Gorgias vs Freshdesk: how do they compare for a Shopify store's order-refund workflow?
Gorgias and Freshdesk can both refund a Shopify order from a ticket; the difference is where that access is granted. Gorgias installs from the Shopify App Store with write access to orders, draft orders, fulfillments and order edits. Freshdesk's Freshworks Marketplace app documents cancellations and full or partial refunds (per freshworks.com, October 2026). Freshdesk costs $19 to $89 per agent monthly.
Which direction the integration runs
Gorgias is a Shopify App Store app. You install it from Shopify, you grant it Shopify scopes, and those scopes are published on the listing: it requests the ability to edit orders, covering draft orders, order fulfillments, order edits and full order history, plus product and inventory visibility (per apps.shopify.com, September 2026). Write access to orders is the technical precondition for refunding from inside a ticket, and it is stated on the listing.
Freshdesk goes the other way. There is no Freshdesk listing on the Shopify App Store; the Shopify integration is published on the Freshworks Marketplace, installed from inside Freshdesk, free, at roughly 1,700 installs (per freshworks.com, September 2026). Freshworks describes what it gives agents as "instant access to customers' recent orders within Freshdesk."
Order actions too. The same Freshworks page says agents "can initiate order modifications, full or partial refunds," and lists "Cancel or refund customer orders directly from Freshdesk" among its uses, for example refunding the balance without the shipping charge. An admin turns this on with the "Perform cancelation and refund from Freshdesk Support" setting (per freshworks.com, October 2026). The app is rated 3.0 from 62 ratings on the Freshworks Marketplace, so run the refund cases you actually handle through it before you sign.
Do not read the missing listing as a delisting
apps.shopify.com/freshdesk returns a 404 and the Freshdesk partner page on the Shopify App Store shows zero apps (both checked 14 September 2026). Two signals, and neither means Freshdesk has abandoned Shopify. It means Freshworks distributes this integration through its own marketplace, which is a normal pattern for horizontal platforms that maintain integrations with dozens of ecommerce systems. Freshdesk is a live, actively sold product.
The operational consequence is real regardless. This integration is listed and supported by Freshworks, not Shopify, and it connects through a custom app you create in Shopify's Dev Dashboard, with read access to customers and read and write access to orders (per Freshdesk support, October 2026). Custom apps sit outside Shopify's app review (per shopify.dev, October 2026), so test it on a development store first and add that custom app to your app inventory before the next platform change.
The refund workflow, step by step, on each
| Step | Gorgias | Freshdesk |
|---|---|---|
| Ticket arrives with order attached | Native. Order history surfaced in the sidebar | Recent orders surfaced via the Freshworks app |
| Agent verifies order and fulfillment state | In the ticket | In the ticket |
| Agent issues the refund | Order-edit scope is requested on the Shopify listing | Documented: cancel, or refund in full or in part, from the ticket once an admin enables it |
| Refund reflected in Shopify | Immediate | Through the app's Shopify connection. Confirm in a trial |
| Audit trail | Ticket and Shopify order both record it | Not documented. Check the Shopify order timeline in a trial |
Price, and what to test before it decides
Freshdesk is cheap: Growth $19, Pro $55 and Enterprise $89 per agent per month billed annually, with Freddy AI Agent included for the first 500 sessions and $49 per additional 100 sessions (per freshworks.com, September 2026). Against Gorgias's $360 a month at 2,000 tickets, a four-agent Freshdesk Pro team is $220.
That saving holds only if the Freshdesk app handles your refunds end to end. Run your ten most common refund cases through it in a trial and time them. Any case where an agent still has to leave the desk, open Shopify admin, locate the order, refund, return and annotate adds a minute or two, and at a few hundred refund tickets a month that is the licence difference and more.
When Freshdesk is the right call anyway
- When you are already a Freshworks shop. Shared identity, shared reporting and one vendor relationship are worth real money, and a second helpdesk is a governance problem.
- When refunds are a small share of the queue. A brand whose tickets are mostly pre-sale or product questions is optimizing the wrong workflow if refund handling decides its helpdesk.
- When per-seat is genuinely cheaper for your shape. A small permanent team with high per-agent throughput is the profile per-seat pricing rewards.
- When the queue spans more than ecommerce. Freshdesk handles IT and internal service desks, and Gorgias does not try to.
The Deploi point of view
Our own position, from building on Shopify. Separate from the facts above.
- Our take: Both tools can refund from the ticket, so this comparison turns on which side of the integration you install from. Gorgias's order-edit scopes are published on its Shopify listing; Freshdesk's refund actions come from a Freshworks Marketplace app that Freshworks lists and supports. If refunds are the workflow you are optimizing, time both on your own refund cases before the $19 versus $360 price comparison decides it.
- What we’ve seen: Refund handle time is the most reliably under-measured number in mid-market support. Teams quote average first response, which the helpdesk reports for them, and almost never measure minutes-per-refund, which is where the tool choice actually shows up. Measure it for two weeks before you choose.
- Where we disagree: Comparison content routinely puts these two in a feature grid as though they were the same category of product with different prices. They are not. One is an ecommerce support product built around your Shopify orders; the other is a horizontal service desk whose Shopify connector is one integration among many. Both can refund, but pricing them against each other without testing that connector is how a cheap licence turns into an expensive quarter.
- What this page adds: that Freshdesk's Shopify integration ships through the Freshworks Marketplace rather than the Shopify App Store, that it documents cancellations and full or partial refunds but is listed and supported by Freshworks rather than Shopify, and that the missing Shopify listing is a distribution choice rather than a delisting.
Reviewed by Martin Dejnicki, Director of SEO & AI Search. Facts verified 2026-09-14.