AI Voice Agent Cost per Minute (2026): What Each Part Costs and Monthly Totals
AI voice agent cost per minute, in short: about $0.07 to $0.31 a minute on a developer platform such as Retell, or about $0.10 to $0.15 a minute for a typical Vapi setup ($0.05 platform fee plus speech, model, voice and phone). A mid-range build lands near $0.12 a minute, so 3,000 minutes — 1,000 three-minute calls — costs about $360 a month before concurrency, numbers and compliance add-ons.
More on this topic: Calls, SMS and AI voice agents, every guide in one place.
Voice agent pricing looks opaque because one minute of conversation is several services billed together: a platform fee, speech-to-text, the language model, text-to-speech and the phone line. Change any one and the minute rate moves. This guide breaks the minute into its parts using two vendors' published rates, then prices whole months at three volumes.
Key takeaways
- Typical all-in rate: $0.09 to $0.21 a minute for most production builds; Retell publishes a range of $0.07 to $0.31.
- The parts: platform ($0.05 to $0.055), phone (about $0.014 to $0.015), voice ($0.015 to $0.10) and model (under $0.01 to $0.16) per minute.
- Model and voice choice move the price more than the platform does.
- Monthly examples at $0.12/min: $60 for 500 minutes, $360 for 3,000, $1,200 for 10,000.
- Fixed costs on top: numbers ($2 a month on Retell), extra concurrency ($8 to $10 a line), and HIPAA ($2,000 a month on Vapi).
- Billing details matter: Retell bills per second; silence and hold time count.
How much does an AI voice agent cost per minute?
An AI voice agent costs roughly $0.07 to $0.31 per minute on pay-as-you-go developer platforms, with most real builds between about $0.09 and $0.21. The exact figure is the sum of five components, each with its own price list.
| Component | What it does | Retell rate | Vapi rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Platform | Orchestrates the call, turn-taking, tools | $0.055/min voice infra | $0.05/min hosting |
| Speech-to-text | Transcribes the caller | Included in infra | $0.0095–$0.0099/min (Deepgram) |
| Language model | Decides what to say | $0.0016–$0.16/min by model | $0.0077–$0.0452/min (OpenAI, at cost) |
| Text-to-speech | Speaks the reply | $0.015/min standard; $0.04–$0.10 ElevenLabs | $0.0146–$0.0238/min (ElevenLabs, at cost) |
| Phone line | Carries the call | $0.015/min (Twilio or Telnyx) | Twilio $0.008 in, $0.014 out; Telnyx $0.0055 |
Rates checked on retellai.com/pricing and vapi.ai/pricing on 25 October 2026, in US dollars. Per-minute rates depend on the model, voice and phone carrier you choose, and vendors change them often — recalculate with current prices before you budget.
What does a typical build cost per minute?
A typical build — a mid-priced model, a standard voice and a normal phone line — costs about $0.11 to $0.13 a minute. A cheap small model brings it under $0.10; a premium voice and top model push it past $0.20.
| Build (Retell rates) | Infra | Phone | Voice | Model | Per minute |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Budget: GPT 5 mini, standard voice | $0.055 | $0.015 | $0.015 | $0.008 | $0.093 |
| Mid: GPT 5.1, standard voice | $0.055 | $0.015 | $0.015 | $0.040 | $0.125 |
| Premium: GPT 5.4, ElevenLabs Multilingual v2 | $0.055 | $0.015 | $0.060 | $0.080 | $0.210 |
On Vapi, a comparable mid build is the $0.05 hosting fee, about $0.01 for transcription, $0.02 to $0.045 for the model, about $0.02 for the voice and $0.014 for an outbound Twilio minute — roughly $0.11 to $0.14. Vapi's own estimate for 1,000 minutes a month is $82 to $129. The two platforms end up close; the comparison is in Retell AI vs Vapi. Bland AI bundles the model and voice into one rate instead; see Bland AI pricing and Bland AI vs Retell AI.
What do Vapi and Synthflow cost all-in per minute?
Vapi works out to roughly $0.08 to $0.13 a minute all-in: its pricing page estimates $82 to $129 a month for 1,000 minutes, of which $50 is the $0.05-a-minute hosting fee. Synthflow no longer publishes a per-minute rate: its pricing page lists a single Enterprise plan from $30,000 a year, scoped by call volume, concurrency and telephony.
| Vapi | Synthflow | |
|---|---|---|
| Published per-minute price | $0.05 hosting, plus model, voice, transcription and phone | None published |
| All-in estimate | $82–$129 for 1,000 minutes (about $0.08–$0.13/min) | Quoted by sales |
| Entry point | Pay as you go, $5 free credit | Enterprise from $30,000 a year |
| Concurrency | 4 calls included on pay-as-you-go; $10 a month per extra line | Custom, set in the contract |
| HIPAA | $2,000 a month add-on | Security and data review in the contract |
So the two are not really alternatives on price: Vapi is a developer platform you can start on for a few dollars, and Synthflow is now sold as an annual enterprise contract. To compare Synthflow with a per-minute vendor, divide its quoted annual price by your expected minutes.
Checked on vapi.ai/pricing and synthflow.ai/pricing on 26 October 2026.
What does an AI voice agent cost per month?
At a mid-range $0.12 a minute, an AI voice agent costs about $60 a month for 500 minutes, $360 for 3,000 minutes and $1,200 for 10,000 minutes, before fixed fees. Your call length decides how many calls that buys.
| Monthly minutes | Calls at 3 minutes | At $0.09/min | At $0.12/min | At $0.21/min |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 500 | About 165 | $45 | $60 | $105 |
| 3,000 | 1,000 | $270 | $360 | $630 |
| 10,000 | About 3,330 | $900 | $1,200 | $2,100 |
| 30,000 | 10,000 | $2,700 | $3,600 | $6,300 |
A three-minute qualifying call at $0.12 a minute costs $0.36. Whether that is cheap depends on what it replaces: compare it with the loaded hourly cost of the person who would otherwise make or answer the call, and with the value of the leads you currently lose by calling back late.
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What fixed costs come on top of per-minute pricing?
On top of minutes you pay for phone numbers, concurrency beyond the included lines, optional features and, in regulated industries, compliance. These are flat monthly fees and matter most at low volume.
| Fixed or add-on cost | Retell | Vapi |
|---|---|---|
| Concurrent calls included | 20 | 4 (no package), 10 (Core), 30 (Pro) |
| Extra concurrent line | $8/line/mo | $10/line/mo |
| Phone number | $2/mo (custom telephony free) | Not listed per number |
| Platform subscription | None (pay as you go) | $0, $29/mo Core, or 10% of hosting with a $999 minimum (Pro) |
| Knowledge base | First 10 free, then $8 each/mo; +$0.005/min | — |
| Branded caller ID | +$0.10 per outbound call | — |
| HIPAA | Listed as HIPAA-ready; no price shown | $2,000/mo add-on |
| Free credit to start | $10 | $5 |
How is voice AI billed: what counts as a minute?
Most platforms bill the connected time of the call, including silence and hold. Retell bills per second with no per-call rounding, does not bill failed calls, stops the AI fee after a transfer while telephony continues, and bills voicemail only while the agent is active.
- Voicemail drops: an outbound campaign that reaches many voicemails still pays for the agent's time on each.
- Hold and silence: a caller who puts the agent on hold is still on the clock.
- Transfers: after a warm transfer to a person, the phone line keeps billing.
- Retries: batch-dialling fees, such as Retell's $0.005 per dial, add up on large lists.
Ask every vendor for an all-in rate for your model, voice, carrier and country, and whether it bills per second or rounds up to the minute. A quote that leaves out the phone line or the model is not comparable.
Do all-in-one platforms price voice differently?
Yes. Platforms built for businesses rather than developers usually bundle voice into a plan or a credit balance instead of itemising every component. GoHighLevel, for example, sells AI Employee at $50 or $97 a month per sub-account, with voice included under fair use on the higher plan; see our GoHighLevel pricing guide.
In Scalry, which publishes this guide, voice agents are part of the $29, $79 and $199 plans: call time is billed in credits from the plan's monthly balance, at a rate that depends on the carrier that connects the call, and calling needs a paid plan and a phone number on the workspace. Each campaign has a calling window, a calls-per-minute rate and do-not-call suppression, and outcomes land on the contact record. For what voice agents can and cannot do in qualification, see AI voice agents for lead qualification, and for inbound calls, our guide to an AI receptionist for small business.
Frequently asked questions
How much does an AI voice agent cost per minute?
About $0.07 to $0.31 a minute on developer platforms such as Retell, with most builds between roughly $0.09 and $0.21. The rate is the sum of the platform fee, speech-to-text, the language model, the voice and the phone line.
How much does an AI voice agent cost per month?
At about $0.12 a minute, 500 minutes cost $60, 3,000 minutes $360 and 10,000 minutes $1,200, plus fixed fees for numbers, extra concurrency and any compliance add-ons.
What is the cheapest AI voice agent setup?
A small, fast model with a standard voice and your own telephony. On Retell's published rates, infra, phone, a standard voice and GPT 5 mini come to about $0.093 a minute.
Why do AI voice agent quotes vary so much?
Because the model and voice choices can each change the per-minute cost several-fold, and some quotes leave out the phone line, transcription or concurrency fees.
Is silence billed on AI voice calls?
Usually yes. Retell, for example, bills silence and hold time, bills per second with no rounding, and does not bill failed calls.
How much does a HIPAA-compliant voice agent cost?
It adds a fixed fee on many platforms. Vapi lists a HIPAA add-on at $2,000 a month; Retell describes its platform as HIPAA-ready but does not publish a price.
How Scalry's voice agents handle calling windows, rate limits and do-not-call lists is described on the AI voice agents page.
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