Customer Service & Retention AI
Arena
Arena is an audience-engagement platform for brands and publishers that need to turn onsite attention into moderated comments, live coverage, group conversations, and conversion actions. Publishers, sports properties and brands can run owned-community experiences, moderate participation, place conversion units and add advertising controls without treating every capability as a separate product.
- Platforms
- Shopify
Buying view: It combines live engagement surfaces with an AI layer instead of treating support chat as an isolated inbox. Results depend on a maintained catalog and approved answer sources; do not let it invent return, delivery, or promotion terms.
Capabilities
Arena gives publishers and commerce teams three ways to keep an audience active on their own site: live coverage, moderated conversation, and AI-assisted shopping engagement. Its biggest advantage is that the audience interaction, conversion cards, moderation, and first-party engagement data remain on the brand's property instead of being surrendered to a social network.
What problem it addresses
Shoppers need immediate product guidance while store teams need conversation context and a clear route into live assistance.
How people use it
Commerce-oriented AI conversations for shopping questions. Product discovery assistance using connected store information. Live engagement formats alongside chat-based assistance.
Editors create a live event, publish updates and conversion cards, moderate audience activity, and review engagement after the event.
The team embeds a conversation surface, sets moderation rules, lets visitors participate, and manages the resulting community activity.
Commerce AI uses the connected shopping context to answer or guide visitors and records usage for the plan's metered allowance.
What each module does and its role
Comments
Add threaded comments to owned digital properties so readers can discuss an article, event or community topic. Moderation and monetization controls determine how those discussions fit the publisher's operating model.
Live Blog
Publish a continuously updated stream for breaking news, live events or second-screen coverage. Editors can combine direct posts with social content and use plan-specific templates or AI assistance where included.
Group Chat
Run real-time audience chat alongside a live experience. Teams can add polls, Q&As, moderation and branding controls according to the selected package.
AI engagement tools
Arena's current packages list AI summaries, polls, search assistance and chat moderation as engagement capabilities. These tools help teams structure and supervise participation rather than replacing the underlying Comments, Live Blog or Group Chat surfaces.
Conversion Cards
Place conversion-oriented cards inside an engagement experience on eligible plans. Brands and publishers can connect audience attention to a defined next action without moving the whole experience to another tool.
Ads and monetization
Professional and enterprise package descriptions include advertising revenue participation and broader monetization controls. Commercial teams should verify traffic, revenue-share and placement terms in the final quote.
Commercial plans
This table reflects the current public pricing page checked on 2026-09-03. Each row keeps the plan's documented allowances, capabilities and separately priced add-ons together so the tiers can be compared without treating the headline price as the whole offer.
Arena Community
Plans for community, comments, and an AI engagement surface.
| Product or sales surface | Scope | Public price and status |
|---|---|---|
| Free | For individuals and small teams starting with basic live engagement. Included plan entitlements
| $0/month |
| Starter | Adds automated content and AI engagement tools for growing audiences. Included plan entitlements
| $49/month |
| Professional | For teams that need cross-platform conversion and monetization controls. Included plan entitlements
| $249/month |
| Enterprise | For custom infrastructure, integrations and account support. Included plan entitlements
| Custom quote |
Live Blog & Group Chat
Plans for live publishing and real-time group-chat experiences.
| Product or sales surface | Scope | Public price and status |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Basic live publishing and audience chat. Included plan entitlements
| $0/month |
| Starter | Adds social publishing and audience-participation tools. Included plan entitlements
| $49/month |
| Professional | Adds reusable controls for events and conversions. Included plan entitlements
| $349/month |
| Business | For teams with larger audiences that need reporting, branding, and notifications. Included plan entitlements
| $999/month |
| Enterprise | For advanced customization and dedicated infrastructure. Included plan entitlements
| Custom quote |
Comparable tools: price and workflow
| Tool | Workflow difference | Official public price reference |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | From $19/user/month |
| 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 |
| VanChat | 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 install |
| Intercom | The priority is an AI service agent that can resolve common questions and hand uncertain cases to people. Answer quality depends on maintained knowledge, permissions, and a clear escalation owner. | From $0.99/outcome |
| Gorgias | A support team needs a structured workspace for tickets, customer context, and service workflow control. Compare Shopify context, automation limits, agent seats, and the work needed to maintain policies and routing. | $10/month (50 tickets) |
Frequently asked questions
How does Arena Commerce AI fit into an ecommerce workflow?
A shopper can ask for help while browsing, discover products based on the catalog, and move to live chat or video with conversation context available to the store team.
How is Arena Commerce AI priced?
The public price references shown here are Free: $0; Starter: $49/month; Professional: $249/month.
What is the main Arena Commerce AI boundary to check?
Results depend on a maintained catalog and approved answer sources; do not let it invent return, delivery, or promotion terms.
Sources
Content checked: