TL;DR / Key Takeaways
- Vapi charges $0.05 a minute plus every layer at provider rates; HIPAA with a BAA is a $2,000-a-month add-on.
- Retell AI is the closest alternative, with 20 concurrent calls free against Vapi's 4.
- Bland AI charges one rate ($0.14 a minute) that includes the model and voice.
- LiveKit Agents and Pipecat are open source and remove the platform fee.
- For a small business, Rosie or Quo replaces building an agent at all.
Short answer: the closest Vapi alternative is Retell AI, with 20 concurrent calls free and $10 of credits. ElevenLabs Agents bundles minutes into a monthly plan from $6, and Bland AI charges one flat rate per minute that covers the model and voice. To cut the platform fee out entirely, build on open source with LiveKit Agents or Pipecat. If you only need calls answered for a small business, a done-for-you receptionist like Rosie (from $49 a month) or Quo replaces the whole build. Updated November 2, 2026.
How we checked: pricing, limits, telephony and compliance come from each vendor's own pricing page, documentation or GitHub repository, read November 2, 2026. We did not measure call quality or latency ourselves; latency figures below are the vendors' own claims. For the per-minute cost of a full stack at 1,000 and 10,000 minutes a month, see our AI voice agent platforms comparison.
Why people look beyond Vapi
Vapi charges a $0.05-a-minute platform fee, and then passes through the cost of every layer you plug in: speech-to-text, the language model, the voice and the phone line. Its own calculator puts 1,000 minutes a month at about $82 to $129. Three things push teams to compare:
- Concurrency: the free tier allows 4 simultaneous calls, Core ($29 a month) 10, and Pro 30, with a $999 monthly minimum. Extra lines are $10 a month each.
- Compliance: HIPAA with a signed BAA is a $2,000-a-month add-on. Vapi's homepage says "SOC 2, HIPAA, and PCI compliant" without mentioning the add-on.
- Bill predictability: with five separately priced layers, the per-minute cost moves every time you change a model or a voice.
Vapi alternatives at a glance
| Tool | Type | Price as stated | Free to start | Entry concurrency | Compliance stated |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Retell AI | Developer platform + builder | $0.07 to $0.31/min all-in, $0.055 engine | $10 credits | 20 free, then $8/line | SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA |
| ElevenLabs Agents | Developer platform + builder | Plans $6 to $990/month with minutes; extra $0.08/min, LLM at cost | 15 minutes/month | 4 on free | HIPAA BAA on Enterprise |
| Bland AI | Developer platform | $0.14/min (model and voice included), phone extra | Free credits | 10, 100 calls/day | SOC 2; BAA on Enterprise |
| Vida | Managed platform | $0.15/min voice, AI tokens extra | Not stated | Not stated | HIPAA via sales add-on |
| Twilio ConversationRelay | Building block, bring your own LLM | $0.07/min + Twilio voice minutes | Not stated | Not stated | HIPAA-eligible |
| LiveKit Agents | Open source (Apache-2.0) + cloud | Cloud from $0; example $0.048/min all-in | 1,000 agent minutes | 5 | SOC 2 Type II on Scale+ |
| Pipecat | Open source (BSD-2) + hosting | Hosting $0.01 to $0.03/min | Not stated | Unlimited (hosted) | Not stated |
| Synthflow | No-code, enterprise only | Annual contract, no per-minute rate | None | Custom | SOC 2 Type 2, HIPAA |
| Rosie | Done-for-you receptionist | $49 (250 min) to $299 (2,000 min)/month | 7-day trial | Multiple calls | Not stated |
| Quo | Phone system with an AI agent | $19 to $47/user/month + $0.45 to $1.00 per AI call | 7-day trial, 10 calls | Not stated | HIPAA-ready plans |
Picking by what you are building
- The same developer workflow with more headroom: Retell AI. Its first 20 concurrent calls are free (against 4 on Vapi's free tier), calls are billed per second, failed calls are free, and bringing your own SIP trunk removes the telephony charge.
- Voice quality first: ElevenLabs Agents, from the company that makes the voices. Plans run from $6 a month for 75 minutes to $990 for 12,375, with 4 to 40 concurrent calls.
- One rate to budget against: Bland AI at $0.14 a minute on its free Start plan or $0.12 on Build ($299 a month), with no separate token charges.
- No platform fee at all: LiveKit Agents or Pipecat. Both are open source; you run them yourself or pay a few cents a minute for hosting, and choose every model and voice.
- Just the voice layer, cheaper: Inworld text-to-speech, at $7 to $25 per million characters on its own pricing. That works out to roughly 0.7 to 2.5 cents a minute by our math, at about 1,000 characters a minute.
- A business that wants calls answered, not a platform: Rosie from $49 a month for 250 minutes, or Quo, whose Sona agent comes with a full business phone system. See also our AI receptionist build vs buy guide.
Two names from older lists to skip. Air AI no longer sells a voice agent: air.ai now presents a defense readiness platform. Landbot's pricing shows web, WhatsApp and Messenger channels but no voice or phone channel.
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Frequently asked questions
What is the best alternative to Vapi?
Retell AI is the closest: a developer platform with 20 concurrent calls free and $10 of credits, billed per second. ElevenLabs Agents suits teams that want bundled minutes and top voices, and Bland AI suits teams that want one flat rate per minute.
Is there an open-source alternative to Vapi?
Yes. LiveKit Agents (Apache-2.0) and Pipecat (BSD-2-Clause) are open-source frameworks for voice agents. You can host them yourself, or use LiveKit Cloud (free tier with 1,000 agent minutes) or Pipecat Cloud ($0.01 to $0.03 a minute).
How much does Vapi cost per minute?
Vapi charges a $0.05 platform fee per minute plus the cost of speech-to-text, the language model, the voice and telephony at provider rates. Its own calculator estimates about $82 to $129 for 1,000 minutes a month.
Which Vapi alternative is HIPAA compliant?
Retell AI, Bland AI, ElevenLabs Agents and Synthflow all state HIPAA support, but often only on higher plans: Bland and ElevenLabs offer a BAA on Enterprise. Vapi itself sells HIPAA with a BAA as a $2,000-a-month add-on.