Voice AI Cost per Call (2026): Measured on Real Phone Calls
A voice AI call costs its per-minute rate times however long your callers talk, plus the phone line. The catch is that the per-minute price on a pricing page often covers only part of the call. So Cozzo placed real phone calls to six voice agent platforms and read what each one actually billed. Below: those measured costs, a calculator that turns them into a cost per call at your own call length, and how the math changes for a contractor, a gym or a dental office.
Ignore the headline rate for a minute. Find your average call length on last month’s phone bill; that one number decides which plan is cheapest for you.
What a voice AI phone call really costs, from Cozzo's billed test calls on Vapi, Retell, Bland, ElevenLabs and Millis, plus a calculator for your call length.
What our test calls actually cost
Cozzo called each platform over a real phone line on Oct 20, 2026, on its default model and voice, and read the bill from each vendor’s own dashboard or API. These are short (about 30-second) test calls, so the per-minute column is the number to reuse.
- ElevenLabs Agents
- Billed on our calls
- about $0.045 per ~32 s call (plan credits)
- Per minute
- about $0.08/min equivalent
- Good to know
- Charged as Starter-plan credits; no extra dollars were billed.
- Vapi
- Billed on our calls
- $0.042–0.051 per ~32 s call
- Per minute
- about $0.08–0.09/min
- Good to know
- Vapi’s $0.05/min hosting plus pass-through model, transcription and voice charges.
- Millis AI
- Billed on our calls
- about $0.055 per ~35 s call
- Per minute
- about $0.09/min
- Good to know
- From Millis’s own per-call usage; includes its $0.02/min platform fee.
- Bland AI
- Billed on our calls
- about $0.068 per ~29 s call
- Per minute
- about $0.14/min
- Good to know
- From Bland’s per-call price. Bland called our number, so no SIP dial-out was needed.
- Retell AI
- Billed on our calls
- $0.080–0.084 per ~32 s call
- Per minute
- about $0.15/min
- Good to know
- With Retell’s default voice and LLM; Retell lists $0.07–0.31/min depending on the voice and model you pick.
- Ultravox
- Billed on our calls
- about $0.24 in total, after the free 30 minutes
- Per minute
- $0.05/min list price
- Good to know
- Most of our Ultravox time used its free minutes; the rest is billed at $0.05/min. The total also covers Ultravox acting as our scripted caller, and is our calculation from billed seconds (Ultravox shows no dollar usage).
Twilio added about $0.01/min for the phone leg (SIP dial-out plus recording). Default settings, one short English script, one day; your models, voice and prompt will move these numbers. Full method and reply-speed results: voice agents tested on real phone calls and Vapi vs Retell vs Bland.
Cost per call at your call length
Per-minute cost from our calls times your average call length. An estimate to compare platforms, not a quote.
- ElevenLabs Agents$0.27 /call
$80.80 a month for 300 calls
- Vapi$0.27–$0.30 /call
$80.80–$89.80 a month for 300 calls
- Millis AI$0.30 /call
$89.80 a month for 300 calls
- Bland AI$0.45 /call
$134.80 a month for 300 calls
- Retell AI$0.48 /call
$143.80 a month for 300 calls
- Ultravox(list price)$0.18 /call
$53.80 a month for 300 calls
Leaves out plan fees, extra concurrency, add-ons and taxes. Retell bills to the nearest second; Twilio rounds each call up to the next minute by default.
Per-minute platform or per-call receptionist?
Build it on a voice agent platform
Cents per call, but you set it up
On our calls the platforms above cost about $0.08 to $0.15 a minute. You (or someone you hire) write the prompt, connect your calendar and phone number, and keep it tuned.
Buy a ready-made AI receptionist
A fixed price per call or per month
Smith.ai bills by the call: its Pro plan is $150 a month for 75 calls ($2.00 a call, $2.50 for each extra), and its free plan covers 25 calls, then $3.00 a call. Per-minute receptionists such as Rosie or Dialzara sell minute bundles instead.
Would rather not build it yourself? Cozzo can set up an AI receptionist for any kind of business →
Working out cost per call for your business
The rate card is the same whatever you sell. What changes is how long your calls run and how many get handed to a person. Take last month’s total call minutes from your phone bill, divide by the number of calls, and put that in the calculator above.
Home services and contractors
Plumbers, roofers, electricians and remodelers get quote requests that run long while the caller describes the job, plus urgent calls that should go straight to a person. Count how many calls you’d transfer to your cell: on Retell the phone line keeps billing after a handoff, and Bland charges a transfer rate ($0.05 a minute on Start).
Gyms, studios and coaches
Class times, membership prices and trial bookings are usually short, repeatable questions. A good knowledge base keeps those calls brief, which is where per-minute billing tends to beat per-call billing.
Salons, spas and recovery studios
Booking and rescheduling calls are short when the agent can see your calendar. If it can’t, callers wait while it takes a message, and you pay for that time too.
Dental and medical offices
Insurance questions and new-patient intake run longer than appointment confirmations. Check for a BAA before you compare prices; on some platforms it is a paid add-on or enterprise-only.
Published prices, read Oct 23, 2026
- ElevenLabs Agents
$0.08/min for extra call minutes, plus LLM usage; no ElevenLabs telephony fee
- Vapi
$0.05/min Vapi hosting, plus model, transcription and voice charges passed through at cost
- Millis AI
From $0.02/min, as stated on Millis AI’s homepage
- Bland AI
$0.14/min on Start (LLM, transcription and voice included); $0.12/min on Build ($299/mo)
- Retell AI
$0.07–$0.31/min depending on voice and LLM; telephony on Retell numbers $0.015/min
- Ultravox
$0.05/min after 30 free minutes; SIP 0.5¢/min on Pay as you go
Ultravox: most of our test time ran on free minutes, so the calculator uses the list price for it, not a measured bill.
Pricing explained, line by line:ElevenLabs Agents pricing →Vapi pricing →Bland AI pricing →Retell AI pricing →
Cozzo tested: reply time on real phone calls
Median time from the end of the caller’s speech to the agent’s first reply, on each vendor’s default model and voice (Oct 20, 2026). Places are out of 8 platforms tested.
- ElevenLabs Agents: 1.04 s (tied 1 of 8, 11 calls)
- Retell AI: 1.04 s (tied 1 of 8, 11 calls)
- Ultravox: 1.18 s (3 of 8, 11 calls)
- Millis AI: 1.25 s (4 of 8, 12 calls)
- Vapi: 1.56 s (7 of 8, 11 calls)
- Bland AI: 1.86 s (8 of 8, 11 calls)
See the full phone-call benchmark → Small samples, so treat close numbers as ties.
What to check before you choose
- Find your real average call length: total call minutes on last month’s phone bill divided by the number of calls. That one number turns any per-minute price into a cost per call, and tells you whether per-minute or per-call billing works out cheaper.
- Price the phone line separately. Twilio charges $0.0085 a minute to receive a call on a US local number plus $1.15 a month for the number; Retell’s own numbers are $2 a month with $0.015 a minute telephony; ElevenLabs adds no telephony fee, but your carrier still bills its own.
- Ask how calls are rounded. Twilio rounds each call up to the next minute by default (a 25-second call bills as 1 minute); Retell says it tracks each call to the nearest second.
- Silence and hold time usually count. Retell bills the whole call because transcription keeps listening; after a transfer its agent fee stops but telephony continues. Bland charges $0.05 a transfer minute on Start ($0.04 on Build).
- Check the limits before the busy season. Retell includes 20 concurrent calls, then $8 per extra line a month; ElevenLabs bills calls above your plan’s concurrency at $0.16 a minute (burst pricing); Bland’s Start plan caps you at 100 calls a day.
Questions people ask
How much does a voice AI phone call cost?
On Cozzo’s own test calls (about 30 seconds each, default settings, Oct 20, 2026), the AI platform part cost about 4 to 8 cents a call: Vapi $0.042–0.051, ElevenLabs Agents about $0.045, Millis AI about $0.055, Bland AI about $0.068 and Retell AI $0.080–0.084. Twilio added about $0.01 a minute for the phone line. Real calls run longer, so multiply by your call length: at those per-minute rates a 3-minute call comes to roughly $0.24 to $0.45 before the phone line.
Why doesn’t my cost per call match the price on the pricing page?
Because many headline rates cover only part of the call. Vapi’s $0.05 a minute is its hosting fee; the language model, transcription and voice are billed on top, which put our Vapi calls at about $0.08–0.09 a minute. Retell lists $0.07 to $0.31 a minute depending on the voice and model, and its defaults cost us about $0.15. Bland’s $0.14 a minute includes the model, transcription and voice, so its measured cost matched its list price.
Is paying per call cheaper than paying per minute?
Usually not for short calls. Smith.ai, which bills by the call, charges $150 a month for 75 calls on Pro ($2.00 a call, $2.50 for each extra), while the platforms we tested cost cents a minute. The difference is that a platform is something you build and maintain yourself, while Smith.ai sets up a ready-made receptionist and says its AI can hand a call to a live receptionist when needed.
Do I pay for silence, hold time or transferred calls?
Often, yes. Retell says it bills the entire call, including silence, because transcription keeps listening, and that after a transfer only the telephony fee continues. Bland charges a separate transfer rate of $0.05 a minute on its Start plan. Retell also says failed calls that never connect aren’t charged.
Which voice AI platform is cheapest per call?
On our calls, ElevenLabs Agents (about $0.08 a minute, paid from plan credits) and Vapi (about $0.08–0.09) cost least, then Millis AI (about $0.09), Bland AI (about $0.14) and Retell AI (about $0.15). Ultravox lists $0.05 a minute after 30 free minutes, but most of our Ultravox time was free, so we have no measured per-call bill for it. Your own model and voice choices can reorder this list.
Not sure which fits? Answer a few quick questions in the finder →
Prices from vendors' official pricing pages, checked October 23, 2026. Not sponsored; order isn't a ranking.