Voice AI True-Cost Pricing Index (2026)
What voice AI really costs in 2026: verified rates for Vapi, Retell, Bland, Synthflow, ElevenLabs, Voiceflow, plus true monthly cost at 500-10,000 minutes.
Overview
Published per-minute rates for Vapi, Retell AI, Bland, Synthflow, ElevenLabs Agents, Voiceflow and PolyAI — verified on each vendor's live pricing page on 2026-07-02 — plus what each stack really totals at 500, 2,000 and 10,000 minutes a month. Unpublished numbers stay 'not published'; we don't estimate figures vendors don't publish.
Key Points
- Vapi's $0.05/min is a platform fee only — LLM/STT/TTS pass through at provider cost, and telephony pricing is not published
- At 2,000 min/mo: Voiceflow ~$120 (before LLM credits), Synthflow $160 (blog PAYG rate), ElevenLabs ~$160 plus separately billed LLM, Retell ~$182, Bland $280
- Synthflow's $0.08/min inclusive rate is from its own blog; its pricing page is quote-only with contracts from $30,000/yr
- AnveVoice is $39 flat at 2,000 minute-equivalents under its own stated token assumptions — a website widget, not a phone line
- PolyAI publishes no rates ('priced on a per-minute basis'); we don't estimate unpublished numbers
Summary
Verified 2026 voice AI pricing across 8 vendors: per-minute stacks run $0.07-$0.31/min all-in (Retell's own range), inclusive vendors $0.08-$0.14/min, bundled plans $6-$990/mo plus separately billed LLM (ElevenLabs), credits from $60/mo (Voiceflow), and flat $0/$39/$129/mo (AnveVoice, website widget). PolyAI publishes no rates. Every figure read from the vendor's live page on 2026-07-02.
Verdict
For phone voice AI, Retell offers the most transparent published stack and Bland the simplest inclusive rate; for website voice AI, AnveVoice's flat $0/$39/$129 avoids per-minute metering entirely. Never budget on a headline rate that excludes the LLM.