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Customer Support · head to head

Amazon Connect vs Cresta

Amazon Connect logo

Amazon Connect

Customer Support

Cloud contact center from AWS

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Cresta logo

Cresta

Customer Support

Real-time AI coaching and autonomous agents that sit on top of an existing contact centre platform

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Amazon Connect has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Amazon Connect telephony is charged separately from the platform, so the $0.038 per minute voice rate is not the whole cost of a call; Cresta cresta depends on the CCaaS platforms it integrates with, and NICE, Genesys and Five9 are all shipping native real-time assist and auto-QA of their own, so at renewal you may be paying twice for capability your platform vendor will bundle at a discount.
  • They diverge on capability: Amazon Connect covers Voice, Cresta covers Real-time agent assist.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Amazon Connect and Cresta actually diverge.

Attributes where Amazon Connect and Cresta differ
AttributeAmazon ConnectCresta
Starting priceFreeOn request
Pricing modelusage-basedquote
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsWebWeb, API
Founded2006Unknown

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated), category (Customer Support).

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 Amazon Connect

  • Voice
  • Chat
  • Tasks
  • ML-powered analytics
  • Contact Lens
  • Outbound campaigns
  • Forecasting
  • Salesforce

Only in Cresta

  • Real-time agent assist
  • Autonomous AI Agent
  • Conversation intelligence
  • Automated quality management
  • Behavioural coaching
  • Knowledge surfacing
  • Multilingual deployment
  • Supervisor dashboards

What people use each for

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

Amazon Connect

  • Cloud contact centre with no per-seat licencenot Cresta
  • Voice, chat, email and SMS in one queuenot Cresta
  • Conversational analytics and agent assistnot Cresta
  • Outbound campaigns and automated contactnot Cresta
  • Workforce scheduling for contact centre agentsnot Cresta

Cresta

  • A 1,500-seat telecommunications sales centre that wants conversion lift from live agent prompting without migrating off an incumbent Genesys deploymentnot Amazon Connect
  • An insurance contact centre replacing manual QA sampling of two per cent of calls with automated scoring of every call for regulatory evidencenot Amazon Connect
  • A retail support operation deploying autonomous voice agents on high-volume order status calls while keeping humans on complex claimsnot Amazon Connect
  • A contact centre director who needs to prove which specific agent behaviours drive outcome differences, rather than relying on post-call survey scoresnot Amazon Connect

Where each one falls short

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

Amazon Connect

  • Telephony is charged separately from the platform, so the $0.038 per minute voice rate is not the whole cost of a call
  • Every channel is metered individually: $0.010 per chat message, $0.080 per email and $0.014 per SMS
  • Rates vary by region and by third-party provider, so a published figure is indicative rather than final
  • Cost tracks contact volume, which makes forecasting hard for a queue with seasonal peaks

Cresta

  • Cresta depends on the CCaaS platforms it integrates with, and NICE, Genesys and Five9 are all shipping native real-time assist and auto-QA of their own, so at renewal you may be paying twice for capability your platform vendor will bundle at a discount.
  • Pricing is not published and contracts are seat-based and annual at enterprise scale, which in practice means six-figure commitments and a procurement cycle measured in months rather than weeks.
  • Real-time guidance only pays back where conversation outcomes are measurable and repeatable, so support teams handling long, varied, low-volume cases rarely recover the licence cost.
  • Deploying real-time assist requires agents to accept on-screen prompting mid-call, and contact centres with strong union representation or experienced tenured agents frequently see adoption resistance that no amount of model quality fixes.
  • Automated quality scoring changes what agents are measured on, and organisations that switch from human QA without rewriting their evaluation rubric and appeals process create industrial-relations problems that surface months after go-live.

Pricing, plan by plan

Amazon Connect

Free
  • Pay-as-you-go$undefined/mo
    • Chat: $0.010 per message sent or received
    • Voice: $0.038 per minute
    • Email: $0.080 per message sent or received

Cresta

On request
  • Cresta$undefined/year
    • AI Agent
    • Agent Assist
    • Conversation Intelligence

Which should you pick?

Choose Amazon Connect if

  • You need voice.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You also want chat.
Amazon Connect review

Choose Cresta if

  • You need real-time agent assist.
  • You work on Web, API.
  • You also want autonomous ai agent.
Cresta review

Questions people ask

Is Amazon Connect or Cresta better?
Neither clearly leads. Amazon Connect starts at Free and Cresta at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Amazon Connect or Cresta?
Amazon Connect has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Amazon Connect and On request for Cresta.
Does Amazon Connect or Cresta run on more platforms?
Amazon Connect runs on Web. Cresta runs on Web, API.
Can I use Amazon Connect for free?
Yes. Amazon Connect has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Cresta starts at On request.
What is Amazon Connect best used for?
Amazon Connect is most often used for cloud contact centre with no per-seat licence, voice, chat, email and sms in one queue, conversational analytics and agent assist, outbound campaigns and automated contact. Of those, cloud contact centre with no per-seat licence and voice, chat, email and sms in one queue are not what Cresta is typically brought in for.
What can Amazon Connect do that Cresta cannot?
Amazon Connect covers Voice, Chat, Tasks, ML-powered analytics. Cresta covers Real-time agent assist, Autonomous AI Agent, Conversation intelligence, Automated quality management.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Amazon Connect: How much does Amazon Connect cost?

Amazon Connect uses pay-as-you-go pricing with no minimums or long-term contracts. Costs are $0.010 per chat message, $0.038 per voice minute, $0.080 per email message, and $0.014 per SMS or third-party messaging message.

Source
Cresta: Does Cresta replace my contact centre platform?

No. It is designed to sit on top of NICE, Genesys, Five9, Amazon Connect and similar platforms, which is why it is chosen where a full CCaaS migration is not feasible.

Amazon Connect: Is Amazon Connect free to try?

Amazon Connect offers a free trial option for new customers to get started at no cost. Ongoing usage is charged based on consumption with no minimum commitment required.

Source
Cresta: What does it cost?

Cresta does not publish pricing. Contracts are seat-based and annual, and at the enterprise scale it sells into they are typically six figures per year.

Amazon Connect: What are Amazon Connect's per-channel pricing differences?

Communication channel costs vary: voice at $0.038 per minute is the most expensive, email at $0.080 per message, SMS at $0.014 per message, and chat at the lowest rate of $0.010 per message. All pricing is per message or per minute consumed with no unused portions charged.

Source
Cresta: Is it viable for a contact centre under 100 seats?

Rarely. The commercial model, implementation effort and required outcome measurement all assume several hundred seats or more.

Cresta: Who owns Cresta?

It is an independent venture-backed company, having raised roughly 282 million USD in total including a 125 million USD Series D in November 2024 co-led by World Innovation Lab and the Qatar Investment Authority.

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