Retell AI: What It Is, Pricing, and Alternatives (2026)
Retell AI is one of the most popular ways to put an AI agent on a phone line. It sounds human, replies in about 600 milliseconds by its own numbers, and bills by the minute.
What it isn’t is a finished phone agent. It’s the platform you build one on.
The quick answer: Retell AI is a developer platform for building AI voice agents that answer and make phone calls. You (or a developer, or a Retell partner) pick the model, voice and numbers, design the call flow, connect your CRM and calendar, then test and maintain it. It costs $0.07 to $0.31 a minute for the agent, plus telephony, with no platform fee. If you want the phone answered rather than a platform to build on, Carly answers and makes your business calls, handles texts and runs your team inbox, set up by the Carly team with no code.
Retell AI at a glance
Checked against Retell’s pricing page, docs and changelog on October 3, 2026. US dollars.
| Retell AI | |
|---|---|
| What it is | A platform for building AI phone agents, plus chat and SMS agents |
| How you build | Prompt agents, drag-and-drop call flows, APIs and SDKs, and Conductor, an AI copilot that drafts and tests changes |
| Native integrations | HubSpot, Salesforce, Dynamics 365, GoHighLevel, Zoho CRM, Zendesk, Calendly, Cal.com, Google Drive, OneDrive, Notion |
| Speed | About 600ms response time, per Retell |
| Languages | 55 with both voice and speech recognition coverage in its docs |
| Compliance | SOC 2 Type 1 and 2, HIPAA (self-signed BAA), GDPR. Its homepage also lists ISO 27001 |
| Price | $0.07 to $0.31 a minute, plus telephony. $10 in free credits. Enterprise is custom |
| Best for | Developers, agencies and contact centers with high call volume |
What Retell AI is and does
Retell came out of Y Combinator in late 2023, raised a $4.6 million seed round in 2024, and says it reached $40 million in annualized revenue with a team of 25, profitably. It sells the hard parts of an AI phone call (speech recognition, the model, the voice, turn-taking, interruptions, the phone connection) as one pipeline. You decide what the agent knows and does, either by writing a prompt or by laying out each step on a canvas.
What the platform covers:
- Inbound and outbound calls, including outbound campaigns from an uploaded list with pacing, retries and voicemail handling.
- Transfers, with an option for the AI to brief the person before handing over, plus navigating other companies’ phone menus.
- Live monitoring (June 2026): live transcripts, call scoring, and the option to listen in, whisper to the agent or take over.
- Built-in CRM (June 2026): each call updates a contact keyed to the phone number, syncs both ways with Salesforce and HubSpot, and lets the agent pick up where a returning caller left off.
- Workflows (August 2026): steps before and after each call, with an integration library that includes Slack, Google Drive and Salesforce.
- Conductor (July 2026): simulates scenarios without dialing, turns failed calls into tests and proposes fixes you approve.
Retell cites an independent Cekura benchmark of 414 calls where it scored 95.7% workflow accuracy, the best of six platforms. Its native calendars are Calendly, Cal.com and GoHighLevel, so booking onto a Google or Outlook calendar runs through one of those or a custom function you write.
Retell AI pricing (October 2026)
Retell is pay as you go: no monthly plan, no annual contract, no platform fee. You’re charged each billing cycle for the minutes you used, tracked to the second, and a minute is the sum of its parts.
| Component | Price |
|---|---|
| Retell voice infrastructure | $0.055 a minute |
| Voice | $0.015 a minute on most providers, $0.04 for ElevenLabs |
| Language model | Under a cent to $0.32 a minute. Recommended models run $0.064 to $0.16. “Fast tier” roughly doubles it |
| Telephony | $0.015 a minute on a Retell US number, $0.06 toll-free, free on your own carrier |
| Numbers and capacity | $2 a month per number. 20 concurrent calls included, then $8 a month per line |
| Add-ons | $0.005 to $0.01 a minute each for knowledge base, noise reduction, guardrails and data redaction. AI quality checks $0.10 a minute after 100 free |
Retell’s docs say voice infrastructure, voice and model “add up to roughly $0.07 to $0.31 per minute.” Telephony and add-ons come on top, and the priciest model alone is $0.32 a minute. Also: silence and hold time are billed, telephony keeps running after a transfer, and testing bills at production rates once the $10 in credits is gone.
Take Claire Thompson’s roofing company: 800 calls a month at three minutes, so 2,400 minutes. A recommended model, a standard voice and a Retell number come to about $0.15 a minute, or $358 a month. GPT 5.5 with an ElevenLabs voice is $0.27 a minute, or $648. Then add whoever builds and maintains the agent.
Carly prices it the other way around: the phone line is priced on a short call with the Carly team, setup included. Everything else: free Zapier-style workflows; AI agents from $35/month.
Who Retell AI is for, and what you build yourself
Retell fits developers adding voice to their own product, agencies building agents for clients, and contact centers with the volume and staff to test and tune. Its case studies come from healthcare, EV charging and medical billing.
What arrives is an agent with no business attached. Someone on your side still:
- Buys or connects numbers and completes Retell’s KYC verification before any outbound call.
- Writes the prompt or flow, and the rules for who qualifies.
- Connects the calendar and CRM, and builds transfers, voicemail and after-hours logic.
- Adds consent rules before calling anyone (see AI outbound calling).
- Tests at production rates, and retests when models change. Retell’s docs keep a deprecations page for a reason.
With no developer, Retell points you to its directory of certified solution partners, agencies that build the agent for you. That works, but now you’re paying two vendors for one phone line.
Retell AI limitations: what users report
Retell rates well: 4.9 out of 5 on Trustpilot from about 810 reviews, most praising ease of use, natural-sounding calls and how fast fixes ship. The complaints are specific:
- Latency depends on the model. A March 2026 reviewer on Gemini 3 Flash reported 1.5 to 2.5 second pauses, far off the 600ms headline. Another said it couldn’t keep up with fast-paced conversations.
- Support is thin on pay as you go. Self-serve accounts get community and email support; 24/7 support is Enterprise. A July 2026 reviewer said batch calling stopped placing calls after they paid, and nobody helped.
- Outbound is country-limited. A March 2026 reviewer spent days setting up calls to Turkey before hitting a blocked-country error. Retell’s docs list 15 supported destination countries on its Twilio numbers.
- EU hosting. Retell’s compliance docs say it doesn’t currently operate services within the EU.
Retell AI alternatives
US list prices from each vendor’s pricing page, checked October 3, 2026.
| Alternative | Kind | Price | Who sets it up |
|---|---|---|---|
| Carly | Business-ready: calls, texts and email in one team inbox | Phone line priced on a short call. Free Zapier-style workflows; AI agents from $35/month | The Carly team, with you |
| Vapi | Developer platform | $0.05/min hosting plus models at cost. 1,000 minutes runs $82 to $129 on its calculator | Your developer |
| Bland | Developer platform | $0.14/min, or $0.12/min plus $299/mo. Telephony extra | Your developer |
| ElevenLabs Agents | Developer platform | Free (15 minutes) to $990/mo (12,375 minutes). Model billed on top | Your developer |
| Synthflow | Enterprise platform | Contracts from $30,000 a year | Synthflow, with your team |
If you want the phone agent, not the platform
1. Carly
Carly is an AI assistant for your whole team, and Carly for teams puts it on your business line. It answers and makes calls, texts from the same number and runs the team inbox. No flow to draw, no API to call: you write instructions in plain English, and the Carly team sets up the number with you, the one you have or a new one.
Here’s a Tuesday call to Thompson Roofing while Claire’s crew is up on a roof:
- Carly picks up when nobody can, or around the clock if you’d rather.
- It knows the caller. Josh Whitaker’s number matches his CRM record and last month’s email about a leak, so the call starts there.
- It qualifies and books. Claire’s questions run in order, then Josh lands on a real Google or Outlook calendar, round robin across the team.
- It hands off and logs. If Josh asks for a person, Carly rings the right teammate. The transcript and summary land in the team inbox and on his CRM record.
What you’d build yourself on Retell comes with it:
- Speed to lead. A web form comes in, and Carly calls the lead within about a minute and books them (tutorial).
- Texts. Carly answers texts on your business number, a teammate can take over any thread, and carrier registration is part of setup. “Missed call, text them back” is one workflow (how it works).
- Calls from ChatGPT or Claude. Add Carly Teams as a connector and ChatGPT or Claude can place calls, send texts and go through voicemail on your business line. You can build the voice and text agents themselves from the same chat (how to set it up).
- One team inbox and CRM. Calls, texts and email share one timeline per customer, and a teammate replying pauses the AI. Carly works across all of your team’s Gmail and Outlook accounts and calendars at once, and writes back to HubSpot, Salesforce and Dynamics 365.
- Workflows on call events. Trigger on call ended, voicemail or text received. Carly connects to thousands of apps, so the outcome goes wherever your team works.
- More than the phone. Booking pages with round robin, and AI email agents for your support@ address.
You pick the voice (OpenAI or ElevenLabs voices), then call the number and read the log. The build-and-test tutorial walks through it.
Best for: Small and mid-sized teams that want calls answered, booked and logged without a developer. Pricing: Phone line priced on a short call. Free Zapier-style workflows; AI agents from $35/month. Setup: Done with the Carly team. Get started or book a call.
More business-ready options: the best AI receptionist and AI answering service guides.
If you’re building: developer platforms
2. Vapi
Vapi is the most hands-on: you choose every component (transcriber, model, voice, carrier) and pay for each at cost on top of Vapi’s hosting fee.
Best for: Engineers who want full control of the stack. Pricing: $0.05 a minute hosting plus models at cost, $5 in free credits. Support packages from $29 a month. HIPAA is $2,000 a month. Limitations: Four concurrent calls without a package. Trustpilot rates it 2.4 out of 5, and a March 2026 reviewer reported 3 to 5 second pauses after each turn.
3. Bland
Bland folds the model, transcription and voice into one per-minute rate, so the bill is easier to predict. Telephony is billed separately.
Best for: Teams that want one AI rate and plan to scale outbound. Pricing: $0.14 a minute on Start with no platform fee, or $0.12 a minute plus $299 a month on Build. Limitations: Start caps you at 100 calls a day and 10 at once. A BAA for health data is Enterprise-only.
4. ElevenLabs Agents
ElevenLabs, best known for its voices, sells agent plans with call minutes included. It’s the pick when voice quality matters most.
Best for: Products where the voice is the selling point. Pricing: Free for 15 minutes, then $22 a month for 275 minutes up to $990 for 12,375, billed monthly. Extra minutes are $0.08. Limitations: The model is billed on top, and calls over your concurrency limit bill at double rate.
5. Synthflow
Synthflow has moved upmarket: its pricing page sells only enterprise contracts, scoped around volume, integrations and security review.
Best for: Contact centers that want the vendor to scope and launch the rollout. Pricing: Contracts from $30,000 a year. Limitations: No self-serve plan. A May 2026 Trustpilot reviewer reported agents drifting from instructions and failing SMS triggers and webhooks.
Retell AI or Carly: how to pick
- Pick Retell AI if you have a developer or partner budget, want to choose your model and voice, and run enough volume that cents per minute decide the business case.
- Pick Vapi to control every component, Bland for one predictable AI rate, ElevenLabs Agents if the voice is the product, and Synthflow for an enterprise rollout with a $30,000-plus budget.
- Go with Carly if you want your calls answered, booked and logged in your team inbox without building anything. The Carly team sets it up with you.
More on the category: what an AI voice agent does and costs and AI voice agents for customer service.
FAQ
What is Retell AI?
Retell AI is a platform for building AI voice agents that answer and place phone calls. It runs speech recognition, the model, the voice and telephony, and you design what the agent does with prompts, a visual flow builder or its API. If you’d rather have a phone agent set up for you, Carly does that for teams.
How much does Retell AI cost?
Pay as you go: $0.07 to $0.31 a minute depending on the model and voice, plus telephony ($0.015 a minute on a Retell US number), $2 a month per number and optional add-ons. New accounts get $10 in free credits, and Enterprise is custom. Carly’s phone line is priced on a short call, so book a call with the Carly team to scope yours.
Do you need a developer to use Retell AI?
Not to start. Templates, the flow builder and the Conductor copilot get a demo agent running quickly. A production agent still needs its calendar, CRM, transfers, consent rules and testing wired up and maintained, which is why Retell runs a directory of partners who build agents for clients. For a phone agent the Carly team sets up with you, get started with Carly.
Is Retell AI HIPAA compliant?
Retell says it’s HIPAA compliant, SOC 2 Type 1 and Type 2 certified and GDPR compliant. Its business associate agreement is self-signed at no extra fee and must be signed before any patient data goes through Retell. Its docs also note it doesn’t currently operate services within the EU.
What’s the best Retell AI alternative?
It depends on whether you’re building. Developers usually compare Vapi (most control), Bland (one per-minute rate) and ElevenLabs Agents (voice quality). For a business that wants the calls handled, Carly answers and makes calls, texts from the same number and logs everything in one team inbox.
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