Retell AI alternatives

Retell AI is a capable pay-as-you-go voice-agent platform, and many teams are well served by it. The buyers who search for alternatives usually cite the shape of its published pricing rather than any single number. Retell prices calls as components: voice infrastructure is $0.055/minute, the language model adds its own per-minute rate ($0.003–$0.16/minute for standard models, with "fast" variants listed up to $0.32/minute), text-to-speech adds $0.015–$0.04/minute by provider, and standard telephony is listed at $0.015/minute. The advertised all-in range is $0.07–$0.31/minute — built from standard-tier components, so a fast-tier configuration can compute above it — and estimating a bill means normalizing your own configured total rather than reading one rate off the page. Retell pricing, accessed 2026-08-18 (fast-tier LLM rates re-checked 2026-08-19).

Two further line items drive comparison shopping. First, several capabilities are separately priced add-ons: knowledge base +$0.005/minute, advanced denoising +$0.005/minute, safety guardrails +$0.005/minute, PII removal +$0.01/minute, and AI quality assurance at $0.10/minute after the first 100 free minutes. Second, concurrency: 20 concurrent calls are included, and additional concurrency is $8 per concurrent call per month, with uncapped concurrency reserved for custom-priced enterprise plans. Retell pricing, accessed 2026-08-18. None of this is unusual in the category — but if an evaluation stalls on any of these points, the platforms below publish enough detail to compare directly.

Top alternatives

The list is ordered with our own product first, disclosed transparently. Beyond that ordering, no ranking is implied; the right choice depends on your workload.

1. ThunderPhone (this site)

ThunderPhone is pay as you go with no subscription or seat fee, and each engine rate is the all-in engine price: Spark 2¢/minute, Bolt 5¢/minute, Storm 9¢/minute, with premium voice or language paths adding up to 3¢/minute and the builder displaying the current all-in rate. The catalog publishes a fixed total — 47 languages and 123 voices with automatic mid-call switching — and telephony supports direct VoIP connections or manual SIP configuration for any SIP trunk. Testing tooling includes AI-caller simulations, graded scenarios, regression suites with pass-rate gates, CI execution, and live-traffic A/B experiments (simulations are billable real calls). Public compliance posture: GDPR and HIPAA compliant; customers remain responsible for configuring their workflows, data handling, recordings, integrations, and notices.

Fits teams that want to price a workload from a published engine rate without assembling a component stack, and that need regression gates and live experiments in the release process.

2. Vapi

Vapi's Build plan charges $0.05/minute for call hosting, with speech-to-text, language model, and text-to-speech billed at provider cost on top — or $0 for providers where you bring your own API keys. Ten concurrent calls are included, with extra lines at $10/line/month. Compliance features are priced as add-ons: HIPAA compliance is $2,000/month and zero data retention is $1,000/month; the homepage states SOC 2, HIPAA, and PCI compliance (GDPR is not stated on the pages reviewed). Vapi pricing and Vapi HIPAA docs, accessed 2026-08-18.

Fits teams that already hold their own model and voice provider accounts and want pass-through economics with developer-level control over each component.

3. Bland AI

Bland takes the opposite approach to component pricing: an all-inclusive per-minute rate covering LLM, STT, and TTS, tiered at $0.14/$0.12/$0.11 talk per minute (Start/Build/Scale), with platform fees of $0/$299/$499 per month and tier limits including 10/50/100 concurrent calls. It advertises 40+ languages and offers self-hosted, customer-VPC, and on-premise deployments. SOC 2 Type II and PCI DSS v4.0 are third-party audited; HIPAA and GDPR are self-attested per its trust page. Bland pricing and Bland trust page, accessed 2026-08-18.

Fits teams that want one bundled per-minute number at higher committed tiers, or regulated-industry deployments where self-hosting options matter.

4. ElevenLabs Agents

ElevenLabs publishes full self-serve pricing for its agents product: tiers from $0 to $990/month, a $0.08/minute overage rate, and LLM plus telephony billed at cost. Its documentation covers SIP, batch outbound calling, testing and A/B tooling, and 31 agent languages. A HIPAA BAA is referenced on the pricing page, with SOC 2 and GDPR addressed in its enterprise materials (elevenlabs.io/pricing/agents, platform docs, and enterprise page, accessed 2026-08-19).

Fits teams that want self-serve tiered pricing with a published overage rate and are comfortable with model and telephony costs passed through at cost.

5. Phonely

Phonely publishes simple self-serve tiers aimed at small businesses: a free tier with 100 minutes, then $50/month and $150/month plans, with overage minutes at $0.25–$0.35/minute. Its pricing page lists SOC 2, GDPR, and PCI, with a HIPAA BAA available at the enterprise level, and it maintains public documentation at docs.phonely.ai (phonely.ai/pricing, accessed 2026-08-19).

Fits teams that want a small-business phone agent with a flat monthly plan and low setup surface rather than component-level configuration.

At a glance

All figures are point-in-time published numbers; each platform's real total depends on the configured components, so rerun the arithmetic with your own configuration.

How to evaluate an alternative

• Normalize the total, not the headline rate. Price your expected monthly connected minutes through each platform's full stack — infrastructure, model, voice, telephony, add-ons, platform fees.
• Model your concurrency peak. Check the included allowance and the price per additional concurrent call against your busiest hour, not your average.
• List the add-ons you actually need. Knowledge base, PII handling, denoising, and quality assurance are bundled on some platforms and separately metered on others.
• Verify language combinations, not totals. Confirm the specific language-and-voice pairs your callers need; provider-dependent catalogs vary by configuration.
• Test telephony with your real numbers. Confirm SIP trunk or number-import eligibility for your carrier and call direction before committing.
• Match compliance claims to your obligations. Distinguish audited attestations from self-attested claims, check BAA/DPA availability at your tier, and confirm what remains your configuration responsibility.
• Trial the testing workflow. Run a simulation on each shortlisted platform and check what test minutes cost — on several platforms, including ThunderPhone, test calls bill as real calls.

FAQ

Why do teams look for Retell AI alternatives?

The most-cited reasons in public pricing terms are structural: component-based per-minute pricing that requires normalizing a configured total (advertised all-in $0.07–$0.31/minute), separately metered feature add-ons, and concurrency purchased at $8 per concurrent call per month beyond the included 20. Retell pricing, accessed 2026-08-18.

Is any alternative simply cheaper than Retell?

No universal answer is defensible. As illustrative arithmetic at 10,000 connected minutes per month, ThunderPhone's base engines compute to $200 (Spark), $500 (Bolt), or $900 (Storm) before premium paths or setup-dependent charges, against Retell's advertised $700–$3,100 all-in range for the same minutes — but add-ons, telephony, and each team's configuration change every platform's real total.

Which alternative is most similar to Retell's component pricing?

Vapi. It also separates a per-minute platform fee ($0.05/minute hosting) from provider costs, which pass through at cost or at $0 with your own API keys. Vapi pricing, accessed 2026-08-18.

Which alternatives publish an all-inclusive per-minute rate?

Bland AI publishes bundled talk rates of $0.14/$0.12/$0.11 per minute by tier (with monthly platform fees at the higher tiers), and ThunderPhone publishes all-in engine rates of 2¢/5¢/9¢ per minute with no subscription; premium voice or language paths can add up to 3¢/minute. Bland pricing, accessed 2026-08-18.

How do the compliance postures compare?

Retell states SOC 2 Type 1 and 2, HIPAA with a BAA, and GDPR via DPA. Bland's SOC 2 Type II and PCI DSS are third-party audited, with HIPAA and GDPR self-attested; Vapi lists SOC 2, HIPAA, and PCI, with HIPAA priced as a $2,000/month add-on. ThunderPhone's public posture is GDPR and HIPAA compliant, with customers responsible for configuring their own workflows and notices. Treat labels as a starting point for your own assessment, not a determination.

Do these platforms support bringing existing phone numbers or SIP trunks?

Yes, in each case per their public docs: Retell advertises SIP trunking with no charge for custom telephony; Vapi and Bland document BYO SIP paths; ThunderPhone supports direct VoIP connections or manual SIP configuration for any SIP trunk; ElevenLabs documents SIP support. Confirm eligibility for your specific carrier, number, and call direction before migrating.

Sources and freshness

All third-party claims on this page were checked against the vendor pages cited inline, on the accessed dates shown (ElevenLabs Agents and Phonely on August 19, 2026). ThunderPhone pricing and product details reflect its published pricing and documentation as of August 19, 2026. Vendors change pricing and features often, so confirm against the live vendor pages before relying on them.