Voice Agent Platforms

Bland AI vs Ultravox: $0.14 vs $0.05 a minute, tested on real calls

Pricing and features, side by side. Last verified October 25, 2026. Spot a wrong price? support@cozzo.io

Cozzo’s tip: start with the billing row. It’s where the surprises hide.

Cozzo’s verdict. Short answer: for most businesses building their own phone agent, Ultravox. It charges a flat $0.05 a minute with its speech-native model and voices included, replied faster on our Oct 20 phone calls (1.18 s vs 1.86 s median), passed more Round 4 receptionist calls (14 of 15 vs 10 of 15) and stopped talking much sooner when a caller cut in. Bland AI costs $0.14 a minute on its Start plan, but that rate also covers the LLM, transcription and premium voices, Start comes with an inbound number and 10 calls at once with no monthly fee, and in Round 5 it passed every gym call, including the after-hours one Ultravox missed. Pick Bland if you want a phone number and a no-code call flow in one place, or need more than 5 calls at once without paying for a plan.

5 of 8 rows differ

Bland AI and Ultravox compared: type, billing style, starting price, billing, hipaa / baa, best for, key features, last verified
Detail	Bland AI	Ultravox
TypeSame	BothVoice Agent Platforms
Billing styleSame	BothPay as you go
Starting priceDiffers	$0.14/min, $0 platform fee	$0.05/min (first 30 min free)
BillingDiffers	All-in per minute (no separate LLM/STT/TTS charges)	Per minute
HIPAA / BAADiffers	Enterprise: BAA, SSO and data residency; HIPAA-eligible with a signed BAA (pricing FAQ, checked Oct 17, 2026)	Not listed
Best forDiffers	Teams that want one flat per-minute price with no model pass-through bills	Developers wanting a speech-native model at a flat per-minute rate
Key featuresDiffers	LLM, transcription and premium voices included in the per-minute rate No token charges or model-provider pass-throughs Knowledge bases (10 on Start, 50 on Build)	30 free minutes SIP at 0.5¢/min (0.48¢ on Pro) Speech-native realtime model
Last verifiedSame	BothOctober 25, 2026

Cozzo testedVoice agent latency on real phone calls

Bland AI: 1.86 s median reply time (8 of 8, 11 calls)
Ultravox: 1.18 s median reply time (3 of 8, 11 calls)

Real phone calls, vendor defaults, Oct 20, 2026. Small samples, so treat close numbers as ties. See the method and limits.

Measured on Cozzo’s test calls

Bland AI: 1.86 s median reply time (11 phone calls); cost about $0.068 per ~29 s call (about $0.14/min)
Ultravox: 1.18 s median reply time (11 phone calls); cost about $0.24 in total, after the free 30 minutes ($0.05/min list price)

From our own phone calls on Oct 20, 2026, vendor defaults. Measured cost is what our calls cost, not a list price.

Cozzo-tested · Round 4 · October 22, 2026

AI receptionist test: Bland AI vs Ultravox

Calls passed out of 3 on each scenario, same dental-office prompt for both.

Bland AI · 10/15 · 1.94 s median reply

Book a new patient
Reschedule
Unknown insurance
Interruption
Dental emergency

Ultravox · 14/15 · 1.27 s median reply

Book a new patient
Reschedule
Unknown insurance
Interruption
Dental emergency

† Callback taken, but the number was read back wrong at least once. 3 calls per scenario; small samples.

See the AI receptionist benchmark →All voice AI benchmarks →

Bland AI Pricing Explained →Ultravox Pricing Explained →

Bland AI bills one per-minute rate that covers the LLM, real-time transcription and premium voices, with no token charges: $0.14 a minute on Start ($0 platform fee, 10 concurrent calls, 100 calls a day) or $0.12 a minute plus $299 a month on Build (50 concurrent calls, 2,000 a day). Transfer minutes cost $0.05 on Start and $0.04 on Build, and telephony is billed separately, on your own carrier or Bland’s Twilio at pass-through cost. Ultravox bills $0.05 for every minute an agent is on a call, covering its speech-native model and built-in voices, after 30 free minutes. Pay as you go has no monthly fee and a hard cap of 5 concurrent calls; Pro is $100 a month and removes the cap. Calls over Ultravox SIP add 0.5¢ a minute (0.48¢ on Pro), and the phone number and carrier minutes come from your own carrier.

Pick Ultravox if you want the lowest per-minute bill and the stronger results on our calls. One $0.05 rate covers the model and voice, it passed 14 of 15 Round 4 receptionist calls, replied in 1.18 s on our Oct 20 phone calls and stopped within 0.34–0.48 s when interrupted. Watch three things: Pay as you go handles only 5 calls at once (Pro, $100 a month, removes the cap), you bring your own phone carrier, and it failed the after-hours call in our Round 5 gym and roofing tests.

Pick Bland AI if you want everything in one self-serve account: an inbound number on the free Start plan, its LLM, transcription and voices in one $0.14 rate, 10 calls at once with no monthly fee, and a 99.9% uptime SLA on every plan. Its measured cost matched its list price, and it passed every gym call in Round 5. Watch the speed: it was slower on our calls (1.86 s median reply), kept talking 2.68 s when our caller cut in during Round 4, and Start caps you at 100 calls a day.

Cozzo tip: don’t compare $0.14 with $0.05 alone. Bland’s minute already includes the LLM and voice, and so does Ultravox’s, but only Ultravox needs your own phone carrier on top. Add your carrier’s per-minute rate before you decide.

Sources: Bland AI · Ultravox

Bland AI vs Ultravox: prices and plans

	Bland AI	Ultravox
How you pay	Start: $0.14/min, $0 platform fee. Build: $0.12/min + $299/mo. Enterprise: custom, contracted to your volume	$0.05/min after 30 free minutes. Pay as you go $0/month; Pro $100/month; Enterprise custom
What one minute includes	The LLM, real-time transcription and premium voices, with no token charges or model pass-throughs. Telephony is separate	Ultravox’s speech-native model and built-in voices, in one rate. An outside voice (your own ElevenLabs or Cartesia key) is billed by that provider
Phone numbers and carrier	An inbound number comes with Start ($15/mo value, per Bland). Your own Twilio or SIP trunk (your carrier bills you), or Bland’s Twilio at pass-through cost	No phone numbers listed: you connect Twilio, Telnyx, Plivo, Exotel or your own SIP, and they bill you. Ultravox SIP adds 0.5¢/min (0.48¢ on Pro)
Concurrent calls and caps	Start: 10 concurrent, 100 calls a day and an hour. Build: 50 concurrent, 2,000 a day, 1,000 an hour. Enterprise: sized to your volume	Up to 5 on Pay as you go (hard cap). No hard cap on Pro ($100/mo). Priority concurrency on Enterprise. No surge pricing
How calls are billed	Talk time per minute; transfer time $0.05/min on Start, $0.04/min on Build (no transfer fee on your own telephony). Rounding rules not on the pricing page	Rounded up to the next 6 seconds ($0.005 each); billed monthly in arrears, or early once usage passes $10 (Pay as you go) or $100 (Pro)
Free testing	Start is free: 2 credits plus an inbound number, no card required	30 free call minutes, plus unlimited free playground calls in the web console
Voices and knowledge	1 voice and 10 knowledge bases on Start, 5 and 50 on Build, unlimited on Enterprise. Custom voice actor on Enterprise	1 custom voice clone and 2 knowledge corpora on Pay as you go; 5 and 20 on Pro
Uptime and support	99.9% uptime SLA on every plan; Slack channel and forward-deployed engineers on Enterprise	Response SLA on Pro; priority SLA and org support on Enterprise
HIPAA / BAA	SOC 2 Type I and II, HIPAA, GDPR, PCI DSS (self-attested), per Bland’s FAQ. BAA on Enterprise	BAA on an Enterprise plan (Ultravox docs); any account can delete call data after each call
1,000 talk minutes a month	$140 on Start, plus telephony	$50 ($55 over Ultravox SIP), plus your carrier’s number and minutes
5,000 talk minutes a month	$700 on Start, or $899 on Build, plus telephony	$250 ($275 over Ultravox SIP), plus your carrier. Add $100 for Pro if you need more than 5 calls at once

Bland AI

How you pay: Start: $0.14/min, $0 platform fee. Build: $0.12/min + $299/mo. Enterprise: custom, contracted to your volume
What one minute includes: The LLM, real-time transcription and premium voices, with no token charges or model pass-throughs. Telephony is separate
Phone numbers and carrier: An inbound number comes with Start ($15/mo value, per Bland). Your own Twilio or SIP trunk (your carrier bills you), or Bland’s Twilio at pass-through cost
Concurrent calls and caps: Start: 10 concurrent, 100 calls a day and an hour. Build: 50 concurrent, 2,000 a day, 1,000 an hour. Enterprise: sized to your volume
How calls are billed: Talk time per minute; transfer time $0.05/min on Start, $0.04/min on Build (no transfer fee on your own telephony). Rounding rules not on the pricing page
Free testing: Start is free: 2 credits plus an inbound number, no card required
Voices and knowledge: 1 voice and 10 knowledge bases on Start, 5 and 50 on Build, unlimited on Enterprise. Custom voice actor on Enterprise
Uptime and support: 99.9% uptime SLA on every plan; Slack channel and forward-deployed engineers on Enterprise
HIPAA / BAA: SOC 2 Type I and II, HIPAA, GDPR, PCI DSS (self-attested), per Bland’s FAQ. BAA on Enterprise
1,000 talk minutes a month: $140 on Start, plus telephony
5,000 talk minutes a month: $700 on Start, or $899 on Build, plus telephony

Ultravox

How you pay: $0.05/min after 30 free minutes. Pay as you go $0/month; Pro $100/month; Enterprise custom
What one minute includes: Ultravox’s speech-native model and built-in voices, in one rate. An outside voice (your own ElevenLabs or Cartesia key) is billed by that provider
Phone numbers and carrier: No phone numbers listed: you connect Twilio, Telnyx, Plivo, Exotel or your own SIP, and they bill you. Ultravox SIP adds 0.5¢/min (0.48¢ on Pro)
Concurrent calls and caps: Up to 5 on Pay as you go (hard cap). No hard cap on Pro ($100/mo). Priority concurrency on Enterprise. No surge pricing
How calls are billed: Rounded up to the next 6 seconds ($0.005 each); billed monthly in arrears, or early once usage passes $10 (Pay as you go) or $100 (Pro)
Free testing: 30 free call minutes, plus unlimited free playground calls in the web console
Voices and knowledge: 1 custom voice clone and 2 knowledge corpora on Pay as you go; 5 and 20 on Pro
Uptime and support: Response SLA on Pro; priority SLA and org support on Enterprise
HIPAA / BAA: BAA on an Enterprise plan (Ultravox docs); any account can delete call data after each call
1,000 talk minutes a month: $50 ($55 over Ultravox SIP), plus your carrier’s number and minutes
5,000 talk minutes a month: $250 ($275 over Ultravox SIP), plus your carrier. Add $100 for Pro if you need more than 5 calls at once

Prices read on bland.ai/pricing and ultravox.ai/pricing on Oct 25, 2026; Ultravox billing and BAA details from docs.ultravox.ai. Monthly examples are Cozzo’s arithmetic for talk time only, before telephony, transfer minutes and Ultravox’s one-time 30 free minutes. Bland Start is cheaper than Build until about 14,950 minutes a month, but Start’s 100-calls-a-day cap can push busy lines to Build sooner.

What Cozzo measured on real calls

	Bland AI	Ultravox
Reply speed (Oct 20 phone calls)	1.86 s median, 11 calls, vendor defaults	1.18 s median, 11 calls, vendor defaults
Reply speed (browser link, no phone network)	Not tested	0.49 s median
Phone transcription errors (Oct 20)	8.2% word error rate on Bland’s own transcript of our caller	6.9%, all from the caller’s closing “Thanks, bye” being cut off as the call ended; the three test questions had no errors
Round 4 receptionist test (dental script)	10 of 15 calls passed; 1.94 s median reply; new-patient booking 1 of 3; took the callback on every unknown-insurance call but read the number back wrong at least once; kept talking 2.68 s after both scripted cut-ins, over the 2.0 s limit; emergency advice on 2 of 3 calls	14 of 15 calls passed; 1.27 s median reply; 2 of 3 new-patient bookings passed (they need a correct number read-back), and in the unknown-insurance calls it took the callback but read the number back wrong at least once; stopped within 0.34–0.48 s when interrupted
Round 5: gym	Passed every quote, booking, triage and after-hours call; kept talking 1.84 s when interrupted; 1,800 ms median reply	Passed quotes, bookings and triage; failed after-hours (said the gym was open until 9 PM, then offered a 10 PM tour); stopped within 0.42 s; 1,520 ms median
Round 5: career coaching	Booking, triage and after-hours passed (on after-hours it gave the hours but offered no slot or message); never stated a price on either quote call, as our caller spoke over its greeting; kept talking 2.44 s when interrupted; 1,830 ms median reply	Passed every call; stopped within 0.38 s; 1,340 ms median reply
Round 5: roofing & HVAC	Quote 1 of 2 and booking 1 of 2 (both scored with the callback read-back), read-back 2 of 4; emergency passed; after-hours failed; 1,950 ms median reply	Quote, booking and read-back unresolved (its own transcript had the right number, the recording didn’t); emergency passed but also told the caller to call 911 for a roof leak; after-hours failed; 1,600 ms median
Measured cost	About $0.068 per ~29 s call (about $0.14/min), the same as its list price	About $0.24 in total after the free 30 minutes (most of our Ultravox time was free)

Bland AI

Reply speed (Oct 20 phone calls): 1.86 s median, 11 calls, vendor defaults
Reply speed (browser link, no phone network): Not tested
Phone transcription errors (Oct 20): 8.2% word error rate on Bland’s own transcript of our caller
Round 4 receptionist test (dental script): 10 of 15 calls passed; 1.94 s median reply; new-patient booking 1 of 3; took the callback on every unknown-insurance call but read the number back wrong at least once; kept talking 2.68 s after both scripted cut-ins, over the 2.0 s limit; emergency advice on 2 of 3 calls
Round 5: gym: Passed every quote, booking, triage and after-hours call; kept talking 1.84 s when interrupted; 1,800 ms median reply
Round 5: career coaching: Booking, triage and after-hours passed (on after-hours it gave the hours but offered no slot or message); never stated a price on either quote call, as our caller spoke over its greeting; kept talking 2.44 s when interrupted; 1,830 ms median reply
Round 5: roofing & HVAC: Quote 1 of 2 and booking 1 of 2 (both scored with the callback read-back), read-back 2 of 4; emergency passed; after-hours failed; 1,950 ms median reply
Measured cost: About $0.068 per ~29 s call (about $0.14/min), the same as its list price

Ultravox

Reply speed (Oct 20 phone calls): 1.18 s median, 11 calls, vendor defaults
Reply speed (browser link, no phone network): 0.49 s median
Phone transcription errors (Oct 20): 6.9%, all from the caller’s closing “Thanks, bye” being cut off as the call ended; the three test questions had no errors
Round 4 receptionist test (dental script): 14 of 15 calls passed; 1.27 s median reply; 2 of 3 new-patient bookings passed (they need a correct number read-back), and in the unknown-insurance calls it took the callback but read the number back wrong at least once; stopped within 0.34–0.48 s when interrupted
Round 5: gym: Passed quotes, bookings and triage; failed after-hours (said the gym was open until 9 PM, then offered a 10 PM tour); stopped within 0.42 s; 1,520 ms median
Round 5: career coaching: Passed every call; stopped within 0.38 s; 1,340 ms median reply
Round 5: roofing & HVAC: Quote, booking and read-back unresolved (its own transcript had the right number, the recording didn’t); emergency passed but also told the caller to call 911 for a roof leak; after-hours failed; 1,600 ms median
Measured cost: About $0.24 in total after the free 30 minutes (most of our Ultravox time was free)

Small samples (1–3 calls per scenario per vendor in Rounds 4 and 5, 11 calls each on Oct 20), so treat close numbers as ties. Each vendor ran on its default model and voice. Full method and limits are on each benchmark page.

Questions

Is Ultravox cheaper than Bland AI?

On talk time, yes. Ultravox is $0.05 a minute and Bland’s Start plan $0.14, and both rates include the model and voice. So 1,000 talk minutes a month is $50 on Ultravox ($55 over Ultravox SIP) and $140 on Bland Start. Two things narrow the gap: with Ultravox you pay your own carrier for the number and minutes, and you add $100 a month for Pro if you need more than 5 calls at once. Bland’s telephony is also billed separately, but Start includes an inbound number.

Which is faster, Bland or Ultravox?

Ultravox, on every test we ran. On Cozzo’s Oct 20 phone calls Ultravox’s median reply was 1.18 s and Bland’s 1.86 s (11 calls each, default settings). In our Round 4 receptionist calls it was 1.27 s vs 1.94 s, and in Round 5 Ultravox was quicker on gym, coaching and roofing calls (1,340–1,600 ms vs 1,800–1,950 ms).

Which handled receptionist calls better in Cozzo’s tests?

Ultravox, overall. In Round 4 (a dental script) it passed 14 of 15 calls to Bland’s 10 of 15, and it stopped within half a second when our caller cut in, while Bland kept talking 2.68 s. In Round 5 it passed every coaching call, but Bland did better on the gym test: it passed the after-hours call that Ultravox failed. Both failed the roofing after-hours call, so test your own script before you go live.

Do Bland AI and Ultravox support HIPAA?

Both tie it to an enterprise plan. Bland’s FAQ says it’s HIPAA compliant with a signed BAA and lists the BAA on Enterprise only. Ultravox’s docs say it signs BAAs for customers with HIPAA needs on an Enterprise plan, and suggest building with non-patient data first.

How many calls can each handle at once?

Bland’s free Start plan allows 10 at once, capped at 100 calls a day; Build ($299 a month) allows 50 and 2,000 a day. Ultravox’s Pay as you go has a hard cap of 5; its $100-a-month Pro plan removes the hard cap, and Enterprise adds priority concurrency.

Do I need my own phone number?

With Ultravox, yes: its pricing page lists no phone numbers, so you connect a carrier such as Twilio, Telnyx, Plivo or Exotel, or your own SIP system. Bland’s Start plan includes an inbound number, and you can also bring your own Twilio account or SIP trunk, or use Bland’s Twilio at pass-through cost.

Which should a small business pick?

If you’re comfortable connecting a phone carrier, Ultravox costs less per minute and did better on our receptionist calls. If you want the number, the AI and the call flow in one account with no setup elsewhere, Bland is simpler to start, at a higher rate. If you don’t want to build the agent yourself, compare ready-made AI receptionists, which start at a flat monthly fee, on our AI receptionist pages.

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