support through its seamless Slack integration and intuitive interface. While Ada centers on AI-powered support, Channeled shines with its native Slack functionality, enabling teams to manage customer conversations directly within Slack. Its real-time thread synchronization and emoji-based shortcuts create an efficient workflow that’s well-suited for Slack-centric teams. Additionally, Channeled’s straightforward setup process and modern interface make it more user-friendly than Ada’s complex UI.

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PS

Meet your expert: Paddy Stobbs

Stackfix Co-Founder & CEO

I've spent over a decade deep in the world of business software - personally managing more than $2M in purchases across companies I've built and led. From intimate 10-person teams to organizations of 150+, I've developed a particular obsession with Sales and HR tools – testing, implementing, and scaling them at every stage of growth. My journey started at Cambridge University, led me through Google, and most recently culminated in selling my previous venture to TikTok. Now, I'm channeling all of that hands-on experience into helping others navigate the complex landscape of business software.

Ada logo

Ada

Help Scout logo

Help Scout

Crisp logo

Crisp

Zendesk for Service logo

Zendesk for Service

Gorgias logo

Gorgias

Channeled logo

Channeled

Our rating
Functionality
3

Functionality

3/10

<p>Ada’s positioning as an AI agent for customer support does mean that its overall feature set as a stand-alone customer support platform is lacking. Though Ada’s AI agent acts as a strong and easy to configure first line of defence, you’ll still need to manage handoffs to real agents elsewhere (which often means paying separately for other helpdesk platforms such as Zendesk). Additionally, you’ll find other common features, such as the ability to build your own help centre/knowledge base, missing in Ada. It’s something which you’re expected to build elsewhere, and provide as a source of training material into Ada.&nbsp;</p>
7

Functionality

7/10

<p>Help Scout is a lightweight tool that offers some support functionality that most SMBs will need. Help Scout allows you to offer support via live chat, email, social channels, and create your own Help Centre. It also has some basic automation, reporting and AI functionality.</p><p>However, it lacks support for phone, SMS and WhatsApp and a no-code chatbot builder to automate chat-related workflow.</p>
8

Functionality

8/10

<p>Founded in 2015, it’s not surprising that Crisp offers a mature, well-rounded and complete feature set as a customer support tool. We found all the basics features to be present such as a strong live chat offering, a deeply customisable help centre and very complete omni-channel support. We also appreciated some less common, but nevertheless powerful touches such as the ability to ‘co-browse’ with a customer via live chat to enable an agent to troubleshoot customer issues right on their screen.</p>
10

Functionality

10/10

<p>Zendesk packs all the essential support tools most SMBs—and even enterprises—could ask for. It stands out with the most comprehensive range of support channels in our curation, making it easy to manage seamless cross-channel communication with customers within a single ticket. Plus, its advanced automation, AI capabilities, and robust reporting features are hard to beat.</p><p>In our experience, Zendesk tends to be the go-to platform for companies looking to level up their customer support as they grow.</p>
7

Functionality

7/10

<p>As a product tailored to e-commerce brands, Gorgias offers a fairly robust range of features. It offer support for all the channels you'd expect including email, live chat, phone, text and socials. Additionally, you'll also find a decent help centre offering and AI agent functionality provided natively too. Though Gorgias does not excel in any one particular area, we did find each feature to be relatively well executed.</p>
2

Functionality

2/10

<p>Channeled's Slack-centricity means that it's overall feature set as a dedicated customer support tool is relatively lacking. To be more specific, Channeled is best suited to businesses who primarily manage their customer interactions via Slack and not via other channels such as SMS, live chat or email. That being said, when it comes to managing Slack threads, it provides a robust and complete feature set including shortcuts that can be triggered by emoji reactions within Slack, and analytics/sentiment analysis over Slack threads.</p>
Ease of Use
3

Ease of Use

3/10

<p>Given its AI-centric focus, we found Ada to be relatively easy to use on initial set up. It would take an average SMB employee a few hours to be complete the initial configuration and create a functional AI chatbot. However, when progressing to more advanced features, such as setting up processes for an AI agent to execute, we found Ada to be filled with unclear terminology and often confusing UI. Whilst this may be a byproduct of the relative novelty of configuring AI chatbots, we find Ada unintuitive to use if you’re looking to get the most out of the platform.</p>
8

Ease of Use

8/10

<p>Help Scout is easy to pick up, even for beginners. Its inbox feels just like an email inbox—clean, simple, and intuitive. In fact, it’s one of the most user-friendly interfaces we’ve seen.</p><p>That said, there are some pain points: Unlike most customer support tools, Help Scout doesn’t have a sidebar for quickly navigating to other tickets. Setting up custom views isn’t straightforward. Instead of filtering an existing view, you have to build a new workflow, which feels unnecessarily complicated.</p>
6

Ease of Use

6/10

<p>Due to its rich functionality and customisability, we found Crisp to have a moderate learning curve but is generally straight-forward and intuitive to use. An average SMB employee can become proficient with the platform after 1-2 days and some guidance. The interface is simple, making daily use straightforward for most team members.&nbsp;</p>
2

Ease of Use

2/10

<p>Zendesk has one of the steepest learning curves we’ve seen. The interface can feel overwhelming, with settings spread out across different areas like Zendesk Chat and the Admin Center. If you don’t have an admin with prior experience configuring and managing Zendesk, getting up to speed can quickly become frustrating.</p>
5

Ease of Use

5/10

<p>Though individual screens were generally well presented, we did find the sheer breadth of features slightly overwhelming at times. Gorgias' sidebar navigation system is non-standard which initially made it hard to navigate between core features swiftly (like between inboxes and analytics pages).</p>
9

Ease of Use

9/10

<p>As a result of it's focus on Slack, Channeled has a shallow learning curve. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">An average SMB employee would require less than 30 minutes and no guidance to master the product. </span>It's onboarding process is simple, short and easy to understand and makes full use of Slacks native integrations. Additionally, it's web app is simple, intuitive and easy to navigate.</p>
Look and feel
5

Look and feel

5/10

<p>We find Ada’s high-level navigation to be modern and&nbsp;easy to use. However, chatbot configuration interfaces were often confusing and unclear with a less modern, dated feel to them. Additionally, whilst the web app was generally fast, some pages take 2-3 seconds to load.</p>
9

Look and feel

9/10

<p>Help Scout’s interface is clean, colorful, and easy on the eyes. It’s fast, responsive, and pleasant to use.</p>
5

Look and feel

5/10

<p>Though we found its web app and live chat offerings to be fast, responsive and easy to use - Crisp’s web app and customer facing widgets/help centres felt a little bit dated from a design perspective. If you’re looking for a more modern design aesthetic, both from an agent and customer facing perspective, you’re better off looking elsewhere.</p>
4

Look and feel

4/10

<p>From both an agent and admin perspective, Zendesk’s interface feels plain, and some pages can come across as cluttered and overwhelming. But on the bright side, page load times are quick.</p>
6

Look and feel

6/10

<p>Overall, we found Gorgias to be relatively well designed and intuitive to use. Most interfaces were modern and fast to load (load times &lt; 2 seconds). However, some interfaces did lack refinement or were hidden away in settings - for example, creating chatbots with the same interface used to generate other rules/workflows in the product presented some challenges - a simple drag and drop interface would have been preferable here.</p>
8

Look and feel

8/10

<p>Channeled's web app is simple, modern and easy to navigate. Additionally, it's design aesthetic is minimalist making it easy to work with and fast to load.</p>
Customisability
7

Customisability

7/10

<p>At present, Ada’s primary customer facing feature is its AI chatbot. Within which you can configure basic elements such as logos, buttons and colours. However, there are additional layers of customisation available in terms of the tone, greetings and responses of the chatbot itself. These are deeply customisable and offer businesses a way to set their chatbots apart from the typical responses you’d expect from first time interactions with non-AI chatbots from competitor platforms.</p>
3

Customisability

3/10

<p>Customization is where Help Scout falls short. Without code, you can only make very basic adjustments to the live chat widget and help center. Automation workflows are limited, and creating custom reports from scratch isn’t possible. If you need heavy customization, you’ll likely find Help Scout restrictive.</p>
7

Customisability

7/10

<p>Crisp offers a huge amount of options when it comes to customisability of just about everything - help centres, live chat widgets and analytics dashboards. Almost every element of customer facing widgets and sites can be customised - including the basics you’d expect such as logos, colours and header/welcome messages. It’s internally facing features are also fairly customisable - for example, you can create custom analytics dashboards to help you find the metrics you care about most more easily on the fly.&nbsp;</p>
10

Customisability

10/10

<p>Zendesk offers a high level of customization for both internal and external pages. Externally, you can deeply customize the style and layout of your Help Center (supporting over 40 languages), even using custom code to make it uniquely yours. Internally, the agent workspace is also highly flexible—you can tailor the layout and how information is displayed, with dynamic updates based on the content of each ticket.</p>
6

Customisability

6/10

<p>At present, Gorgias offers a fairly standard set of customization options for both internal and external interfaces. For its live chat widget and help centre, you can customize the usual elements including logos, colours and titles. For internal facing screens we appreciated the ease of saving custom views or adding custom tags to tickets to suit your specific business needs.</p>
3

Customisability

3/10

<p>Channeled does provide some elements of customisability such as the ability to create custom tags which businesses can assign to conversation threads, or the ability to create custom shortcuts which can be triggered by emoji reactions directly from Slack. However, there are limited routes for further customisability such as the inability to manipulate analytics dashboards or save custom views.</p>
Ease of Setup
4

Ease of Setup

4/10

<p>It's clear that though Ada does provide a self-serve free trial, that the product is designed to be experienced via a demo call. As such, we found the initial setup to be a little confusing, taking around 15 minutes or so. However, given its AI focus, we did appreciate the ease of certain features, for example, adding base knowledge is just a matter of pasting in links and Ada will parse and extract the relevant information.</p><p>To really get the most out of the platform, users will need to spend some time on configuring everything from tone to greetings of the chatbot - as such, full customization can take a week to put together.</p>
6

Ease of Setup

6/10

<p>Help Scout offers a simple self-serve free trial for their platform. We found the initial setup to be slightly longer than necessary, taking around 10 minutes. Setting up your first channels may take some time though - with no easy one-click email connect option, you’ll have to setup email forwarding manually. When it comes to richer customisation options - the platform is fairly limited when compared to peers meaning it won't take long to get the most out of it.</p>
7

Ease of Setup

7/10

<p>Crisp offers a simple self-serve free trial for their platform. We found the initial setup to be very simple, taking less than 10 minutes. Setting up your first channels is also a simple process - live widgets involve pasting a simple script into your website and email integrations can be achieved in just a few clicks. However, when it comes to deeper customization, Crisp's sheer breadth of features means that you can spend a number of days tweaking appearances of widgets and setting up help centres.</p>
3

Ease of Setup

3/10

<p>We found Zendesk's onboarding process to be clunky and a bit overwhelming. Configuring even a basic setup can take over 30 minutes, largely because the interface feels disjointed, with settings scattered in different places. Connecting your first channels can be especially frustrating—for instance, linking external emails requires manual configuration unless you’re using Gmail. And because the platform is so customizable, it’s easy to spend an entire week fine-tuning everything to fully unlock its potential.</p>
7

Ease of Setup

7/10

<p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Gorgias offers a simple self-serve free trial for their platform. We found the initial setup to be simple, taking less than 30 minutes. Setting up your first channels is also a simple process - for example connecting your email can be done with just a couple clicks instead of needing to set up email forwarding manually.&nbsp;However, some features do require some up-front investment to get the most out of such as their AI agents feature as well as any ticket-routing automations you might want.</span></p>
8

Ease of Setup

8/10

<p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Channeled offers a simple self-serve free trial for their platform. We found the initial setup to be simple, taking &lt;5 mins. Setting up your first channels are particularly easy too - given Channeled's focus on Slack. It takes only a few clicks to connect and configure.</span></p>
Customer Support
7

Customer Support

7/10

<p>You can get support for Ada in two ways. The first, is via their own AI support agent. In testing we find it helpful for basic queries but ofte overy cautious in its responses and readily opts to hand off to a real agent. The second is via email - when tested, Ada's real agents were quick to reply (&lt; 2 hours), knowledgeable and helpful.</p>
8

Customer Support

8/10

<p>You can email Help Scout’s support team directly from the app during U.S. business hours. Their responses are generally quick (within a few hours), and Help Scout's agents always go above and beyond. The AI chatbot however, is weak point, offering unhelpful and generic responses.</p>
10

Customer Support

10/10

<p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">We found Crisps's customer support to be best in class. Whilst you can contact the team through a range of channels - the easiest remains via a live chat widget via their app/website. From our testing, we found it incredibly easy to get in touch with a real agent, often in under a minute, who'd be able to help troubleshoot even the most complex of issues.</span></p>
2

Customer Support

2/10

<p>Multiple users we’ve spoken to have raised concerns about Zendesk’s customer support. A common frustration is the support team’s tendency to provide unhelpful responses, often redirecting users to irrelevant Help Center articles and requiring far too much back-and-forth. We also found navigating Zendesk’s Help Center to be a challenge—it’s missing the clear visuals and video guidance that other platforms do so well.</p>
4

Customer Support

4/10

<p>You can contact Gorgias' support agents via a live chat widget in their web app. When tested, you initially have to get through an AI agent which we found to be relatively helpful, however, unable to answer more complex queries. Real agents took an average of an hour to respond and though helpful, often seemed biased to wanting to book demo/sales calls if questions around pricing were asked.</p>
3

Customer Support

3/10

<p>Channeled customer support options for most of it's pricing tiers remains minimal. Channeled provides a contact email address for support requirements as well as a documentation website which offers explanations and walkthroughs of its core features; however, the latter is still largely unfinished at the time of writing.</p>
Integratability
5

Integratability

5/10

<p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">When tested, Ada doesn't yet have an extensive set of integrations compared to other CS tools. That being said, the majority of key integrations for larger businesses such as with Salesforce, are present.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">We notice that whilst it's older rules based product offering did support a much wider array of integrations, these have yet to be ported over to its AI agent product.</span></p>
8

Integratability

8/10

<p>Help Scout offers pre-built integrations with over 100 apps, including commonly needed integrations such as CRMs, calling systems, project management tools, and email marketing platforms. It also has an API for custom integrations.</p>
7

Integratability

7/10

<p>Crisp has a deep and rich integrations ecosystem, which includes popular CRMs (HubSpot, Pipedrive, Salesforce), project management tools (JIRA, Trello), and email marketing platforms (Mailchimp). They also provide an API for custom integrations as well as a Zapier integration for even more extensibility.</p>
9

Integratability

9/10

<p>Zendesk boasts a massive ecosystem of pre-built integrations that cover most of the tools startups rely on. This includes popular CRMs like HubSpot, Pipedrive, and Salesforce, email marketing tools like Mailchimp, and project management platforms like Asana, Jira, and Trello. Beyond that, it offers an extensive marketplace for even more integrations, plus a robust API for building custom connections.</p>
7

Integratability

7/10

<p>For their target customer segment, e-commerce brands, Gorgias offers a very comprehensive integrations store - providing integrations with all the major players like Shopify, BigCommerce etc. Additionally, we appreciated the fact that they also offer a mobile app with which you can handle tickets on the go more easily.</p>
7

Integratability

7/10

<p>Channeled provides a number of integrations with popular CRMs (Salesforce, Hubspot), helpdesks (Zendesk, Intercom, Freshdesk), project management tools (Linear, Asana etc.) and automation platforms like Zapier. Additionally, it offers an API through which users can interact with data directly, though this is a relatively new feature that Channeled is continuing to build upon.</p>
Ease of Migration
5

Ease of Migration

5/10

<p>Whilst Ada does not offer a self-serve data export feature, it's data export API is rich and well documented and covers all the core areas of data you'd want and expect to export.</p>
3

Ease of Migration

3/10

<p>Help Scout's data export capabilities are somewhat limited. While reporting data for selected reports can be exported directly from within Help Scout, most data can only be exported via API.</p>
5

Ease of Migration

5/10

<p>Crisp does offer users the ability to export customer profiles self-serve to a CSV. However this is limited to a maximum of 200,000 profiles. Beyond this, Crisp offers relatively little in terms of data export options. However, it is worth noting that there are plenty of other ways you can interact with data within Crisp via either its API or one of many third-party integrations (e.g. Zapier).</p>
8

Ease of Migration

8/10

<p>Zendesk allows you to self-serve export key data with ease. For most other data, exports are available either through the API or by making a request to their support team.</p>
5

Ease of Migration

5/10

<p>Users can export data on tickets and other analytics via a self-serve option directly within Gorgias' dashboards.</p>
7

Ease of Migration

7/10

<p>Businsses can export data themselves via the web app as well as through Channeled's dedicated API.</p>

Help Scout: Ada alternative for help center and knowledge base management

Help Scout product logo
Help Scout

Stackfix Rating:

6.9 / 10

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$0

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Updated onMar 14, 2025
Help Scout offers advantages over Ada in help center and knowledge base management through three key features. First, Help Scout provides a complete, built-in help center solution with customizable branding and layouts, whereas Ada requires integration with external knowledge base platforms. Second, Help Scout’s help center analytics offer valuable insights into article performance and customer behavior, including tracking successful searches and failed queries. Third, Help Scout’s AI-powered translation feature supports content localization across multiple languages, making knowledge accessible to a global audience. These capabilities make Help Scout a more comprehensive choice for organizations seeking to build and maintain an effective self-service knowledge base.

Want to know more? See a detailed comparison of Ada vs. Help Scout.

Pros

  • Exceptionally User-Friendly Interface

  • Strong Customer Support

  • Comprehensive Integration Capabilities

  • Powerful Analytics Drill-Down

Cons

  • Restricted Help Centre Customization

  • AI chatbot feels unreliable

  • Limited customization without code

  • Restricted Data Export Capabilities

  • Basic Live Chat Configuration

Compare all Customer Support toolsRead the full review

Crisp: Ada alternative for small business customer support

Crisp product logo
Crisp

Stackfix Rating:

6.9 / 10

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$0

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Updated onMar 14, 2025
Crisp is a comprehensive small business customer support solution with a functional interface and helpful support. While Ada focuses primarily on AI-powered support, Crisp delivers a complete helpdesk platform with comprehensive capabilities. Crisp’s shared inbox enables quick ticket management, and its customizable help center with support for 50+ languages helps businesses scale efficiently. The platform’s live chat feature includes innovative elements like co-browsing for real-time troubleshooting and live translation, making it valuable for growing businesses. Additionally, Crisp’s straightforward setup process takes under 10 minutes, versus Ada’s more complex 15-minute initial configuration that requires additional time for AI training.

Want to know more? See a detailed comparison of Ada vs. Crisp.

Pros

  • Feature-rich live chat with innovative extras

  • Highly customizable help centre

  • Best-in-class customer support

  • Advanced ticket routing system

Cons

  • Dated User Interface Design

  • Missing some Advanced Reporting Metrics

  • Missing SLA Management

Compare all Customer Support toolsRead the full review

Zendesk for Service: Ada alternative for traditional customer support with human agents

Zendesk for Service product logo
Zendesk for Service

Stackfix Rating:

5.5 / 10

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Starting at

$69

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Updated onMar 14, 2025
Zendesk for Service provides a comprehensive solution for traditional customer support with human agents through its robust ticketing system, advanced routing capabilities, and extensive agent productivity features. While Ada serves effectively as an AI chatbot, it lacks core functionality like ticket management, agent performance tracking, and help center creation that are essential for human-based support teams. Zendesk’s powerful automation tools, including omni-channel routing and customizable workflows, enable efficient ticket handling across all support channels. Additionally, its deeply customizable help center with semantic search and team publishing workflows offers a robust self-service option that goes beyond Ada’s current capabilities.

Want to know more? See a detailed comparison of Ada vs. Zendesk for Service.

Pros

  • Richest Functionality Of All Customer Support Tools

  • Excellent Help Centre Functionality

  • Best-In-Class Telephony

  • Highly Customizable

  • Advanced Ticket Routing System

  • Strong Integration Capabilities

Cons

  • Steep Learning Curve

  • Expensive

  • Poor Customer Support Experience

  • Underwhelming Live Chat Experience

  • Uninspiring User Interface

Compare all Customer Support toolsRead the full review

Gorgias: Ada alternative for ecommerce support on Shopify

Gorgias product logo
Gorgias

Stackfix Rating:

6.0 / 10

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Starting at

$10

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Updated onMar 14, 2025
Gorgias stands out as an alternative to Ada for ecommerce support on Shopify through its platform integration and comprehensive feature set. Its industry-leading Shopify integration enables deep functionality, including a customizable Shopify sidebar, Shopify-specific macros, and automated handling of common ecommerce requests like order tracking and delivery rescheduling. While Ada requires a separate helpdesk platform for human agent interactions, Gorgias provides a complete solution with a shared inbox, comprehensive analytics, and native live chat capabilities. For Shopify merchants seeking an all-in-one customer support solution, Gorgias delivers ecommerce-specific capabilities compared to Ada’s AI-only approach.

Want to know more? See a detailed comparison of Ada vs. Gorgias.

Pros

  • Best-in-class Shopify Integration

  • Solid Live Chat Implementation

  • Comprehensive Analytics Suite

  • Strong Integration Capabilities

  • Efficient Setup Process

Cons

  • Poor Customer Support Experience

  • Clunky Rules-Based Chatbot Interface

  • Mediocre Help Centre Functionality

  • Navigation and Usability Issues

  • Limited Data Export Capabilities

Compare all Customer Support toolsRead the full review

Channeled: Ada alternative for slack-based customer support

Channeled product logo
Channeled

Stackfix Rating:

5.9 / 10

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Starting at

$100

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Updated onMar 14, 2025
Channeled emerges as a compelling alternative to Ada for Slack-based customer support through its seamless Slack integration and intuitive interface. While Ada centers on AI-powered support, Channeled shines with its native Slack functionality, enabling teams to manage customer conversations directly within Slack. Its real-time thread synchronization and emoji-based shortcuts create an efficient workflow that’s well-suited for Slack-centric teams. Additionally, Channeled’s straightforward setup process and modern interface make it more user-friendly than Ada’s complex UI.

Want to know more? See a detailed comparison of Ada vs. Channeled.

Pros

  • Excellent Slack monitoring tools

  • Simple onboarding and setup

  • Clean, Modern Design

Cons

  • Weak customer support

  • Lack of AI features

  • Limited feature set

  • Limited customisability

  • Limited analytics capabilities

Compare all Customer Support toolsRead the full review

How we test products

With countless Customer Support platforms available, we focus on identifying the best options for small and midsize businesses. Our evaluation process is built around real-world usage, prioritizing functionality, ease of use, and overall value. Here’s how we do it:

Functionality

Great customer support software should help businesses resolve issues quickly and efficiently. We start by identifying key use cases—ticket management, live chat, automation, and reporting—then test how well each platform delivers on these needs. Tools that offer essential features without unnecessary complexity score highest.

User Experience & Onboarding

Support teams need fast, intuitive tools. We test each platform’s interface by navigating core features without prior training and track onboarding time—from account setup to resolving a first ticket. Software that requires extensive setup or technical expertise loses points.

Automation & AI Capabilities

Automation can streamline customer support and reduce response times. We evaluate each platform’s automation features, such as chatbots, canned responses, workflow automation, and AI-driven ticket triaging. We prioritize tools that improve efficiency without adding unnecessary complexity.

Integrations & Compatibility

Customer Support software must work seamlessly with CRMs, knowledge bases, and communication tools. We test how well each platform integrates with essential business systems and assess whether native integrations or third-party connectors are required.

Pricing & Value

We compare pricing across competitors, analyzing what each plan includes and whether critical features are locked behind paywalls. Hidden costs—such as per-agent fees, add-ons for automation, or premium support tiers—are factored into our assessment. Platforms that offer strong core functionality at a fair price score highest.

Stackfix’s Fit Score

All of these factors contribute to Stackfix’s Fit Score, a proprietary ranking system that measures how well each Customer Support tool aligns with a buyer’s needs. It combines two key elements:

  • Requirements Met – How many buyer requirements the software fulfills
  • Stackfix Rating – Our expert assessment of the software’s overall quality, usability, and value

The result? A clear, data-driven recommendation that helps businesses choose the right Customer Support software—without hours of trial and error.

FAQs

What is Customer Support Software?

Customer support software helps teams manage tickets, live chat, and self-service. Consider ease of use, integrations, scalability, and pricing. Avoid overcomplex tools, ignoring automation, and poor planning. The key features of customer support software usually include:

  • Ticketing System: A structured way to track customer inquiries from start to resolution, ensuring that no requests slip through the cracks.
  • Live Chat & Chatbots: Tools that enable real-time communication with customers, including AI-powered bots that can handle common questions automatically.
  • Self-Service Knowledge Base: A library of FAQs, guides, and troubleshooting articles that empower customers to find answers without contacting support.
  • Automation & Workflows: Features like automated ticket assignment, canned responses, and escalations to reduce manual work and speed up resolution times.
  • Reporting & Analytics: Insights into response times, resolution rates, and customer satisfaction scores to help teams continuously improve their service.

What should I consider when buying Customer Support Software?

Start by assessing your current and future support requirements. Are you handling a high volume of tickets daily? Do you need omnichannel support (email, chat, social media)? Are you focused on automation or personalized service? Here are the key factors to consider before making your decision.

  1. Your Support Needs. Start by assessing your current and future support requirements. Are you handling a high volume of tickets daily? Do you need omnichannel support (email, chat, social media)? Are you focused on automation or personalized service? Identifying your priorities will help you choose the right tool.
  2. Ease of Use. Support software should make your team’s job easier, not harder. Look for an intuitive interface that agents can pick up quickly without extensive training. Overly complex platforms can slow down response times and frustrate both customers and agents. That’s why Stackfix rates every support platform on ease of use—click into each product above to see how they compare.
  3. Integration with Your Tech Stack. Your support platform needs to work seamlessly with your CRM, email, chat, and other essential business tools. If you’re using Slack for internal communication or Shopify for e-commerce, check if the software offers native integrations or if third-party connectors are needed.
  4. Scalability & Flexibility. As your business grows, your support needs will evolve. Ensure that the software can handle increased ticket volume, support multiple teams, and offer advanced automation features when you’re ready for them. Look at the vendor’s product roadmap to see if they regularly release useful updates.
  5. Pricing & Hidden Costs. Support platforms often charge per agent, but costs can add up with extra fees for automation, integrations, or advanced analytics. Check pricing tiers carefully—what looks affordable now could become expensive as you scale.
  6. Customer Support from the Vendor. Ironically, not all customer support tools come with great support. If something breaks or you need help with setup, will the vendor be there? Look at response times, support availability (24/7 or business hours?), and self-serve resources like help centers or forums. Stackfix rates each platform on support quality—click into each product to see how they compare.

What are the common mistakes to avoid when buying Customer Support software?

Some platforms are packed with advanced features but are overly complicated for smaller teams. Make sure you’re picking a tool that fits your workflow, not just one with an impressive feature list. Here are some of the biggest mistakes startups make—and how to avoid them.

  1. Choosing based on features, not usability. Some platforms are packed with advanced features but are overly complicated for smaller teams. Make sure you’re picking a tool that fits your workflow, not just one with an impressive feature list.
  2. Ignoring automation & AI. Many startups manually handle support requests when automation could significantly reduce workload. Look for tools that allow automated responses, ticket routing, and AI-driven suggestions.
  3. Forgetting about self-service. A knowledge base can dramatically reduce support volume by enabling customers to find answers on their own. Make sure the platform includes an easy-to-use self-service portal.
  4. Not planning for scaling. Startups often pick software based on current needs, without considering future growth. Will the platform support more agents, additional features, or multi-channel support when you need it?
  5. Overlooking integration depth. A platform might “integrate” with your CRM, but does it sync customer data properly? Always test integrations before committing to a tool.

How much does Customer Support Software typically cost?

Most solutions range from $20-150 per agent monthly, with entry-level options starting around $15-25 and premium solutions exceeding $150 monthly. Most vendors provide structure pricing in tiers based on features and scale, so be sure to enter your requirements as accurately as possible in our pricing calculator. 

Many providers offer free plans with core functionality for very small teams but restrict users, contacts, or available channels.

For enterprise plans and above, you can expect to speak to sales for a bespoke price. To skip the demo calls, be sure to check out our pricing calculator.

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