# Voice AI platform pricing compared (2026): What a minute really costs

By Samuel Oram-Jones

A headline rate per minute rarely matches a bill, because voice AI platforms price different slices of a call. This comparison of voice AI platform pricing reads what Bland, Retell, Vapi, ElevenLabs, Synthflow, and PolyAI publish, as of November 2026, and sets Bland's full stack rate beside the itemized alternatives on one basis.

## What does a voice AI agent cost per minute?

As of November 2026, a voice AI agent on a published rate costs about $0.05 a minute for Vapi hosting alone, up to $0.14 a minute on Bland's self-serve Start plan, before phone, but each figure covers a different slice of a call, and Synthflow and PolyAI publish no per-minute rate for a managed agent.

Enterprise pricing is custom, set with Bland's sales team.

Four pricing models sit behind those numbers. Bland sells one bundled rate that covers its language model, transcription, and speech. Retell and Vapi itemize a call into separate lines. ElevenLabs sells a call minute and bills a language model on top in Custom mode. Synthflow and PolyAI sell by quote, and Cognigy bills per conversation, again with no rate published.

| Provider | How a minute is priced | Published rate | What the rate covers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bland | One bundled rate | $0.14 on self-serve Start, $0.12 on self-serve Build | Language model, transcription, and speech |
| Retell | Itemized lines | $0.07 to $0.31 advertised | Voice infrastructure, a language model, and a voice, with phone and add-ons extra |
| Vapi | Hosting plus pass-through | $0.05 hosting | Hosting only, with transcription, model, and voice billed at provider cost |
| ElevenLabs | Call minute | $0.08 past a plan's allowance | Speech and transcription, with a language model billed on top in Custom mode |
| Synthflow | Annual contract | No public rate | Scoped by sales |
| PolyAI | Quote per minute | No public rate for a managed agent | A Model API sells at 2¢ a connected minute without telephony |

The useful comparison is a month of real calls, because a flat rate and a stack of lines only meet on a bill. [Usage vs outcome-based pricing](/blog/usage-vs-outcome-based-pricing) covers the outcome-based models Sierra and Decagon use, which sit outside a per-minute comparison, and [Compare enterprise voice AI agents](/compare) sets the providers side by side on more than price.

## What sits on top of the rate?

A voice AI agent bill adds phone, a language model, a voice, platform fees, and add-ons to the headline rate, and the providers differ most on which of those they leave outside it.

Bland's rate covers its language model, transcription, and speech with no token charges, and phone is billed separately, on a customer's own carrier or on Bland's at pass-through cost. Transfer minutes carry their own rate of $0.05 on self-serve Start and $0.04 on self-serve Build.

Bland runs its own models and never uses frontier models, so no model call leaves Bland for an outside AI service.

| 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.

Retell prices a call as three lines, and the choice of model moves the total most, because one language model alone lists at $0.384 a minute.

ElevenLabs charges $0.08 a call minute past a plan's allowance and $0.16 a minute for burst traffic, and a language model in Custom mode is billed on top.

ElevenLabs charges no telephony fee, and a connected phone provider bills its own carrier charges. Synthflow lists phone numbers at $1.50 a month and sells only an annual agreement, with no free plan or trial. PolyAI's Model API leaves telephony and orchestration out.

Bland's own price moved too. Bland replaced a flat $0.09 rate with Start and Build in December 2025, so a rate quoted before then is out of date. All of these figures carry the same caveat as everyone else's, which is that a published rate is a snapshot of one day.

## What does each provider cost per month?

Priced on one basis of AI cost before phone, a month of calls costs the same on Bland Start and a typical Retell setup, less on Bland Build above about 14,950 minutes, and less on ElevenLabs' call minute, while Vapi sits below Bland Start and above Bland Build at volume. Each table takes the lower of Bland's two plans against the provider's lines.

### How much does Retell cost per month?

Retell costs the same per minute as Bland Start before phone on a setup with GPT-4.1 and an ElevenLabs Flash voice, so the gap opens only where Build's lower rate applies. That setup is $0.055 of voice infrastructure, $0.045 for the model, and $0.04 for the voice, and Retell's phone line adds $0.015 on top.

| Minutes a month | Bland (self-serve) | Retell |
|---|---|---|
| 1,000 | $140 | $140 |
| 10,000 | $1,400 | $1,400 |
| 50,000 | $6,299 | $7,000 |
| 100,000 | $12,299 | $14,000 |

### How much does Vapi cost per month?

Vapi comes to less per minute than Bland Start at the top of each published range, before phone, but Bland Build overtakes it as volume grows, as the 50,000-minute row shows. The table uses hosting plus the highest listed transcription, model, and voice rates, and cheaper parts cost less. Vapi's phone line adds up to $0.014 a minute.

| Minutes a month | Bland (self-serve) | Vapi |
|---|---|---|
| 1,000 | $140 | $128.9 |
| 10,000 | $1,400 | $1,289 |
| 50,000 | $6,299 | $6,445 |
| 100,000 | $12,299 | $12,890 |

### How much does ElevenLabs cost per month?

ElevenLabs comes to less per minute than Bland on its call minute plus its calculator's default model. Each paid plan's fee buys its included minutes at about $0.08 a minute, from Creator at $22 for 275 minutes to Business at $990 for 12,375, and minutes past the allowance cost $0.08 each, so every plan bills about $0.08 a minute once its allowance is used up. The table names the largest plan a month's calls use up, adds $0.0029 a minute for Gemini 2.5 Flash, the calculator's default model, and leaves out a carrier, which bills separately.

| Minutes a month | Bland (self-serve) | ElevenLabs | ElevenLabs plan |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1,000 | $140 | $82.9 | Creator, $22 plus 725 extra minutes |
| 10,000 | $1,400 | $828.96 | Scale, $299 plus 6,262 extra minutes |
| 50,000 | $6,299 | $4,145 | Business, $990 plus 37,625 extra minutes |
| 100,000 | $12,299 | $8,290 | Business, $990 plus 87,625 extra minutes |

### How much do Synthflow and PolyAI cost per month?

Synthflow and PolyAI cost whatever a sales quote says, because neither publishes a per-minute rate for a managed agent. Synthflow sells one annual agreement scoped to call volume, phone system, integrations, security needs, and launch support. PolyAI prices ongoing use per minute by quote.

PolyAI also sells a separate Model API at 2¢ a connected minute, billed per second, with 10 included concurrent calls and no telephony. A model API is one part of a call, so it is not a monthly total.

These tables compare list rates, not quality. Bland runs a closed-source language model it developed itself, plus its own transcription and speech, so its one rate buys one AI company's work, while the itemized providers bill several. Compare [Bland vs Retell](/compare/bland-vs-retell), [Bland vs Vapi](/compare/bland-vs-vapi), [Bland vs ElevenLabs](/compare/bland-vs-elevenlabs), [Bland vs Synthflow](/compare/bland-vs-synthflow), and [Bland vs PolyAI](/compare/bland-vs-polyai) for the rest of each bill.

[Bland vs Cognigy](/compare/bland-vs-cognigy) covers the per-conversation model, and [Vapi vs Voiceflow](/blog/vapi-vs-voiceflow) sets two more builders side by side.

## What does each Bland plan include?

Bland sells three plans, self-serve Start at $0.14 a minute with no platform fee, self-serve Build at $0.12 a minute with a $299 monthly fee, and Enterprise priced to volume, and each rate covers all of Bland's AI before phone. Enterprise pricing is custom, set with Bland's sales team. Start is billed per minute with no commitment, and Build is the lower bill above about 14,950 minutes a month.

### What does each Bland plan include?

| 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 |

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.

Bland runs branded iMessage agents natively on Enterprise, on the same pathways as voice, and none of Retell, Vapi, Synthflow, ElevenLabs, and PolyAI offers iMessage agents.

### 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

A [demo](https://www.bland.ai/book-a-demo) built on a real call volume gives an Enterprise price in place of a list rate, and Bland's [pricing](https://www.bland.ai/pricing) holds the plan table.

## Frequently asked questions

### How much does a voice AI agent cost per minute?

A voice AI agent costs from $0.05 to $0.14 a minute on Bland's self-serve Start plan, before phone, on the published rates of ElevenLabs, Bland, Retell, and Vapi as of November 2026, and Synthflow and PolyAI publish no rate for a managed agent. The figures cover different parts of a call, so a monthly bill is the fair comparison.

### How much does Bland cost per minute?

Bland costs $0.14 per minute on its self-serve Start plan and $0.12 per minute on self-serve Build, which adds a $299 monthly platform fee, and phone is billed separately. Bland replaced its earlier flat $0.09 rate with these plans in December 2025. Enterprise pricing is custom, set with Bland's sales team.

### 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.

### Why do voice AI quotes differ so much?

Voice AI quotes differ because each provider prices a different slice of a call. Bland bundles its language model, transcription, and speech into one rate, while Retell and Vapi bill them as separate lines, ElevenLabs bills a language model on top in Custom mode, and Synthflow and PolyAI quote by contract.

### 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.

### 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.