Editions

Dialogflow agents are available in multiple agent types and editions. The agent type, features, pricing, and quotas vary for each edition.

Agent types

The following agent types are available:

Term Definition
CX agent This is an advanced agent type that is suitable for large or very complex agents. Flows and pages are the building blocks of conversation design, and state handlers are used to control conversation paths. The CX agent type is summarized in Dialogflow CX basics.
ES agent This is the standard agent type that is suitable for small to medium and simple to moderately complex agents. Intents are the building blocks of conversation design, and contexts are used to control conversation paths. The ES agent type is summarized in Dialogflow ES basics.

The following table provides a summary comparison of agent types. If you have an existing ES agent, and you want a more detailed comparison, see Migrating from ES to CX.

Category ES agent CX agent
Editions Dialogflow Trial Edition, Dialogflow Essentials Edition Dialogflow CX Edition
Agent building blocks Flat structure of intents Graph structure of flows and pages
Conversation control Linear conversation paths that simulate nonlinear paths using intents as nodes and contexts to control paths State machine model with explicit conversation control using pages as nodes and state handlers to control paths
Console user experience Mostly text forms Visual graphs showing conversation paths and text forms for configurations
Intent reusability Intents are coupled with fulfillment, events, and responses; specific to a conversation state, so difficult to reuse Intents are simplified to remove this coupling and made highly reusable
Webhook error handling Errors quietly ignored by agent, passed to API caller if present Explicit error event handling built-in to your agent
Event handling Invoked events trigger intent matches Events handlers are first-class types with powerful controls
Conditional response messages Requires webhook calls Can be configured statically in fulfillment, with static conditions for a route, or with webhooks calls
Parameter scope Can be scoped to intent, context, or event Can be scoped to intent, form, or session
Built in testing Not provided Provided
Redaction Not provided Provided
Conditional logic Not provided Provided
DTMF input Not provided Provided
System functions for advanced responses and conditions Not provided Provided
Advanced NLU Not provided Provided
Agents per project 1 1000
Recommended agent size Up to medium size agents Up to very large
Recommended agent complexity Up to moderately complex agents Up to highly complex
Learning curve to design a simple agent Basic Moderate
Learning curve to design a complex agent High Moderate
Pricing and quotas Granular Simplified

Edition comparison

The following editions are available:

Term Definition
Dialogflow Trial Edition A no-cost edition that provides most of the features of the standard ES agent type. It offers limited quota and support by community and e-mail. This edition is suitable to experiment with Dialogflow.
Dialogflow ES Edition The Dialogflow Essentials (ES) Edition is a pay-as-you-go edition that provides the standard ES agent type. The Essentials Edition offers production-ready quotas and support from Google Cloud support.
Dialogflow CX Edition The Dialogflow Customer Experience (CX) Edition is a pay-as-you-go edition that provides the advanced CX agent type. The CX Edition offers production-ready quotas and support from Google Cloud support.

The following tables provide a summary comparison for editions by agent type. For details, see Pricing and Quotas and Limits.

CX Agent

Feature CX Edition
Text
(includes all DetectIntent, StreamingDetectIntent, and FulfillIntent requests that do not contain audio)
1200 requests per minute

$0.007 per request
Audio input/output
(speech recognition, speech-to-text, STT, speech synthesis, text-to-speech, TTS, telephony)
600 requests per minute

$0.06 per minute
Service Level Agreement SLA
Support Eligible for Cloud Support packages with committed response times for supporting production applications
Terms of Service Google Cloud Platform ToS

ES Agent

Feature Trial Edition Essentials Edition
Text
(includes all DetectIntent and StreamingDetectIntent requests that do not contain audio)
Production-ready quota

No charge
Production-ready quota

$0.002 per request
Audio input
(also known as speech recognition, speech-to-text, STT)
Limited quota

No charge
Production-ready quota

$0.0065 per 15 seconds of audio
Audio output
(also known as speech synthesis, text-to-speech, TTS)
Limited quota

No charge
Production-ready quota

$4 to $16 per million characters
Knowledge connectors (Beta) Limited quota

No charge
Production-ready quota

No charge
Sentiment analysis Not available Unlimited quota

$0.25 to $1.00 per 1000 requests
Dialogflow phone gateway (Preview)
Includes audio input and output.
Toll-free number not available

Limited quota

No charge
Production-ready quota

$0.05 to $0.06 per minute
Mega agent Limited quota

No charge
Unlimited quota

$0.002 to $0.006 per request
Service Level Agreement None SLA
Support Community support and via email Eligible for Cloud Support packages with committed response times for supporting production applications
Terms of Service Dialogflow Trial Edition ToS Google Cloud Platform ToS