Twilio Voice Pricing Explained (2026): Per-Minute Rates, Numbers and AI Agent Call Costs
Twilio is pay as you go: you pay per minute to make and receive calls, a monthly fee for each phone number, and separately for extras such as streaming the audio to an AI agent, recording or transcription. Every figure below is from Twilio's own US voice and SIP trunking pricing pages (marked “pricing current as of August 2026”) and its docs, read October 21, 2026.
Twilio rounds every call up to the next whole minute, and the audio link to your AI is billed on top of the call. Count both before you compare per-minute rates.
Twilio charges $0.0085 a minute to receive a call on a US local number and $0.0140 to make one, plus $1.15 a month for the number. Here's every Twilio voice price line an AI phone agent touches (Media Streams, Conversation Relay, SIP trunking, recording), what 1,000 to 100,000 minutes a month cost, and the rounding and extras that change the bill.
What you pay for on every Twilio minute
Receiving the call
$0.0085–$0.0220/min
A caller rings your Twilio number: $0.0085 a minute on a local number, $0.0220 on a toll-free number. Making calls costs $0.0140 a minute to local or toll-free numbers. Calls over the browser/app or SIP interface are $0.0040 a minute each way.
Audio to your AI agent
$0.0044–$0.07/min
Media Streams ($0.0044 a minute) sends the raw call audio to your own server, where your speech-to-text, LLM and voice are billed by their own vendors. Conversation Relay ($0.07 a minute) has Twilio handle speech recognition and text-to-speech for you; you connect your own LLM app.
Phone number
$1.15–$2.15/month
Billed monthly, not per minute: $1.15 for a US local number, $2.15 for toll-free. Emergency calling (911 addresses) is $0.75 a month per number if you enable it.
Total per minute
about 1.3¢ to 9.2¢
Receiving calls on a US number. The low end is a local number plus Media Streams (your AI's speech, LLM and voice costs come on top); the high end is toll-free plus Conversation Relay (Twilio's speech-to-text and text-to-speech included, your LLM on top). Each call is rounded up to the whole minute.
What a month costs on Twilio’s own numbers
1,000 min/month
- Local in + Media Streams
- $14.05
- Toll-free in + Media Streams
- $28.55
- Local out + Media Streams
- $19.55
- Local in + Conversation Relay
- $79.65
5,000 min/month
- Local in + Media Streams
- $65.65
- Toll-free in + Media Streams
- $134.15
- Local out + Media Streams
- $93.15
- Local in + Conversation Relay
- $393.65
10,000 min/month
- Local in + Media Streams
- $130.15
- Toll-free in + Media Streams
- $266.15
- Local out + Media Streams
- $185.15
- Local in + Conversation Relay
- $786.15
25,000 min/month
- Local in + Media Streams
- $323.65
- Toll-free in + Media Streams
- $662.15
- Local out + Media Streams
- $461.15
- Local in + Conversation Relay
- $1,963.65
50,000 min/month
- Local in + Media Streams
- $646.15
- Toll-free in + Media Streams
- $1,322.15
- Local out + Media Streams
- $921.15
- Local in + Conversation Relay
- $3,926.15
100,000 min/month
- Local in + Media Streams
- $1,291.15
- Toll-free in + Media Streams
- $2,642.15
- Local out + Media Streams
- $1,841.15
- Local in + Conversation Relay
- $7,851.15
Twilio's pay-as-you-go rates times billed minutes, plus one phone number. Media Streams columns are Twilio's share only: the speech-to-text, LLM and voice your agent uses are billed by those vendors. Conversation Relay includes Twilio's speech recognition and text-to-speech but not your LLM. Twilio rounds each call up to the whole minute, so many short calls bill more minutes than they last. Above 100,000 minutes a month Twilio applies automatic volume discounts it doesn't list on the page. Want your own volume and carrier? Try the cost calculator.
Packages and add-ons
Free trial
$15 credit
No credit card required. Twilio says the trial credit is for buying a phone number and testing Voice features.
Phone numbers
$1.15–$2.15/month
US local numbers $1.15 a month, toll-free $2.15. Twilio lists numbers in over 100 locales. Emergency calling is $0.75 a month per number; on SIP trunking, a 911 call from a number without a registered emergency address carries a $75 fee.
SIP interface and BYOC
$0.0040/min
Connect your own SIP equipment or bring your own carrier (BYOC trunking): $0.0040 a minute to make or receive calls, with secure media included. Transferring a SIP call with REFER costs $0.10 per refer. Application connect is free outbound and $0.0025 a minute inbound.
Elastic SIP Trunking
From $0.0011/min
Connect a PBX or contact center to the phone network: termination (outbound) from $0.0011 a minute in the US, origination (inbound) $0.0034 a minute on local numbers and $0.0130 on toll-free. Unlimited call concurrency and secure trunking (SRTP/TLS) are included; numbers are the same $1.15 and $2.15 a month.
Recording and transcription
From $0.0025/min
Call recording $0.0025 a minute plus storage at $0.0005 a minute per month (cheaper above 5 million stored minutes). Recording transcription $0.0500 a minute; Conversation Intelligence transcription $0.024 a minute batch or $0.027 streaming.
Speech and voices
Per use or per 100 characters
Gather speech recognition $0.02 per use (Twilio picks the provider) or $0.025 for Deepgram Nova or Google v2. Basic text-to-speech is free; premium voices are $0.0008 (Standard), $0.0032 (Neural) or $0.0130 (Generative) per 100 characters.
Outbound extras
Per call
Answering machine detection $0.0075 per call and Branded Calling $0.12 per call. One call per second (CPS) is free on pay as you go, and you can set up to 30 CPS in the console.
Volume and committed use
Automatic, then by contract
Twilio's FAQ says volume discounts unlock automatically as monthly minutes grow: standard rate for the first 100,000 minutes, a lower rate for the next 900,000 and again for the next 9 million (US and Canada). Committed-use discounts beyond that go through sales. Twilio doesn't publish the discounted voice rates on the page.
How it compares on published pricing
Twilio- Starting price
- US local: $0.0140/min outbound, $0.0085/min inbound
- Best for
- Phone numbers and call transport under any voice agent stack
Telnyx- Starting price
- $0.002/min + SIP trunking
- Best for
- Teams wanting low published per-minute carrier rates for voice agents
Plivo- Starting price
- US local: $0.0115/min out, $0.0055/min in
- Best for
- US telephony for AI agents
Vonage- Starting price
- US: $0.00495/min inbound, $0.01446/min outbound
- Best for
- Developers who need programmable voice with SIP, WebRTC and WebSocket connections
What to check before you choose
- Count two meters, not one. For an AI agent, Twilio bills the phone minute and, separately, the link that carries the audio to your AI: $0.0085 plus $0.0044 is 1.29¢ a minute on a local number with Media Streams, before your AI's own costs. With Conversation Relay it's 7.85¢.
- Every call rounds up to the next minute. Twilio's docs say a 25-second call is billed as 1 minute and a 1-minute-18-second call as 2, unless your contract says otherwise. If most calls are short (hang-ups, quick questions), your billed minutes will run ahead of talk time. Vonage, by contrast, lists per-second billing.
- Toll-free costs more than double to receive. Inbound is $0.0220 a minute on toll-free against $0.0085 on local, and the number is $2.15 a month against $1.15. At 10,000 inbound minutes, the call minutes alone are $220 against $85 a month.
- Media Streams or Conversation Relay? Media Streams is cheap ($0.0044) but only moves audio: you bring and pay for speech-to-text, the LLM and the voice (Deepgram's Nova-3 streaming, for example, is $0.0048 a minute at its current promotional rate). Conversation Relay's $0.07 covers speech recognition and text-to-speech from Twilio's providers (its docs name Deepgram, Google, Amazon and ElevenLabs), so you only add the LLM.
- Using a voice agent platform? If it runs on your own Twilio number, Twilio bills the call minute and the number on top of the platform's own per-minute price. Check whether the platform also charges for telephony so you don't count the phone line twice.
- Compare carriers on the same call type. On their own pricing pages, US local inbound is $0.0085 a minute at Twilio, $0.0055 at Plivo and $0.00495 at Vonage (standard pay-per-use), and Telnyx lists a $0.002 Voice API minute plus SIP. At 10,000 inbound minutes that's $85 at Twilio, $55 at Plivo and $49.50 at Vonage before numbers and extras.
- Price the extras you'll switch on. Recording adds $0.0025 a minute plus storage, transcription of recordings $0.05 a minute, answering machine detection $0.0075 per outbound call, and Branded Calling $0.12 per call.
Questions people ask
How much does Twilio charge per minute for calls in the US?
On pay as you go, receiving a call costs $0.0085 a minute on a local number and $0.0220 on a toll-free number, and making a call costs $0.0140 a minute. Calls over the browser/app or SIP interface are $0.0040 a minute. Numbers are $1.15 a month (local) or $2.15 (toll-free), and each call is rounded up to the whole minute. For an AI agent, add Media Streams at $0.0044 a minute or Conversation Relay at $0.07.
What does Twilio cost for an AI voice agent?
Twilio's share of an inbound AI call on a local number is $0.0085 for the call plus $0.0044 for Media Streams, or 1.29¢ a minute, with your speech-to-text, LLM and voice billed by their vendors. With Conversation Relay, which includes speech recognition and text-to-speech, it's $0.0085 plus $0.07, or 7.85¢ a minute plus your LLM. The number adds $1.15 a month.
Does Twilio round up call minutes?
Yes, by default. Twilio's docs say most voice products round up to the next minute, so a 25-second call is billed as 1 minute and a call of 1 minute 18 seconds as 2 minutes. Some contracts allow sub-minute billing.
Does Twilio have a free trial?
Yes. The free trial gives you $15 of credit with no credit card required, which Twilio says is for buying a phone number and testing Voice features.
How much does Twilio Conversation Relay cost?
$0.07 a minute on Twilio's US pricing page, listed with its intelligent services, so the call minutes themselves are billed on top. Conversation Relay handles speech recognition and text-to-speech (Twilio's docs name Deepgram, Google, Amazon and ElevenLabs as providers) and connects to your app over a WebSocket, where your own LLM writes the replies.
How is Twilio Elastic SIP Trunking priced?
US termination (outbound) starts at $0.0011 a minute and origination (inbound) is $0.0034 a minute on local numbers and $0.0130 on toll-free. Unlimited call concurrency and secure trunking are included, numbers are $1.15 or $2.15 a month, and recording is $0.0025 a minute.
When do Twilio's volume discounts start?
Twilio's pricing FAQ says they apply automatically as monthly voice minutes grow: the first 100,000 minutes are at the standard rate, then the next 900,000 and the next 9 million are at lower rates, for US and Canadian minutes. The discounted voice rates aren't listed on the page, and committed-use discounts go through sales.
Is Twilio HIPAA compliant?
Twilio's voice pricing FAQ lists HIPAA among its compliance certifications, alongside GDPR, PCI, SOC 2 and ISO/IEC 27001. The pricing page doesn't say which products or plans a BAA covers, so confirm that with Twilio before handling patient calls.
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Prices from vendors' official pricing pages, checked October 21, 2026. Not sponsored; order isn't a ranking.