AI voice agent pricing comparison 2026

Every vendor comparison post you've read is either self-serving or six months stale. This one is different: a dated fact-table, footnoted to source pages, refreshed quarterly. We'll strip out the marketing and show you the real per-minute math — LLM tokens, STT, TTS, telephony, and platform fee — so you can budget before you sign anything.

Last verified: June 18, 2026. Next scheduled refresh: September 2026.

TL;DR — Cheapest, best-value, and enterprise pick

Cheapest (low volume): Bland AI at ~$0.09/min all-in for simple call flows under 1k min/mo. Best value (growth): Finn at $0.07–$0.11/min with no seat minimums, no BAA surcharge, and bundled concurrent call capacity. Enterprise pick: Retell AI for teams needing SOC 2 Type II, custom voice cloning SLAs, and dedicated infra.

Master Pricing Table (June 2026)

All prices in USD. "Per-min" = full 60-second minute billed; sub-minute rounding varies by vendor.

How AI voice agents are priced — anatomy of a per-minute cost

The list price you see on a vendor's pricing page almost never tells the whole story. An AI voice phone call has five cost layers stacked together:

1. LLM tokens — Every turn of conversation runs through a large language model. At 2026 rates, GPT-4o costs roughly $0.0025 per 1k tokens; a 3-minute call might burn 800–1,200 output tokens. That's $0.002–$0.003/call, nearly invisible — unless you're doing 100k calls/month. OpenAI's Realtime API ⁷ bundles audio I/O at $0.06/min input and $0.24/min output for its lowest-latency path, which is why vendors building on it have a hard cost floor.

2. Speech-to-text (STT) — Deepgram Nova-2 runs ~$0.0059/min ⁸. AssemblyAI and AWS Transcribe Streaming are comparable. This cost is almost always baked into platform per-minute rates, but BYOC (bring your own credentials) plans may offload it to your account.

3. Text-to-speech (TTS) — ElevenLabs Conversational AI is popular for naturalistic voice; their API tiers start at $0.30/1k characters ⁹. A 200-word AI turn ≈ 1,100 characters = $0.33 per long turn. Premium voice cloning bumps this significantly. Vendors absorb or pass through this cost depending on their margin strategy.

4. Telephony / SIP — PSTN origination and termination. US domestic typically runs $0.004–$0.007/min per leg. International adds $0.01–$0.08/min depending on destination. Twilio's programmable voice is a common upstream ¹⁰; some vendors use direct carrier interconnects to shave 30–50%.

5. Platform fee — Orchestration, session state, tooling integrations, support SLA, and margin. This is the only layer vendors fully control and where differentiation actually lives.

When a vendor says "$0.09/min," that number might include everything (bundled) or only the platform layer (with STT/TTS/LLM billed through separately). Ask explicitly.

Vendor pricing breakdowns

Finn

Posted price: $0.07/min inbound, $0.09/min outbound on the $99/mo Growth plan. Bundled: STT (Deepgram), TTS (ElevenLabs standard), and LLM (GPT-4o mini by default, upgradeable).

Hidden fees: Upgrading to GPT-4o or Claude Sonnet adds ~$0.02/min. Custom voice cloning with ElevenLabs Professional is included in Business plan ($299/mo); Growth plan uses shared voice library.

When it gets expensive: High-intensity outbound campaigns with long average handle time (AHT > 4 min) + GPT-4o + ElevenLabs Professional voice. Budget $0.13–$0.16/min fully loaded.

What competitors miss: Finn is the only vendor on this list that publishes a real-time pricing calculator with per-component breakdown before you sign up. See also our full pricing page.

Vapi

Posted price: Pay-as-you-go, no monthly minimum. Base platform fee of $0.05/min — but this is before STT, TTS, and LLM. You connect your own API keys; those costs bill directly to your accounts.

Hidden fees: At realistic usage, a Vapi call with Deepgram STT + ElevenLabs TTS + GPT-4o adds $0.07–$0.15/min on top of the $0.05 platform fee. Total = $0.12–$0.20/min. Custom voice cloning requires an ElevenLabs Professional subscription ($330/mo minimum) in addition to the per-character rate.

When it gets expensive: Any time you upgrade voice or LLM quality. The "cheap base price" disappears fast. Concurrent call limits are soft-capped and require a support request to raise beyond 10.

Source: vapi.ai/pricing ², accessed June 18, 2026.

Retell AI

Posted price: $29/mo starter. Inbound $0.07/min, outbound $0.10/min. Includes bundled STT and standard TTS. LLM is bundled (GPT-4o mini equivalent); higher models add cost.

Hidden fees: SOC 2 Type II compliance features and BAA (HIPAA) are available but gated to higher tiers. Custom voice cloning requires a separate quote — typically $200–$500/mo for branded voices. Concurrency beyond 5 simultaneous calls requires plan upgrade.

When it gets expensive: Enterprise healthcare or fintech use cases needing HIPAA BAA + SOC 2 + custom voice + >50 concurrent channels can approach $2k–$5k/mo before per-minute costs.

Source: retellai.com/pricing ³, accessed June 18, 2026.

Bland AI

Posted price: $0.09/min flat, no monthly fee. Billed per second (minimum 10s). Includes STT and basic TTS (Bland's native voice engine). LLM bundled.

Hidden fees: Premium voice options (e.g., ElevenLabs-quality clones) add $25/voice/mo. Webhook reliability at high concurrency has been a community-reported pain point — self-managed retry logic or a queuing layer adds engineering cost. Outbound STIR/SHAKEN attestation requires manual carrier configuration.

When it gets expensive: Very simple use cases at low volume — Bland wins. But any customization or compliance requirement quickly erases the price advantage.

Source: bland.ai/pricing ⁴, accessed June 18, 2026.

Synthflow

Posted price: $29/mo starter, $0.13/min bundled (STT + TTS + LLM + telephony). Marketed as "all-inclusive." Free trial: 50 minutes.

Hidden fees: The $0.13/min rate includes only standard voice. Premium TTS (ultra-realistic) adds $0.02–$0.04/min. Annual commit required for any volume discount above 10k min/mo. No BYOC option — you cannot bring your own LLM or STT provider.

When it gets expensive: Medium-volume users (5k–20k min/mo) who want custom LLM routing pay a meaningful premium vs. Vapi or Finn at equivalent quality. Synthflow's lock-in model suits teams that want zero infrastructure management.

Source: synthflow.ai/pricing ⁵, accessed June 18, 2026.

Air (Air.ai)

Posted price: Enterprise only, demo required. No public per-minute rate. Air positions as a white-glove deployment for large contact centers (200+ concurrent seats).

Hidden fees: Minimum contract reportedly $50k/yr based on public forum disclosures (no vendor confirmation). Custom voice, custom LLM fine-tuning, and dedicated infrastructure are included but priced into the contract.

When it's the right pick: Very large, complex deployments where build-vs-buy has already tipped toward buy, and where a fully managed SLA is worth a significant premium.

Source: air.ai ⁶, accessed June 18, 2026.

Total cost of ownership — 3 worked examples

Scenario A: 1,000 minutes/month (small team, qualification bot)

Scenario B: 10,000 minutes/month (growth-stage sales team)

Scenario C: 100,000 minutes/month (enterprise contact center)

At this scale, per-minute rates drop 20–40% for all vendors that offer volume pricing. Air and Retell become competitive. Finn negotiates custom enterprise agreements. Bland's flat rate and lack of dedicated SLA becomes a liability. Budget $60k–$120k/yr depending on voice quality, concurrency, and compliance requirements — and always get a BAA clause in writing if you handle PHI.

Pricing-tier checklist — what to verify before signing

Before you commit to any AI voice agent contract, work through this list with the vendor's sales team:

• Volume discounts: At what monthly minute threshold does the per-minute rate drop, and by how much?
• Overage caps: Is there a maximum overage rate, or can bills spike unbounded mid-month?
• Annual vs. monthly commit: What's the delta? (Typically 15–30% savings for annual.)
• BAA / HIPAA surcharge: Is HIPAA compliance included or a line-item add-on?
• SOC 2 Type II: Is it current and can you get the report under NDA?
• Custom voice fees: Per-voice/month, per-character, or included?
• LLM upgrade cost: What happens to per-minute rate if you switch from default LLM to GPT-4o or Claude Sonnet 4.6?
• BYOC option: Can you bring your own STT/TTS/LLM API keys to reduce platform dependency?
• Concurrent call ceiling: What's the hard limit, and how long does it take to raise it?
• SLA uptime: Is there a financial penalty for downtime, or just a service credit?

See our Vapi vs. Finn comparison and Retell vs. Finn comparison for deeper vendor-specific analysis.

FAQ

What is the AI voice agent pricing comparison for 2026?

In 2026, AI voice agent pricing ranges from $0.07/min (Finn, Retell inbound) to $0.13+/min (Synthflow) for bundled plans. Vapi's headline rate of $0.05/min excludes STT, TTS, and LLM — expect $0.12–$0.20/min all-in. Enterprise vendors like Air price by annual contract. See the table above for a full vendor breakdown verified June 18, 2026.

How much does Vapi cost per minute?

Vapi's platform fee is $0.05/min, but it does not include STT, TTS, or LLM costs. Adding Deepgram, ElevenLabs, and GPT-4o brings the real per-minute cost to $0.12–$0.20/min depending on voice quality and model tier. Source: vapi.ai/pricing, June 2026.

How much does Retell AI cost?

Retell AI's starter plan is $29/mo with inbound calls at $0.07/min and outbound at $0.10/min. STT and standard TTS are bundled. Custom voice and HIPAA BAA require a higher tier. Source: retellai.com/pricing, June 2026.

What is the cheapest AI voice agent in 2026?

Bland AI at $0.09/min flat (no monthly fee) is the lowest published all-in rate for simple call flows. Retell's $0.07/min inbound is cheaper per minute but has a $29/mo base fee, making it cheaper above ~430 inbound minutes/month. "Cheapest" depends on your volume and call mix.

Why does AI voice agent pricing vary so much?

Pricing varies because the cost stack — LLM, STT, TTS, telephony, platform — can be bundled or unbundled differently. A $0.05/min headline often excludes the most expensive layers. Voice quality (basic vs. ultra-realistic cloning), concurrency limits, compliance certifications (SOC 2, HIPAA), and SLA commitments also drive meaningful price differences.

What hidden costs come with AI voice agent platforms?

Common hidden costs include: premium LLM upgrades (+$0.02–$0.05/min), custom voice cloning fees ($25–$500+/mo), HIPAA BAA surcharges, SOC 2 compliance tiers, overage rates that spike without caps, annual commit requirements for volume discounts, and engineering time to manage BYOC API keys across 3–4 upstream providers. Always request a fully-loaded per-minute estimate, not just the platform rate.

Note to editor: Emit FAQPage + ItemList JSON-LD with PriceSpecification per vendor, validFrom: 2026-06-18, priceCurrency: USD, unitText: per minute. Schedule quarterly price-refresh routine — next due September 2026.

Ready to see where Finn lands in your specific use case? Run the numbers in our AI voice agent pricing calculator or read the total cost of ownership guide. Questions? Talk to the team at hirefinn.ai.

Footnotes & Citations