Karla alternative: Asktopus vs Karla compared

Karla is an AI customer service platform from Copenhagen.⁹ Companies like Flügger, Scanpan and Middelfart Sparekasse use it, as do organisations like Danmarks Lærerforening, the Danish union of teachers, and Karla says it has more than 300 customers.^{2, 10} When people look for a Karla alternative, it's rarely because the product is bad. It's usually about price and format. Karla is built as a platform with integrations, actions and advisory services, and the platform alone costs €150 a month before usage.¹ That's more than many smaller businesses need.

This is a comparison between Karla and Asktopus, the AI chatbot we build. We'll be straight about where Karla is the better choice.

What Karla does well

• Integrations and actions. Karla has more than 30 ready-made integrations, including Shopify, Zendesk, Gmail and Intercom. It can fetch customer data such as purchase history and support status from tools like Zendesk and Klaviyo, reach your own data sources over MCP, and use Actions to carry out tasks in your systems.³ Launch includes 1 Actions flow per model and Premium 3.¹
• Live chat. Live chat is included in both plans.¹
• More than a chatbot. Karla Search is AI search for your website, and Karla Inbox drafts replies to customer emails in Outlook and Zendesk.^{5, 6} Premium adds voice mode.¹
• Knowledge from your other tools. Besides the website crawler and file uploads, Karla can learn from Zendesk Help Center, Confluence, manually added text and API feeds.¹
• Paperwork for procurement. Karla publishes an ISAE 3000 assurance report on GDPR, stores data in Google's data centres in Frankfurt, and lets you choose how long conversation logs are kept, from 1 day to 1 year.⁷ That matters when a public body or a large organisation has to approve a vendor.
• Advisory. Launch includes quarterly strategy sessions, and Premium a dedicated success manager and monthly performance reviews.² Karla also offers to install the chat for you through Google Tag Manager.⁸
• References. Karla's customer page has more than 25 named cases from retail, finance, utilities, education, tourism and membership organisations.¹⁰

If you have a support team that works in a help desk, answers visitors in live chat and wants the AI to act in your systems, Karla is a serious option. On integrations and actions, we can't match it.

Where Asktopus is different

One price with the AI included

Karla separates platform and usage. The platform costs €150 a month (Launch) or €209 (Premium), and you add a usage package on top: the first 50 chat conversations are included, 500 cost €169 a month and 1,000 cost €269. Karla's own price calculator puts Launch with 500 conversations at €319 a month, excl. VAT.¹

Asktopus has no separate usage package. Starter is €39 a month for 300 conversations, Pro €99 for 1,500 and Business €249 for 5,000, excl. VAT, and the AI is included: no per-answer fees, no credits and no overage charges. One visitor's chat is one conversation, whether they ask one question or 25.

Monthly billing with no lock-in

Karla's price calculator offers quarterly or annual billing, with at least 10% off for paying annually, so the Launch example above is billed at €957 a quarter.¹ That's a legitimate choice, but you pay more up front.

Asktopus bills monthly with no lock-in. If you'd rather pay for a year up front, it costs ten months' price, so two months are free.

A price you can see before you talk to anyone

Karla has a sign-up button on its homepage, but both plan cards say "Schedule a demo",² and the price calculator lists the setup fee as "Agreed in dialogue".¹ You don't know the full starting cost until you've talked to them. Karla describes Premium as "for large enterprises with complex needs and high volume", and Launch as "the best choice for growing teams needing advanced integrations".¹

Asktopus is built for businesses whose main job is answering the same questions over and over: shipping, returns, opening hours, prices and how-to. You start a 14-day trial without a credit card, add your site and paste one script tag. It works on WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, Webflow and custom sites, and on Shopify the Asktopus app adds the chat without code. When the trial ends without a paid plan, you move to the free plan (30 conversations a month), which never expires.

Room for your whole website

Karla's knowledge base includes 1,000 URLs on Launch and 3,000 on Premium.¹

Asktopus reads your sitemap, groups your pages by URL pattern and learns from the sections you tick: up to 500 pages per site on Starter, 5,000 on Pro and 25,000 on Business, shared with the pages of the PDF, Word and CSV files you upload. Other public websites can be added as sources too, such as a help centre on Zendesk or a public Confluence site, and Asktopus reads them like your own site. You can also write knowledge articles in the dashboard, with version history. The "Questions to answer" list shows the visitor questions from the last 30 days that the assistant found nothing on, each with a button to write the article that answers it. And when the answer isn't in the knowledge, the assistant says so instead of guessing.

Knowledge updates on the same schedule

Karla updates its knowledge weekly on Launch and every 72 hours or on demand on Premium.¹ Asktopus keeps the same pace: each site's knowledge updates automatically every week on Pro (€99) and every 3 days on Business (€249), and on any plan you can update right away with one click. On Starter, updates are manual only. An update never leaves a gap: the old content keeps answering until the new version is ready.

Several sites on one account

Karla's plans include 1 agent and 2 domains on Launch or 3 on Premium.¹ Asktopus Pro covers 5 sites and Business 20, so an agency or a company with several brands can run them all from one account.

A simpler handoff

Asktopus has a "Talk to a person" button in the chat, and visitors can also write that they want a person. They leave a message with an email address or phone number, and it goes to your team by email, Slack or webhook. You reply outside the widget. If your team wants to answer visitors live in the chat, Karla's live chat does that, and Asktopus doesn't.¹

Data protection

Karla ApS is a Danish company and acts as a data processor. It stores data in Google's data centres in Frankfurt, uses US-based vendors such as Google and Microsoft under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, and publishes an ISAE 3000 report. Conversation logs are deleted after 1 year by default, or sooner if you choose a shorter period.⁷ Karla says most of its solutions today are GPT-based.¹

Asktopus is run by Uneven Bits ApS, a Danish company, as your data processor, with a data processing agreement based on the Danish Data Protection Agency's standard clauses. Our servers and database are in the EU. The language models come from US providers (OpenAI, Anthropic and xAI) under the EU's standard contractual clauses (SCCs). Chat content is deleted automatically after 90 days, and you can't change that period. We don't have an ISAE 3000 or SOC 2 audit report. If your procurement requires one, or your own retention period, Karla is the better fit. Our GDPR guide covers what to check with any vendor.

Asktopus vs Karla: comparison table

All prices excl. VAT.

What the same traffic costs

Monthly prices excl. VAT. Karla's are from its price calculator, on Launch with quarterly billing.¹

Karla's setup fee comes on top.¹ Paying yearly lowers both: Karla takes at least 10% off,¹ and Asktopus charges ten months' price for the year. It isn't the same product, though, since Karla's price includes live chat, integrations and actions that Asktopus doesn't have. Our AI chatbot pricing guide compares more vendors and pricing models.

Who should choose which

Karla is the better fit if you:

• want your team to answer visitors in live chat
• want the AI to fetch customer data or carry out tasks in systems like Zendesk, Klaviyo or Shopify
• keep your knowledge in a Zendesk Help Center or Confluence space that requires a login (Asktopus can read a public one like a website, but not a private one)
• need an ISAE 3000 report or your own retention period to get a vendor approved
• want AI search, email drafts and a dedicated advisor from the same vendor

Asktopus is the better fit if you:

• mainly want your visitors' questions answered from your own website and documents
• want to see the whole price up front and pay monthly with no lock-in
• want the AI included in the price, with no usage package on top
• want your knowledge updated every week from the €99 plan
• run several sites and want them in one account

How to switch from Karla to Asktopus

1. Check your Karla agreement. Karla bills quarterly or annually,¹ so check when your current period ends and what notice your agreement requires.
2. Start a trial. 14 days, no credit card, so the two can run side by side for a while.
3. Add your site. Asktopus scans your sitemap and groups pages by URL pattern. Tick the sections you want the assistant to learn from.
4. Move your knowledge. Upload the PDF and Word files you gave Karla. Q&A pairs go into a CSV file with the question in the first column and the answer in the second, which you upload like a document. Texts you added manually in Karla become knowledge articles in the dashboard. If Karla learned from a public Zendesk Help Center or Confluence site, add it as a source on the Knowledge page.
5. Set up handoff and blocked topics. Choose where visitor messages go (email, Slack or a webhook), and block the topics the assistant shouldn't answer.
6. Test in the "Try it" tab with the questions Karla got most often. If an answer is missing, add the content it needs.
7. Swap the code. Remove the Karla snippet from Google Tag Manager or your site's HTML, which is how Karla is installed,⁸ and add the Asktopus script tag. The installation guide shows where it goes on WordPress and other platforms, and how the Asktopus app adds the chat on Shopify without code.
8. Watch the first few weeks. The "Questions to answer" list shows what visitors asked that the assistant couldn't answer, so you know which articles to write.

If Asktopus sounds like the better fit, see the plans and prices or try it free for 14 days on your own site.