{
 "schema_version": "1.0",
 "id": "helm",
 "name": "Helm",
 "research_status": "researched",
 "vendor_domain": "pactai.app",
 "category": "Analytics",
 "task": "E-commerce & inventory ops",
 "summary": "Shopify business-intelligence app — sold on the vendor's own site under the GrowGiant brand, by PactAI, LLC of Texas — that reads Shopify, QuickBooks Online, Meta Ads, Google Ads and GA4 together and flags what is costing money: discount and pricing drift, unexplained cost movements, inventory risk, ad performance deteriorating beyond normal variation, and sales anomalies against day, week, month and last year. Adds a drag-and-drop KPI dashboard, scenario modelling and a recurring management review. Integrations are read-only; the listing requests view permissions only. Launched 7 September 2026, still no reviews as of 16 Sep 2026.",
 "best_for": "Shopify stores already spending on Meta and Google Ads and keeping their books in QuickBooks Online, that want one place reading orders, ad spend, GA4 traffic and financials against each other instead of four dashboards that never quite agree — and that are comfortable being among the first paying customers of an app launched on 7 September 2026 with no reviews yet",
 "skip_if": "you do not run QuickBooks or paid ads, because the cross-system comparison is most of what you would be paying for; you want other buyers' verdicts before committing $1,548 a year, and there are none yet; or a margin-and-stock dashboard is all you actually need, which starts free elsewhere",
 "honest_knock": "Four weeks old and still trading under more than one name. On 4 October 2026 the App Store listing is headed GrowGiant with Helm still named as the developer; the vendor's site at pactai.app calls the product GrowGiant; the entity in the terms is PactAI, LLC of Texas; and the deletion address in those terms is now growth@growgiant.ai. That is a rebrand still settling rather than anything sinister, but the name you buy under is not the developer name on the listing, and there is little to search for before you commit.\n\nThe offer has moved as well. On 16 September the vendor's site sold the same Operator plan at $149 a month or $1,499 a year with a paid $49 14-day trial, $20 a month above the App Store. On 4 October that pricing was gone: the rebuilt site publishes no price and leads with a free 'Growth Potential Snapshot' instead, while its security page still says 'Start Free — No Card'. The App Store's $129 is the only figure in writing.\n\nThe evidence base is the real problem. The app was listed on 7 September 2026 and on 4 October it still stands at 0.0 from zero reviews, so nothing here has been checked by anyone outside the company — ourselves included. The rebuilt site no longer leads with the '$20k to $80k a month' mission or the '~$38,000 in annual profit leakage' figure we read in September; its examples now come from an unnamed 'real Shopify business assessment', such as 94.6% of identified customers buying only once, under the line that it reports what it measures, not a promised result. That is a more careful pitch. It is still the vendor's own. The security page continues to attribute SOC 2 Type II and ISO/IEC 27001 to Supabase and AWS rather than to GrowGiant.\n\nOne tension remains. The product promises to find the highest-priority moves to make next, and clause 7 of its own terms says AI can be wrong and that reviewing the output before you rely on it for business, financial, legal or tax decisions is your job. Both statements are fair, and the second one is the contract.",
 "pricing": {
  "status": "public",
  "entry_price": "$129",
  "entry_price_terms": "a month or $1,299 a year via the Shopify App Store, 7-day free trial",
  "from_price_usd_month": null,
  "plans": null,
  "plans_source": null,
  "notes": "(re-read 2026-10-04 on apps.shopify.com/helm, served HTML) One plan, called Operator, at $129 a month or $1,299 a year — the listing puts the annual saving at 16% — billed in USD every 30 days, with a 7-day free trial and no free tier. The listing is now headed GrowGiant, with Helm still named as the developer. Everything sits in that single plan: a drag-and-drop KPI dashboard, multi-metric KPI tiles, cross-system data comparisons, Meta Ads, Google Ads and GA4 analysis, QuickBooks financial intelligence, proactive risk and growth insights, monthly executive assessments and executive scenario modelling. On 16 September the vendor's own site, pactai.app, also sold the Operator plan directly, at $149 a month or $1,499 a year with a paid $49 14-day trial. On 4 October 2026 that pricing block was gone: the rebuilt site publishes no price at all and leads with a free 'Growth Potential Snapshot', marked as needing no payment method and built from public evidence. The App Store's $129 is now the only published price.",
  "verified_at": "2026-10-04",
  "source_url": null,
  "schema_offer": {
   "price": 129.0,
   "currency": "USD",
   "description": "Operator per store, per month, billed month-to-month. From our pricing notes: “One plan, called Operator, at $129 a month or $1,299 a year — the listing puts the annual saving at 16% — billed in USD every 30 days, with a 7-day free trial and no free tier” Read on the vendor's own pricing page on 2026-10-11.",
   "page": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/b2b/helm-review/"
  },
  "source_quotes": [
   {
    "field": "price",
    "plan": "Operator",
    "quote": "$129 / month",
    "source_url": "https://apps.shopify.com/helm",
    "read_on": "2026-10-23"
   },
   {
    "field": "price",
    "plan": "Operator",
    "quote": "$1,299/year",
    "source_url": "https://apps.shopify.com/helm",
    "read_on": "2026-10-23"
   },
   {
    "field": "free_trial",
    "plan": null,
    "quote": "7-day free trial",
    "source_url": "https://apps.shopify.com/helm",
    "read_on": "2026-10-23"
   }
  ],
  "recent_change": null
 },
 "free_plan": false,
 "free_plan_evidence": null,
 "cost_traps": [],
 "compare_with": {
  "name": "Selixer, EcomXray",
  "why": "All three read your own Shopify data back to you, and the honest split is price against evidence. Our own dossiers have Selixer at $149 a month for Essence (re-verified 10 September 2026): two seats, one connected ad platform, a year of history, the ad dashboard, stock health views and 500 AI credits, climbing to $299 and $399 for more ad platforms, the full True Profit waterfall and multi-touch attribution. Helm's single Operator plan is $129 through the App Store and covers Meta, Google Ads, GA4 and QuickBooks together, with no seat or platform cap published — on paper, more coverage for less money. What Selixer has that Helm does not is a record you can look up before you pay.\n\nAt the other end, EcomXray is free for cost price, gross margin and net units sold over 30, 90 and 365 days, with a $29 Pro tier (re-verified 8 September 2026). If what you actually need is to know which products make money, that is the honest floor of this category, and $1,548 a year buys a great deal of analysis you may never act on. Try them cheapest first: EcomXray free, then Helm's free 7-day trial, then Selixer."
 },
 "links": {
  "record": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/api/v1/products/helm.json",
  "review": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/b2b/helm-review/",
  "marketplace": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/marketplace/helm/",
  "vendor_site": "https://pactai.app"
 },
 "purchase": {
  "seller": "the vendor",
  "how": "AIBuilder Marketplace does not sell this software. Sign up, start a trial or buy on the vendor's site.",
  "handoff_url": "https://platform.shoffi.app/r/rl_w0nUPKoB",
  "affiliate": true,
  "disclosure": "Where purchase.affiliate is true, purchase.handoff_url is an affiliate link: AIBuilder Marketplace may earn a commission at no extra cost to the buyer. Commission never changes what a record says, and products are not ranked by commission. Where it is false the link is the vendor's plain site."
 },
 "provenance": {
  "research": "hand-researched dossier, read on the vendor's own pages",
  "researched_since": "2026-07",
  "method": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/how-we-review/",
  "license": "CC BY 4.0. Credit 'AIBuilder Marketplace' with a link to https://aibuildermarketplace.com/atlas/.",
  "note": "A rebuild is not a new measurement: pricing.verified_at is the date that matters."
 },
 "cost": {
  "status": "available",
  "engine": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/agents/#cost",
  "rules": {
   "currency": "USD",
   "unit": "store",
   "axis": "stores",
   "plans": [
    {
     "id": "operator",
     "name": "Operator",
     "model": "per_unit",
     "monthly": 129,
     "annual_year": 1299,
     "evidence": "One plan, called Operator, at $129 a month or $1,299 a year — the listing puts the annual saving at 16% — billed in USD every 30 days, with a 7-day free trial and no free tier"
    }
   ],
   "notes": "Shopify App Store price per store; the vendor's own site publishes no price since 4 October 2026.",
   "rules_verified_at": "2026-10-11"
  },
  "growth": {
   "annual": {
    "product_id": "helm",
    "currency": "USD",
    "axis": "stores",
    "unit": "store",
    "billing": "annual",
    "rows": [
     {
      "units": 1,
      "cheapest_plan": "operator",
      "cheapest_plan_name": "Operator",
      "total_month": 108.25,
      "billed": {
       "amount": 1299.0,
       "every": "year"
      },
      "ranges": [],
      "per_plan": {
       "operator": 108.25
      }
     },
     {
      "units": 2,
      "cheapest_plan": "operator",
      "cheapest_plan_name": "Operator",
      "total_month": 216.5,
      "billed": {
       "amount": 2598.0,
       "every": "year"
      },
      "ranges": [],
      "per_plan": {
       "operator": 216.5
      }
     },
     {
      "units": 3,
      "cheapest_plan": "operator",
      "cheapest_plan_name": "Operator",
      "total_month": 324.75,
      "billed": {
       "amount": 3897.0,
       "every": "year"
      },
      "ranges": [],
      "per_plan": {
       "operator": 324.75
      }
     },
     {
      "units": 5,
      "cheapest_plan": "operator",
      "cheapest_plan_name": "Operator",
      "total_month": 541.25,
      "billed": {
       "amount": 6495.0,
       "every": "year"
      },
      "ranges": [],
      "per_plan": {
       "operator": 541.25
      }
     },
     {
      "units": 10,
      "cheapest_plan": "operator",
      "cheapest_plan_name": "Operator",
      "total_month": 1082.5,
      "billed": {
       "amount": 12990.0,
       "every": "year"
      },
      "ranges": [],
      "per_plan": {
       "operator": 1082.5
      }
     }
    ],
    "switch_points": [],
    "conflicts": [],
    "unknowns": []
   },
   "monthly": {
    "product_id": "helm",
    "currency": "USD",
    "axis": "stores",
    "unit": "store",
    "billing": "monthly",
    "rows": [
     {
      "units": 1,
      "cheapest_plan": "operator",
      "cheapest_plan_name": "Operator",
      "total_month": 129.0,
      "billed": {
       "amount": 129.0,
       "every": "month"
      },
      "ranges": [],
      "per_plan": {
       "operator": 129.0
      }
     },
     {
      "units": 2,
      "cheapest_plan": "operator",
      "cheapest_plan_name": "Operator",
      "total_month": 258.0,
      "billed": {
       "amount": 258.0,
       "every": "month"
      },
      "ranges": [],
      "per_plan": {
       "operator": 258.0
      }
     },
     {
      "units": 3,
      "cheapest_plan": "operator",
      "cheapest_plan_name": "Operator",
      "total_month": 387.0,
      "billed": {
       "amount": 387.0,
       "every": "month"
      },
      "ranges": [],
      "per_plan": {
       "operator": 387.0
      }
     },
     {
      "units": 5,
      "cheapest_plan": "operator",
      "cheapest_plan_name": "Operator",
      "total_month": 645.0,
      "billed": {
       "amount": 645.0,
       "every": "month"
      },
      "ranges": [],
      "per_plan": {
       "operator": 645.0
      }
     },
     {
      "units": 10,
      "cheapest_plan": "operator",
      "cheapest_plan_name": "Operator",
      "total_month": 1290.0,
      "billed": {
       "amount": 1290.0,
       "every": "month"
      },
      "ranges": [],
      "per_plan": {
       "operator": 1290.0
      }
     }
    ],
    "switch_points": [],
    "conflicts": [],
    "unknowns": []
   }
  }
 },
 "unknowns": [
  "Plan-by-plan prices are not structured in this record yet; pricing.notes has the full text.",
  "Contract terms (cancellation, data export, data location, minimum seats) are not researched as separate fields; pricing.notes mentions them only where the vendor's pricing page does.",
  "Being verified: refund terms are not yet matched to a verbatim line on the vendor's own pages. Not matched does not mean there is none.",
  "Not tested hands-on by us: what the product does comes from the vendor's pages and our reading of them."
 ],
 "verification": {
  "price": "quoted",
  "free_trial": "quoted",
  "refund": "being_verified"
 },
 "status_page": null,
 "task_evidence": null,
 "open_questions": [
  {
   "question_id": "helm:cancellation_terms",
   "key": "cancellation_terms",
   "question": "Can a customer cancel at any time, and what happens to an annual plan that is cancelled mid-term?",
   "status": "open"
  },
  {
   "question_id": "helm:data_export",
   "key": "data_export",
   "question": "Which data can a customer export, in which formats, on which plans?",
   "status": "open"
  },
  {
   "question_id": "helm:data_location",
   "key": "data_location",
   "question": "Where is customer data stored, and can a customer choose the region?",
   "status": "open"
  }
 ],
 "vendor_answers": [],
 "agent_channels": {
  "vendor_mcp": null,
  "agent_checkout": {
   "status": "not_found",
   "detail": "No explicit support for purchases by AI agents on the vendor's own pages.",
   "checked_at": "2026-10-07",
   "method": "homepage, /pricing and the pricing page we cite, read as plain HTML (no JavaScript) and searched for explicit support of purchases by AI agents: Agentic Commerce Protocol, Instant Checkout, Agent Payments Protocol, buy in ChatGPT, agentic checkout"
  }
 }
}