Olark review (2026): is it worth $29 a month?
Live chat for websites, with an optional flat-fee AI agent
Black Friday: is there a Olark sale?
Olark report card
Fair · out of 4.0 · graded Nov 12, 2026
Best for plain live chat on a website
Olark is live chat for websites, priced per human seat, with a separate AI agent package. The AI package starts at $400 a month billed annually, about 14 times the seat price, and the pages show no ticketing or help center.
Who Olark is for
- Fits if you want live chat answered by people, priced per seat
- Works for a site that wants an AI agent with unlimited conversations at a flat fee
Who Olark is not for
- Skip it if you need ticketing or a help center, as the pages show neither
- Pricey if you add the AI agent, which starts at $400 a month billed annually
- Watch out: the page doesn't say whether the $29 seat price is monthly or annual
- Watch out: SSO, regional routing and custom SLAs are only in the sales-only Custom package
Why Olark gets a 2.2
Five grades, each with its reason. The GPA is their average: an A is 4 points, an F is none.
- CValue for money$29 per agent a month is the middle of the category. The AI agent package is $400 a month billed annually, about 14 times that.
- CFree plan and trialA 14-day trial of Live Chat with no credit card. There is no free plan.
- CFeaturesLive chat with human agents, and an AI agent as a separate package. It does the chat job fully, but it is a smaller job: the pages show no ticketing or help center.
- CEase of useNo store rating on record, and the chat widget and AI answers need setting up.
- BPlatforms and integrationsWeb plus iPhone and Android apps, and 8 listed integrations. No desktop app on record.
What these grades rest on. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from Olark's own pages on 12 November 2026. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews. How we review and grade.
Make Olark? Put this grade on your site
Paste this where you want the badge. It links here and follows the grade if it changes. About badges
<a href="https://toolgpa.com/tools/olark#review"><img src="https://toolgpa.com/badge/olark.svg" alt="Olark: 2.2 GPA on ToolGPA" width="196" height="56"></a>Where Olark stands among help desk and live chat tools
Olark's GPA of 2.2 is higher than 25 of the 66 other help desk and live chat tools we grade, and level with 10.
It stands best on platforms and integrations (B, above 6 of 66) and worst on features (C, above 3).
Its paid plans start at $29 a month for each person, against a middle price of $29 for the category: 27 of the 57 others that charge start lower.
On features, ease of use and platforms it scores 2.3 out of 4. 16 tools score higher and cost less.
Each grade against the category
Every bar is all 67 help desk and live chat tools we grade, cut by the letter each got. Olark’s own letter is outlined.
- CValue for moneyAbove 18 of 66, level with 25
- CFree plan and trialAbove 18 of 66, level with 34
- CFeaturesAbove 3 of 66, level with 42
- CEase of useAbove 5 of 66, level with 56
- BPlatforms and integrationsAbove 6 of 66, level with 54
Price against what you get
Each dot is one of 59 help desk and live chat tools. Further left costs less, and higher up scores better on features, ease of use and platforms. Point at a dot to see which tool it is.
Features, ease of use and platforms, averaged
What paid plans start at, a month (each step along is roughly double) →
- The best score at each price
- Has a free plan
- No free plan
Keep Olark, or make your own?
Keep it
To replace Olark you would be making an AI model answering your customers from your own help articles. That is not a weekend's work, with an AI app builder or without one.
It costs $348 a year.
What you could not
- An AI model answering your customers from your own help articles.
- The WhatsApp Business API, which Meta opens only through approved partners.
- Texts to thousands of numbers, registered with the carriers.
- A chat box on your site that reaches you the moment a customer types.
- A chatbot builder hooked into the messaging apps.
- A real app for iOS and Android. Something home-made would be a web page.
- It is priced for each person, which means accounts and billing for a team.
- It plugs into other products, Salesforce, HubSpot and Zendesk among them.
What this rests on. Olark’s listing: what it does, where it runs, what it plugs into and what it costs. It is a judgement about the kind of software this is. We have not built a replacement for it, and making your own means looking after it too. How we decide, and every tool’s verdict.
What is Olark?
Olark is a live chat product for websites, sold per human agent seat. Its Standard AI Website Agent is a separate flat-fee package that answers visitor questions, captures and qualifies leads and hands off to a person in the same chat. The vendor says it charges by agent seat, not by AI usage.
Worth knowing
- The AI agent starts at $400 a month, billed annually, which is far above the $29 live chat seat price.
- The pricing page does not say whether the $29 seat price is monthly or annual billing.
- Olark is a chat product; the pages here show no full ticketing or help center product.
- SSO, regional routing and custom SLAs are only in the sales-only Custom package.
Key features
- AI website agent
- The agent answers visitor questions from your site content, keeps its knowledge in step with the site, and qualifies leads. The in-app name for it is AI Assistant.
- Human live chat
- Chat between visitors and your agents, with live handoff from the AI to a person in the same conversation thread.
- Proactive engagement
- Chats can be triggered by visitor behavior such as UTM source, return visits and time on page.
- Lead capture
- Buttons, in-chat contact forms and booking links appear when the agent decides they help.
- Assistant split tests
- Traffic can be split between two assistant configurations to compare tone, openers and qualification approach.
- Channels and customization
- The features page lists WhatsApp and SMS, and chatbox colors and position can be matched to the site.
Olark pricing
As of Nov 12, 2026, Olark is a paid product with a free trial, starting at $29 per agent / month.
- Starts at
- $29 per agent / month
- Free plan
- None
- Free trial
- 14-day free trial for Live Chat, no credit card required
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Live Chat | $29per agent / month, billing basis not shown | Full-featured live chat with human agents and no AI. The AI agent can be added later without reinstalling. |
| Standard AI Website Agent | $400per month, billed annually ($4,800 a year) | Unlimited AI conversations with no overages, lead capture and qualification, proactive engagement and one human agent seat. Extra human seats are $29 per agent a month. |
| Custom | Custom | For power users and enterprise: regional routing, multiple teams, custom workflows and SLAs, and SSO. Sold through sales. |
Read from olark.com on Nov 12, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with Olark before you buy.
Works with
Olark alternatives
- Olark vs Text by LiveChat
Free trial · from $19/mo
- Olark vs tawk.to
Free plan · from $29/mo
- Olark vs Crisp
Free plan · from $45/mo
- Olark vs Tidio
Free plan · from $24.17/mo
- Olark vs Smartsupp
Free plan · from $17/mo
Common questions
Does Olark have a Windows app?
No Windows app was listed when its pages were read on Nov 12, 2026. Olark is listed for Web, iOS and Android.
Does Olark have a macOS app?
No macOS app was listed when its pages were read on Nov 12, 2026. Olark is listed for Web, iOS and Android.
Is Olark open source?
Olark is not described as open source on its own site, as read on Nov 12, 2026.
Sources for this page
The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Nov 12, 2026.