Retell AI
Voice agents at $0.07-$0.31/min with itemized infra plus LLM pricing
What is Retell AI?
Retell AI is a voice agent platform optimized for ~600ms turn latency with proprietary voice orchestration, drag-and-drop flow builder, and function calling for booking, payments, and transfers. Unlike Vapi's pass-through model, Retell publishes an itemized per-minute breakdown ($0.055 infrastructure + $0.015 TTS + LLM-dependent cost), making the effective price roughly $0.07-$0.31/minute depending on which LLM you pick.
Voice agents and conversational AI platforms for calls, qualification, scheduling, support, and audio workflows.
See the full Voice AI guide to compare more tools, buyer criteria, and related workflows.
Use cases to evaluate
Run inbound healthcare appointment scheduling with HIPAA-grade knowledge base and PII removal toggles
Deploy a debt-collection outbound campaign with branded call ID and call-transfer guardrails
Build a logistics dispatch agent that confirms delivery windows and reschedules via function calling
Power a Shopify support line that pulls order status from a KB and escalates to a human on refunds
Fit to evaluate
Operators in healthcare, financial services, logistics, hospitality who want a productised voice platform
Teams that want itemised per-minute economics they can model in a spreadsheet before going live
Sales and support orgs replacing IVR or first-line voice with QA-tested agent flows
Companies needing HIPAA, SOC 2 Type II, and GDPR compliance out of the box
Business fit
Right for you if you want a more product-shaped voice platform with built-in QA tooling, knowledge bases, and a clean flow builder, and you value a transparent itemized per-minute breakdown over Vapi's BYO-key complexity. Skip if you need the absolute lowest possible per-minute cost on bring-your-own-everything, since Retell's $0.055/min infrastructure fee is slightly higher than Vapi's $0.05 platform fee. Skip if your use case demands deep model customization Retell doesn't expose, or if you need to self-host for compliance (cloud-only).
How to evaluate Retell AI
Use this category when missed calls, slow qualification, or phone support volume affects revenue.
Confirm the exact workflow
Map Retell AI to one concrete workflow first, such as run inbound healthcare appointment scheduling with hipaa-grade knowledge base and pii removal toggles. Avoid buying before the owner, trigger, output, and success metric are clear.
Check category fit
Test voice quality, latency, interruptions, and escalation behavior.
Compare practical alternatives
Shortlist Retell AI against Vapi, Bland AI, Synthflow so the decision is based on fit, effort, and workflow ownership rather than brand recognition alone.
Validate cost and rollout effort
Pay-as-you-go starts at $0 with $10 free credits. Per-minute pricing: Retell infrastructure $0.055/min + TTS $0.015/min + LLM (GPT-4.1 $0.045, GPT-5 $0.04, Claude 4.5 Sonnet $0.08, Gemini 2.5 Flash $0.035). Telephony free via Twilio/Telnyx pass-through. Add-ons: Knowledge Base $0.005/min, PII removal $0.01/min, Branded Call ID $0.10/outbound, phone numbers $2/mo, concurrency 20 free then $8/line/mo. Enterprise is custom-quoted with unlimited concurrency and dedicated compliance. Also confirm implementation time, support needs, and whether the medium setup matches your team.
Compare Retell AI with alternatives
Use this quick comparison before booking demos or moving data into a new system.
| Primary workflow | Run inbound healthcare appointment scheduling with HIPAA-grade knowledge base and PII removal toggles, Deploy a debt-collection outbound campaign with branded call ID and call-transfer guardrails |
|---|---|
| Best-fit team | Operators in healthcare, financial services, logistics, hospitality who want a productised voice platform, Teams that want itemised per-minute economics they can model in a spreadsheet before going live |
| Implementation effort | Medium setup and maintenance profile |
| Pricing check | Itemized per-minute: infrastructure plus TTS plus LLM, with per-minute add-ons and per-line concurrency |
| Closest alternatives | VapiBland AISynthflowElevenLabs Conversational AI |
Retell AI pricing
| Model | Itemized per-minute: infrastructure plus TTS plus LLM, with per-minute add-ons and per-line concurrency |
|---|---|
| Snapshot | Pay-as-you-go starts at $0 with $10 free credits. Per-minute pricing: Retell infrastructure $0.055/min + TTS $0.015/min + LLM (GPT-4.1 $0.045, GPT-5 $0.04, Claude 4.5 Sonnet $0.08, Gemini 2.5 Flash $0.035). Telephony free via Twilio/Telnyx pass-through. Add-ons: Knowledge Base $0.005/min, PII removal $0.01/min, Branded Call ID $0.10/outbound, phone numbers $2/mo, concurrency 20 free then $8/line/mo. Enterprise is custom-quoted with unlimited concurrency and dedicated compliance. |
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Common questions about Retell AI
What is Retell AI?
Retell AI is a voice agent platform optimized for ~600ms turn latency with proprietary voice orchestration, drag-and-drop flow builder, and function calling for booking, payments, and transfers. Unlike Vapi's pass-through model, Retell publishes an itemized per-minute breakdown ($0.055 infrastructure + $0.015 TTS + LLM-dependent cost), making the effective price roughly $0.07-$0.31/minute depending on which LLM you pick.
What is Retell AI used for?
Common use cases: Run inbound healthcare appointment scheduling with HIPAA-grade knowledge base and PII removal toggles; Deploy a debt-collection outbound campaign with branded call ID and call-transfer guardrails; Build a logistics dispatch agent that confirms delivery windows and reschedules via function calling; Power a Shopify support line that pulls order status from a KB and escalates to a human on refunds.
How much does Retell AI cost?
Pay-as-you-go starts at $0 with $10 free credits. Per-minute pricing: Retell infrastructure $0.055/min + TTS $0.015/min + LLM (GPT-4.1 $0.045, GPT-5 $0.04, Claude 4.5 Sonnet $0.08, Gemini 2.5 Flash $0.035). Telephony free via Twilio/Telnyx pass-through. Add-ons: Knowledge Base $0.005/min, PII removal $0.01/min, Branded Call ID $0.10/outbound, phone numbers $2/mo, concurrency 20 free then $8/line/mo. Enterprise is custom-quoted with unlimited concurrency and dedicated compliance.
Who is Retell AI best for?
Retell AI fits Operators in healthcare, financial services, logistics, hospitality who want a productised voice platform, Teams that want itemised per-minute economics they can model in a spreadsheet before going live, Sales and support orgs replacing IVR or first-line voice with QA-tested agent flows, Companies needing HIPAA, SOC 2 Type II, and GDPR compliance out of the box. Right for you if you want a more product-shaped voice platform with built-in QA tooling, knowledge bases, and a clean flow builder, and you value a transparent itemized per-minute breakdown over Vapi's BYO-key complexity. Skip if you need the absolute lowest possible per-minute cost on bring-your-own-everything, since Retell's $0.055/min infrastructure fee is slightly higher than Vapi's $0.05 platform fee. Skip if your use case demands deep model customization Retell doesn't expose, or if you need to self-host for compliance (cloud-only).
What are alternatives to Retell AI?
Common alternatives to Retell AI include Vapi, Bland AI, Synthflow, ElevenLabs Conversational AI, PolyAI, Deepgram.