Manifest AI alternatives: shopping assistants with prices you can see

Manifest AI is a shopping assistant for Shopify stores that recommends products, runs quizzes and recovers carts. It now sells as part of BIK. Neither company has a price list: Manifest's own blog puts it at “from $500/month”, and the exact price comes after a demo. If you want to know what you'll pay before you talk to sales, or you need an assistant on WhatsApp and Instagram with a fixed price, the six tools below publish their prices. We last checked every price on 19 October 2026.

What Manifest AI is now

Manifest AI launched on the Shopify App Store in June 2023 as an AI chatbot built on ChatGPT. Today its website footer reads Manifest AI by BIK. BIK describes itself as an “agentic AI CRM” for online stores and lists Manifest AI among its products, next to campaigns, an AI helpdesk, order management and gamification.

What that means for a store owner:

• The storefront assistant is the Manifest AI Shopify app. Its listing covers AI chat and live chat, product recommendations, quizzes, cart and checkout recovery, lead collection, and upsells on the cart, product, checkout and thank-you pages. It works with Gorgias, Klaviyo, Yotpo and Shopify Inbox.
• The wider agent platform is on getmanifest.ai: an agent studio with tool calling and workflows, and agents for chat, WhatsApp, email, Instagram DMs and voice. It also runs on WooCommerce and BigCommerce.
• Marketing and messaging sit in BIK's own Shopify app: WhatsApp, Instagram, email and SMS campaigns, chatbots on WhatsApp and Instagram, and a shared inbox.

In October 2026 the Shopify listing was rated 4.4 from 61 reviews: 49 five-star and 7 one-star. Most reviews praise setup and the support team; the newest, from 16 October 2026, says the service was withdrawn a week after the merchant had signed and paid.

Why stores look for an alternative

There is no price list to compare. The Manifest and BIK websites have no pricing tables, only Book a demo, and Manifest's demo page promises “tailored pricing” on the call. On 19 October 2026 the Manifest AI Shopify listing showed a single plan, labelled Free to test, with no message limits listed. The one figure we found on a Manifest page is in a comparison table on its own blog, dated October 2026: “From $500/month, free trial, startup plan”, with nothing on what that covers. Older third-party pages quote lower monthly tiers that we couldn't find on any Manifest or BIK page, so we haven't repeated them. If you're budgeting, ask for a written quote that names the monthly price, what counts as usage, and what happens at the limit.

Channels depend on which product you buy. The storefront app's listing describes the website chat. WhatsApp and Instagram are on the agent platform and in BIK's own app, so a store that wants one assistant on its website and in its DMs should confirm the plan covers all of them.

You may want less. Manifest is built around conversion: nudges, quizzes, upsells and A/B tests of AI placements. If what you need is an assistant that answers product and order questions correctly, on the channels your customers use, a simpler tool with a published price can be enough.

When to stay on Manifest AI

Stay if:

• you use its quizzes, upsell placements and A/B testing, and the numbers justify the plan;
• you want marketing campaigns and the assistant from one vendor, across Shopify, WooCommerce or BigCommerce;
• you need a voice agent: none of the alternatives below lists one;
• you're happy to agree a price with a sales team.

How we chose

We read each tool's Shopify App Store listing, pricing page and product or help pages on 15 October 2026, and checked every price again on 19 October 2026. We make ChatPal, so weigh what we say about it accordingly; we didn't test the other tools hands-on. The tools are grouped by how they charge and what they do best, not ranked.

Manifest AI and six alternatives

What a month costs, with assumptions

Manifest's only published figure is a starting price, so we can't price it for a particular store. Here is what the others cost for one example store: 300 AI conversations a month in website chat, 10,000 site visitors. Where a tool counts replies, we assumed three replies per conversation, so 900. Count a week of your own chats and use your number.

Our arithmetic on each tool's published monthly prices, in US dollars. Zipchat estimates its 750 replies at about 300 conversations, so with shorter conversations than ours the Starter plan alone may be enough. Octane counts one credit per completed quiz, and its AI product picks and copy add a fraction of a credit each, so 400 credits cover somewhat fewer than 400 quizzes with AI on. Tidio prices Lyro in steps of AI conversations, starting at 50 for $32.50 a month billed yearly, with higher steps on its pricing page.

The comparison changes with the shape of your store. A store with heavy traffic and few chats pays more on Rep AI. A store whose customers write long conversations on WhatsApp pays more on any tool that counts replies.

Catalog answers: what to test before you choose

A shopping assistant is only as good as its answer to a specific question about your catalog. Before you switch, ask each tool the same five questions on your own store:

1. A product that sold out yesterday. Does it say so, or still recommend it?
2. A price you changed this morning. How long until the assistant quotes the new one?
3. A request nothing in your catalog meets, such as a colour you don't stock under a price you don't sell at. Does it admit it or show a near miss as a match?
4. A question in the language your second-biggest market speaks.
5. “Where is my order?” Who does it show order details to, and what does it ask for first?

Here is how ChatPal handles question 3, in an example conversation for a fictional outdoor clothing store:

Customer: Do you have a waterproof snowboard jacket under $80?

Assistant: I couldn't find a jacket that's both waterproof and under $80: the waterproof ones I found all cost more. Which matters more to you, keeping it waterproof or staying under $80?

ChatPal answers from its own copy of your Shopify catalog, which follows your store within minutes, with prices for the customer's country. Shipping, returns and warranty answers come from your pages and policies, not from product data. Order details appear only after the customer signs in to your store with their own account, and cancellations or delivery changes go to your team.

Manifest AI or ChatPal

Choose Manifest AI if conversion tooling is the point: quizzes, upsell placements, cart recovery and A/B tests, with campaigns from BIK on the same contract.

Choose ChatPal if:

• you want a price you can read before you sign up, starting free;
• your customers write on WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger or Telegram as well as your website, and you want one assistant answering all of them from your Shopify catalog;
• you want the assistant to answer, and to hand the chat to your team with the conversation attached when it can't.

ChatPal has no quizzes and doesn't open conversations from shopper behaviour. Its website chat can show a teaser bubble after a delay you set, and that's all. If Manifest's nudges are earning their keep, measure that before you switch. Our guide to product finder quizzes and AI assistants covers when each wins.

Moving off Manifest AI

1. List what Manifest does for you today. Note which features you use: quizzes, upsell placements, cart recovery, handover to your helpdesk. Anything ChatPal doesn't do becomes something you drop or keep in another app.
2. Connect your store in ChatPal. Go to Integrations, then Shopify, enter your store's Shopify address and click Connect Shopify. Shopify shows eight read-only permissions. Setup reads your store's pages and drafts the welcome message and instructions for you to review.
3. Ask the five questions above in the Playground. Its replies count toward your monthly messages.
4. Check Order support on the Shopify page in ChatPal. It is on from the moment you connect, so customers who sign in to your store see their own orders; switch it off there if you don't want order answers.
5. Swap the chat. Turn off Manifest's widget so shoppers don't see two. In your Shopify admin, go to Online Store, then Themes, then Customize, open App embeds, toggle on ChatPal Chat Widget and save. Connect WhatsApp, Instagram or Messenger from their tiles under Integrations.
6. Read the first week of conversations in Chats before you cancel anything else.

If Rep AI or Zipchat is your other candidate, read Rep AI alternatives and Zipchat alternatives. For the wider field, see the best AI chatbots for Shopify stores.