Siena AI alternatives: AI support agents for online brands, by how they bill

Siena AI is priced for brands with real ticket volume: a $750 platform fee every month, plus $0.90 for each ticket it automates. At 1,000 automated tickets that is about $1,650 a month, on top of the helpdesk it runs in. If that's more than your volume justifies, the alternatives split by how they bill: per resolved ticket or outcome (Fin, and Yuma on a direct contract), per ticket in credit packs (eesel AI), per interaction inside the helpdesk (Gorgias), per seat plus metered AI (Richpanel), or a flat price per reply (ChatPal).

Prices below were checked on each vendor's own site on 19 October 2026, in US dollars. We make ChatPal, which is one of the alternatives, so weigh what we say about it accordingly.

What Siena costs, and what you get for it

Siena's pricing page has three lines. The platform fee of $750 a month covers its AI engine and an unlimited sandbox for testing. The automation pack is $0.90 per ticket. Support and implementation (onboarding and dedicated Slack support) is listed without a price. The page doesn't say what counts as a ticket, whether there is a minimum term, or whether annual billing changes the price, so ask before you sign.

For that money you get an agent built for consumer brands. Siena takes post-purchase actions (address changes, labels, refunds, replacements), manages subscriptions in apps like Recharge, Skio and Stay AI, and has a separate Social Agent for Instagram and Facebook comments and DMs. It doesn't replace your helpdesk: it connects to Zendesk, Gorgias, Kustomer, Gladly, Dixa or Intercom and answers inside it.

When to stay on Siena

Stay if Siena already automates a large share of your tickets and your team trusts its actions. At high volume the $750 fee spreads thin: at 5,000 automated tickets it adds $0.15 a ticket. Stay too if:

• your post-purchase work runs through subscription, returns and 3PL apps that Siena connects to, such as Recharge, Loop Returns or ShipBob;
• your social team needs comment replies on Instagram and Facebook ads, not just DMs;
• you value the onboarding and Slack support more than a lower sticker price.

How we chose

We looked for AI agents that an online brand can put in front of customers to answer and resolve support questions, with enough public pricing to compare. For each one we read the pricing page and product or help pages on 15 October 2026, noted what is billed and which helpdesks it runs on, and re-checked the prices on 19 October 2026. We make ChatPal; we did not test the others hands-on.

The tools are grouped by how they fit your stack, not ranked.

Siena and six alternatives, by how they fit

The same month on each tool

Three sample months: 300, 1,000 and 3,000 conversations that the AI handles to the end. Where a tool bills per ticket, resolution, outcome, interaction or conversation, we counted each one once. For ChatPal, which counts replies, we assumed three replies per conversation. These are our assumptions; check them against a week of your own tickets. Billed monthly unless noted, before tax and channel fees.

The Gorgias range runs from its $0.90 annual price to the $1.50 its pricing page's data lists above a plan's allowance; on monthly billing within the allowance it is about $1, so confirm which rate applies to your plan. Richpanel's $0.20 is its own estimate at the annual credit rate; monthly credits cost a fifth more, and the real figure moves with the tokens used. Yuma's Shopify plans don't say how many tickets the package covers, so the larger months depend on its overage rate. Fin doesn't charge for conversations it hands to your team without an outcome, so it can come in below the line above, while every AI reply ChatPal writes counts, including on chats it later hands over.

In this table, Siena is the dearest line at 300 and 1,000 a month, and its fixed fee is the reason; at 3,000 the top of the Gorgias range passes it. Per ticket alone, $0.90 is cheaper than Fin's $0.99 and level with Gorgias on annual billing, so the fee is what you are weighing.

What each pricing model rewards

Platform fee plus per ticket (Siena): predictable once volume is steady and high, expensive at the start. You pay $750 in a month when the AI automates nothing.

Per resolution or outcome (Fin, and Yuma on a direct contract): you pay when the AI finishes a job, and nothing for what it hands back. Good when you're unsure how much the AI can do. The bill grows with every sale or shipping delay that brings more tickets.

Credits per ticket (eesel AI): a fixed monthly batch, one credit per ticket however long it runs. Credits you don't use are lost at month end, so size the batch to a normal month, not your peak.

Helpdesk plus metered AI (Richpanel by seat, Gorgias by ticket volume): the AI is metered per conversation, but you are buying a helpdesk. It makes sense if you're changing helpdesks anyway.

Flat price per reply (ChatPal): one known number a month for a set number of AI replies. On the $120 Pro plan, 4,000 replies work out at $0.03 a reply, or about $0.09 for a three-reply conversation. You get a warning at 80% of your replies; at 100% the assistant pauses automatic replies until the new month or until you upgrade. It suits steady volume up to around 1,300 conversations a month at three replies each.

Helpdesk fit: where each one runs

This is often the deciding question, because Siena's alternatives don't all run on the same helpdesks.

• On Gorgias: Siena, Yuma and Fin run on it, and Gorgias has its own AI Agent. ChatPal doesn't list a Gorgias integration.
• On Zendesk: Siena, Yuma and eesel AI list it. ChatPal connects to Zendesk on every plan, the free one included: in Autopilot mode it answers tickets itself, and in Copilot mode it drafts replies your agents accept or edit. It can also sync your Zendesk Help Center. Details are on ChatPal's Zendesk page.
• On Kustomer or Gladly: Siena and Yuma both list them.
• On Freshdesk or HubSpot: Fin and eesel AI run on Freshdesk; Fin also runs on HubSpot.
• No helpdesk at all: Richpanel is a helpdesk with AI included. ChatPal hands chats to a person in its own inbox, and your team replies from there on the customer's own channel.

If you're weighing a move off Zendesk entirely, our Zendesk alternatives page compares helpdesks. If Gorgias is your helpdesk and its AI Agent is the price you're testing Siena against, see Gorgias alternatives.

Siena or ChatPal

They are built for different stages. Siena is for a brand with thousands of tickets, a helpdesk, a stack of post-purchase apps and a team that wants the AI to act on orders. ChatPal is for a smaller store whose customers mostly ask before and after buying, in chat and messaging apps.

We'd choose Siena if:

• you want the AI to issue refunds, send replacements and change subscriptions without a person;
• you need comment replies on Instagram and Facebook ads;
• your volume is high enough that $750 a month is a small share of the bill.

We'd choose ChatPal if:

• most of your questions are about products, stock, shipping and "where is my order", and a person can handle the rest;
• your customers write on WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger or Telegram as well as your site, and you want one assistant on all of them on any plan;
• you want a fixed monthly price and to try it on real customers on the free plan first.

On a Shopify store, ChatPal answers from a copy of your catalog that stays in sync within minutes, with prices for the customer's country. A customer who signs in to your store with their own account can ask where their order is and gets tracking and estimated delivery. A request to cancel or change a delivery goes to your team once the customer confirms it. Here it is answering a product question from our own test store's catalog.

Moving off Siena

1. Count a normal month. From your helpdesk, take how many tickets Siena automated and how many it handed over. That gives you the number to price each alternative against, using the table above.
2. Write down what Siena does, not just what it says. List every action it takes (refunds, address changes, subscription skips). An alternative that only answers questions will hand those tickets to your team, so price in their time.
3. Keep your helpdesk. Siena answers inside it, so the tickets it handled stay in your helpdesk's history when you leave. Choose an alternative that runs on the same helpdesk, or decide which channels move away from it.
4. Re-add your knowledge from the originals. Your help center, return policy and shipping pages can be added to most AI tools by their link. In ChatPal, a Zendesk Help Center can sync on its own once you switch on Enable Help Center sync.
5. Test side by side. Ask the new tool last month's twenty most common questions, including a sold-out product and an order that shipped late. In ChatPal, do this in the Playground; its replies count toward your monthly messages.
6. Switch one channel first. Move your website chat or one messaging app, watch a week of conversations, then move the rest and give Siena notice.

If Fin is also on your shortlist, Intercom Fin alternatives compares per-outcome pricing in more depth.