After developing numerous successful platforms within AWS, Amazon also took a step forward in the call center software space, publishing its own cloud-based contact web center — Amazon Connect. Amazon struggled to find the right match for their own needs, so they decided to build a whole contact center platform from scratch, and now they're offering it to the public as well.
This is no surprise when it comes to Amazon since they're already well-known as a company that dominates the consumer industries. After venturing into the complex world of online commerce, AI, and cloud computing, Amazon is now also working on consumer contact center as an extension to their enormous AWS platform. The solution is known as Amazon Connect.
In this article, we're going to take a comprehensive look at what exactly Amazon has in store for us, and how Amazon Connect is priced.
Amazon Connect Overview
As mentioned, Amazon Connect is essentially an extension of AWS cloud services.
If your business is already utilizing AWS, this might be a great opportunity to take it a step further and let Amazon take care of another piece of your business operations. Nonetheless, it's still a decent option on its own, outside of the AWS solutions.
Amazon also claimed that the solution is built on the exact same technology that they themselves use to power millions of customers conversations.
The great thing is that Amazon Connect users will also be able to integrate other solutions offered by Amazon, such as powerful AI technology (Amazon Lex), cloud-based services, and analytics. It's also built with simplicity in mind — it requires no additional software as it runs on the browser, and it's easy to integrate with other systems such as AWS or CRM systems.
The Amazon Connect pricing is on-demand based, which removes the ugly risk of being stuck in a yearly contract in case things don't work out. Anyway, that's the short version of it, and now we're about to explore Amazon Connect features and pricing methods, in-depth.
A Different Kind of Pricing
Amazon Connect only offers "Pay As You Go" services, with no long-term commitments or minimum monthly fees. Your team is charged by the number of minutes you use Amazon Connect to engage with customers, with specific per-minute rates. These rates vary based on your country, the type of call, and so on.
Charging by the minute is usually considered as a more expensive option, but it has its own advantages for teams who aren't looking to commit long-term.
Let's take a deeper look at per-minute rates for Amazon Connect, and you decide how to proceed from there.
Amazon Connect Pricing
As mentioned, Amazon Connect is a pay-as-you-go service, which means there are no defined pricing plans. Here's a look at the specific charges:
- Voice: $0.038 per minute
- Text/SMS: $0.010 per message
- Team Chat: $0.014 per message
- Email: $0.018 per email
Optional add-ons include:
- Outbound campaigns: $0.045 per minute
- Tasks: $0.070 per task
- Step-by-step guides: $0.010 per guide
- Case management fro mIVR or self-service: $0.12 per case created
- Voice ID: $0.025 per transaction
Amazon also offers an a-la-carte menu with per minute, per message, and monthly pricing for various features:
- Conversational analytics and post-call summaries: $0.015 per minute, $0.0015 per chat, $0.0015 per message
- End-customer self-service: $0.0080 per minute, $0.0015 per chat, $0.0015 per message
- Forecasting and agent scheduling: $27 per agent, per month
- Performance evaluation of agents: $12 per agent, per month
- Real-time agent assistance: $0.0080 per minute, $0.0015 per chat, $0.0015 per message, $0.020 per inbound email
- Screen recording: $0.0060 per minute
- Test and simulate channel interactions: $0.018 per minute plus web calling audio usage, $0.004 per chat
- Channel usage: $0.018 per minute, $0.004 per chat, $0.010 per message, $0.050 per email
Amazon's omnichannel experience allows companies to select from various combinations of channels including voice and video, messaging and chat (including WhatsApp and Apple Messages for business), email, tasks, outbound campaigns, and end-customer self-service. Prices are similar to those listed above.
Amazon offers international voice service in 80+ countries. Pricing is per minute and depends on the specific country as well as whether the call is inbound or outbound. Companies can also purchase an international phone number, or a U.S. toll-free number for $0.039 per number, per day at a volume of 1,000+ calls.
AWS Free Usage Tier
It’s worth mentioning that AWS Free Tier also offers Amazon Connect for 12 months. You can get up to 90 minutes of service usage, a free DID number, 30 minutes/month of inbound DID calls, and 30 minutes of outbound calls for the same country in which the AWS region is located. Clients from the US region also get a toll-free number plus 30 minutes of usage per month.
As an example, businesses that use AWS in the EU region can get free DID numbers for European countries, as well as free minutes for calls in that region.
As we mentioned earlier, this is a great opportunity for businesses that are looking to use both AWS and Amazon Connect at the same time.
Amazon Connect Key Features
High-quality audio, outbound calling, smart routing along with other features allow businesses to set up a modern contact center with all the basic needs covered. On top of that, businesses get a little taste of Amazon's technology such as Amazon Lex and other powerful AI systems. Here's a look at some of the newest and most innovative Connect features.
AI Voice and Chat Agents
Amazon AI Voice Agents enable self-service powered by agentic AI that is able to converse with customers over voice and chat channels. AI Agents are able to understand not only keywords, but a customer's sentiment, tone, and intent, and respond accordingly. AI Agents are able to escalate to a human agent, answer questions using natural language, look up order status, ask clarifying questions, or process a refund.
Conversational Analytics and Insights
Conversational analytics cover both human interactions and self-service cases, tracking customer sentiment, themes, compliance, and script adherence. Other features include generating summaries and redacting private information. Supervisors can configure customized dashboards, metrics, charts, and graphs, with both real-time and post contact analytics available. The newest addition, Predictive Insights, is in preview as of the date of this writing, and uses data to personalize interactions, integrating with 75+ systems of record.
Agent Coaching
Admins are able to build agent coaching workflows in order to provide timely, targeted feedback directly in the Amazon Connect user interface. Supervisors can build coaching sessions and share them with agents, leveraging automated evaluations, real-time alerts, and screen recording. The new Assistant for Managers feature allows supervisors to query Amazon AI to determine which queues are most at risk for missing pre-defined targets. The AI Assistant will also give recommended actions.
Amazon Connect Cases
Amazon Connect Cases is a built-in case management system that tracks complex customer issues and organizes communication across channels under one pane of glass. Each case consists of a single customer issue, along with the steps and instructions to resolve the issue, and the outcome. AI-powered case summaries and timeline views helps agents understand the customer history and context, while Connect tasks enable workflows such as intelligent case routing, SLA monitoring, and proactive notifications.
Amazon Connect Health
Amazon recently launched Amazon Connect Health which is a platform specifically for Healthcare organizations. The platform is HIPAA compliant, includes features like patient verification and ambient documentation, and integrates directly with EHR systems. Appointment scheduling and patient insights are planned to be rolled out next, with medical coding and other features to follow at a later date. Pricing is $99 per agent, per month for up to 600 patient encounters.
Amazon Connect Pros and Cons
Amazon Connect excels in AI capabilities, and its flexible pricing structure is ideal for some teams, but there is a steep learning curve as well as some support and documentation gaps. Here are some of the strengths and drawbacks to consider:
- Routing, analytics, coaching, voice service and more are all natively integrated into a single console- no app switching
- Robust AI capabilities including AI Voce Agents, conversational analytics, automated evaluations, etc.
- Usage-based pricing makes more sense for seasonal or variable call volume contact centers
- Large AWS ecosystem allowing users to integrate with Lambda, S3, Kinesis, etc.
- Rapid improvements/updates in voice quality, workflows, analytics, AI capabilities, etc.
- Omnichannel service out-of-the-box including voice, chat, email, SMS, WhatsApp, etc.
- Setting up and customizing the platform (workflows, cases, profiles, etc.) is complex and takes time
- Connecting to outside CRMs (with the exception of Salesforce) often requires Lambda functions and custom development
- Some features such as Predictive Insights and Assistant for Managers are still maturing
- Community resources are thin compared to competitors and support tiers are expensive
- Full conversational analytics is a separate per minute add-on fee
Who Should Use Amazon Connect?
All things considered, Amazon Connect certainly brings some interesting features to the play, and you may want to consider giving your team a shot with this service. The pricing model of “pay as you go” sounds interesting, and the rates are fairly decent as well.
In the end, we can conclude that Amazon Connect is great for 2 types of businesses:
- Businesses that are already using AWS
- Businesses that are looking for short-term, contract-less solutions
If your team fits this description, you should definitely give Amazon Connect a serious thought. What you get here is a bunch of great features, relatively cheap per-minute rates, and an option to quit using the service whenever you want.
Amazon Connect — you only pay what you use, and it’s up to you to decide.
