# Bland vs Retell vs Vapi vs ElevenLabs (2026)

By Samuel Oram-Jones

Bland, Retell, Vapi, and ElevenLabs each sell a voice AI agent that answers and places phone calls, and each prices a minute differently. This comparison covers who builds the AI on a call, what a minute costs, how each handles security and uptime, and which suits each buyer, as of November 2026.

A BAA, the contract HIPAA requires before a vendor handles patient information, is one of the rows in the table below.

## Which is best, Bland, Retell, Vapi, or ElevenLabs?

For enterprise calls, Bland is the best of the four as of November 2026, because Bland is full stack and builds and runs its own language, speech, and transcription models. Retell and Vapi run calls on outside language and transcription models, and ElevenLabs pairs its own speech and transcription with a language model that is either its own Realtime model or one a customer picks.

| Feature | Bland | Retell | Vapi | ElevenLabs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AI on each call | Full stack | Outsourced | Outsourced | Mixed |
| Audio Realism Bench score, 4 August 2026 | #1 AI voice, 1365 | OpenAI, on Retell: #4, 1119 | OpenAI, on Vapi: #4, 1119 | ElevenLabs: #12, 938 |
| iMessage | Native | No | No | No |
| HIPAA with a BAA | Included on Enterprise | Supported | $2,000/month | Zero Retention only |
| PCI DSS | Self-attested | No | Supported | Supported |
| AI rate per minute | $0.12-$0.14 self-serve | $0.07-$0.31 | $0.05 hosting only | $0.08 plus language model |

<details><summary>What these rows mean</summary>

- **AI on each call:** This row shows whether the language model, speech, and transcription behind each call belong to the platform or to other companies: Full stack means all three are the platform's own, Outsourced means its language model and transcription come from other companies, and Mixed means it runs some of its own models alongside outside ones. Bland builds and runs its own language, speech, and transcription models, so a call never passes through an outside AI provider. ElevenLabs runs its own speech and transcription, and pairs them with a language model that is one of its own Realtime models (Eleven Realtime v1 Mini or Eleven Realtime v1 Max) or one the customer chooses in Custom mode.
- **Audio Realism Bench score, 4 August 2026:** Audio Realism Bench is Design Arena's blind listening test, where listeners pick whichever of two voices sounds more like a real person, and a higher score means listeners picked that voice more often. In its published results of 4 August 2026, Bland Speech v3 ranked first among AI voices. Each rival number is the highest-scoring voice model in those results available on that platform.
- **iMessage:** iMessage lets an agent text customers on a channel they already use. Bland offers it natively on Enterprise.
- **HIPAA with a BAA:** A Business Associate Agreement, or BAA, is the contract that lets a vendor handle patient information under HIPAA. Bland includes its BAA on Enterprise. Vapi sells HIPAA mode as a $2,000 monthly add-on. Zero Retention only means ElevenLabs' BAA applies only while Zero Retention Mode is on, which limits the language models and analytics a customer can use.
- **PCI DSS:** PCI DSS is a security standard from the card industry for handling card details. Bland self-attests to v4.0.1 and shares its attestation under NDA on Enterprise. Retell gives no PCI status, and it bars card data unless it agrees in writing.
- **AI rate per minute:** Headline rates cover different things, so a buyer should check what each one includes before comparing them. Bland's self-serve rate covers all of its AI: language model, transcription, and speech. Phone is billed separately at carrier cost, and Enterprise pricing is custom, set with Bland's sales team. Retell advertises $0.07 to $0.31 a minute, and one language model alone lists at $0.384 a minute. Vapi's $0.05 is hosting only, with language model, transcription, and voice billed at provider cost on top. ElevenLabs' $0.08 is for call minutes past a plan's allowance, with the language model billed on top.

</details>

## How do Bland, Retell, Vapi, and ElevenLabs compare?

The biggest difference is who builds the AI. A call has three AI parts, transcription that turns a caller's speech into text, a language model that decides what an agent says, and speech that says it back, and each of the four hands those parts out differently. Bland keeps all three, while Retell and Vapi rent language and transcription, and ElevenLabs rents one when a customer chooses its own model.

On latency, Bland publishes sub-200ms, and Vapi prints "sub-500ms" as its average latency on its enterprise page, while Retell says "~600ms latency" and ElevenLabs publishes no call latency figure.

### Bland overview

Bland is a full stack voice AI provider for enterprises and contact centers running high-stakes inbound and outbound calls at volume. It publishes sub-200ms latency and support for 1 million concurrent calls, and its language model is closed source and developed in-house, so no outside AI lab sits in a call.

Teams build calls in [Pathways](https://www.bland.ai/product), which lays a conversation out as connected steps that can be tested before launch, and a [testbed](https://docs.bland.ai/agents/testbed) re-runs one turn of a real conversation against an edited prompt. Enterprise customers get dedicated orchestration and dedicated GPUs run by Bland. On [Enterprise](https://www.bland.ai/pricing), branded iMessage agents run natively on the same pathways as voice.

<div class="cmp-proscons cmp-proscons-own"><div class="cmp-proscons-pros"><p><strong>Pros</strong></p><ul><li>One AI company on every call, so a security team reviews one vendor</li><li>One published rate for all of its AI, with no token charges</li><li>#1 of 13 AI voices on Audio Realism Bench, 4 August 2026</li><li>Dedicated orchestration and dedicated GPUs run by Bland, on Enterprise</li><li>Native iMessage agents on Enterprise, sharing pathways with voice</li><li>Call grading on the audio as well as the transcript</li><li>Built-in antifraud, with a known-fraud caller list, country rules, and rate limits</li></ul></div><div class="cmp-proscons-cons"><p><strong>Cons</strong></p><ul><li>Overkill for a small prototype, because Bland is built for production calls at volume</li></ul></div></div>

### Retell overview

Retell sells voice infrastructure at $0.055 per minute, and a customer assembles the rest. A team picks a language model such as GPT, Claude, or Gemini, a voice from Retell or from a company such as ElevenLabs, Cartesia, MiniMax, or OpenAI, and Deepgram, Azure, Soniox, or AssemblyAI handle transcription.

Calls are built from a single prompt or from Conversation Flows. Retell sells flows for "precise call control" and warns that they "can make conversations harder to handle when callers give information early or change their minds".

<div class="cmp-proscons" data-rival="retell"><div class="cmp-proscons-pros"><p><strong>Pros</strong></p><ul><li>A team can choose its language model and voice vendor</li><li>No platform fee and a self-serve start</li></ul></div><div class="cmp-proscons-cons"><p><strong>Cons</strong></p><ul><li>Language and transcription models come from other companies</li><li>Long prompts scale billed time, and add-ons sit on top</li><li>99.5% uptime in its contract against more than 99.9% in its advertising</li><li>No PCI status, and card data barred unless it agrees in writing</li><li>No iMessage agents</li></ul></div></div>

### Vapi overview

Vapi hosts calls at $0.05 per minute and exposes each part of a setup through its API. A customer's transcriber, language model, and voice are billed at provider cost on top, and Vapi lists its own curated Vapi Voices next to voices from companies such as ElevenLabs, Cartesia, and OpenAI.

That freedom comes with upkeep, because every part is also the customer's to keep running. Vapi says "Without any fallback plan configured, your call will end with an error if your chosen transcription provider fails", and Vapi says it "does not control, and is not responsible for, any Optional Provider or Customer-Managed Provider".

<div class="cmp-proscons" data-rival="vapi"><div class="cmp-proscons-pros"><p><strong>Pros</strong></p><ul><li>Developers can wire each provider through an API</li><li>Models pass through at provider cost with no markup</li></ul></div><div class="cmp-proscons-cons"><p><strong>Cons</strong></p><ul><li>Language model and transcription come from companies a customer picks</li><li>Each added provider is another vendor to test, pay, and review</li><li>No iMessage agents</li></ul></div></div>

### ElevenLabs overview

ElevenLabs is a voice company first, and its ElevenAgents platform runs on its own speech and transcription models. Its Realtime models, Eleven Realtime v1 Mini and Eleven Realtime v1 Max, handle language, and "In Custom mode, you choose the LLM, TTS model, and ASR settings yourself".

A language model chosen in Custom mode comes from another company. ElevenLabs says its "LLM usage is billed separately on top, based on the model you choose", and for an outside model ElevenLabs says "ElevenLabs does not warrant and is not responsible for that Model Option or those terms".

ElevenLabs grades calls on transcripts only, while Bland's evaluations grade the call audio as well as the transcript, so tone and satisfaction count. ElevenLabs lets a user pick a static speech pace that doesn't adapt to the caller during the call, where Bland measures how fast a caller speaks and adjusts how soon the agent cuts in, as of November 2026.

<div class="cmp-proscons" data-rival="elevenlabs"><div class="cmp-proscons-pros"><p><strong>Pros</strong></p><ul><li>Its own speech and transcription models sit inside the call minute</li></ul></div><div class="cmp-proscons-cons"><p><strong>Cons</strong></p><ul><li>A language model in Custom mode is billed on top and comes from another company</li><li>No iMessage agents</li></ul></div></div>

## What are the risks of running on other companies' models?

An agent built on another company's model inherits that company's decisions, because a lab can change how a model behaves or retire it and the agent changes with it. Retell can put up to three companies behind one call once a voice is added, Vapi up to four, and ElevenLabs up to two once a customer brings its own language model, while Bland keeps a call with one.

Outages follow the same chain. Retell says its fallback covers language models and voices, though a fallback voice comes from another provider. Vapi says a call ends with an error when a chosen transcription provider fails and no fallback is set. Retell's subprocessors also include its language model, speech recognition, and text-to-speech providers, the outside companies that process its customers' data, so a security review grows with each.

## Which sounds more human, Bland, Retell, Vapi, or ElevenLabs?

Bland Speech v3 ranked first of 13 AI voices on Design Arena's Audio Realism Bench of 4 August 2026, above every outside voice available on Retell and Vapi. Retell's own platform voices and Vapi's own voices weren't ranked on that chart.

Design Arena's Audio Realism Bench is a blind listening test in which vetted native speakers pick whichever of two voices sounds more like a real person. The highest voice on Retell and Vapi was GPT Realtime 2, an OpenAI voice, 4th at 1119, and on ElevenLabs it was Eleven v3, 12th at 938, against 1365 for Bland.

Scores come from [Design Arena's published results](https://notes.designarena.ai/audio-realism-benchmark-measuring-realism-in-audio-models/) of 4 August 2026.

## How much do they cost?

Bland's self-serve Start plan costs $0.14 per minute and self-serve Build costs $0.12 per minute with a $299 monthly platform fee, covering all of its AI, while Retell, Vapi, and ElevenLabs each advertise a number that covers a different slice of a call, as of November 2026. Phone is billed outside every AI rate shown. Enterprise pricing is custom, set with Bland's sales team.

### Bland pricing

Bland publishes one number per plan, and it covers the language model, transcription, and speech with no token charges. Phone is billed separately, on a customer's own carrier or on Bland's at pass-through cost, as are transfer minutes and a $0.015 minimum on each outbound attempt using Bland's telephony.

Warm transfer, a BAA, and dedicated GPUs run by Bland sit on Enterprise.

### Retell pricing

Retell advertises $0.07 to $0.31 per minute, and where a team lands depends on what it picks. The language model, voice infrastructure, voice, and phone each bill on their own line, and Twilio phone adds $0.015. Retell lists one language model alone at $0.384 per minute.

Once a prompt passes 4,000 tokens Retell scales billed time, so a 12,000-token agent bills a 60-second call as 180 seconds.

### Vapi pricing

Vapi's $0.05 is hosting only. Transcription tops out at $0.0099, a language model at $0.0452, and a voice at $0.0238 per minute on its calculator, each billed at provider cost.

Vapi's Pro package takes 10% of hosting with a $999 monthly minimum. Vapi says "Models pass-through at cost", so a price change at any provider reaches a bill.

### ElevenLabs pricing

ElevenLabs' call minute is $0.08 past a plan's allowance, with speech and transcription inside it, and calls above a concurrency limit bill at $0.16, double the standard rate. A language model is billed on top by the model chosen, with Gemini 2.5 Flash as the default on that calculator at $0.0029 a minute. ElevenLabs charges no telephony fee, and a connected provider bills its own carrier charges.

### Value comparison

The four bills below price the AI in one minute before phone, using Bland's published self-serve Start rate, Retell on GPT-4.1 with an ElevenLabs Flash voice, the top of every range on Vapi's calculator, and ElevenLabs' call minute with its calculator's default model. Each total rests on its own basis, so none of them ranks against another.

Retell's bill runs across three companies, Vapi's across four, and ElevenLabs' across two, while Bland's is one rate from one company.

| Vendor | What a minute pays for | Total per minute | Phone |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bland Start (self-serve) | All AI: model, transcription, speech $0.14 | $0.14 before phone | Billed separately at carrier cost |
| Retell | Voice infrastructure $0.055, GPT-4.1 $0.045, ElevenLabs Flash voice $0.04 | $0.14 before phone | Twilio at $0.015 a minute, billed on top |
| Vapi | Hosting $0.05, Transcription $0.0099, Language model $0.0452, Voice $0.0238 | $0.1289 before phone | Free on Vapi numbers, billed on top on Twilio at up to $0.014 a minute |
| ElevenLabs Agents | Call minute $0.08, Gemini 2.5 Flash, the calculator's default model $0.0029 | $0.0829 before phone | No ElevenLabs telephony fee, with a connected provider billing on top |

Bland Start (self-serve): Self-serve Start has no platform fee. Self-serve Build is $0.12 a minute plus $299 a month. Phone and transfers bill separately. Retell: Retell Voice Infra, GPT-4.1, and an ElevenLabs Flash voice, before Twilio phone minutes. Vapi: Hosting plus the top of each range on Vapi's pricing calculator, before phone. ElevenLabs Agents: ElevenLabs call minute plus its pricing calculator's default model, before the customer's own phone provider.

Add-ons such as PII removal, which strips personal data from a call, sit on top of Retell's line, so a total is a finished bill only once every model and add-on on it is priced.

### What does each Bland plan include?

Enterprise is the plan regulated teams buy. It adds native iMessage agents alongside SMS and web chat, warm transfers, guardrails, a BAA, SSO, data residency, dedicated orchestration with dedicated GPUs run by Bland, and forward-deployed engineers who work beside a customer's team, with concurrency contracted to its volume and custom pricing.

| Included | Self-serve: Start | Self-serve: Build | Enterprise (custom) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price per minute | $0.14 | $0.12 | Custom |
| Platform fee | $0 | $299 a month | Contracted to volume |
| Transfer time per minute | $0.05 | $0.04 | Custom |
| Concurrent calls | 10 | 50 | Custom |
| Calls a day | 100 | 2,000 | Unlimited |
| Knowledge bases | 10 | 50 | Unlimited |
| Voices | 1 | 5 | Unlimited |
| Uptime SLA | 99.9% | 99.9% | 99.9% |
| Pathways, integrations, and automations | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| iMessage, SMS, and web chat | No | No | Yes |
| Warm transfers and guardrails | No | No | Yes |
| BAA, SSO, and data residency | No | No | Yes |
| Dedicated orchestration and GPUs | No | No | Yes |
| Forward-deployed engineers | No | No | Yes |

## How do they handle security and uptime?

Bland, Retell, Vapi, and ElevenLabs all report SOC 2 Type II and GDPR, and they part ways on medical calls, card payments, deployment, and uptime. Bland and ElevenLabs both hold FedRAMP 20x Class A, and Bland offers a 99.9% uptime SLA on every plan.

Retell markets "HIPAA-Compliant Patient Calls" and gives no PCI status. It advertises "We guarantee >99.9% uptime", while its contract promises "commercially reasonable efforts" at 99.5%, excluding up to six hours a month of scheduled maintenance.

Vapi sells HIPAA mode as a $2,000 monthly add-on and offers a PCI mode. Vapi lists a "99% uptime SLA" on its Pro package and a "99.9% uptime SLA" on Premier.

ElevenLabs lists HIPAA, PCI DSS 4.0.1 Level 1, ISO 27001:2022, and FedRAMP 20x Class A, and says HIPAA support is available when Zero Retention Mode is enabled and a BAA is in place, which limits the language models and analytics a customer can use.

For fraud, ElevenLabs offers a blocklist but no maintained fraud list of its own, no blocking of caller ID substitutions or country codes, and no dashboard for antifraud policy, while Bland keeps its own list of known fraudulent callers with country-code rules, per-caller rate limits, and blocking of withheld caller IDs.

Bland includes a BAA on Enterprise. Its [security program](https://www.bland.ai/trust-security) self-attests to [PCI DSS](https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/standards/pci-dss/) v4.0.1 and holds FedRAMP 20x Class A, and Bland offers a 99.9% uptime SLA on every plan. Bland's pages on [HIPAA compliant voice AI](/hipaa-compliant-voice-ai) and [PCI compliant voice AI](/pci-compliant-voice-ai) go further.

![Bland's trust page, which reads Pass security review on day one, with voice, text to speech, transcription, and language models all owned and operated by Bland.](/images/compare/bland-trust.jpg)

## Which should a team pick?

A team that needs dedicated GPUs run by Bland, one AI company to review, and the top-ranked voice on Design Arena's August 2026 chart should pick Bland, with more than 250 enterprise customers and over 1.3 billion calls handled. Bland's published rates cover all of its AI, forward-deployed engineers work beside a customer's team on Enterprise, and its language model is a closed-source model it developed itself.

<div class="cmp-usewhen"><div class="cmp-usewhen-own"><p><strong>Use Bland when</strong></p><ul><li>A team wants dedicated orchestration and dedicated GPUs run by Bland</li><li>A security team wants to review one AI company, not a chain of them</li><li>Callers need the most realistic voices</li><li>A team wants Bland's forward-deployed engineers to build and launch its first agent alongside it, on Enterprise</li></ul></div><div><p><strong>Use Retell when</strong></p><ul><li>A small engineering team wants to monitor, test, and toggle between different language models and voice vendors</li><li>Call volume is modest, and a team will manage its own vendor bills</li><li>A security team will review each AI vendor the team adds</li></ul></div></div>

<div class="cmp-usewhen"><div class="cmp-usewhen-own"><p><strong>Use Vapi when</strong></p><ul><li>Developers wire each transcriber, model, and voice through an API</li><li>A team owns the whole assembly, including what happens when one provider fails</li></ul></div><div><p><strong>Use ElevenLabs when</strong></p><ul><li>A team builds on ElevenLabs voices and manages the separate language model bill</li><li>A team brings its own language model and keeps it running</li></ul></div></div>

### What results look like with Bland

Idaho Housing and Finance Association saves $750,000 a year by replacing its IVR with Bland, which handles 4,000 inbound calls a day and cut average call time by 20%.

> "We save thousands of dollars a day."

Greg Blake, Chief Information Officer, Idaho Housing and Finance Association

### How was this comparison made?

Bland, Retell, Vapi, and ElevenLabs were compared on who builds the AI, price per minute with each basis stated, voice realism, deployment, security, and uptime, using each company's own pricing, terms, and documentation as of November 2026. Voice scores come from Design Arena's chart of 4 August 2026.

### Related comparisons

- Bland against one rival: [Bland vs Retell](/compare/bland-vs-retell), [Bland vs Vapi](/compare/bland-vs-vapi), and [Bland vs ElevenLabs](/compare/bland-vs-elevenlabs)
- Reviews: [Retell AI review](/blog/bland-ai-vs-retell-ai), [Vapi review](/blog/bland-vs-vapi-which-ai-voice-platform-is-right-for-enterprise), and [ElevenLabs review](/blog/elevenlabs-review)
- Rivals head to head: [Retell vs Vapi](/blog/retell-vs-vapi), [Retell vs ElevenLabs](/blog/retell-ai-vs-elevenlabs), and [Vapi vs ElevenLabs](/blog/vapi-vs-elevenlabs)
- Alternatives: [ElevenLabs alternative for enterprises](/elevenlabs-alternative) and [Best ElevenLabs alternatives](/blog/elevenlabs-alternatives)
- All pages: Bland's [comparison hub](/compare)

## Frequently asked questions

### Which is better for enterprises, Bland, Retell, Vapi, or ElevenLabs?

Bland is the better choice for enterprise calls because it is full stack and publishes one self-serve rate for all of its AI. Enterprise customers get dedicated orchestration and dedicated GPUs run by Bland. Retell and Vapi rely on outside models, and ElevenLabs does once a customer picks its own language model.

### Which of the four is cheapest per minute?

None of the four can be ranked on the advertised figure, because each covers a different slice of a call. Vapi's $0.05 is hosting only, ElevenLabs' $0.08 call minute bills a language model on top, Retell advertises $0.07 to $0.31, and Bland's $0.14 on self-serve Start or $0.12 on self-serve Build covers all of its AI before phone, which is billed on top of every one.

### Does Bland's rate include phone?

No, Bland's rate covers its language model, transcription, and speech, and phone is billed separately, on a customer's own carrier or on Bland's at pass-through cost. Retell bills phone on its own line at $0.015 per minute on Twilio, Vapi's own numbers are free, and ElevenLabs charges no telephony fee.

### Does Retell, Vapi, or ElevenLabs support iMessage?

Retell doesn't offer iMessage agents, Vapi doesn't offer iMessage agents, and ElevenLabs doesn't offer iMessage agents, as of November 2026. Bland runs branded iMessage agents natively on Enterprise, which send and receive photos, videos, files, voice memos, and tapbacks, and share the same pathways as its voice agents.

### Which of the four are HIPAA compliant?

All four offer a path to HIPAA, and the terms differ. Retell customers can self-sign a BAA, Vapi sells HIPAA mode at $2,000 a month, ElevenLabs applies its BAA only with Zero Retention Mode engaged, and Bland includes a BAA on Enterprise.

### Which has the most realistic voice?

Bland, on Design Arena's chart of 4 August 2026, where Bland Speech v3 ranked 1st of 13 AI voices at 1365, ElevenLabs' Eleven v3 ranked 12th at 938, and GPT Realtime 2, the highest outside voice a Retell or Vapi customer can choose, ranked 4th at 1119.

### Does Bland use an open-source model?

No, Bland operates a closed-source model that it developed itself, so its language model isn't an open-source model and no outside AI lab sits behind it.

### Is Bland only for outbound calls?

No, Bland runs inbound and outbound calls, including AI receptionist and contact center work, and it also runs SMS and web chat.

### Is Bland only for developers?

No, Bland isn't only for developers. Pathways gives teams a visual builder, Norm helps build agents, and on Enterprise forward-deployed engineers build alongside a customer's team.