A deep dive into Cresta in 2025: Features, pricing & a modern alternative

Let's be honest, AI in customer support isn't some far-off idea anymore. It's here, and companies are jumping on board to work smarter, keep customers happy, and handle growing demand. In the world of big enterprise solutions, one name that comes up a lot is Cresta.

This guide will walk you through what Cresta is all about. We'll get into its main features, what it takes to get it set up, and the mystery behind its pricing. We’ll also look at how it stacks up against newer, more flexible tools that you can get running in minutes, not months.

What is Cresta?

So, what’s the deal with Cresta? They bill themselves as a big, unified AI platform for enterprise contact centers. The main goal is to use AI to improve every single customer conversation, whether it’s handled by a bot or a human agent.

If you browse their site, you'll see Cresta is all about helping large companies cut costs, boost revenue, and earn more customer loyalty. Their whole system is built around three main ideas:

• AI Agent: This is for handling customer chats and calls automatically.

• Agent Assist: This gives human agents real-time tips and guidance while they're talking to customers.

• Conversation Intelligence: This part analyzes conversations to pull out useful insights for the business.

It’s pretty clear that Cresta is targeting the Fortune 500 crowd and other massive operations that need a single, all-encompassing solution. Their work with companies like Brinks Home shows they're focused on complex, high-volume scenarios.

A closer look at Cresta's core features

Cresta’s platform is meant to be the whole package for a contact center. Let's break down what each part does.

Cresta AI Agent

The Cresta AI Agent is built to take over customer conversations on both voice and chat. It's designed to feel more human than your average chatbot, understanding nuance and navigating tricky issues without just sticking to a rigid script. For a big company looking to automate a ton of inquiries, that sounds pretty good.

The catch? Getting a system like this up and running usually means a hefty upfront investment in time and technical setup. If your team needs to move a bit faster, other platforms like eesel AI offer an AI Agent that you can literally set up in minutes. It plugs right into your helpdesk and learns from your past tickets, macros, and knowledge base articles, letting you automate frontline support without kicking off a massive project.

Cresta Agent Assist

Think of this as a real-time coach that whispers helpful advice to your agents during conversations. It suggests what to say, points out best practices, and automates some of the grunt work so every agent can perform like they've been on the job for years. It's a solid way to improve customer satisfaction and get new agents up to speed faster.

While that's great, this feature is usually baked into Cresta's larger platform. For a more lightweight approach, the Copilot from eesel AI gives you similar agent-assisting powers right inside the tools your team already knows and loves, like Zendesk or Intercom. It helps draft replies in your brand’s voice using info from old tickets and canned responses, making agents quicker and onboarding smoother without making them learn a whole new interface.

Cresta Conversation Intelligence

This is Cresta’s analytics tool. It sifts through all your conversation data to figure out customer moods, spot trends, and identify what your top-performing agents are doing differently. The idea is to turn all that data into concrete steps you can take to improve your business.

It's a powerful feature for teams that love to dig into data. But if you're looking for a more direct path to insights, some tools focus on pointing out exactly what’s missing from your knowledge base. For example, the analytics dashboard in eesel AI shows you the questions customers are asking that your AI couldn't answer. That gives you a clear to-do list for what to write or update next to improve your resolution rates.

Cresta implementation and setup: The enterprise approach

One of the biggest things to think about with any enterprise tool is the setup process. With Cresta, it looks like you’re in for the traditional enterprise sales cycle, which kicks off with a demo request. That journey usually includes:

• Several rounds of sales calls and discovery sessions.

• A custom quote and a multi-year contract.

• A formal implementation project that will need your technical team's involvement.

• A waiting period of weeks, or more likely months, before you're actually live.

This can be a real roadblock for teams that want to get going and see results without a long delay.

A self-serve alternative for faster results

For companies that just can't wait around for months, a self-serve model is a breath of fresh air. eesel AI was built with a "go live in minutes" mindset. You can sign up, connect your tools, and set up your AI agent all by yourself.

The process is surprisingly straightforward. First, you connect your help desk and knowledge sources like Confluence or Google Docs with a few clicks. Then, you use a simple workflow builder to decide which tickets the AI should handle and what it can do. Finally, you can test your setup on thousands of your past tickets to see exactly how it will perform before you turn it on for your actual customers. It’s a completely different way of doing things.

Cresta pricing: What to expect

Ever tried to find the price on an enterprise software website? Good luck. Cresta doesn't list its pricing publicly, which is pretty standard for companies that create custom packages for each client.

While this allows for a tailored solution, it also means you should probably expect:

• Zero visibility on costs until you talk to them.

• Having to go through the sales team to get any numbers.

• A price that’s probably bundled into a long-term contract, billed annually.

• Possible extra fees for setup, onboarding, and dedicated support.

This lack of transparency can make it tough to budget and compare your options without sinking a lot of time into sales calls.

A transparent pricing model vs Cresta

In contrast, eesel AI puts all its pricing out in the open. You know exactly what you're getting. All plans include the core products (AI Agent, Copilot, Triage, Chatbot), and you just pick one based on how much you think you'll use it.

Plan	Monthly (bill monthly)	Effective /mo Annual	Bots	AI Interactions/mo	Key Unlocks
Team	$299	$239	Up to 3	Up to 1,000	Train on website/docs; Copilot for help desk; Slack; reports.
Business	$799	$639	Unlimited	Up to 3,000	Everything in Team + train on past tickets; MS Teams; AI Actions (triage/API calls); bulk simulation.
Custom	Contact Sales	Custom	Unlimited	Unlimited	Advanced actions; multi‑agent orchestration; custom integrations; advanced security.

There are a few nice things about this model:

• No per-resolution fees: Your bill won’t suddenly jump if you have a busy month.

• Flexible plans: You can start with a monthly plan and cancel if it's not a good fit.

• Predictable costs: You know exactly what you’re paying from day one.

Choosing Cresta or another AI platform for your team

So, what’s the right call? It really comes down to your team’s size, budget, and what you’re trying to accomplish.

Cresta is clearly built for large, established contact centers that need a powerful, all-in-one system. They are a good fit if you have the time and resources for a full-scale enterprise rollout.

On the other hand, eesel AI is made for teams of all sizes that care about speed, flexibility, and staying in control. It's the better choice if you want to make your existing tools smarter, not rip and replace them, and if you want to see a return on your investment right away.

Here’s a quick side-by-side look:

Feature	Cresta	eesel AI
Who's it for?	Large Enterprise Contact Centers	Support Teams of All Sizes
Onboarding	Sales-led, months-long projects	Self-serve, go live in minutes
Pricing Model	Opaque, custom quote	Transparent, predictable plans
Approach	All-in-one platform replacement	Integrates with existing tools
Key Strength	Enterprise-grade, deep features	Speed, simplicity, and control

Get started with AI in minutes, not months

Look, bringing AI into your customer support workflow doesn't have to be a massive, high-stakes project. While enterprise platforms like Cresta offer some serious power, they ask for a big commitment in both time and money.

This video provides an overview of how the Cresta platform uses enterprise-grade generative AI to improve contact center performance and reduce costs.

With eesel AI, you can get the benefits of AI without all the complexity. You can pull together all your knowledge, automate the repetitive tickets that drain your team's energy, and give your agents an AI Copilot that works right where they do. It’s all about building a smarter support experience, the easy way.

Ready to see for yourself? Start your free trial today.