Key takeaways
- Kore.ai pricing is not transparent: You need to contact sales, and costs vary based on your specific setup.
- Usage drives real costs: Sessions, seats, and add-ons matter more than the plan itself.
- Session-based billing adds unpredictability: Longer interactions, especially with voice AI, can increase costs quickly.
- Budgeting is difficult: Costs fluctuate based on user behavior, making forecasting harder.
- Quiq offers more predictable pricing: Simpler structure and clearer costs make it easier for modern teams to plan and scale.
Kore.ai doesn’t have publicly available pricing, and you’ll have to reach out to their sales team to find out how much their AI agents will cost you, depending on your specific use case. While you can’t get the exact pricing of this AI platform, we’ve done some research to find out what their “custom pricing model” means and how much you can expect to pay.
Here’s a breakdown of Kore.ai pricing in 2026.
Need an agentic AI solution with a pricing model that is easy to understand? Book a free demo with Quiq today.
The free plan gives you sandbox access to this AI platform
The Free to try plan is Kore.ai’s entry point for testing the platform. It gives you access to the core environment so you can build and experiment before committing to a paid plan.
You can explore most features, create assistants, and test flows without immediate restrictions on functionality.
What’s included:
- Access to core platform features
- Ability to build and test assistants
- Limited free session usage with some free credits to try the product out
- Suitable for evaluation and prototyping
What’s not included:
- No production-level capacity
- Strict limits on billing sessions and usage
- No advanced support or SLAs
In reality, this is a sandbox environment, not a usable production plan, and it won’t work for enterprise clients or teams without heavy engineering support. There’s a steep learning curve, and non-technical teams may struggle to get out of this stage and to the more advanced plans, which are just some of the many reasons users look for Kore AI alternatives.
Note: Kore.ai’s plan naming can vary slightly depending on the product and deployment model, but the structure below reflects how their tiers are generally organized.
Essential plan
The Essential plan is the first paid tier, but it is still quite limited. It focuses on simple chatbot use cases where conversations are mostly static.
It allows you to move beyond testing and deploy basic assistants, but without support for more advanced automation.
What’s included:
- Simple FAQ and knowledge-based conversational AI agents
- Access to the core platform, including pre-built AI agents
- Pay-as-you-go usage model
- Entry-level production capability
What’s not included:
- No dialog task automation with natural language processing
- No multi-step workflows for AI support
- Limited conversational complexity
- Not suitable for advanced use cases
This plan works for very simple bots only, and most teams outgrow it quickly, moving to a more advanced plan.
Advanced plan
The Advanced plan is where Kore.ai becomes practical for real use. It unlocks most of the platform’s capabilities and supports customer-facing assistants.
You can build structured conversations, connect systems, and handle more realistic workflows.
What’s included:
- Access to most platform features such as voice assistants
- Advanced conversational flows
- Higher usage limits
- Suitable for customer-facing deployments
What’s not included:
- Some enterprise-only features
- Advanced integrations may be limited
- Lower scalability compared to Enterprise
- Still subject to usage constraints
This is the minimum viable plan for real deployments, but it still has limits at scale. You can benefit from the full generative AI layer, and things like enterprise-grade security, but businesses in more regulated industries and with more complex needs will have to upgrade.
Enterprise plan
The Enterprise plan is Kore.ai’s full offering, built for large organizations that need scale, control, and flexibility.
It removes most restrictions and supports complex automation, integrations, and high-volume environments.
What’s included:
- Full access to all platform capabilities
- High rate limits and scalability
- Advanced integrations and controls
- Enterprise-grade deployment options
- Custom configurations and support
What’s not included:
- Transparent and official pricing
- Predictable costs, due to usage-based billing
- Simple onboarding, setup can be complex
This is where most serious deployments land, often with custom contracts and high annual costs. Out of all the self-serve plans, this is the best one for global enterprises and businesses that want performance and not cost savings.
How billing works across all plans
Even though plans define feature access, your total cost depends on how you use the platform.
Here are the main pricing layers:
Session-based billing
- Conversations are billed in time-based sessions
- Typically measured in 15-minute increments, one of the lowest values in the industry. Typical conversations usually go well over 15 minutes, causing you to burn money on each conversation
- Longer or more complex interactions and the use of the AI model increase costs
Seat-based pricing
- Applies to contact center use cases
- Charged per agent seat
- Can be named or concurrent users
Add-ons
- Some integrations and features are priced separately
- Not always included in base plans
This is why costs can scale quickly, even if the base plan seems affordable.
Support plans
Support is priced separately from the main plans, which is easy to overlook.
Kore.ai offers multiple support tiers with different response times and service levels.
Support tiers include:
- Free support
- Default support
- Standard support with better SLAs
- Enterprise support with priority handling
Important: support is not automatically included, and higher tiers can be costly.
What Kore.ai pricing really means in practice
On paper, Kore.ai’s pricing looks like a standard tiered model. In reality, most teams experience it very differently once they move beyond testing and into production.
The biggest shift happens when you start using the platform at scale. Costs are no longer tied to a fixed monthly fee; they are driven by usage, sessions, and seats. That makes it harder to predict what you will actually pay.
What typical costs look like
For most teams, pricing evolves in stages:
- Early testing phase: You might spend little to nothing using the free tier or a low-cost plan. At this stage, you are experimenting with bots, testing natural language understanding, and validating simple use cases.
- Initial deployment: Once you launch a real assistant, costs start to increase. Even a basic chatbot handling customer queries can lead to hundreds or thousands of sessions per month. This is where usage-based billing becomes noticeable.
- Scaling to real usage: As adoption grows, especially in customer support or contact center AI scenarios, costs can rise quickly:
- More conversations = more billable sessions
- Longer interactions = multiple sessions per user
- More agents = additional seat costs
- Advanced use cases like voice AI: Voice interactions tend to be longer and more resource-intensive than chat. This means:
- Higher session consumption
- Increased infrastructure costs
- Additional charges depending on setup
At this stage, many teams move into custom enterprise pricing, which can reach five or six figures annually.
The biggest downsides of Kore.ai’s pricing model
The pricing model is flexible, but that flexibility comes with tradeoffs that are important to understand upfront.
1. Costs are hard to predict
Because billing is tied to sessions and usage, your monthly cost can vary significantly. A spike in customer conversations or longer interactions can increase your bill without warning. Have a holiday rush? You might be getting a present in the form of an inflated Kore.ai invoice.
2. You pay for conversation length, not just volume
Sessions are time-based, not just message-based. If a user has a long interaction, it may count as multiple billable sessions, even if it is a single conversation from a user perspective.
3. Scaling support gets expensive fast
In contact center AI setups, you are often paying for:
- Automated conversations
- Human agent seats
As your support team grows, so does your cost, from both directions. You practically get the worst of both worlds: paying in 15-minute increments and per seat, since your AI tool doesn’t handle 100% of your conversations.
4. Add-ons and features are not always included
Certain integrations, advanced capabilities, or enterprise features are treated as add-ons. This means the base plan price does not reflect the full cost of running your setup.
5. Enterprise pricing lacks transparency
Once you reach a certain level of usage, you will likely need a custom contract. At that point:
- Pricing is negotiated
- Costs vary widely between companies
- It becomes difficult to benchmark the value
What this means for teams evaluating Kore.ai
Kore.ai can work well if you need advanced automation, strong natural language understanding, and enterprise-grade conversational tools.
But from a pricing perspective, you should go in with clear expectations:
- The entry cost is low, but scaling is where it gets expensive
- Your bill depends heavily on user behavior, not just your plan
- Complex use cases like voice AI or large-scale support amplify costs
👉 The key takeaway is simple. Kore.ai is not a fixed-cost SaaS tool. It is a usage-driven platform, and your total spend will grow alongside your adoption.
Why Quiq gives you better value and more transparent pricing
If you compare Kore.ai to other platforms in the same space, the biggest difference is not just features, it is how pricing is structured and how easy it is to understand what you are paying for.
Kore AI’s offerings are powerful, but they come with layered pricing that includes sessions, seats, add-ons, and custom contracts. That makes it difficult to estimate costs upfront, especially for modern teams that need to plan budgets and scale without surprises.
Quiq takes a more straightforward approach.
Clearer, more predictable pricing for AI agents
One of the main advantages is predictability. Instead of tying everything to time-based sessions only, Quiq focuses on pricing models that are easier to forecast.
What this means in practice:
- You are not billed unpredictably for longer conversations and conversations have time-based sessions of 24 hours as opposed to 15 minutes
- Costs are easier to align with actual usage and outcomes and there are no per-seat charges
- Budgeting becomes much simpler as your usage grows
This is especially important for teams running customer support at scale, where conversation length can vary significantly.
Built for real AI use cases, not just billing units
Kore.ai pricing is heavily influenced by how long a conversation lasts. Quiq, on the other hand, is built around delivering outcomes using large language models and automation, not measuring every interaction in time blocks.
With Quiq, you get:
- AI agents that deliver human-like responses across channels
- Better handling of real conversations without worrying about session limits
- A platform focused on solving support tickets, not counting minutes
This makes a noticeable difference when you move beyond basic bots and start handling real customer interactions.
Fewer hidden costs across the platform
With Kore AI’s offerings, the base plan rarely reflects the full cost. Once you add integrations, support tiers, or advanced capabilities, pricing can increase quickly.
Quiq simplifies this by including more within its core offering.
Compared to Kore.ai:
- Fewer add-ons required to unlock key features
- Less reliance on separate pricing layers
- A clearer understanding of total cost from the start
👉 You spend less time trying to piece together pricing across all the tools and more time actually using the platform.
Easier to evaluate and adopt
Another challenge with Kore AI alternatives is the lack of transparency during the buying process. Pricing often requires sales calls, custom quotes, and negotiation before you get a clear picture.
Quiq removes much of that friction.
For modern teams, this means:
- Faster evaluation without long sales cycles
- Better alignment between product capabilities and cost
- More confidence when committing to a platform
This is particularly valuable for teams that want to move quickly without getting stuck in enterprise procurement loops.
Strong documentation and implementation support
Quiq also stands out with clearer AI documentation and guidance during setup. Instead of requiring heavy customization from the start, it helps teams get up and running faster.
You benefit from:
- Clear implementation paths
- Guidance on using large language models effectively
- Better visibility into how the system works and performs
This reduces the time and effort needed to launch and scale your AI workflows.
The bottom line
Kore.ai is a powerful platform, but its pricing model can become complex and difficult to manage as you scale.
Quiq offers a more straightforward alternative:
- Predictable pricing you can actually plan around
- Fewer hidden costs across features and usage
- A platform built for real outcomes, not session tracking
If you are comparing Kore AI alternatives and want something easier to budget, easier to adopt, and more aligned with how modern teams work, Quiq is the stronger choice.
Book a free demo with our team to learn more about how Quiq can help you improve your CX operations.
