---
title: "What ReplyPen reads to answer your customer email"
canonical: https://replypen.com/product/data-sources
description: "ReplyPen drafts replies from your past emails, website and help center, plus files and tools you connect. It only reads these sources and never changes them."
question: "What does an AI reply tool use to answer my customers' questions?"
author: "ReplyPen team"
published: 2026-09-30
operator: ProBackup BV (Hasselt, Belgium)
---

# What ReplyPen reads to answer your customer email

ReplyPen writes each Draft from what your business already wrote: the replies you sent from your mailbox, your website and your help center. When you want deeper answers, add files and connect tools such as Shopify, Stripe or HubSpot, and software companies can connect their code base. ReplyPen only reads these sources. It never changes anything in them.

A reply is only as good as the facts behind it. ReplyPen does not guess from general knowledge: it
reads your own material, and the [Check note](https://replypen.com/product/inbox#what-is-in-a-check-note) under each
Draft shows which of it a reply relied on.

## Which sources does ReplyPen start with?

The three every business already has:

| Source | What ReplyPen takes from it |
|---|---|
| Your mailbox | The replies you already sent: your tone, and how you answered common questions before |
| Your website | Product, shipping, pricing and policy pages, read from its public pages during setup |
| Your help center | Your published articles, connected during setup |

With these three, most repeat questions (orders, delivery, returns, pricing, how-to) get a Draft
that matches what you already publish and what you told the last customer.

## Which help centers work?

Help centers hosted on Zendesk, Intercom, Help Scout and Freshdesk. You connect yours during setup
and ReplyPen reads its published articles. Nothing is installed in your help center and nothing in
it changes.

## Can you add files?

Yes. Upload the documents a good answer sometimes needs and that are not on your website: price
lists, policies, product manuals, terms for business customers.

## Which tools can you connect?

During setup you pick the tools you use; you connect them later, when you are ready. Once
connected, ReplyPen can read from:

- **Store and billing:** Stripe, and Shopify once its app review is done (not available yet)
- **Customer records:** HubSpot, Salesforce
- **Documents and notes:** Notion, Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Sheets
- **Team and calendar:** Slack, Google Calendar
- **Support content:** Zendesk, Intercom (help content as knowledge)
- **Code:** GitHub

A connected tool adds facts your help center cannot hold, such as the details of one customer's
order or invoice. ReplyPen drafts inside Gmail and Outlook only: connecting Zendesk or Intercom adds
their content as knowledge, it does not draft inside those inboxes.

## Can a software company connect its code base?

Yes. Connect GitHub and ReplyPen can read your code base, so Drafts can explain how your product
actually behaves, not only what the help center says. Access is read-only. This is part of
[ReplyPen for B2B SaaS](https://replypen.com/b2b-saas.md); see
[support answers grounded in your code base](https://replypen.com/b2b-saas/codebase-grounding.md) for how it works.

## Does ReplyPen change anything in these sources?

No. ReplyPen only reads your sources. It does not edit your help center, your website, your files
or your tools. The one thing it adds is Drafts in your mailbox, and it never deletes anything there.

## What if a source is wrong or out of date?

Fix it at the source. The Check note shows which help article, website page or past email a Draft
relied on, so an outdated page shows up before your customer sees it. When you correct a Draft
instead, ReplyPen learns from the change and records it in [Memory](https://replypen.com/product/memory.md).

## Related

- [Replies drafted in your own Gmail or Outlook inbox, with a Check note](https://replypen.com/product/inbox.md): ReplyPen leaves a ready-to-send Draft in your Gmail or Outlook thread for every customer email that needs a reply, with a Check note listing what it relied on.
- [Memory: what ReplyPen learns about your business, and how you correct it](https://replypen.com/product/memory.md): ReplyPen keeps what it learned about your business, your tone and your answers in Memory, in plain language you can read and correct.
- [Rules: choose which customer email gets a Draft and which is skipped](https://replypen.com/product/rules.md): ReplyPen is draft-only. Rules skip or always draft email by sender, domain, subject or body text, on top of the automatic skips. Nothing is sent without you.