This article walks you through exactly what happens when you sign up for Ringly, from the moment you drop your store URL to the moment Seth goes live. Most people finish in under 5 minutes.
There are two phases:
Try Seth for free, no signup, no credit card. You hear Seth answer calls for your store in about 30 seconds.
Claim and set up Seth. You create an account, confirm a few settings, connect Shopify, and start your plan.
Phase 1: Try Seth for free (no signup)
Step 1: Drop your store URL
Start at ringly.io and click "Try for free". You'll see a single input field.
Paste your store URL and click "Generate demo calls". No login, no credit card.
Step 2: Seth trains on your store
Seth reads your website, learns your products, and builds a custom voice agent for your brand. This takes about 30 seconds.
Step 3: Listen to demo calls
You'll hear two clips: Seth's greeting (how he answers the phone for your store) and Seth handling a real "where is my order?" call.
If you like what you hear, click "Claim my agent" to continue.
Phase 2: Claim Seth and create your account
To save your agent, you need an account. Setting up is free and needs no credit card. You can sign up with Google (one click) or with email and a password.
Phase 3: Configure Seth
Once you're signed in, you'll see a 3-stage progress bar at the top: Train, Customize, Activate. There are 5 quick screens inside these stages.
Every setting you choose here can be changed later from your Seth dashboard.
Train: Confirm your business info
Seth shows you the business name and website it learned from your store. Double check it's correct, then click "Correct, continue".
Customize: Confirm Seth's greeting
Seth suggests a greeting based on your brand, for example "Hi, this is Seth with [your brand]. How can I help you today?"
Click "Looks good" to accept, or "Make changes" to edit it.
Customize: Pick your escalation mode
Decide what Seth should do when he can't resolve a call on his own:
Always transfer: Seth forwards the caller to your team, any time of day.
Transfer in business hours: Seth transfers during your hours, otherwise emails you the issue.
Email me the issue: Seth sends you a summary email for every unresolved call.
For a deeper walkthrough of escalation, see How to let Seth AI phone agent escalate to a human.
Customize: Connect Shopify
Connecting Shopify is what lets Seth look up orders, process returns, and recognize repeat customers by phone number. Without it, Seth can still answer FAQs and policy questions, but the order-related features are locked.
You have two options:
Install the Shopify app (one click, recommended).
Create a custom app in Shopify and paste the tokens (myshopify domain, Client ID, Secret). Follow the step-by-step guide link we provide.
If you use the custom app path, you'll paste your tokens here:
Don't have access to Shopify admin? Click "No access to Shopify admin?" to invite a teammate who does. You can also skip Shopify for now, but Seth won't be able to answer order status or returns questions until it's connected.
For more on what Seth can do with Shopify, see How Seth recognizes customers in Shopify.
Activate: Start your plan
This is the final screen. There is one plan, Pay as you go:
$99 a month covers your first 50 phone conversations.
Every phone conversation after that is $1.99.
A phone conversation is a call where Seth and your customer both spoke. Hang-ups, wrong numbers, callers who only want a human and your own test calls are free.
Every feature is included: skills, fine-tune examples, the knowledge base and Shopify order lookups.
Put Seth on your store's phone line within 2 weeks and you get the $99 back as credit on your next two bills.
30-day money back guarantee. Cancel any time.
Getting more than 1,000 calls a month? Message us in the chat and we'll set up a custom plan.
Once you start the plan, Seth is live. You get your phone number, your call history starts filling up, and you can forward your store's phone line to Seth any time. Full details are in How Pay per call billing works.
After activation
You land on the Seth dashboard. From here you can:
Add knowledge (FAQs, policies, product details) so Seth resolves more calls.
Add custom skills so Seth can do more than just answer questions.
Review call history and performance.
Deploy Seth by forwarding your store's phone number to him.
For a deeper walkthrough of everything Seth can do after setup, see Set up Seth, the AI phone support rep.
Once Seth is live
Onboarding gets Seth handling calls. To improve his answers from there, see How to train Seth.