Bolna Alternatives Compared (2026)
Bolna is a voice agent platform billed from prepaid credits: from $0.06 a minute (about ₹5.52) on pay as you go, with speech-to-text, the LLM and text-to-speech included when your agent uses the bundled models, and telephony and the platform fee added per minute. Bigger top-ups bring the rate to about 4.5¢, and the Pilot plan (a one-time $300 for 6,500 minutes or $500 for 12,000) locks in about 4.6¢ or 4.2¢ with up to 25 concurrent calls. It supports bring-your-own keys for LLM, text-to-speech and speech-to-text, says it works in 10+ Indian languages including Hinglish, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu, and gives $5 in free credits. The alternatives below: Vapi ($0.05/min hosting fee, with providers billed on top), Retell AI ($0.07–$0.31/min), Bland AI ($0.14/min on its Start plan), and two open-source frameworks with their own clouds, Pipecat and LiveKit Agents. Prices are from each vendor's own pricing page.
Bolna's 6¢ a minute covers the speech and AI models when you use its bundled ones, but telephony and a platform fee are added per minute. Ask for the all-in rate for your country before you compare.
Vapi, Retell AI, Bland AI, Pipecat and LiveKit Agents compared with Bolna on published per-minute pricing, concurrency, phone costs, bring-your-own keys and free credits.
Vapi- Starting price
- $0 to start; $0.05/min Vapi hosting, models billed pass-through at cost
- Best for
- Developers who want to choose their own LLM, transcriber, voice and telephony provider
Retell AI- Starting price
- $0 platform fee; $0.07–$0.31/min for voice agents
- Best for
- Teams that want a no-code flow builder plus an API with itemized per-minute pricing
Bland AI- Starting price
- $0.14/min, $0 platform fee
- Best for
- Teams that want one flat per-minute price with no model pass-through bills
Pipecat- Starting price
- Free (self-host); Pipecat Cloud from $0.01/min
- Best for
- Python developers who want full control of the voice pipeline and any model provider
LiveKit Agents- Starting price
- Free; Ship from $50/mo
- Best for
- Developers building on open-source realtime infrastructure
What to check before you choose
- Compare what each minute covers. Bolna's 6¢ includes the models when you use its bundled ones, with telephony and a platform fee on top. Vapi's $0.05/min is only its hosting fee; its own calculator estimates about $82–$129 for 1,000 minutes with Deepgram, OpenAI and ElevenLabs. Retell lists $0.07–$0.31/min depending on the voice, LLM and telephony you pick. Bland's Start plan is $0.14/min with no platform fee and, Bland says, no token charges.
- Count concurrent calls. Bolna's Pilot plan allows up to 25. Vapi starts at 4 (10 on its $29/mo Core package; extra lines are $10 a month each), Retell includes 20 free (then $8 per call a month), Bland's Start plan allows 10 at a time and 100 calls a day, Pipecat Cloud has no cap, and LiveKit Cloud allows 5 on its free Build plan and 20 on Ship (from $50/mo).
- Read the Pilot plan's fine print. It's a one-time purchase billed in 30-second pulses. When the minutes run out, the account goes back to the standard rate from 6¢ a minute; unused wallet balance carries over.
- Already have provider accounts? Bolna supports bring-your-own keys for LLM, text-to-speech and speech-to-text. Vapi shows transcriber, LLM and voice as separate costs on top of its hosting fee. On Pipecat Cloud your speech, LLM and voice providers bill you directly, and Pipecat itself is open source (BSD-2).
- Price the phone side. Bolna has setup guides for Twilio, Plivo and Vobiz. Vapi's own telephony is free, and it lists Twilio at $0.008/min inbound and $0.014/min outbound (charged by Twilio). Retell lists US calls on its numbers at $0.015/min and numbers at $2 a month. Pipecat Cloud lists phone dial-in and dial-out at $0.018/min.
- Calling in Indian languages? Bolna says it supports 10+ Indian languages, including Hinglish, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu. Before you switch, check that the speech-to-text and voice providers you'd use on each alternative cover your callers' languages, and test a real call. Cozzo's multilingual guide has more on this.
- Want to own the pipeline? Pipecat Cloud charges $0.01 per active minute for hosting (agent-1x) with unlimited concurrency. On LiveKit Cloud, Build is free with 1,000 agent session minutes and Ship starts at $50/mo with 5,000, then $0.01 a minute.
- Try before you commit: Bolna gives $5 in free credits, Vapi $5, Retell $10, Bland's Start plan needs no card, and LiveKit's Build plan includes $2.50 of inference credits. Pipecat costs nothing to run on your own servers.
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Prices from vendors' official pricing pages, checked October 20, 2026. Not sponsored; order isn't a ranking.