Best alternatives to Athena in 2026

Running an online store means juggling a dozen small, repetitive jobs — updating product listings, answering order questions, tweaking ad campaigns, checking on fulfillment — usually across several different tools and dashboards. Athena, built by e-commerce platform Shoplazza, is an AI agent that handles a lot of this through natural-language commands: tell it what you want done, and it acts on your store directly. It bundles an AI store builder with page design and copywriting, AI product image generation (LazzaStudio), ad testing and optimization (AdValet), payments with 180+ methods, loyalty/retention tools, fulfillment services, and integrations with Google, Meta and TikTok, with unlimited product listings and access to 50 markets from one store. Pricing runs on annual plans with a transaction-fee twist: Basic $351/year (2% transaction fee), Advanced $945/year (1% fee), Pro $3,591/year (0.5% fee); a free store-builder preview is available with no credit card, and paid billing only kicks in once the store goes live.