Alhena AI vs Sierra (2026): which should you pick?

Pick Alhena AI if

• Fits if you run an online shop and want a chat assistant on your product pages
• Works for stores that also want to see how AI engines describe them

Look elsewhere if

• Tight if you are on the free plan: 25 conversations a month, and one AI engine monitored
• Pricey if you grow: $1.20 for every conversation over the allowance
• Watch out: the trial needs a payment method and bills automatically unless you cancel
• Not for you if you need to export your data, as that is Enterprise only

Pick Sierra if

• Fits if you are a large brand with heavy customer service volume
• Makes sense if you want to pay by outcome rather than seat

Look elsewhere if

• Not for you if you want a price, as none is published
• Not for you if you want to try it, since there is no self-serve sign-up or free plan
• Skip it if you are small, because the site is aimed at large brands
• Watch out: no integrations are listed, so ask what it connects to

Alhena AI

• Usage above the monthly allowance is billed at $1.20 per credit; a conversation is 1 credit.
• Only Essentials and above monitor all major AI engines; the Free plan watches 1.
• Data export is limited to Enterprise.
• Trials need a payment method and bill automatically unless canceled in Billing.

Sierra

• No prices are published; Sierra says pricing is outcome-based and points visitors to a sales conversation.
• No self-serve sign-up or free plan is shown on the site.
• The site gives no list of integrations.

Alhena AI

AI support concierge

Answers customer questions from store and help-desk data and can hand off to a human through the connected help desk.

AI shopping assistant

Recommends products from the catalog, suggests bundles and nudges shoppers who stall on a page.

AI visibility tracking

Tracks which products appear in AI search answers, with an audit and a count of AI questions tracked per plan.

Optimization credits

Spent on product page rewrites, FAQ generation and blog briefs aimed at AI search citations.

Review management

Manages and responds to reviews on platforms such as Trustpilot and Yotpo, on every paid plan.

Sierra

Ghostwriter agent builder

Builds an agent from uploaded SOPs, transcripts and recordings or a plain-English description, with guardrails and multilingual support.

Channels

A single agent can be deployed on chat, SMS, WhatsApp, email, voice and ChatGPT.

Insights

Explorer analyzes conversations, Monitors flags the ones that need attention, and Experiments runs multivariate tests.

Observability

Shows each agent action, including tool calls and knowledge lookups, along with latency.

Horizon

Plans multi-step outcomes over days or months, using memory of the customer across conversations and systems.

Alhena AI

• Free$0

  25 conversations a month, 500 URLs or SKUs, 1 AI profile, 5 AI questions tracked on 1 engine.

• Essentials$199

  per month, billed annually ($239 billed monthly)

  200 conversations a month, 25 AI questions tracked, 5 optimization credits, email support.

• Growth$499

  per month, billed annually ($599 billed monthly)

  550 conversations a month, 75 AI questions tracked, 25 optimization credits, weekly refresh.

• Scale$999

  per month, billed annually ($1,199 billed monthly)

  1,200 conversations a month, 150 AI questions tracked, 50 optimization credits.

• EnterpriseCustom

  Unlimited conversations, data export, a dedicated customer success manager and custom integrations.

Sierra

Pricing could not be confirmed. See sierra.ai.

Alhena AI

• Annual discount

  17% off with annual billing

  The pricing page shows annual billing as a 17% saving; for example Essentials is $199 a month billed annually against $239 billed monthly.

Sierra

No public discounts listed.