Retell AI Pricing 2026: Per-Minute Rates and What They Leave Out

Retell AI is pay as you go at $0.07 to $0.31 a minute, so 5 three-minute calls a day cost $31.50 to $139.50 a month in usage (prices checked October 26, 2026). Retell is a build-your-own voice AI platform: the model and voice you choose set where you land, and the phone line is billed on top.

Retell AI pricing plans

Prices checked against each vendor's own pricing page on October 26, 2026.

Our arithmetic: each vendor's cheapest published plan for that volume plus its published overage, at 3-minute calls. Taxes, setup fees and add-ons are not included. How we price.

Pay as you go opens with "$10 in free credits" and "20 Free Concurrent Calls" (retellai.com/pricing, read October 26, 2026). Enterprise adds volume pricing, a dedicated server as an add-on and 24/7 support, at a price you get from sales.

What the per-minute range is made of

The range is not one product at two prices. It is the sum of three lines on the same page, and you choose two of them:

• Voice engine: "Retell Voice Infra" at $0.055 a minute, on every call.
• Voice: from $0.015 a minute for Retell's own voices, more for ElevenLabs voices.
• Model: the LLM line runs from a fraction of a cent a minute on small models to well over the engine's own rate on the largest.

Pick a small model and a standard voice and you sit near the bottom of the range. Pick an ElevenLabs voice and a frontier model and you sit near the top.

What Retell AI costs at 3, 5 and 13 calls a day

Each cell is the published range times the minutes: 390 three-minute calls are 1,170 minutes, so $0.07 to $0.31/min used gives $81.90 to $362.70. The bottom of each cell is the cheapest model and voice; the top is the most expensive. At any call count, that choice moves the bill more than a few extra calls a day.

None of these cells includes the phone line, the number, or any add-on below. We do not add them up into one figure, because the telephony rate depends on your carrier and the add-ons on your build.

How Retell AI counts a minute

• Billing unit: Per minute, all-in rate set by the model and voice
• Rounding: Per second, summed over the cycle
• Time billed beyond the talk: the whole connected call, silence and hold included; after a transfer, only telephony
• Spam and short calls: Not published
• Setup fee: None stated
• Contract: Usage-based, no minimums stated
• Trial: Free trial offered

Retell meters to the second: "Each call is tracked to the nearest second." The FAQ adds: "No rounding up per call, no inflated bills." A 20-second wrong number bills 20 seconds.

Silence is not free. Retell's FAQ: "Billing covers the entire duration of the call because the speech-to-text engine remains active and listening throughout, even during silence." A caller left on hold while the agent waits keeps the meter running.

Transfers stop the AI fee but not the line: "Once the call is transferred, the AI voice agent fee stops. Only the telephony fee continues for the remainder of the transferred call." Calls that fail to connect are not billed, and a voicemail bills only "for the duration the AI agent is active on the line."

All quotes from retellai.com/pricing, read October 26, 2026.

What Retell AI connects to

On a build-your-own platform, a connection is something you configure in your agent, not a switch the vendor turns on for you. See which receptionists write to Clio, HubSpot, Jobber and more.

Fees, contract and trial

• Phone numbers: $2.00 a month for a Retell number, "No Charge for custom phone numbers" you bring.
• Telephony: call rates are listed by country, and the rate the page shows is $0.015 a minute. "No Charge for Sip Trunking/Custom Telephony" on a carrier you bring.
• More simultaneous calls: the first 20 are free, then "$8 per concurrent call per month."
• Knowledge base: "+$0.005/minute" on calls that use one.
• Contract: "No minimums, no contracts, no surprises."
• Trial: "Start Free Trial" on the page, plus the free credits.
• Your number: Retell's terms were not part of our capture. If you bring your own carrier number, it stays with your carrier.

All from retellai.com/pricing, read October 26, 2026.

The catch

1. The headline range is not the phone bill. The telephony line sits in its own section of the page, and a Retell number is $2.00 a month. A working inbound line needs both, or a carrier of your own.
2. Hold and silence are billed. On a flat plan, hold time costs nothing extra; on Retell every second of a connected call is metered.
3. Add-ons stack per minute. Knowledge base, advanced denoising, safety guardrails and PII removal each add a per-minute charge on the page. A receptionist that answers from your FAQ uses at least the first.
4. You build and maintain the agent. Retell says "Go from signup to live agent in minutes." A live agent is not a finished receptionist: transfers, booking, after-hours rules and every later change are your work, and nothing on the page prices it.

Where Retell AI is a good buy

Retell bills a 10-second hang-up as 10 seconds. Rosie rounds the same call up to a full minute, and RingCentral AI Receptionist to 30 seconds. On a line with many short calls, that gap adds up.

Retell's usage at 13 calls a day, $81.90 to $362.70, stays under Dialzara's $408.50, RingCentral AI Receptionist's $584 and Smith.ai AI's $695.30, even at the top of its range. It does not stay under Goodcall's $129 or NextPhone's $199, and those two are finished receptionists.

Retell AI against other AI options

Rows marked "build your own" are platform usage only, before the phone line and the build work. The other rows are a ready-made receptionist's plan price at that volume. Among the ready-made receptionists in the table, Goodcall costs the least at 13 calls a day, $129, and Upfirst at 3 a day, $59.95. For every option priced against Retell, see Retell AI alternatives and the two-way Vapi vs Retell comparison.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does Retell AI cost per minute?

Retell AI's pay-as-you-go rate is $0.07 to $0.31 a minute for voice agents, read from its pricing page on October 26, 2026. The model and voice you choose set the rate. Telephony and phone numbers are billed separately.

Does Retell AI round calls up to the minute?

No. Retell's pricing FAQ says each call is tracked to the nearest second and charged on total minutes at the end of the billing cycle, with no rounding up per call.

Does Retell AI charge after a call is transferred?

Partly. Retell's pricing FAQ says the AI voice agent fee stops once a call is transferred, and only the telephony fee continues for the rest of the transferred call.

Is there a free trial of Retell AI?

Yes. Retell's pricing page offers a free trial and $10 in free credits on the pay-as-you-go plan, with no contract or minimum stated.

What does an AI receptionist built on Retell AI cost a month?

At 5 three-minute calls a day, Retell's usage costs $31.50 to $139.50 a month, depending on the model and voice. The phone line, numbers, add-ons and the work of building the agent are extra and not in that figure.

Does Retell AI charge for hold time?

Yes. Retell's pricing FAQ says billing covers the entire connected call, including silence and hold, because speech recognition keeps listening throughout.