So, you're shopping for a live chat tool. You land on Olark's website, check out the pricing page, and think, "Hey, that looks pretty reasonable." It’s a popular tool that’s been around for a while, so it seems like a safe bet.
But here's the catch: the number you see per agent isn't always the full story. The real cost of Olark pricing often hides in the "PowerUp" add-ons you need to get the features you’d expect. This guide is here to give you a straight-up breakdown of Olark pricing. We’ll look at the plans, the hidden costs, and what you actually get, so you can figure out if it’s the right fit for your team or if a more modern, all-in-one tool makes more sense.
What is Olark?
At its core, Olark is a cloud-based live chat software that lets you talk to your website visitors in real time. You embed a little chat widget on your site, and your sales, marketing, or support teams can jump in and talk directly to people browsing your pages.
Olark has earned its stripes by being simple and easy to use for its main job: connecting one human to another via chat. It’s often a go-to for small to medium-sized businesses that want a no-fuss way to offer help on the spot and maybe capture a few leads.
A breakdown of Olark pricing plans
Olark keeps its pricing structure pretty simple with two main tiers and a limited free trial to get you started. On the surface, it’s easy to follow, but what you get for your money at each level is a different story, especially when you start noticing what’s missing.
Olark pricing and the standard plan
This is Olark’s entry-level paid plan, and you pay for each person on your team who uses it.
Price: It starts at $29 per agent, per month. You can get a discount if you pay for a year or two upfront.
Core Features: For that price, you get the live chat widget, access to your chat history, basic reports on chat volume, and "Targeted Chat," which lets you set up rules to automatically pop up a message. It also connects with common tools like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Slack.
Best For: This plan works well for small teams that just need a straightforward, human-powered live chat and aren't looking for advanced automation, chatbots, or a ton of customization options.
Olark pricing and the Pro plan
The Pro plan is what Olark offers to bigger companies that need more automation and some extra hand-holding.
Price: It’s custom. You won't find a price listed on their site; you have to get in touch with their sales team, sit through a demo, and get a quote.
Core Features: You get everything from the Standard plan, plus their chatbot named "CoPilot," a dedicated account manager to help you out, live training for your team, and priority support when you need it.
Best For: This is aimed at larger businesses that want a chatbot to handle common questions and feel they need a higher level of direct support from the Olark team. That jump from a clear per-agent price to a mysterious, custom contract can be a big step for companies that are still growing.
| Feature | Olark Standard Plan | Olark Pro Plan |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Starts at $29/agent/month | Custom Quote |
| Live Chat | Included | Included |
| Chatbot & Automation | Not included | Included ("CoPilot") |
| Reporting | Basic | Basic |
| Integrations | Included | Included |
| Dedicated Account Manager | Not included | Included |
| Team Training | Not included | Included |
| Support | Email & Chat | Priority Support |
The real cost of Olark pricing: Unpacking the "PowerUp" add-ons
Okay, this is where you need to pay close attention. A lot of features that most support teams would consider standard these days aren't actually in the Standard plan. Instead, Olark sells them as separate monthly "PowerUps," and they can make your bill climb much higher than you expected.
Let’s talk about some of the big ones. Want to remove the "Powered by Olark" branding from your chat widget? That’ll be an extra $59 a month. It’s a basic touch of professionalism that most other platforms just include.
What about seeing a visitor's screen to help them with a tricky problem? That’s called Cobrowsing, and it’s a powerful tool, but it will set you back another $99 a month. If you have customers around the world, you’ll probably need live chat translation, which is another $29 a month. And if you want to pull in more info about your visitors from their social or professional profiles, that’s yet another PowerUp, costing between $59 and $99 a month.
This "à la carte" style of pricing makes it tough to budget and feels like you're being penalized for needing more functionality as your team grows. It’s a bit of an old-school approach. Newer AI support platforms are moving in the opposite direction. For example, a tool like eesel AI builds these advanced features directly into its plans with clear pricing. Things like multilingual support or getting deep customer context from past conversations aren't expensive extras; they’re part of the core platform. With eesel AI, you pay based on your overall usage, so you won’t get a surprise bill just because you had a busy month.
Is Olark pricing worth it? Evaluating features vs. limitations
Once you add up the potential costs, the next logical question is: is the platform actually worth it? Olark is good at its main job, but it has some gaps in areas that are pretty important for modern support teams, especially when it comes to automation and AI.
Olark pricing: Where Olark delivers
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Simplicity: You can’t deny that Olark is easy to get up and running for basic live chat. The interface for agents is clean and simple, making it great for teams who just want to focus on real-time chats.
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Core Integrations: It connects reliably with the big-name CRMs and helpdesks, so you can push chat transcripts and contact details into the systems you already use.
Olark pricing: Key limitations to consider
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The automation is pretty basic: The "Targeted Chat" feature is really just about simple triggers, like how long someone has been on a page or which URL they’re visiting. It's not a true workflow builder that can sort tickets, route conversations based on what the customer needs, or actually solve problems on its own.
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The AI chatbot is locked away: Olark’s chatbot, "CoPilot," is only available on that expensive, custom-priced Pro plan. On top of that, it requires the Olark team to set it up for you. There’s no way to launch an AI agent yourself that can learn from your existing help articles or past tickets.
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You can't test anything first: There's no way to see how your automation rules will perform on past conversations before you launch them. This means you’re basically guessing and hoping for the best, which could lead to some awkward customer experiences without any way to predict the impact.
That’s a whole different world compared to next-generation platforms. With eesel AI, for example, you can launch a smart AI Agent that trains itself on your help desk history from places like Zendesk or Freshdesk in just a few minutes. Instead of simple triggers, you get a full-blown workflow engine to automate, sort, and escalate tickets exactly how you want. And here’s the best part: you can run simulations on thousands of your past tickets to see precisely how the AI will perform. This gives you total confidence and a real ROI forecast before a single customer ever interacts with it.
This video provides a detailed comparison of Olark's features and pricing against a competitor, helping you decide which is best for your team's needs.
Who is Olark pricing really for?
At the end of the day, Olark is a solid pick for small businesses that just need a simple, dependable, human-run live chat tool and don't have big plans for automation anytime soon. Its simplicity is its biggest selling point.
However, if your team is focused on becoming more efficient, automating resolutions, and getting smarter about support, Olark’s fragmented pricing and limited features will likely become a roadblock. The hidden costs for what many consider essential features can make it an expensive and inflexible choice as your business grows.
The modern alternative: Scalable AI support with predictable pricing
If you’re looking for a tool that can grow with you, has transparent pricing, and puts powerful, easy-to-use AI in your hands, it might be time to look past traditional live chat software.
Check out eesel AI to see how you can connect all your knowledge sources, automate your frontline support, and give your agents a boost with AI-drafted replies. You can get started in minutes and see exactly how much you can automate, completely risk-free.
See how eesel AI can help your team do their work, start a free trial or book a demo.
Frequently asked questions
The advertised $29 per agent is just a starting point. Your final cost will likely be much higher once you add "PowerUps" like cobrowsing ($99/mo) or removing Olark's branding ($59/mo), which many teams consider essential.
For very basic, human-powered live chat, the Standard plan is sufficient. However, if you need capabilities like screen sharing to help customers or chat translation for a global audience, you will have to purchase those as separate add-ons immediately.
No, the Standard plan does not include any true AI capabilities. The automation is limited to simple triggers for popping up chat boxes, and the AI chatbot, "CoPilot," is only available on the custom-priced Pro plan.
The per-agent model can become costly as your team scales, since you pay for every single user. This cost is magnified because essential features are sold as flat-fee PowerUps on top of your total agent bill, making it less flexible than usage-based models.
Yes, if your only goal is a straightforward, reliable live chat with no complex automation, Olark’s base plan is a solid and easy-to-use choice. However, it becomes less valuable if you anticipate needing more advanced features or predictable costs as you grow.
