Amazon Polly Hidden Costs 2026
What they don't show you on the pricing page
Quick Answer
Last verified:
High confidence
Amazon Polly costs $4 to $100 per million characters as of May 2026. Pricing depends on your chosen tier, contract length, and negotiated discounts.
Use the interactive pricing calculator to estimate your exact cost based on team size and requirements.
- Free tier: No free tier available
Amazon Polly true cost runs -98% above the listed $4-$100/million characters price as of May 2026. For a 25-person team, expect ~$100 in year-one costs vs the $4,800 base license. Key hidden costs: data transfer costs: $0.09/gb for outbound data transfer, s3 storage costs for audio files: $0.023/gb per month, aws support plans: $29-$15,000/month depending on tier. Verified from 4 sources by CostBench.
Example: True Cost for 25 Users
| License (25 × $16 × 12) | $4,800/yr |
| Implementation (one-time) | +$15,000–$50,000 |
| Premium Support (20%) | +$960/yr |
| Training (25 × $500) | +$12,500 |
| Admin (part-time) | +$15,000–$25,000/yr |
| Estimated Year 1 Total | ~$100 |
That's roughly 0.0× the advertised license price.
The median Amazon Polly contract is $5,600/yr across 4 Vendr purchases.