This free Retell AI cost calculator shows your likely monthly bill. Pay as you go from $0.07/min. Voice infra, voice, LLM and phone priced per minute. Your real cost depends on your own usage, so enter your numbers above. We use the official Retell AI pricing page, last checked on November 3, 2026.
What is Retell AI?
Retell AI is a platform for building AI phone agents. You design the agent's instructions, pick a voice and an AI model, connect a phone number, and Retell runs the live call: it listens, thinks and talks back with low delay. Retell also offers chat agents for websites and SMS.
Retell is popular with agencies building receptionists, appointment setters and outbound callers, because it is pay as you go, has a visual flow builder and includes 20 concurrent calls with no plan fee.
How much does Retell AI cost?
Retell advertises $0.07 to $0.31 per minute for voice agents. That range is the sum of several parts, all billed to the second:
| Part | Price |
|---|---|
| Retell Voice Infra | $0.055/min |
| Voice (Retell, Cartesia, OpenAI and similar voices) | $0.015/min (ElevenLabs $0.04 to $0.10) |
| AI model, GPT 6.1 Terra | $0.032/min |
| AI model, GPT 6 Luna / Claude Haiku 5.5 | $0.0032/min |
| AI model, GPT 6.1 Sol / Claude Sonnet 5.5 | $0.064/min |
| Phone line (Retell Twilio, US) | $0.015/min (free with your own SIP) |
So a typical call on GPT 6.1 Terra with a standard voice costs about $0.117 per minute. Unlike most tools, Retell prices the AI model per minute instead of per token, which makes voice costs easy to predict.
Chat agents are billed per AI message instead: $0.01 per message on GPT 6.1 Terra, $0.001 on GPT 6 Luna. New accounts get $10 in free credits. Enterprise plans have custom volume pricing.
What is included, and what is not?
- Included: full platform, agent templates, call analytics and transcripts, simulation testing, webhooks and API, 20 concurrent calls.
- Not included: Add-ons like knowledge base (+$0.005/min), denoising, PII removal
- Not included: Extra concurrency beyond 20 calls ($8 each/month)
- Not included: Phone numbers ($2/month each)
- Not included: branded caller ID ($0.10 per outbound call) and Retell SMS ($20/month plus $0.01 per message).
What does Retell AI cost at 3 business sizes?
A receptionist with 3-minute calls on GPT 6.1 Terra, 22 working days, no buffer.
| Size | Calls per day | Plan | AI model | Platform | Voice and phone | Total per month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Small | 10 | Pay as you go | $21.12 | $0.00 | $56.10 | $77.22 |
| Medium | 40 | Pay as you go | $84.48 | $0.00 | $224 | $309 |
| Large | 150 | Pay as you go | $317 | $0.00 | $842 | $1,158 |
On Retell the model choice moves the bill more than on Vapi, because the model is priced per minute. At 40 calls a day, GPT 6 Luna brings the total to $233, GPT 6.1 Terra is $309 and GPT 6.1 Sol is $393. A chat agent answering 100 chats a day costs about $66.00 a month on GPT 6.1 Terra.
What hidden costs should you watch for?
- Silence and hold time are billed. Retell bills the whole call, including pauses.
- Add-ons stack per minute. Knowledge base, denoising and guardrails each add $0.005 per minute; PII removal adds $0.01.
- Transfers. After a transfer the AI fee stops, but the phone line keeps billing.
- Concurrency. Beyond 20 live calls, each extra line is $8 a month.
How can you lower your Retell bill?
- Test GPT 6 Luna or Claude Haiku 5.5 first; they cost $0.0032 per minute.
- Use a standard voice instead of ElevenLabs unless callers notice the difference.
- Bring your own SIP trunk to remove the $0.015 per minute phone fee.
- Turn on only the add-ons you need.
- Set end-of-call rules for voicemail and long silence.
What are the main Retell AI alternatives?
- Vapi: about $217 a month for the same 40 calls a day. See the Vapi cost calculator.
- Bland AI: one all-in rate with the model included, about $392 a month for the same calls. See the Bland AI cost calculator.
- GoHighLevel Voice AI: best if your CRM is already HighLevel. See the GoHighLevel cost calculator.
Who is Retell AI best for?
Good fit
- Agencies building receptionists and appointment setters
- Teams that want predictable per-minute model pricing
- Businesses that need up to 20 calls at once with no plan fee
Not the best fit
- Owners who want an all-in-one CRM
- Very low-budget projects that need the cheapest possible voice minute
What are the key Retell AI features?
- Visual conversation flow: Design calls as steps and branches, or use a single prompt for open conversations.
- Per-minute model pricing: Each model has a fixed per-minute price, which makes costs easy to forecast.
- Many voices: Retell, Cartesia, OpenAI, ElevenLabs, Minimax, Fish and Inworld voices.
- Chat agents: Website and SMS chat agents billed per AI message.
- Analytics and simulation: Call analytics, transcripts, simulation testing and AI quality checks.
- Compliance options: SOC 2, HIPAA-ready, PII removal and safety guardrails as add-ons.
How do you set up Retell AI?
The steps below show the general setup. Button names change often, so follow the idea of each step rather than exact labels.
- Sign up. Create an account; you get $10 in free credits.
- Start from a template. Pick a template such as receptionist or appointment setter and edit it.
- Write the prompt or flow. Use a single prompt for simple calls or the flow builder for calls with clear steps.
- Choose model and voice. Start with a recommended model and a standard voice; check the per-minute price shown for each.
- Add functions. Connect booking, transfer and webhook actions so the agent can do real work.
- Get a number. Buy a Retell number or connect your own carrier through SIP.
- Run simulations. Test common and difficult callers before going live.
- Launch and review. Review call analytics weekly and turn off add-ons you do not use.
Tips from setup
- Bring your own SIP trunk to remove the per-minute phone fee.
- Each add-on adds to every minute, so only enable what you need.
How do you calculate your Retell AI cost?
- How many calls will Retell handle a day?. Use a normal working day. A rough guess is fine, and we count 22 working days a month.
- How many minutes does each call last?. Check your phone system for your real average. Call length is usually the biggest thing that moves a voice bill.
- How smart should the AI be?. Lower-cost models suit simple work. Move up only if the answers are not good enough.
- Read your answer. You see one monthly figure, the cost of each Retell AI task and what makes up the total.
Want to compare more tools at once? Use the main AI agent cost calculator.
How should you budget for Retell AI?
Voice agents bill by the minute, so average call length drives your cost more than anything else. Add every layer: the platform fee, speech-to-text, text-to-speech, the AI model and the phone line. A rate that looks low can double once the other layers are included.
To budget for Retell AI, take your monthly call count and your real average call length from your phone system, then enter both in the calculator. Also count transfers, phone numbers and extra concurrent lines if you get calls at the same time. Test with real callers before you commit, because a chatty agent adds minutes to every call.
Retell AI pricing FAQ
How much does Retell AI cost per minute?
Retell lists $0.07 to $0.31 per minute. With Voice Infra ($0.055), a standard voice ($0.015), GPT 6.1 Terra ($0.032) and Retell's US phone line ($0.015), a typical call is about $0.117 per minute.
Does Retell AI have a monthly fee?
No. Pay as you go has no platform fee or minimum. You get $10 in free credits and 20 concurrent calls. Extra concurrency is $8 per line per month and phone numbers are $2 per month.
How does Retell bill the AI model?
Per minute of call time, by model. For example GPT 6.1 Terra is $0.032 per minute and GPT 6 Luna is $0.0032. Chat agents are billed per AI message instead.
Is Retell cheaper than Vapi?
It depends on the model. With a low-cost model Retell is close to Vapi; with bigger models Retell's per-minute model price adds more. Compare both in the calculator with your own call length.
Does Retell charge during silence?
Yes. Billing covers the full call duration, tracked to the second, including silence and hold time.
How accurate is this Retell AI cost calculator?
It uses prices from the official Retell AI pricing page, last checked on November 3, 2026, and our own averages for typical usage. Treat your result as a planning estimate. Your real cost depends on your prompts, call lengths and busy days, so add about 20% and test with real work.
What does the Retell AI cost calculator leave out?
It does not count these costs: Add-ons like knowledge base (+$0.005/min), denoising, PII removal; Extra concurrency beyond 20 calls ($8 each/month); Phone numbers ($2/month each). It also leaves out tax and the time it takes to build and check your agent.
How do I work out what Retell AI will cost my business?
Answer the questions in the calculator at the top of this page with your normal daily numbers. A rough guess is fine. Then run a small test for a week and replace your guess with your real usage.
Get your Retell AI cost estimate
Now put in your own numbers. The Retell AI cost calculator at the top of this page gives you a figure in about a minute. Then run a small test with real work and compare your real usage with the estimate. Still deciding? Compare other AI tools.
Source and last checked date
All Retell AI prices on this page come from the official Retell AI pricing page, last checked on November 3, 2026. Voice Infra $0.055/min, Retell platform voices $0.015/min, LLM priced per minute by model (GPT 6.1 Terra $0.032/min), Retell Twilio US telephony $0.015/min. Chat agents are billed per AI message by model (GPT 6.1 Terra $0.01/msg). $10 free credits. Billed to the second.
More cost calculators
Other voice ai agents: Vapi, Bland AI, ElevenLabs, Synthflow.
All tools: OpenAI, Claude, DeepSeek, Gemini, n8n, Grok, Mistral, GoHighLevel, Make, Zapier Agents, Lindy, Botpress, Chatbase, Voiceflow, Relevance AI. Or go back to the AI agent cost calculator.