Convi's Free plan gives you the full admin experience but does not put the widget on your live storefront. This article explains exactly what Free can and can't do, and how to know when it's time to upgrade.
In this article
What Free includes
The one thing Free does not do
Why Free is structured this way
How to fully evaluate Convi on Free
When to upgrade
How to upgrade
What Free includes
On Free you get full access to:
The full admin — Home, Train, Evaluate, Publish, Conversations, Analyze, Settings.
Semantic product search and unlimited catalog indexing.
Multilingual responses and custom branding.
AI customization — tone, length, custom instructions, custom FAQs, rules.
Knowledge optimization and gap analysis.
Handover, conversation inbox, session management, pre-chat survey, customer satisfaction feedback.
Order tracking and order cancellation abilities (toggle-able in Train → Abilities).
Analytics & reporting.
Guided onboarding (the same setup wizard as paid plans).
The Pricing screen in Settings spells it out:
"Testing only — No live access. Full feature access in admin."
The one thing Free does not do
The widget will not appear on your live storefront while you're on Free. You can:
Test the assistant in the Evaluate → Playground.
Run Pre-flight and Simulations.
Test in the setup wizard's sandbox.
But the bubble itself will not render to real shoppers visiting your store. The Storefront status card on Home will keep showing "Free plan — upgrade to publish live" until you pick a paid plan.
ℹ️ Note: This is intentional. From the in-product FAQ: "The only restriction is that the live widget won't appear on your storefront. To go live, upgrade to any Starter plan."
Why Free is structured this way
Two reasons:
You can prove the product works before paying. Every capability is available in the admin — knowledge, abilities, analytics, conversations in the Playground, simulations. You can evaluate quality, tone, and accuracy honestly.
Real shopper conversations have a real LLM cost. Paid plans align price with usage so the service stays sustainable.
How to fully evaluate Convi on Free
You can give Convi a complete dry run in roughly an hour:
Install Convi and complete the setup wizard.
Train → Content — add 3–5 custom FAQs for the questions your shoppers actually ask.
Train → Persona — adjust the assistant's tone, length, and add a paragraph of advanced instructions about your store.
Train → Abilities — turn on Order tracking, Handover to human, and any others you'd run live.
Evaluate → Playground — run a dozen real-world questions, from shipping to product comparison.
Evaluate → Pre-flight — run all 5 tests; if any fail, follow the one-click "Add knowledge" path.
Evaluate → Simulations — pick a preset persona/scenario and run a synthetic conversation end-to-end.
If the Playground answers are accurate, the abilities behave the way you want, and Pre-flight is all green, you've effectively done a paid-plan pilot — just without the live widget.
When to upgrade
Upgrade when any of the following is true:
Playground and Pre-flight results look good, and you want real shoppers to use the assistant.
You want to start collecting CSAT, topic data, and abilities-usage analytics from real conversations.
You want the FAQ Widget or Ask AI Button to appear on product pages.
You want Convi's launch banner to flip to Live on store.
How to upgrade
Open Settings → Plan.
Pick the plan that fits your traffic.
Confirm in the Shopify billing flow. Every paid plan starts with a 7-day free trial — no credit card needed to start the Free plan, and the trial gives you full access.
After billing confirmation, head to Publish → Widgets, turn on the bubble widget, and activate the app embed in your theme.
💡 Tip: If you completed the setup checklist before upgrading, your 🎁 free month discount code is waiting on Home. Paste it on the Settings → Plan screen to get a full month on any paid plan, on us.