Customer Service & Retention AI

VanChat

VanChat is a Shopify AI shopping assistant and live-chat tool for answering store questions, recommending products, tracking orders, collecting leads and handing difficult conversations to a person. It uses Shopify data and merchant-provided knowledge to guide those customer interactions.

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Editorial Score
83/100
Supported Platforms
Shopify
Freshness
Last reviewed Aug 2026 — Due for refresh
VanChat official product page or product image
Official product-page image source

Buying view: VanChat is a Shopify AI shopping assistant and live-chat tool for answering store questions, recommending products, tracking orders, collecting leads and handing difficult conversations to a person. It uses Shopify data and merchant-provided knowledge to guide those customer interactions.

Capabilities

The assistant can handle product guidance, service questions and proactive selling on the storefront. Its customer-facing answers depend on current catalog, inventory, shipping and return information, plus the response and escalation rules the merchant provides.

What problem it addresses

VanChat is a Shopify AI shopping assistant and live-chat tool for answering store questions, recommending products, tracking orders, collecting leads and handing difficult conversations to a person. It uses Shopify data and merchant-provided knowledge to guide those customer interactions.

How people use it

The assistant can handle product guidance, service questions and proactive selling on the storefront. Its customer-facing answers depend on current catalog, inventory, shipping and return information, plus the response and escalation rules the merchant provides.

VanChat storefront jobs

This composition map follows the three current jobs described on VanChat's product page. The assistant can answer shopping or order questions, make personalized product recommendations, and trigger proactive sales messages. These jobs share store context but have different entry conditions and outcomes.

VanChat storefront jobsThis composition map follows the three current jobs described on VanChat's product page. The assistant can answer shopping or order questions, make personalized product recommendations, and trigger proactive sales messages. These jobs share store context but have different entry conditions and outcomes.Storefront assistant jobsQuestion answering and orderactionsPersonalized ProductRecommendationsProactive SalesVanChat storefront jobsThis composition map follows the three current jobs described on VanChat's product page. The assistant can answer shopping or order questions, make personalized product recommendations, and trigger proactive sales messages. These jobs share store context but have different entry conditions and outcomes.Storefront assistant jobsQuestion answering and orderactionsPersonalized ProductRecommendationsProactive Sales

What each module does and its role

Question answering and order actions

This job covers product comparison, order tracking, sizing and return questions in the storefront conversation. VanChat can also perform supported tasks such as checking or updating an order and adding an item to the cart, subject to the connected Shopify data and granted actions.

Personalized Product Recommendations

Personalized Product Recommendations helps a shopper narrow a choice from stated needs, behavior and purchase history. The assistant can ask follow-up questions before suggesting products, while the merchant remains responsible for the catalog, availability and recommendation boundaries.

Proactive Sales

Proactive Sales starts from shopper behavior rather than waiting for a typed question. It can send discount reminders or product prompts after actions such as adding to cart or abandoning checkout, while the trigger rules and message scope need to be configured by the store.

Commercial plans

VanChat currently publishes fixed Shopify plans by monthly-visitor allowance. Paid plans include unlimited products and chat replies; the official listing gives monthly and annual prices, so a price table is clearer than a calculator.

VanChat public commercial reference

Product or sales surfaceScopePublic price and status
Free

Free for development stores; the listing describes all features as open in that setup.

Included plan entitlements
  • Development-store access
  • All listed features available for development stores
Free to install
Starter

Up to 100 monthly visitors; unlimited products and chat replies.

Included plan entitlements
  • Proactive AI sales and AI sales assistant
  • 24/7 live support and smart recommendations
  • Automated customer service and custom branding
  • Unlimited human replies
$19/month or $190/year7-day free trial
Advanced

Up to 1,000 monthly visitors; unlimited products and chat replies.

Included plan entitlements
  • Starter features
  • Up to 1,000 monthly visitors
  • Unlimited products, chat replies and human replies
$49/month or $490/year7-day free trial
Pro

Up to 10,000 monthly visitors; unlimited products and chat replies.

Included plan entitlements
  • Starter features
  • Up to 10,000 monthly visitors
  • Unlimited products, chat replies and human replies
$99/month or $990/year7-day free trial

Comparable tools: price and workflow

ToolWorkflow differenceOfficial public price reference
Manifest AI

A storefront needs a focused conversational shopping assistant for product questions and discovery. Check Shopify data scope, knowledge grounding, handoff, customer-visible accuracy, and whether the assistant fits the selling journey.

Free to test: Free
Neuralens AI

A storefront needs a focused conversational shopping assistant for product questions and discovery. Check Shopify data scope, knowledge grounding, handoff, customer-visible accuracy, and whether the assistant fits the selling journey.

Free: $0/monthStarter: $129/monthGrowth: $249/month
HeiChat

A storefront needs a focused conversational shopping assistant for product questions and discovery. Check Shopify data scope, knowledge grounding, handoff, customer-visible accuracy, and whether the assistant fits the selling journey.

Free: Free to installPro: $29.90 every 30 daysPro Plus: $69.90 every 30 days
Rep AI

A storefront needs a focused conversational shopping assistant for product questions and discovery. Check Shopify data scope, knowledge grounding, handoff, customer-visible accuracy, and whether the assistant fits the selling journey.

Pay-as-you-Grow: $0 (100 free visitors/month)Starter: $99/monthBasic: $199/month
ChatBot.com

A storefront needs a focused conversational shopping assistant for product questions and discovery. Check Shopify data scope, knowledge grounding, handoff, customer-visible accuracy, and whether the assistant fits the selling journey.

Starting plan: From $19/user/month

Frequently asked questions

What information should be ready for VanChat?

Its documented inputs include catalog and policy information, product attributes, inventory and Shopify-authorized order, shipping and return data. These records should be current before the assistant answers shoppers.

Can VanChat hand a conversation to a person?

Human handoff is part of the documented product scope. The store still needs to set the escalation rules and ensure the responsible team can handle questions the assistant should not answer.

How should VanChat pricing be checked?

VanChat has a public pricing page, but the captured material does not provide a complete plan table that is safe to reproduce here. The store should confirm current conversation, catalog, language and add-on limits directly with the official pricing information.

Native connections

GorgiasVanChat → Gorgias

Authorize the Gorgias connection so a shopper asking for a person can be handed from VanChat to a human-support workspace.

VanChat Gorgias handover guide

Sources

User reviews

92 reviewsChecked Aug 31, 2026

Shopify App Store listing: VanChat AI Chatbot & Live Chat. These reviews cover this exact app listing, not every product surface from the vendor.

Alpine RiversUnited Kingdom

Set this up on a small Shopify store in a category where accuracy matters more than chat volume. We have claims we are not allowed to make, so an assistant that improvises would be a liability rather than an asset. The AI Instructions layer is what won me over: a global instruction plus separate scenario rules, so you can hard-code what the assistant must never say. I tested it with deliberately leading questions, the kind designed to pull an overclaim out of a bot, and it held the line every time. Product and page knowledge synced from the store with no work from me. Two things to know going in. The global instruction is capped at 1500 characters, which is tight if you have a lot of rules, though the scenario rules absorb the overflow well. And the setting that makes the widget visible to customers lives on the Dashboard rather than in Widget Settings, which took me a while to find.

8849 Official WebsiteHong Kong SAR

The proactive sales feature is incredibly powerful, and this app's AI capabilities are the most powerful I've experienced among most Shopify online customer service plugins! It can resolve most customer inquiries. It doesn't have bloated, complex settings and features, and it won't affect your internet speed. I once used a chat plugin with the highest download count, and it was so laggy every day that it made me question my existence. Replying to over twenty customer service replies was a huge waste of time, and I kept getting errors when typing in the code.

Casa PlumeFrance

Nous avons eu une incompréhension avec le service VanChat mais une intervention rapide de leur part a permis de résoudre notre problème. Le Bot nous a permis de réaliser des ventes

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