Pick Bland AI if you run outbound sales and want one all-in rate plus a built-in dialer. Pick Vapi if a developer will assemble the stack and wants the lowest per-minute floor. Pick Retell for support lines where a priced menu of models, voices and add-ons makes costs easy to predict.
Bland AI vs Vapi comes down to who builds the stack: Bland sells one all-in rate per connected minute with a dialer built in, while Vapi charges a small hosting fee and lets you pick and pay for every model yourself. Retell sits between them, with a priced menu of models, voices and add-ons, which makes it the easiest of the three to budget for a support line.
Prices checked October 2026 on the official pages: Bland AI pricing and Bland billing docs, Vapi pricing, Retell AI pricing and Twilio US voice pricing. All three change rates often; recheck before you commit.
Most roundups compare these platforms on features. For a sales team, the number that matters is what each connected conversation costs once you count the dials that never connect. This comparison leads with that, then covers each platform on its own terms. For the wider architecture of a phone agent, from carrier to model to booking tool, start with our voice AI hub on building AI phone agents.
The verdict: which one to pick
Top row is the managed side; bottom row is where a developer owns the integration.
- Pick Bland AI if you run outbound calls to lists, want one rate covering model, transcription and voice, and prefer not to manage provider keys.
- Pick Vapi if you have a developer, want to choose each provider (or bring a custom model), and care most about the per-minute floor.
- Pick Retell if you are building a support or booking line and want every cost line, including add-ons like knowledge base and PII removal, listed in one table.
Bland AI vs Vapi vs Retell: the head-to-head table
Rates below come from each vendor's pricing page, checked October 2026. Treat the "best fit" row as our judgement, not the vendors' claims.
| Bland AI | Vapi | Retell AI | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | All-in AI rate per connected minute; platform fee on higher plans | Hosting fee per minute plus provider costs at cost | Voice infrastructure fee plus model, voice and telephony per minute |
| Listed starting rate | $0.14/min (Start), $0.12/min (Build, $299/mo) | $0.05/min hosting, providers extra | $0.055/min voice infra; $0.07 to $0.31/min all-in range |
| Outbound at volume | Batch calls from a CSV | Outbound campaigns from a CSV | Batch calls (+$0.005 per dial) |
| Default concurrency | 10 calls (Start), 50 (Build) | 4 calls without a package | 20 calls on pay-as-you-go |
| Model choice | Bland-managed stack | Any listed provider, your own keys or a custom LLM URL | Menu of listed models, priced per minute |
| Best fit | Sales teams that want one rate and a dialer | Developers building a custom product | Support and ops teams that want a priced menu |
The pricing shapes differ more than the headline numbers suggest. Bland quotes an AI rate that already includes the language model, speech-to-text and text-to-speech. Vapi quotes its own fee only, and the models pass through at provider cost. Retell quotes a voice infrastructure fee and then prices each model and voice per minute on the same page, so you can add the lines up yourself.
Bland AI pricing: what you actually pay
Bland's pricing page (checked October 2026) lists two self-serve plans and an enterprise tier:
- Start: no platform fee, $0.14 per connected minute, $0.05 per transfer minute, 10 concurrent calls, 100 calls a day.
- Build: $299 a month, $0.12 per connected minute, $0.04 per transfer minute, 50 concurrent calls, 2,000 calls a day.
- Enterprise: custom pricing, with options such as on-prem or VPC deployment, a BAA, SSO and data residency.
Bland's billing documentation also lists a Scale plan at $499 a month with $0.11 per minute, and notes that the docs are being updated, so confirm the current plan list in your dashboard. Two details matter for outbound teams. First, transfer time to a human is billed on top of connected time when you use Bland-provided numbers; bring-your-own-Twilio customers do not pay the transfer fee. Second, outbound calls placed on Bland's telephony carry a minimum charge of $0.015 per dispatched call, so a list full of unanswered numbers still costs something.
Bland's strengths for sales are the parts you do not have to build: batch calls from a CSV with a phone_number column and per-row variables, Conversational Pathways for scripted branches, and transfers to a live rep. The limit is control: you work inside Bland's stack rather than choosing each model.
Vapi: lowest floor, most assembly
Vapi's pricing page (checked October 2026) lists $0.05 per minute for Vapi hosting, prepaid, with $5 in free credits, 4 concurrent calls and 14 days of raw data retention when you take no success package. Paid packages add concurrency, retention and support; the Pro package is priced as a share of the hosting fee with a $999 monthly minimum. Transcription, the model and the voice are billed at provider cost; the page's calculator shows Deepgram at about $0.0095 a minute, OpenAI models from $0.0077 to $0.0452 a minute and ElevenLabs from $0.0146 to $0.0238 a minute. Telephony is charged by the carrier, not Vapi.
What you get for the assembly work is flexibility. Vapi's FAQ says every stage of the pipeline is swappable, including a custom LLM at your own URL, and its outbound campaigns take a CSV of contacts with variables and a calling window. One catch for sales: Vapi's free phone numbers are US-only and limited for outbound calling, so plan to import a Twilio number or SIP trunk before a real campaign.
Bland AI vs Retell: managed against managed
Retell's pricing page (checked October 2026) is the most itemised of the three. The voice infrastructure fee is $0.055 a minute. Retell's own voices and several third-party voices cost $0.015 a minute, while ElevenLabs voices run from $0.04 to $0.10. Models are priced per minute too: GPT 5.4 mini is listed at $0.024 and GPT 5 mini at $0.008, for example. US telephony through Retell's Twilio or Telnyx numbers is $0.015 a minute, and custom telephony carries no Retell charge. Add-ons include knowledge base (+$0.005 a minute), batch calls (+$0.005 a dial), branded caller ID (+$0.10 per outbound call) and PII removal (+$0.01 a minute). Pay-as-you-go includes 20 concurrent calls, and Retell's concurrency docs describe a reserved inbound setting so outbound traffic cannot crowd out inbound calls.
Against Bland, Retell asks you to pick a model and voice, but in exchange the bill tracks your choices: a cheap model lowers the rate, a premium voice raises it. Bland's single rate is simpler to quote to a client and includes the model, but you cannot lower it by choosing a smaller one. For support lines that lean on a knowledge base and need inbound protection, Retell's itemised menu is easier to tune. For a sales floor dialing lists, Bland's dialer and plan-based limits are closer to ready.
- You dial lists and want batch calls built in
- You want one AI rate to quote
- Transfers to a rep are part of the script
- You will bring your own Twilio to skip transfer fees
- Inbound support or booking is the main job
- You want to tune cost by choosing the model
- You need knowledge base or PII add-ons
- You want inbound capacity reserved
Cost per connected call: an illustrative calculation
Per-minute rates hide the dials that never connect. Here is the same campaign priced on each platform. This is illustrative math from published rates, not a measurement: the inputs are assumptions you should replace with your own.
| Platform and setup | Rate per minute (incl. telephony) | 900 minutes | Per-dial charges | Campaign total | Per connected call |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bland AI, Start | $0.154 | $138.60 | $10.50 (700 x $0.015) | $149.10 | $0.50 |
| Bland AI, Build | $0.134 | $120.60 | $10.50 | $131.10 + $299 fee | $0.44 before the fee |
| Vapi, small model | $0.096 | $86.22 | $0 | $86.22 | $0.29 |
| Vapi, larger model | $0.143 | $128.61 | $0 | $128.61 | $0.43 |
| Retell, GPT 5.4 mini | $0.109 | $98.10 | $5.00 (1,000 x $0.005) | $103.10 | $0.34 |
How the rows add up. Vapi small model: $0.05 hosting + $0.0095 Deepgram + $0.0077 model + $0.0146 voice + $0.014 telephony. Vapi larger model: $0.05 + $0.0099 + $0.0452 + $0.0238 + $0.014. Retell: $0.055 voice infra + $0.015 voice + $0.024 GPT 5.4 mini + $0.015 telephony. Bland: the plan rate plus $0.014 telephony, and the $0.015 minimum on 700 unconnected dials.
Source: Calculated from vendor pricing pages, checked October 2026. Illustrative inputs, not measured.
Three things move this table more than the platform choice. The connect rate: halve it and the per-dial fees weigh twice as much per conversation. Call length: a two-minute qualifier and a ten-minute discovery call have very different economics. And the model: on Vapi and Retell, swapping a small model for a frontier one can more than double the per-minute cost. Bland's $299 Build fee also needs volume to pay off; at $0.02 a minute saved against Start, it breaks even at about 15,000 connected minutes a month on these inputs.
Want the raw model rates behind those numbers? Our LLM API pricing comparison lists them side by side.
Outbound calling: consent rules come first
AI voices are not a loophole. In its February 2024 declaratory ruling, the FCC confirmed that the Telephone Consumer Protection Act's limits on "artificial or prerecorded voice" calls cover AI-generated voices, so such calls need the called party's prior express consent unless an emergency purpose or exemption applies, and must identify the caller and offer opt-out where they are telemarketing. Sales calls also fall under the FTC's Telemarketing Sales Rule, including the Do Not Call Registry. State rules and other countries add more. None of the three platforms makes a list compliant for you; build consent capture and suppression lists before you build the script, and take legal advice for your market.
- Written record of consent for every number on the list
- List scrubbed against the national Do Not Call Registry and your internal opt-outs
- Script names the business and offers a way to stop calls
- Calling window limited to local daytime hours for each contact
- Transfers to a human tested end to end
- Call recordings and transcripts stored per your retention policy
For support lines: what changes
Inbound support flips the economics: there are no unanswered dials, calls are often shorter, and what matters is accuracy against your help content and clean handoffs. That favours Retell's knowledge base add-on and reserved inbound concurrency, or Vapi if a developer will connect the agent to your ticketing system with tools. Bland works too, with knowledge bases included in each plan, but its daily call caps on the self-serve plans need checking against your peak volume.
If you are building voice agents for clients rather than for your own business, our AI SaaS Builder program covers packaging, pricing and delivering automation products like these.
Alternatives worth a look
These three are not the whole field. Our best voice AI platforms roundup covers LiveKit and others for teams that want open-source infrastructure, and our guide to AI agent automation covers where voice fits alongside chat and email agents. If your calls need to land in a CRM, the n8n CRM automation guide shows how to route call outcomes into Pipedrive, HubSpot or Salesforce from any of the three platforms' webhooks.
Bland AI vs Vapi vs Retell: FAQ
Is Bland AI or Vapi better for outbound sales calls?
Bland AI is the shorter path for outbound sales: one all-in per-minute rate covers the model, transcription and voice, and batch calls from a CSV are built in. Vapi suits teams that want to pick each provider themselves and wire calls into their own backend. It also runs outbound campaigns from a CSV, but you assemble the stack and the bill from several providers. Either way, consent rules for automated calls apply.
How much does Bland AI cost per minute?
Bland AI's pricing page lists $0.14 per connected minute on the free Start plan and $0.12 per minute on the Build plan, which carries a $299 monthly platform fee (checked October 2026). Transfer time to a human is billed on top, at $0.05 or $0.04 a minute. Bland's docs also list a $0.015 minimum charge for each outbound call placed on its telephony that does not connect.
Is Bland AI cheaper than Retell?
Not always. Retell's listed voice infrastructure fee is $0.055 a minute, but you add the model, the voice and telephony, so a mid-range Retell setup lands near $0.11 a minute before add-ons. Bland bundles the AI parts into $0.12 to $0.14 a minute. In our illustrative 1,000-dial example, Retell came out slightly cheaper per connected call, but the gap moves with the model you choose.
What is the cheapest way to run AI phone calls?
On published rates, Vapi with a small model and Deepgram transcription is usually the lowest per-minute figure of the three, because Vapi's $0.05 hosting fee is small and providers pass through at cost. The trade-off is setup work and several bills. At very high volume, an open-source framework you host yourself can go lower again, but you then own the engineering, monitoring and carrier relationships.
Do I need consent to make AI sales calls?
In the US, yes in most cases. The FCC ruled in February 2024 that AI-generated voices count as artificial voices under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, so calls using them need the called party's prior express consent unless an exemption applies. Telemarketing calls also fall under the FTC's Telemarketing Sales Rule and the Do Not Call Registry. Get legal advice before launching a campaign.
Which is easiest to set up for a support line: Bland, Vapi or Retell?
Retell and Bland are the quickest for a non-developer support line: both offer dashboards, templates, knowledge bases and phone numbers in one account. Vapi also has a dashboard, but its strength is the API, so it pays off when a developer will connect tools, custom models and a backend. For an inbound line with booking and transfers, start where you can test a real call within a day.
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