The beauty of a VFD with regard to starting is that it is possible to accelerate a load without exceeding the rated FLC of the motor, which means you can do it as often as possible without causing any significant excessive heating of the motor. The one caveat to that is that you trade the peak power for time. At 100% FLC you will get 100% FLT (Full Load Torque), but when starting Across-The-Line you get LRT (Locked Rotor Torque), which is usually 160% of FLT. So for example if it takes 2 seconds to fully accelerate the motor ATL, it might take 4 seconds with a VFD limited to 100% FLC. For starting and stopping 10 times per minute, you may run into a wall like that. But even if you must allow the current to go a little higher than FLC to accelerate fast enough, it will STILL be much much easier on the motor than ATL starting, thermally and mechanically. I seriously doubt that 10 starts per minute using a VFD will present a thermal problem in the motor at all.
Do not EVER use a contactor in a VFD circuit for anything other than planned and coordinated safety purposes. If used on the load side you can kill the transistors, if used extensively on the line side you can kill the capacitors. No need for it, just use the start-stop control of the VFD.
Side note: Line regen braking saves so little actual energy that it almost never makes sense to go that way for that reason alone. The only energy it can recoup is the excess energy it took to accelerate the load, meaning you cannot recover any more than you used. That is typically not as much energy as the purveyors of that technology want you to believe. Centrifuges? Yes, absolutely. Small conveyors on a bottling line? Pennies per day, maybe. Amortized over the DOUBLED cost of the line regen VFD and it typically comes out taking 10 years to pay back the difference. The VALID use of line regen is to avoid the thermal limits to high duty cycle applications using Dynamic Braking resistors. Again, small bottling line conveyor? Not going to be an issue.
Narlin, I am an AB drives support person for your area, send me a PM if you want to discuss this further.