Retell AI
Get a working phone agent live in days, not months, with the call handling built in and the AI brain your choice.
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The middle path. Retell handles the voice side for you, but you still choose the AI 'brain' and see every cost on the bill. More done-for-you than a raw developer kit, more flexible than a locked-down bundle. A sensible default if you want control without wiring it all yourself.
About $0.13 to 0.31 for a minute of conversation, once the phone line and the AI are added in.
That's roughly $7.80–18.60 an hour. It is pay as you go, no monthly subscription.
Pricing
Show the cost breakdown
| What the platform charges to run the agent, before the phone line and the AI usage are added on. | $0.06 /min |
|---|---|
| The step that turns what the caller says out loud into text the AI can read. | — |
| The AI 'brain' that reads what the caller said and works out what to say back. | $0.05 /min |
| The step that turns the AI's written reply back into a spoken voice. | $0.02 /min |
| The phone line itself: the service that connects the call to a real phone number. Usually billed on top of the platform. | $0.02 /min |
| The total you actually pay for one minute of conversation once every piece is added up: the platform, the AI, the voice and the phone line. | $0.13–0.31 /min |
Retell bills by component. Voice infrastructure (speech-to-text included) is $0.055/min and text-to-speech adds $0.015/min, together the $0.07 voice-engine headline. The AI model is your pick: GPT-4.1 at $0.045/min is the recommended default, Gemini Flash is cheaper, Claude Sonnet dearer. The phone line is about $0.015/min. Typical all-in $0.13 to 0.31/min. Add-ons: knowledge base +$0.005, denoising +$0.005, PII removal +$0.01, AI QA $0.10/min (first 100 free), branded call +$0.10/outbound. $10 free credits. HIPAA/BAA is Enterprise-plan only; Enterprise volume can push the voice engine toward $0.05/min.
Every plan in one place: the monthly fee, what each one includes, and the features it unlocks. Anything beyond a plan's allowance, or on a pay-as-you-go tier, is billed at the per-minute rate above. A blank in the features means the vendor's plan page does not state it for that plan, not that it is unavailable.
| Pay as you go | Enterprise | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | — | Custom |
| Included | Pay per use | — |
| Plan notes | usage-based, $10 free credits | HIPAA/BAA and volume rates |
| What each plan unlocks | ||
| API access | Yes | Yes |
| Concurrent calls | 20 included, more on demand | No cap |
| Priority support | Community + Email | 24/7, named account manager |
| Analytics dashboard | Yes | Yes |
- Pay as you go —Pay per use
usage-based, $10 free credits
- API access
- Yes
- Concurrent calls
- 20 included, more on demand
- Priority support
- Community + Email
- Analytics dashboard
- Yes
- Enterprise Custom—
HIPAA/BAA and volume rates
- API access
- Yes
- Concurrent calls
- No cap
- Priority support
- 24/7, named account manager
- Analytics dashboard
- Yes
Prices in USD as set by the vendor · last checked 2026-06-03 · vendor pricing →
Slide your expected monthly volume to see roughly what Retell AI would cost.
A rough estimate from Retell AI's sourced rates, not a quote. Always confirm on the vendor's own pricing page before you commit.
At a glance
- Speech-to-text
- Retell (managed)
- Text-to-speech
- Retell Platform Voices, MiniMax, Fish Audio, Cartesia, OpenAI · Bring your own voice: you can upload or clone a custom voice instead of being limited to the platform's stock ones.
- Languages
- en, es
- Integrations
- Twilio, SIP trunk providers, Custom telephony
Compliance
Our full take
Retell’s headline is $0.07 a minute, and unlike a raw developer tool it bundles a fair bit into that. The part that hears the caller and the part that speaks back (the voice engine) come together for $0.055 plus $0.015. What it does not bundle is the AI model, the bit that actually decides what to say. You pick that, and you pay for it: GPT-4.1 is the recommended default at $0.045 a minute, Gemini Flash is cheaper, Claude Sonnet costs more. Add the phone line at about $0.015, and a realistic all-in sits between $0.13 and $0.31 a minute, depending on the model and the extras you switch on.
So Retell sits one notch more managed than a build-it-yourself tool. You still see the parts on the bill, but the speech side is handled for you, and the operational features come out of the box. You can plug in your own phone-number supplier (SIP trunking), hand a live call to a human with the AI’s summary read to them first (a warm transfer), and fire off a whole list of outbound calls from an uploaded spreadsheet, with no limit on how many run at once.
On compliance, Retell holds SOC 2 Type 1 and Type 2, GDPR, and HIPAA. One thing to plan for: HIPAA and the legal data-handling agreement that comes with it (the BAA) are on the Enterprise plan only. If you are in healthcare you cannot self-serve it on the pay-as-you-go tier; you have to contact sales. Worth knowing before you build a clinic workflow on the cheap plan.
A word on the add-ons, because they stack quietly. A knowledge base, background-noise removal, stripping out personal details, and automatic quality checks each add a few cents a minute, and the quality checks in particular cost $0.10 a minute once you pass the first hundred free. Read the per-minute lines before you commit to a high-volume campaign.
We have not placed our own test calls to Retell yet, so there are no Voxrater latency numbers here. The figures above are from Retell’s pricing page and compliance docs, captured 2026-05-30. The benchmark section fills in once we run the calls.
Retell AI compared
Our in-depth pieces that put Retell AI side by side with the field, with the sourced numbers and a clear pick.
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Alternatives to Retell AI
Other platforms that overlap with Retell AI on the same kind of work, ranked by how many capabilities they share, then by cheaper all-in cost per minute. Compare any of them side by side on the compare page.
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Sources
- Retell AI pricing page re-captured 2026-06-02 for the quarterly re-verification; pricing reviewed against the live page (screenshot in evidence/). · captured 2026-06-02
- Retell plan page: per-plan features (concurrency, API, analytics, support tiers) · captured 2026-05-31
- Retell pricing page: component rates, LLM options, add-ons, free credits · captured 2026-05-30
- Retell docs: SOC 2 Type 1 and 2, HIPAA, GDPR · captured 2026-05-30
- Retell blog: SIP trunking and telephony · captured 2026-05-30
- Retell changelog: warm transfer with whisper summary, batch calling · captured 2026-05-30
- Retell homepage: multilingual agents, positioning · captured 2026-05-30