AI Voice Agent Pricing 2026: Per-Minute Rates Compared
In this article
As of October 2026, the self-serve AI voice agent platforms publish headline rates from 5 cents a minute (Vapi's hosting fee alone) to 31 cents a minute (Retell's top all-in rate). Retell AI lists $0.07 to $0.31 per minute. Vapi charges $0.05 per minute for hosting, then passes through speech, model, voice and phone costs. Bland AI bundles its AI stack at $0.14 per minute on its no-fee plan. ElevenLabs Agents bills $0.08 per extra minute plus LLM usage. Synthflow no longer publishes a rate.
The headline rate is only the first line of the bill. Phone numbers, extra call capacity, knowledge bases, HIPAA add-ons and test calls are billed on top. For a 1,000-minute month, the vendors' own figures put the bill between about $82 and $140 before add-ons and some carrier charges, as of October 2026 (Vapi calculator, Bland pricing). The worked example below shows the math.
Published rates, side by side
Each figure below comes from the vendor's own pricing page as of October 2026: Retell AI, Vapi, Bland AI, ElevenLabs and Synthflow.
| Platform | How it bills | Published rate | Billed on top |
|---|---|---|---|
| Retell AI | Pay as you go, no platform fee | $0.07–$0.31 per minute | Phone numbers, extra concurrency, add-ons |
| Vapi | Hosting fee plus provider pass-through | $0.05 per minute for hosting | Speech-to-text, LLM, voice and transport at provider prices |
| Bland AI | One bundled AI rate | $0.14 per minute with no platform fee; $0.12 per minute with a $299 monthly fee | Telephony and transfer minutes |
| ElevenLabs Agents | Minutes bundled into a monthly plan | $0.08 for each extra minute | LLM usage and your carrier's charges |
| Synthflow | Annual enterprise agreement | No public per-minute rate | Everything is scoped in the contract |
What one voice AI minute is made of
Every platform runs the same chain. Speech-to-text hears the caller. An LLM decides the reply. Text-to-speech says it out loud. A phone carrier moves the audio. Vapi's pricing FAQ names those four parts and bills each at the provider's list price, with its $0.05 hosting fee added on top (Vapi pricing, as of October 2026).
Retell shows the split in its estimator. The default setup costs $0.11 per minute: $0.04 for the LLM, $0.055 for Retell's voice infrastructure and $0.015 for text-to-speech, with telephony at $0.00 because it assumes your own carrier (Retell pricing, as of October 2026).
The model and the voice move the rate the most. On Retell's card, GPT 4.1 mini costs $0.0128 a minute and Claude 4.5 Sonnet costs $0.08. Retell's own voices cost $0.015 a minute, while ElevenLabs Multilingual v2 costs $0.06 and ElevenLabs v3 costs $0.10 (Retell pricing, as of October 2026).
Bland takes the opposite approach. Its rate covers the LLM, speech-to-text and text-to-speech in one number, with no token charges. Telephony is billed separately, on your own carrier or Bland's at pass-through cost (Bland pricing).
Phone minutes and numbers
Carrier minutes are small, but they are rarely zero. Twilio's U.S. rate card, marked current as of August 2026, lists $0.0085 a minute to receive calls on a local number, $0.0140 a minute to place calls and $1.15 a month per local number (Twilio voice pricing).
Each platform handles that layer differently. The table uses each vendor's page as of October 2026: Retell AI, Vapi pricing, Vapi phone docs and ElevenLabs.
| Platform | Phone minutes | Numbers |
|---|---|---|
| Retell AI | $0.015 per minute on its Twilio-backed U.S. lines; no Retell charge on your own SIP trunk | $2.00 per month |
| Vapi | Its own telephony carries no charge; Vapi's page lists Twilio inbound at $0.008 per minute (Twilio's own card shows $0.0085) | One number included; inbound-only, U.S. area codes, cannot be ported out |
| ElevenLabs Agents | No ElevenLabs fee; Twilio or your SIP provider bills you directly | Bought from your carrier |
Charges outside the per-minute rate
Three meters catch most buyers. The first is capacity: how many calls can run at once. The second is add-ons such as knowledge bases or PII removal. The third is testing, which Retell bills at the same rates as live calls, with no free sandbox (Retell testing docs).
The table compares those meters as of October 2026, from Retell pricing, Retell limits, Vapi pricing, Vapi concurrency docs, Bland pricing, Bland billing docs and ElevenLabs.
| Platform | Calls at once included | Extra capacity | When calls exceed the limit | Text messages |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Retell AI | 20 | Retell charges $8 per extra call per month | Optional burst with a $0.10 per minute Retell surcharge on the whole call | $0.01 per SMS |
| Vapi | 4 on usage only | Vapi charges $10 per extra line per month | No new call starts until a line frees up | Not listed on the pricing page |
| Bland AI | 10 on the no-fee plan, 50 on the Bland plan with a $299 monthly fee | Move up a Bland plan | Calls are turned away at daily and hourly caps | $0.02 per SMS, in or out |
| ElevenLabs Agents | 20 with the $99 plan | Move up a plan | Optional burst at double the standard rate, $0.16 a minute | $0.003 for each message |
Retell's other add-ons run per minute too: $0.005 for a knowledge base, $0.005 for denoising, $0.005 for safety guardrails and $0.01 for PII removal. Its AI quality review costs $0.10 a minute after the first 100 minutes (Retell pricing, as of October 2026).
Compliance can cost more than the minutes
Compliance features are often a separate line, and some are large. Vapi sells HIPAA-eligible data handling as a $2,000-a-month add-on per organization, with a BAA and a DPA (Vapi pricing, as of October 2026). Retell calls itself SOC 2 certified and HIPAA-ready, and its plan table lists HIPAA/BAA on pay-as-you-go as well as Enterprise (Retell pricing).
Bland keeps BAA, SSO and data residency in its Enterprise tier, which it pitches at regulated teams. It states it is HIPAA compliant with a signed BAA and GDPR compliant with a DPA (Bland pricing). ElevenLabs offers BAAs for HIPAA customers on its Enterprise plan (ElevenLabs pricing).
Call recording has its own meter on some stacks. Twilio lists recording at $0.0025 a minute and storage at $0.0005 a minute per month, as of August 2026 (Twilio voice pricing).
Outbound calls add a legal layer, not just a price. In February 2024 the FCC confirmed that AI-generated voices are "artificial" under the TCPA. Calls that use them need the called party's prior express consent unless an emergency purpose or exemption applies. The ruling adds that these messages must identify and disclose who is calling, and telemarketing calls must offer an opt-out (FCC Declaratory Ruling 24-17). This is general information, not legal advice.
Example: one month at 1,000 minutes
Example assumptions: a six-technician plumbing company sends 400 inbound calls a month to an AI agent. Each call lasts 2.5 minutes, for 1,000 minutes. It needs one local number, no outbound calls, no HIPAA add-on and no extra capacity. Rates are each vendor's published price as of October 2026 (Retell, Vapi, Bland, ElevenLabs, Twilio).
| Line item | Retell AI | Vapi | Bland AI, no-fee plan | ElevenLabs Agents, $99 plan |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Platform or plan fee | $0 | $50.00 hosting | $0 | $99.00, with 1,238 minutes included |
| Speech, model and voice | $110.00 at the $0.11 default | $32–$79 from Vapi's calculator | $140.00 at $0.14 | LLM usage, priced by model |
| Phone minutes | $15.00 at $0.015 | $0 on Vapi telephony | Carrier pass-through | $8.50 on Twilio at $0.0085 |
| Phone number | $2.00 | One comes with the account | One comes with the plan | $1.15 from Twilio |
| Total before add-ons | $127.00 | $82–$129 | $140.00 plus telephony | $108.65 plus LLM usage |
Two results stand out. Bland's $299 plan saves two cents a minute, so the fee takes 14,950 minutes a month to earn back (Bland pricing, as of October 2026). And a HIPAA need flips the order: Vapi's $2,000 add-on alone is many times its usage bill at this volume (Vapi pricing, as of October 2026).
Five ways voice AI is sold
The market splits into five buying models. Each one moves different work onto your team.
- Developer platforms with component billing. Vapi and Retell AI. You choose the model, voice and carrier, and you build the call logic.
- A bundled AI rate. Bland AI. One per-minute line covers the AI, and you still wire up the phones and tools.
- Voice-model companies selling plan minutes. ElevenLabs Agents. Minutes come in a plan, and the LLM bills on top.
- Enterprise contracts. Synthflow now sells only annual agreements scoped to volume, phone system and integrations (Synthflow pricing).
- Receptionist subscriptions for small shops. Goodcall charges $79 a month for up to 100 unique customers, then 79 cents per extra customer, with no per-minute meter (Goodcall pricing, as of October 2026).
A sixth model sits beside these: managed services, where a provider builds and runs the agent for a quoted fee.
How to compare two quotes line by line
Ask every vendor the same questions, in writing:
- Which LLM and which voice does the quoted rate assume?
- Are phone minutes and numbers inside the rate or billed by a carrier?
- How many calls can run at once, and what happens to the next caller?
- Are test calls billed, and at what rate?
- Which add-ons does your call flow need, such as a knowledge base or PII removal?
- What does HIPAA, a BAA or extra data retention add per month?
- Is billing per second, and are silence and hold time counted?
Retell, for one, bills to the nearest second and counts silence and hold time, because the speech engine keeps listening (Retell pricing FAQ). For deeper vendor detail, see the Retell AI pricing breakdown, the Vapi voice agent explainer and the build vs buy cost model.
Where a managed service fits
A developer platform makes sense when someone on staff will own the build. Many dental offices, HVAC shops and law firms have no such person. For them, Novacall AI answers inbound calls and leads in under 60 seconds, 24/7/365, over voice, SMS, email and WhatsApp in 15+ languages. It asks your qualifying questions, books on your calendar and syncs to your CRM. Novacall AI is priced by custom quote, based on call and lead volume, channels, integrations and workflow. See how it compares with a bundled per-minute platform.
The compliance side is part of the service: Novacall AI covers TCPA, A2P 10DLC, DNC and consent handling, call recording with disclosure, GDPR/CCPA, SOC 2 and HIPAA.
Your next step
Pull last month's call log and count minutes, peak simultaneous calls and after-hours calls. Price those three numbers on two platforms with the tables above. Then compare the result with a managed quote for the same workload.