Adcock says one Hark day can use a fifth of your month

What you can do now: budget your Hark usage against the monthly bar, not the daily one. Brett Adcock, who founded Hark (Business Wire), says a single day can use up to a fifth of your monthly allowance. Our math: that means five full days can empty a month.

What changed#

Before: Hark's pricing page says "Upgrading your plan increases usage", and its Using Hark page says "you may reach a usage cap", with Pro² at "2x more usage for $20/mo" and Pro³ at "10x more usage for $100/mo." Neither page explains how the daily and monthly limits relate. On Oct 10, Adcock called it "a monthly % to quota" and said "Will make it more clear".

Now: on Monday, Colin Hurd, a Pro² subscriber whose X bio says he is CEO of Mach Autonomy, posted: "I upgraded to Pro2 a couple weeks ago, maybe hit the daily usage limit 1 time in that period but now have no monthly usage left." He called it "the quickest way to lose paying customers" and said he was moving Hark's best features into his own custom agent. Adcock replied: "Daily is not 1/30th of the monthly. We allow you to use up to 1/5th of the monthly each day in case you have days with high workloads (so power users can run out - which you did)". He added that Hurd was "running a ton of workloads on a $20/mo plan so I would consider hitting this normal".

Hurd answered "The math is the problem" and wrote that the app "never shows the ratio, so the daily limit reads like what I can safely use every day." His suggestion: "have one limit, daily or weekly." Adcock replied: "Good points here, we're going to re-look at it".

Why it matters#

Our read: the daily bar looks like a daily allowance, but it is a ceiling. Our math: if one day can take a fifth of the month, a 30-day month lasts only if you average a sixth of the daily bar (1/30 divided by 1/5 is 1/6), or about 17%. Hurd reached the same figure: "I need to stay at about 17% of the daily limit the UI shows me."

Other users are running into it too. Ben Jern wrote "+1 to Colin. Mathing is the problem" and said he would "much rather have a clean 1 day or 1 week limit". Chinmay asked whether the next chance to use Hark would be "12th Nov" and wrote that you "can't even export sessions" in the meantime. Lockeysh Choudhary, on a "free $100 Pro³ gift", posted "I’ve already used ~90% of the monthly limit."

How to use it#

These steps are our reading of Adcock's rule. We haven't tried them.

1. Treat the monthly bar as the real budget. Per Adcock, a full daily bar is a fifth of it.
2. On an average day, aim for about 17% of the daily bar (our math, assuming a 30-day month). Spend more on a big day, then ease off.
3. Count scheduled and background tasks. Hurd wrote that "this is going to hit every day with just some background tasks set up."
4. Before a large task, ask Hark what it will use. A user who posts as TheDesertDog suggested exactly that: "Ask hark how much it will use before a task that’s large". Hark hasn't said how accurate those estimates are.
5. If running out would hurt, turn on auto top-up, which Hark says refills credits "up to a ceiling you predetermine."

Prompt (ours, untested):

Before you start this task, estimate what share of my monthly Hark usage it will take. If it's more than 5%, suggest a smaller way to do it and wait for my yes.

Good to know#

• It's a reply, not a policy page. The 1/5 rule comes from Adcock's post. Hark's pricing and Using Hark pages don't mention it, and Hark still doesn't publish the base usage on any plan.
• One plan in question. Adcock was answering a Pro² subscriber. He didn't say whether the same ratio applies on the free plan and Pro³.
• No middle tier. Jern asked for "a mid-tier sub pls (30-50 USD)". Today the jump is from $20 to $100.
• No date on a change. Adcock said "re-look," which is not a commitment to a specific fix.

What to watch#

Whether Hark moves to a single daily or weekly limit, shows the daily-to-monthly ratio in the app, or writes the rule into its Using Hark page.