Decoding Retell AI Pricing and Plans in 2025

Businesses are heavily dependent on automating AI calling operations, streamline customer service interactions choosing the right open source and AI to AI testing platforms become critical like Dograh AI. While considering the right voice agent, understanding its price plan becomes crucial.

Retell AI pricing starts at $0.07+/min for voice agents and $0.002+/msg for chat agents, but extra charges for STT, TTS, LLMs, and telephony often push real costs up to $0.25–$0.33/min, making accurate budgeting more complex.

This blog breaks down Retell AI pricing and compares it with its top competitors, such as Dograh AI and other competitors, to help you select the best AI phone agent platform you need.

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Retell AI Pricing at a Glance

Retell AI offers no platform fees, claims pay only for what you use. pricing starts at $0.07+/min for AI Voice Agents and $0.002+/msg for AI Chat Agents, with competitive rates for STT, TTS, and LLM. Two plans are provided by Retell AI, Pay as you go and Enterprise Plan.

Core Pricing Structure

• Pay as you go : Retell AI offers pay-as-you-go pricing with $0 to start, $0.07+/minute for AI Voice Agents, and $0.002+/msg for AI Chat Agents, including $10 free credits, 20 free concurrent calls, 10 free knowledge bases, pre-built functions, simulation testing, analytics and support via Discord and email.
• Enterprise Plan : Retell AI’s Enterprise Plan, for companies spending $3k+/month, offers as low as $0.05/min, scaling from 50+ calls, with discounted pricing, managed setup, higher concurrency, expanded limits, early beta access, optional white-glove service, and premium Slack support.
• Large Language Model (LLM) : LLM usage is billed separately by provider: GPT-5 at $0.04/min (Fast Tier $0.08/min), Claude 3.7 Sonnet at $0.06/min, and Gemini 2.0 Flash at $0.006/min.
• Telephony : Telephony costs include Retell via Twilio at $0.015/min, with no charges for SIP trunking or custom telephony, plus varying international call rates.
• Call Agent-ons : Call Agent add-ons include Knowledge Base at +$0.005/min (first 10 free), Batch Call at +$0.005/dial (first 20 concurrency free), and Branded Call at +$0.10/outbound call (custom phone numbers free).

How Retell AI Pricing Works and Tiers Comparison

Retell AI offers flexible pricing model with pay as you go and enterprise model key highlights include :

• Conversation Voice Engine : $0.07–$0.08 per minute, depending on provider (e.g., ElevenLabs, OpenAI).
• LLM Agent Costs : Start at $0.006 per minute for basic models, up to $0.06 for advanced models like Claude 3.5.
• Enterprise Plans : Custom pricing for high-volume users, with rates as low as $0.05 per minute.

Detail Pricing :

• Conversation Voice Engine API : With Elevenlabs voices ($0.07/min), PlayHT / OpenAI Voices ($0.08/min).
• LLM Agent : RetellLLM- GPT 4o mini ($0.006/min), RetellLLM- GPT 4o ($0.05/min), RetellLLM- Claude 3 Haiku ($0.012/min), RetellLLM- Claude 3.5 Haiku ($0.02/min), RetellLLM- Claude 3.5 Sonnet ($0.06/min), users own LLM no charge.
• Telephony : Retell telephony charges Retell Twilio ($0.015/min), if the users bring his own twilio no charge.
• Others : Knowledge base pricing include ($0.005/min)
• Add-ons : Retell AI add-ons pricing for Phone Numbers ($2.00/month), and also offers free 10 knowledge bases, for extra knowledge base ($8.00/month).

What’s Included in the Base Plans

Retell AI’s base voice automation plans follow a simple pay-as-you-go model, allowing businesses to launch quickly with no upfront costs or platform fees.

• Free : For individuals exploring advanced AI audio, the free plan ($0/month) includes 10k credits with 10 minutes of ultra-high-quality text-to-speech, support for 32 languages, and up to 4 concurrent requests.
• Starter : For hobbyists building AI audio projects, the ($5/month) plan offers 30k credits with 30 minutes of ultra-high-quality text-to-speech, conversational AI features, and up to 6 concurrent requests.
• Creator : For creators producing premium content for global audiences, the $11/month plan includes 100k credits, 100 minutes of ultra-high-quality text-to-speech, conversational AI, up to 10 concurrent requests, and enhanced 192 kbps audio quality.
• Pro : For creators scaling their content production, the $99/month plan provides 500k credits, 500 minutes of ultra-high-quality text-to-speech, conversational AI, up to 20 concurrent requests, with enhanced 192 kbps audio and 44.1 kHz PCM output via API.
• Scale : For startups and publishers, the $330/month plan includes 2M credits, 2,000 minutes of ultra-high-quality text-to-speech, conversational AI features, and support for up to 30 concurrent requests.
• Business : For rapidly scaling startups and publishers, the $1,320/month plan offers 11M credits, 11,000 minutes of ultra-high-quality text-to-speech (or 22,000 minutes with Flash/Turbo), conversational AI features, and up to 30 concurrent requests.
• Enterprise Plan : Retell AI’s Enterprise Plan, for companies spending $3k+/month, offers as low as $0.05/min, scaling from 50+ calls, with discounted pricing, managed setup, higher concurrency, expanded limits, early beta access, optional white-glove service, and premium Slack support.

Real Cost Breakdown

Cost breakdown for 4,500 monthly Retell AI calls using GPT-5 LLM agents, ElevenLabs/Cartesia voices, and custom telephony.

Setup and Technical Needs

Retell AI is designed to be developer-friendly, often requiring just one engineer for initial setup. While advanced configurations like custom workflows or deep CRM integrations may take longer, the platform makes scaling simple with 20 concurrent calls on base plans and easy upgrades for higher demand. It provides webhook endpoints for automated tasks and workflow orchestration, with no local infrastructure required since all processing runs securely in the cloud with 99.99% uptime. Basic RESTful knowledge is enough for integration, while advanced teams can use SDKs for deeper customization.

How to calculate your monthly bill with Retell AI

Estimate Total Minutes

Decide how many monthly voice agent minutes you’ll need.

Choose Voice Engine

ElevenLabs/Cartesia voices – $0.07/minute, OpenAI voices – $0.08/minute.

Select your LLM (Claude 3.5, GPT 5 etc), Telephony (Twilio, you own), optional features (Knowledge base) and monthly subscription features (verified phone number).

Examples :

1,000 min/month with Elevenlabs ($0.07/min), Claude 3.5 LLM ($0.06/min), Retell Twilio ($0.01/min).

Total Cost : 1,000 * (0.07+0.06+0.01) = $140

Pros and Cons of Retell AI Pricing

Pros

• Cost Efficiency : Retell AI pricing starts at $0.07+/min for AI Voice Agents and $0.002+/msg for AI Chat Agents, with competitive rates for STT, TTS, and LLM.
• Minimal Entry Barriers : 60 free minutes, 20 concurrent calls, and trial credits let businesses test before committing.
• Cost Advantage : 50–90% cheaper per call than legacy dialers and competitors like Twilio, with 5,000 mins/month costing ~$350–$400.

Cons

• Layered Pricing : While Retell AI advertises $0.07/min, actual costs often reach $0.25 - $0.33/min due to separate fees for LLMs, STT, TTS, and telephony, making budget management difficult.
• Concurrency Costs : First 20 calls are free, beyond that, $8 per concurrent call/month, increasing expenses for large call centers.

Top 10 Vapi AI Alternatives & Competitors in 2025

Vapi’s voice automation platform suits developers but suffers from high costs & scalability issues. With a 2.6 Trustpilot rating and layered pricing ($0.23–$0.33/min), many seek better alternatives like Dograh AI. This blog explores Vapi’s drawbacks and more affordable, scalable options.

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How Retell AI compares to Dograh AI

Dograh offers an open source solution without any platform charges. This makes it more cost-effective, customisable and scalable compared to Retell AI.

What Dograh AI offers that Retell AI doesn’t

The Bottom Line: Is Retell AI Worth it ?

Retell AI stands out for its transparent pricing, bundled core features, and competitive voice automation rates at scale. However, enterprises should plan carefully for premium add-ons and higher concurrency needs, as these can increase overall costs.

Getting started with Dograh

Interested in leveraging Dograh for lead generation, cold calling or business automation ? Here’s a streamlined path to getting started, along with direct links to essential resources :

1. Sign Up for Dograh

2. Quick Start Instructions

This guide walks you through using Dograh’s no-code drag-and-drop builder to easily set up real estate or customer calling workflows.

3. Tutorial : No Code Voice Agent Creation

Discover how to easily create agents, design workflows, and integrate CRMs using Dograh code-free, with real business examples included.

4. Book a Demo

Book a demo to see how Dograh can support your business needs like automating real estate leads or customer support with tailored insights and a live walkthrough.

Alternative Resource

Cost Optimization Strategies

Use batch and scheduled calling to focus on peak contact times, improving the chance of reaching people and boosting conversions. Choose speech-to-text and text-to-speech models that balance quality and cost, lighter LLMs lower per-minute expenses. High-volume users can get enterprise deals to cut costs further. Target calls to markets and languages with better response rates to get the most value from AI agents.

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AI Calling Development Companies are transforming how businesses handle routine tasks through automation. At the core of this shift is the AI Voice Agent, designed to streamline operations and boost efficiency

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Final Thoughts

Retell AI pricing is clear, predictable, and cost-efficient, providing enterprise-grade voice automation at lower costs than competitors. It’s ideal for teams looking to scale quickly while keeping operations transparent. The platform works well for rapid deployment and day-to-day usage. However, careful planning is needed when adding premium features or increasing concurrency to manage costs effectively.

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