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Kayako vs Level AI

Kayako logo

Kayako

Live Chat

Effortless customer service

From
$30/month
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite
Level AI logo

Level AI

Customer Support

AI quality assurance and agent assist for mid-market and enterprise contact centres

From
On request
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Kayako the AI agent is billed at $1 per resolved ticket, so support cost scales with ticket volume rather than being a fixed subscription; Level AI pricing combines a per-agent fee, a platform licence and usage-based components, so the number quoted per agent is not the number you pay and budgets set from a per-seat figure alone come in short.
  • They diverge on capability: Kayako covers Unified inbox, Level AI covers Automated QA scoring.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Kayako and Level AI actually diverge.

Attributes where Kayako and Level AI differ
AttributeKayakoLevel AI
Starting price$30/monthOn request
Pricing modelsubscriptionquote
PlatformsWeb, Ios, AndroidWeb
CategoryLive ChatCustomer Support
Founded2001Unknown

Identical on both: free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Kayako

  • Unified inbox
  • Live chat
  • Help center
  • Customer journey
  • Automation
  • Reporting
  • Slack
  • Salesforce

Only in Level AI

  • Automated QA scoring
  • Semantic intent search
  • Agent assist
  • Coaching workflows
  • Custom scorecards
  • Voice of customer analytics
  • Dispute and calibration
  • CCaaS integrations

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Kayako

  • Help desk ticketing with a unified inbox and knowledge basenot Level AI
  • Resolving support tickets automatically with an AI agentnot Level AI

Level AI

  • A 400-seat support organisation reviewing 2 per cent of calls manually and wanting compliance coverage across the whole volume without adding QA headcountnot Kayako
  • A regulated financial services contact centre that must evidence disclosure wording on every recorded call rather than on a samplenot Kayako
  • A support operation onboarding a new outsourced site and needing week-one visibility into how the vendor agents actually handle contactsnot Kayako
  • A CX team trying to work out why average handle time rose 20 per cent by clustering contact drivers across a quarter of interactionsnot Kayako

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Kayako

  • The AI agent is billed at $1 per resolved ticket, so support cost scales with ticket volume rather than being a fixed subscription
  • A resolution counts when the AI solves the issue without human involvement, so the definition of a billable event is set by the vendor's own system
  • No per agent monthly price is published for the full Kayako One platform
  • Full platform pricing requires talking to an expert

Level AI

  • Pricing combines a per-agent fee, a platform licence and usage-based components, so the number quoted per agent is not the number you pay and budgets set from a per-seat figure alone come in short.
  • Integration to each contact centre or CRM system is charged as a separate implementation fee, which means a team running voice on one platform and chat on another pays twice before a single interaction is scored.
  • The unit economics do not work below roughly a hundred agents; smaller teams get quoted enterprise minimums that cost more than the QA analyst they were trying to avoid hiring.
  • Automated scores are only as good as the scorecard behind them, and the calibration work to get semantic questions scoring consistently falls on your QA team over several weeks before anyone trusts the output.
  • Transcription and semantic accuracy degrade on heavily accented speech, poor telephony audio and languages outside the main supported set, so multilingual operations often end up running manual QA in parallel for some queues anyway.

Pricing, plan by plan

Kayako

$30/month
  • Inbox$30/month
    • Email & live chat
    • Help center
    • Basic automation
  • Growth$60/month
    • Everything in Inbox
    • Customer journey
    • SLA management
  • Scale$100/month
    • Everything in Growth
    • Advanced reporting
    • Custom roles

Level AI

On request
  • Level AI$undefined/year
    • Automated QA on all interactions
    • Custom scorecards
    • Semantic search

Which should you pick?

Choose Kayako if

  • You need unified inbox.
  • You work on Web, Ios, Android.
  • You also want live chat.
Kayako review

Choose Level AI if

  • You need automated qa scoring.
  • You also want semantic intent search.
Level AI review

Questions people ask

Is Kayako or Level AI better?
Neither clearly leads. Kayako starts at $30/month and Level AI at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Kayako or Level AI?
Kayako starts at $30/month and Level AI at On request.
Does Kayako or Level AI run on more platforms?
Kayako runs on Web, Ios, Android. Level AI runs on Web.
What is Kayako best used for?
Kayako is most often used for help desk ticketing with a unified inbox and knowledge base, resolving support tickets automatically with an ai agent. Of those, help desk ticketing with a unified inbox and knowledge base and resolving support tickets automatically with an ai agent are not what Level AI is typically brought in for.
What can Kayako do that Level AI cannot?
Kayako covers Unified inbox, Live chat, Help center, Customer journey. Level AI covers Automated QA scoring, Semantic intent search, Agent assist, Coaching workflows.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Kayako: How much does Kayako charge?

Kayako uses results-based pricing where customers pay $1 per resolved ticket when Kay AI Agent solves the issue without human intervention. There are no seat fees or setup fees. Kayako One helpdesk platform pricing requires contacting sales.

Source
Level AI: Does Level AI publish pricing?

No. Quotes are built per deployment from agent count, channel mix and product modules, and integration fees are added on top.

Kayako: What counts as a resolved ticket for Kayako pricing?

A resolution occurs when Kay solves the customer's issue without human agent involvement, whether by taking action or providing an answer the customer confirms solves their problem. Escalations to humans and simple deflections do not count.

Source
Level AI: Can it replace our QA analysts?

It replaces the sampling and scoring work, not the judgement. Teams typically keep analysts for calibration, disputes and coaching design.

Kayako: What is Kayako's AI resolution rate?

Kayako reports a 68 percent AI resolution rate for Kay AI Agent. The platform claims a cost advantage of $1 per resolution versus $4.60 for competitors, with reported CSAT improvement of 14 points.

Source
Level AI: Does it work without a cloud contact centre platform?

It needs recordings and metadata from somewhere. If your telephony does not expose those through an integration or API, this is not a fit.

Level AI: How long does implementation take?

Expect weeks, not days. Connecting systems is quick; getting scorecards calibrated to the point where team leaders act on the scores takes longer.

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