Retell AI Pricing vs Vapi, Bland, Synthflow and echowin (2026)

Retell AI pricing runs from $0.07 to $0.31 a minute as of November 2026, because Retell bills each part of a call separately: $0.055 a minute for its voice infrastructure, plus the LLM, the voice and the phone line you pick. With the LLM cost Retell's own calculator uses, a standard voice and a US number, that comes to about $0.125 a minute. Vapi works the same way ($0.05 a minute for hosting, with providers on top). Bland charges one rate of $0.14 a minute on its Start plan, which has no platform fee, with telephony billed separately. Synthflow publishes no prices at all. echowin charges $0.20 a minute, or $0.14 to $0.18 a minute for inbound calls if you pick a monthly bundle, with the model, speech and phone line included, plus $10 a month per number.

We run echowin, so read this with that in mind. Every competitor price below comes from that company's own pricing page, read on November 7, 2026, and linked so you can check it. Prices in this category change often, so check the source before you commit.

How much does Retell AI cost per minute?

Retell has no platform fee on its pay-as-you-go plan. You pay for usage, built from these parts (Retell pricing):

Part	Retell price, as of November 2026
Voice infrastructure	$0.055/min on every call
LLM	$0.0016 to $0.32/min on the standard tier, depending on the model. The calculator's example uses $0.04/min
Voice (text to speech)	$0.015/min for Retell's own and other standard voices. $0.04 to $0.10/min for ElevenLabs voices
Telephony	$0.015/min on a Retell US number (Twilio). No charge if you bring your own SIP trunk
Phone number	$2/mo
Add-ons	Knowledge base +$0.005/min, denoising +$0.005/min, PII removal +$0.01/min, branded caller ID +$0.10 per outbound call
Concurrent calls	20 included, then $8 per extra concurrent call per month

A few billing rules matter as much as the rates. Retell tracks each call to the second and adds the seconds up at the end of the month, with no rounding per call. When a call is transferred, the agent fee stops and only telephony keeps running. New accounts get $10 in free credits.

Voice AI pricing compared: Retell, Vapi, Bland, Synthflow and echowin

The headline numbers aren't comparable on their own, because each one covers a different part of the call. This is what each price includes and what lands on top of it.

Platform	Listed price	What the price covers	Billed on top	Phone number
Retell	$0.07 to $0.31/min	Voice infrastructure ($0.055)	LLM, voice and telephony, each priced separately. Add-ons. Concurrency over 20 calls	$2/mo
Vapi	$0.05/min hosting	Vapi hosting only. Models are passed through at cost	Transcriber, LLM and voice. Telephony is free on Vapi numbers; Twilio inbound is $0.008/min. Concurrency over 4 calls at $10 per line per month	1 included on the free package
Bland	$0.14/min on Start ($0 platform fee). $0.12/min on Build ($299/mo)	LLM, transcription and voice, including premium voices	Telephony, on your own carrier or Bland's built-in Twilio at pass-through cost. Transfer time $0.05/min on Start	Inbound number included on Start ("$15/mo value")
Synthflow	Not published	An annual enterprise agreement, scoped to your call volume	Set in the agreement	Set in the agreement
echowin	$0.20/min pay as you go. $0.14 to $0.18/min for inbound calls on monthly bundles	The model, speech, voice and phone line	Premium voices +$0.08/min	$10/mo

Two limits hide in the plan details. Bland's Start plan caps you at 100 calls a day and 10 at once (Build raises that to 2,000 a day and 50 at once). Vapi's free package includes 4 concurrent calls, and its Core package ($29/mo) includes 10.

Is Synthflow still self-serve?

No. As of November 2026, Synthflow's pricing page says it is "sold as an annual enterprise agreement" and that it "has no free plan or trial and no rate by the minute." Every new deployment starts on an enterprise contract, scoped with sales. Older articles that list Synthflow monthly plans or a per-minute rate are out of date. We've put the details in our echowin vs Synthflow comparison.

What do 1,000 minutes a month cost on each?

Here's one worked example: 1,000 minutes of inbound calls a month on one US number, with standard voices, no transfers, no add-ons, and call volume inside each plan's included concurrency.

Platform	How we got the number	Monthly total
Retell	1,000 × ($0.055 infrastructure + $0.04 LLM + $0.015 voice + $0.015 telephony), plus a $2 number	$127
Retell, with an ElevenLabs Flash voice	Same, with the voice at $0.04/min	$152
Vapi	Vapi's own estimate for 1,000 minutes: $50 hosting, $10 transcriber, $8 to $45 model, $15 to $24 voice, $0 telephony on a Vapi number	$82 to $129
Bland, Start	1,000 × $0.14, inbound number included	$140, plus telephony
Bland, Build	$299 platform fee + 1,000 × $0.12	$419, plus telephony
Synthflow	No published price	Quoted by sales
echowin, pay as you go	1,000 × $0.20, plus a $10 number	$210
echowin, 1,000-minute bundle	$150 a month for 1,000 inbound minutes ($0.15/min), plus a $10 number	$160

On list price, Vapi and Retell come in under us for this example, and Bland's Start rate is lower per minute before telephony. If the lowest possible minute is your goal, and you're comfortable choosing and tuning the LLM, voice, transcriber and carrier yourself, they win on that number. That's worth saying plainly.

What the per-minute price doesn't show

The table above is where most pricing pages stop. These are the things that move the real bill.

Who picks the parts. On Retell and Vapi, the price is the result of the stack you choose. Swap the LLM or the voice and your cost per minute changes with it, so the $0.07 floor and the $0.31 ceiling are both real. On Bland and echowin, one rate covers the model and the voice, so those choices don't change your price per minute (apart from echowin's premium voices).

How calls are rounded. Retell bills to the second, with no rounding per call. echowin rounds each call up to the next whole minute, so a call of 1 minute 10 seconds bills as 2 minutes. If most of your calls are short, add that to the math. Vapi's and Bland's pricing pages don't say how they round.

Transfers. When Retell hands a call to a person, its agent fee stops and only the $0.015/min telephony continues. Bland charges $0.05/min of transfer time on Start ($0.04 on Build). echowin bills the transferred part of the call at half rate, so $0.10 a minute on pay as you go. Vapi's pricing page doesn't list a transfer rate.

Calls at the same time. Retell includes 20 concurrent calls, then charges $8 a month for each extra one. Vapi charges $10 a line a month above what your package includes. Bland caps concurrency by plan. echowin doesn't charge per line for concurrent calls.

Outbound calls. echowin's bundle rates apply to inbound calls only. Outbound minutes are $0.20 on every plan. If you call out, make sure the people on your list have opted in, wherever that applies.

Your time. A lower rate that needs a developer to wire the transcriber, LLM, voice and carrier together isn't cheaper if nobody on your team can do it. We broke down that side in what the DIY voice agent stack costs.

Who echowin is for, and who it isn't for

echowin fits operators and agency builders who want to build the agent themselves without running the voice infrastructure. You write the instructions, connect your tools and test it. The builder drafts a first version of the agent from your website. After each call, a workflow can email a summary, text the caller or anyone on your team, send a webhook, or trigger a Zapier action, and the agent can book appointments into your calendar, including Google and Outlook calendars. You pay one per-minute rate that already includes the model, speech and phone line, and building and testing are free.

echowin isn't the best fit if:

• You want to choose your own LLM, voice and carrier. Vapi and Retell let you pick each part, and both let you bring your own carrier over SIP. echowin doesn't support SIP trunking.
• The lowest per-minute price matters more than anything else. At volume, a tuned Retell or Vapi stack can cost less per minute than our rate.
• You need warm transfers. echowin does cold transfers only: the caller is put through without the agent briefing the person first.
• You're a contact center buying on an annual contract, with launch support from the vendor's engineers. That's what Synthflow sells.
• You want someone to build it for you. echowin is a tool. Someone on your side configures the agent and keeps its instructions current.

For the side-by-side detail on features as well as price, see all our voice AI platform comparisons.

FAQ

Is Retell AI free?

Retell is free to sign up for and has no platform fee on its pay-as-you-go plan. New accounts get $10 in free credits, then you pay for each minute and for monthly items like phone numbers ($2/mo each) and concurrency above 20 calls.

How much does Vapi cost per minute?

Vapi charges $0.05 a minute for hosting, and the transcriber, LLM and voice are billed on top at provider cost. Vapi's own estimate for 1,000 minutes a month is $82 to $129, or about $0.08 to $0.13 a minute.

How much does Bland AI cost?

Bland's Start plan has no platform fee and charges $0.14 a minute, plus $0.05 a minute for transfer time. The Build plan is $299 a month with $0.12 a minute. Telephony is billed separately on both.

How much does echowin cost?

Building and testing an agent is free. Live calls are $0.20 a minute on pay as you go, or $0.14 to $0.18 a minute for inbound calls on a monthly bundle, plus $10 a month for each phone number. Transferred calls bill at half rate after the transfer.

Want to see what your own calls would cost? Build your agent free at echo.win, and test it before you put a number live.