Vapi vs Retell AI Pricing 2026: A Hosting Fee Against an All-In Rate
Published · prices checked October 26, 2026
Key takeaways
- Retell AI bills $0.07 to $0.31 a minute, or $81.90 to $362.70 of usage at 13 three-minute calls a day (prices checked October 26, 2026). Vapi's cost at that volume is not computable from its page.
- Retell's rate includes the voice engine, voice and model. Vapi's published rate is hosting only, with each speech, model and voice provider passed through at cost.
- The phone line runs the other way: Vapi lists its own telephony as free, while Retell charges $0.015 a minute and $2.00 a month a number.
- Retell meters to the second and bills silence; Vapi publishes no rounding rule. Bland, a rival to both, estimates production stacks at $0.11 to $0.25 a minute on Retell.
Retell AI bills $0.07 to $0.31 a minute and Vapi bills $0.05/min hosting, plus each speech, model, voice and phone provider billed per minute (prices checked October 26, 2026). Only Retell's cost at 13 three-minute calls a day is computable, $81.90 to $362.70 of usage. The difference that matters: Retell's rate includes the model and voice, and Vapi's does not.
Vapi vs Retell AI pricing at a glance
Prices checked against each vendor's own pricing page on October 26, 2026.
| Service | Billing unit | Entry plan | 3 calls/day (90/mo) | 5 calls/day (150/mo) | 13 calls/day (390/mo) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Retell AI (build your own) | Per minute, all-in rate set by the model and voice | Pay as you go at $0.07 to $0.31 a minute | $18.90 to $83.70 | $31.50 to $139.50 | $81.90 to $362.70 | retellai.com/pricing, read Oct 26, 2026 |
| Vapi (build your own) | Per minute: hosting plus each provider you choose | Pay as you go: $0.05/min hosting, plus each speech, model, voice and phone provider billed per minute | Not computable from the published price | Not computable from the published price | Not computable from the published price | vapi.ai/pricing, read Oct 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.
| Service | In the published rate | Billed separately | Free credits | Concurrent calls included | Phone numbers |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Retell AI (build your own) | Voice engine, voice and model | Telephony at $0.015 a minute on Retell's own, nothing on yours; per-minute add-ons | $10 | 20 free, then $8 each a month | $2.00 a month each; your own free |
| Vapi (build your own) | Hosting | Transcriber, model and voice, each per minute; Twilio inbound at $0.008 a minute, Vapi's own telephony free | $5 | 4 free, 10 on Core | 1 on the free tier, 5 on Core |
| Service | Rounding | Time billed beyond the talk | Spam and short calls | Setup fee | Contract | Trial |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Retell AI (build your own) | Per second, summed over the cycle | Whole connected call, silence and hold included; after a transfer, telephony only | Not published | None stated | Usage-based, no minimums stated | Free trial offered |
| Vapi (build your own) | Not published | Not published | Not published | None stated | Usage-based, no contract stated | No trial; a free tier with starting credits |
All from vapi.ai/pricing and retellai.com/pricing, read October 26, 2026. For every plan and package, see Vapi pricing and Retell AI pricing.
Where Vapi costs less
The phone line. Vapi's transport list reads "Vapi Telephony / SIP Free" and "Charged by provider, not Vapi" for outside carriers. Retell's own telephony is $0.015 a minute, and a Retell number is $2.00 a month. On Vapi's free tier, one Vapi number is included.
Provider choice at cost. Vapi promises "Provider costs with no markup" and "Models pass-through at cost". Pick the lowest-priced transcriber, model and voice and you pay their list rates plus the hosting fee.
Vapi's calculator puts the whole stack at $82 to $129 a month for 1,000 minutes, with Deepgram, OpenAI, ElevenLabs and its own telephony. That is Vapi's estimate, not our arithmetic, and it is at 1,000 minutes, not at our 1,170-minute volume of 13 calls a day.
Where Retell AI costs less
Capacity and credits. Retell includes "20 Free Concurrent Calls" and $10 of credits. Vapi's free tier has 4 concurrent calls and $5; more lines are "$10 / line / month" or a Core package at $29 a month.
Short calls. Retell meters "to the nearest second" with "No rounding up per call". Vapi's page states no rounding rule, so whether a 10-second call bills 10 seconds or a minute is up to each provider.
A third-party estimate. Bland's pricing FAQ estimates production stacks at "roughly $0.13 to $0.30 per minute on Vapi and $0.11 to $0.25 per minute on Retell" (bland.ai/pricing, read October 26, 2026). Bland competes with both and sells its own rate against them; we report the estimate and do not adopt it.
How each counts a minute
Vapi shows rates per minute for hosting and each provider, and says usage is "Pre-paid". It publishes nothing on rounding, ring or hold time, or spam calls. With four or five providers on one call, each billing by its own rules, its calculator gives a monthly estimate but no page says what one short call bills.
Retell AI publishes all of it in its FAQ: "Each call is tracked to the nearest second." Silence is billed: "the speech-to-text engine remains active and listening throughout, even during silence." At a transfer, "the AI voice agent fee stops. Only the telephony fee continues." Calls that fail to connect are not billed.
The catch with each
Vapi
The advertised rate is only part of the bill. On Vapi's own calculator, hosting is $50 of a $82 to $129 month; the model and voice are the rest. Free-tier support is "Peer to peer support via Discord community", and Core is "Pre-paid, auto-renew".
Retell AI
The range is wide: at 13 calls a day, usage runs $81.90 to $362.70 depending on the model and voice. Hold and silence are billed, and add-ons such as a knowledge base add "+$0.005/minute" on the calls that use them.
Which one to pick
- Pick Retell AI if you want one rate to budget against and get many short hang-ups. One per-minute line covers the engine, voice and model, metered to the second.
- Pick Vapi if you have a developer who wants every provider choice and its own telephony at no transport charge. You budget from Vapi's calculator estimate, not a published per-call rule.
- Pick neither if you want a receptionist next week. Both are build-your-own voice AI platforms: the agent, transfers and booking are your work. See how to build an AI receptionist for what that takes.
Alternatives to both
| Service | Entry plan | 3 calls/day (90/mo) | 5 calls/day (150/mo) | 13 calls/day (390/mo) | If calls double (13 to 26 a day) | Overage | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Retell AI (build your own) | Pay as you go at $0.07 to $0.31 a minute | $18.90 to $83.70 | $31.50 to $139.50 | $81.90 to $362.70 | +$81.90 to $362.70 | $0.07 to $0.31 a minute | retellai.com/pricing, read Oct 26, 2026 |
| Goodcall | $79/month (100 unique callers) | $79 | $118.50 | $129 | +$72.80 | $0.15 to $0.79 a caller | goodcall.com/pricing, read Oct 26, 2026 |
| Bland (build your own) | Pay as you go at $0.14 a minute | $37.80 | $63 | $163.80 | +$163.80 | $0.14 a minute | bland.ai/pricing, read Oct 26, 2026 |
| NextPhone | $199/month (unlimited calls) | $199 | $199 | $199 | No change | None, unlimited calls | getnextphone.com/pricing, read Oct 26, 2026 |
| Upfirst | $24.95/month (30 calls) | $59.95 | $119.95 | $227.45 | +$197.55 | $0.70 to $1.50 a call | upfirst.ai/pricing, read Oct 26, 2026 |
| Rosie | $49/month (250 minutes) | $149 | $149 | $299 | Not computable | Moves up to the next plan | heyrosie.com/pricing, read Oct 26, 2026 |
| Synthflow (build your own) | Quote only | Quote only | Quote only | Quote only | Quote only | Not published | synthflow.ai/pricing, read Oct 26, 2026 |
| Vapi (build your own) | Pay as you go: $0.05/min hosting, plus each speech, model, voice and phone provider billed per minute | Not computable from the published price | Not computable from the published price | Not computable from the published price | Not computable | $0.05/min hosting, plus each speech, model, voice and phone provider billed per minute | vapi.ai/pricing, read Oct 26, 2026 |
Bland bundles the model, speech and voice into one rate and bills transfer minutes on top. At 13 calls a day Retell's usage range, $81.90 to $362.70, spans every ready-made plan in this table, from Goodcall's $129 to Rosie's $299, and the ready-made plans include the phone line and the build. More options: Vapi alternatives and Retell AI alternatives.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Vapi or Retell AI cheaper?
Published prices do not settle it. Retell AI's usage costs $81.90 to $362.70 at 13 three-minute calls a day, before telephony. Vapi's cost at that volume cannot be computed from its page, because its hosting fee excludes the model, speech and voice. Its own calculator gives $82 to $129 for 1,000 minutes.
Does Retell AI include the LLM in its price?
Yes. Retell's rate of $0.07 to $0.31 a minute is the sum of its voice engine, a voice and the model you choose. Telephony, phone numbers and add-ons are billed separately.
Does Vapi include the LLM in its price?
No. Vapi's published rate is a hosting fee, and the transcriber, model and voice are each billed per minute at the provider's cost with no markup, according to its pricing page.
Which has more free concurrent calls, Vapi or Retell AI?
Retell AI includes 20 concurrent calls on pay as you go. Vapi's free tier includes 4, and its Core package 10.
Do Vapi and Retell AI charge for phone numbers?
Vapi includes one Vapi phone number on its free tier and five on Core. Retell AI charges $2.00 a month for each Retell number and nothing to connect your own.
How these numbers were made
Every vendor price on this page was read from the vendor's own pricing page on the date in its Source cell and saved as a dated capture. Monthly costs use each vendor's cheapest published plan for the volume plus its published overage, at 3-minute calls. Vendors that hide prices stay in the tables as quote only. We do not test answering quality and publish no ratings.
Sources
Vendor pricing and terms pages, from the price index
- Bland: bland.ai/pricing (read October 26, 2026)
- Goodcall: goodcall.com/pricing (read October 26, 2026); help.goodcall.com/en/articles/8007566-terms-of-service (read October 27, 2026)
- NextPhone: getnextphone.com/pricing (read October 26, 2026)
- Retell AI: retellai.com/pricing (read October 26, 2026)
- Rosie: heyrosie.com/pricing (read October 26, 2026); heyrosie.com/legal/terms (read October 27, 2026)
- Synthflow: synthflow.ai/pricing (read October 26, 2026)
- Upfirst: upfirst.ai/pricing (read October 26, 2026); upfirst.ai/terms-of-service (read October 27, 2026)
- Vapi: vapi.ai/pricing (read October 26, 2026)
Changes to these prices
- Upfirst: cancellation notice recorded as none. Its pricing FAQ says "You can cancel, upgrade, or downgrade anytime, no questions asked," the same strength as other cancel-anytime terms. Its setup-fee summary now reads "None stated": no page says there is no fee. No price changed.
- Retell AI: corrected the transfer term. Its pricing page says "Once the call is transferred, the AI voice agent fee stops. Only the telephony fee continues for the remainder of the transferred call." The index had said the whole call was billed after a transfer. No price changed.
- Vapi: billing-term summaries (billing unit, rounding, time billed beyond the call, spam, setup fee, contract, trial) added from the vendor-data billing-terms and contracts files and their captures. No price changed.
- Retell AI: billing-term summaries (billing unit, rounding, time billed beyond the call, spam, setup fee, contract, trial) added from the vendor-data billing-terms and contracts files and their captures. No price changed.
- Bland: billing-term summaries (billing unit, rounding, time billed beyond the call, spam, setup fee, contract, trial) added from the vendor-data billing-terms and contracts files and their captures. No price changed.
- Synthflow: billing-term summaries (billing unit, rounding, time billed beyond the call, spam, setup fee, contract, trial) added from the vendor-data billing-terms and contracts files and their captures. No price changed.
- Rosie added from its own pricing page (captured October 26, 2026), with billing terms from its terms, FAQ and help pages (read October 27, 2026). Rosie moves an account up a plan instead of charging overage.
- Goodcall added from its own pricing page (captured October 26, 2026), with billing terms from its terms, FAQ and help pages (read October 27, 2026). Goodcall bills per unique caller a month; our arithmetic counts every call as a different caller.
- Upfirst added from its own pricing page (captured October 26, 2026), with billing terms from its terms, FAQ and help pages (read October 27, 2026). Upfirst does not bill calls under 15 seconds or spam.
- Added NextPhone Pro, Growth and Scale from its public pricing page. All three plans include unlimited calls with no per-minute charge or overage fee.
Download the data
The first table on this page (CSV, 2 rows). The full price index (CSV), free to reuse under CC BY 4.0.
How to cite this page
ReceptionistPrices.com, Vapi vs Retell AI Pricing 2026: A Hosting Fee Against an All-In Rate, prices checked October 26, 2026, https://www.receptionistprices.com/vapi-vs-retell/