Getting started guide

Ready to get going with Olark? Our simple three-step guide will help you to be chatting with your website's visitors in just a few minutes.

1. Copy and paste our code into your site

     Olark works on a huge number of sites. To make things even easier, we've made guides for the most popular shopping cart and CMS platforms. Don't see your platform on our list here? Try the basic HTML guide. If you're feeling unsure, email or chat with us and tell us what kind of site you have.

    

    

   • 1shoppingcart
   • 3dcart
   • Big Cartel
   • BigCommerce
   • Blogger
   • CoreCommerce
   • Cubecart
   • Drupal
   • ekmPowershop
   • Highwire
   • Interspire
   • Joomla
   • LiveJournal
   • Magento
   • Magento Go
   • ModX
   • OpenCart
   • osCommerce
   • Pinnacle Cart
   • PrestaShop
   • ProStores
   • Shopify
   • Squarespace
   • Ubercart
   • VirtueMart
   • Volusion
   • Weebly
   • Wix
   • X-Cart
   • X-Cart
   • ZenCart
      

2. Check to see if it loads

   After you copy and paste the code into your site, refresh your browser. You should see your Olark chat box in the bottom right corner of your site, such as in the example below.

   

3. Connect your chat client

   Once you see the Olark chat box on your site, you'll need to use a 3rd party instant message client so you can start receiving chats from visitors. We recommend using Pidgin (Windows), or Adium (Mac). If you prefer to work in your browser, why not try our own web-based client, the Olark console?

   Mac

   • Adium
   • iChat
   • Messages
   • Trillian

   Windows

   • Pidgin
   • Trillian

   Web-Based

   • Olark console (does not currently work with Internet Explorer)
   • Google Talk
   • Google Apps – Google Talk for Google Apps Domain accounts

   Mobile

   • imo.im
   • BeeJive

Add teammates
If you are on a plan that allows more than one operator, you can start adding teammates. Head to your operators control panel and click "Add Operator".

Customize your Olark chat box
Just go to your customize section and have at it! Want greater control? We offer the option for full CSS customization for just $299. Learn more about using Olark custom CSS.