Vapi vs Retell AI vs DialerBee
A Vapi and Retell AI alternative for contact centers that also need people
Vapi and Retell are good at building AI phone agents. DialerBee is a contact center with an AI voice agent inside it. Here is how to tell which one you need, with each vendor's own published prices.
Updated October 16, 2026. Facts about Vapi, Retell AI and Bland AI checked October 2026 on their own pricing and documentation pages.
Quick answer
Vapi and Retell AI are developer platforms for building AI phone agents, priced per minute. They are the right choice when the voice agent is your product or you already run your own contact center stack. DialerBee is the alternative when you need the whole operation: queues, human agents, supervisors, outbound campaigns, WhatsApp, SMS and email, with an AI voice agent built in, Arabic dialects and your own SIP trunk. Its AI minutes cost more; the contact center around them is included.
What are Vapi and Retell AI?
Vapi calls itself "the developer platform for building voice AI agents". Every assistant combines speech-to-text, a large language model and text-to-speech, and you choose the provider for each. You can build in its dashboard or with code and SDKs, connect your own SIP provider, and use "squads" to pass a call between specialised assistants. You pay Vapi a hosting fee per minute and pay the model providers at cost.
Retell AI describes itself as "a platform to build, test, deploy, and monitor AI voice and chat agents with telephony, prompts, tools, and analytics built in". Agents are built from a single prompt or a conversation flow, can run batch outbound calls, transfer to a human, and connect to your own telephony over SIP. Pricing is per minute, built from the voice infrastructure, the model and the voice you pick.
Both are strong at the part they set out to do: the conversation. What neither sets out to be is the contact center around it. That is not a criticism; it is the line between an AI voice API and an AI contact center platform, which we cover in depth in AI voice API vs AI contact center platform. This page applies that distinction to the three products people most often compare.
Vapi vs Retell
Vapi vs Retell AI: how do their prices work?
The headline numbers are not like for like. Here is what each one's own pricing page says the per-minute price includes.
Vapi
- "$0.05/min Vapi hosting", pre-paid, with "Models pass-through at cost".
- The per-minute cost has "four components: speech-to-text, the language model, text-to-speech, and transport", each "billed at the provider's listed price with no markup", with the hosting fee "added on top".
- Listed provider ranges: Deepgram transcriber $0.0095–$0.0099/min, OpenAI model $0.0077–$0.0452/min, ElevenLabs voice $0.0146–$0.0238/min.
- Transport: Vapi Telephony / SIP free; carrier phone minutes listed from about $0.0055 to $0.014 per minute, depending on the carrier and direction.
- Optional Success Packages: Core $29/month, Pro "10% of Vapi hosting fee" with a "$999/mo minimum", Premier custom.
Retell AI
- "$0.07-$0.31 / min for AI Voice Agents" on pay as you go; Enterprise is custom.
- Components: Retell Voice Infra $0.055/minute; Retell platform voices from $0.015/minute; standard-tier LLMs from $0.0016/minute (GPT 5 nano) to $0.32/minute (GPT 6 Astra), with Claude 5 Sonnet listed at $0.064/minute.
- "No Charge for Sip Trunking/Custom Telephony." Retell phone numbers $2.00/month.
- Add-ons per minute, for example knowledge base +$0.005/minute and batch call +$0.005 per dial.
- Calls are "tracked to the nearest second", and "once the call is transferred, the AI voice agent fee stops".
In short: Vapi's $0.05 is a hosting fee before models and voice; Retell's $0.07–$0.31 is a range that already includes its voice infrastructure, and moves with the model and voice you choose. Vapi suits teams who want to pick and pay every provider themselves; Retell suits teams who want fewer moving parts in one bill.
Side by side
Vapi vs Retell AI vs DialerBee: how do they compare?
Vapi and Retell columns from their own pricing and documentation pages, checked October 2026. DialerBee column from our published pricing and product facts.
| Factor | Vapi | Retell AI | DialerBee |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is, in its own words | "The developer platform for building voice AI agents." | "A platform to build, test, deploy, and monitor AI voice and chat agents." | A multilingual AI contact center platform: inbound queues, outbound campaigns, an omnichannel inbox, and an AI voice agent built in. |
| Headline price | $0.05/min Vapi hosting, pre-paid. Models pass-through at cost. Optional Success Packages: Core $29/month, Pro 10% of hosting fee with a $999/month minimum, Premier custom. | $0.07–$0.31/min for AI voice agents, pay as you go. Enterprise: custom pricing. | Per agent: Starter $69, Professional $129, Enterprise custom. AI voice agent $0.60 per started connected minute on managed AI (Professional and Enterprise). |
| What the per-minute price covers | Hosting only. Speech-to-text, the language model, text-to-speech and transport are billed "at the provider's listed price with no markup", on top. | The range depends on the LLM and voice you choose; components are priced separately (voice infrastructure $0.055/min, plus LLM, voice and telephony). | On managed AI, the AI models. Carrier minutes are billed by your carrier. With your own model keys, a flat monthly fee replaces the per-minute rate. |
| Your own SIP trunk | Yes, SIP trunking with your provider. Vapi Telephony / SIP transport listed as free. | Yes, custom telephony via SIP. "No Charge for Sip Trunking/Custom Telephony." | Yes, BYOC on any SIP trunk, or keep your own PBX or SBC. No per-minute platform fee on carrier minutes. |
| Concurrent calls | 4 with no package; 10 on Core; 30 on Pro. Extra lines $10 per line per month. | 20 included; extra $8 per concurrent call per month. | Seat limits: Starter up to 20 agents, Professional up to 100, Enterprise unlimited. |
| Handing a call to a person | Transfer call tool routes the call to a phone number or SIP URI. | Transfer call tool with cold, warm and agentic warm transfer to a human, a department or another number. | Hand-off to a human agent on the same platform, inside your queues. |
| Queues, human agent desktop, supervisor listen / whisper / barge | Not described on the pages we checked; the transfer goes to a number or SIP URI you provide. | Not described on the pages we checked; the transfer goes to a destination you provide. | Built in: ACD queues with SLA targets, a browser agent desktop, and listen, whisper and barge for supervisors. |
| Outbound campaigns | Phone calls inbound and outbound from your assistants. | Batch calls: create, schedule and monitor outbound calls in bulk. | AI outbound campaigns on the same list and pacing machinery as human campaigns, plus preview, power, progressive and predictive dialing for human agents. |
| WhatsApp, SMS, email | Not listed on the pricing page we checked. | SMS at $0.01 per message; chat agents priced per message. | Omnichannel inbox: voice, WhatsApp, SMS and email in one conversation list. |
| Free start | $5 free credits. | $10 in free credits. | 14-day free trial with free AI credit, no card. |
Sources, checked October 2026: Vapi pricing, Vapi introduction, Vapi SIP trunking, Vapi transfer call tool, Retell AI pricing, Retell introduction, Retell custom telephony, Retell transfer call, Retell batch calls. "Not described on the pages we checked" means exactly that; check with the vendor if it matters to you. Vapi and Retell AI are trademarks of their owners; DialerBee is not affiliated with either.
Worked example
What do 10,000 AI minutes a month cost on each?
Every price below is quoted from the vendor's own page. The 10,000 minutes and the choice of models are our illustration, not a market statistic. In all three columns you bring your own SIP trunk, so carrier minutes are the same and left out.
| Monthly line | Vapi, no Success Package | Retell AI, pay as you go | DialerBee Professional |
|---|---|---|---|
| Platform per minute | $500 (10,000 × $0.05 hosting) | $550 (10,000 × $0.055 voice infra) | $6,000 (10,000 × $0.60 per started connected minute, managed AI) |
| Speech-to-text and language model | $95–$99 Deepgram + $77–$452 OpenAI | $640 (Claude 5 Sonnet, $0.064/min) | |
| Voice (text-to-speech) | $146–$238 ElevenLabs | $150 (Retell platform voices, $0.015/min) | |
| Telephony transport | $0 (Vapi Telephony / SIP listed free) | $0 (no charge for custom telephony) | $0 platform fee; your carrier bills minutes |
| AI minutes total | $818–$1,289 | $1,340 | $6,000 |
| Human agents and contact center | Not included: your own system, built or bought | Not included: your own system, built or bought | $645 for 5 Professional seats (5 × $129): queues, agent desktop, supervisor tools, reports, omnichannel inbox |
What the example shows. On AI minutes alone, Vapi and Retell are far cheaper: about 14% to 22% of DialerBee's per-minute line in this example. If all you need is an AI agent answering a number, and you are happy to own the rest, that difference is real and you should weigh it. Vapi's own calculator shows the same range we used: an estimated $82 to $129 a month for 1,000 minutes with Deepgram, OpenAI and ElevenLabs.
What it leaves out. On an API, the queue the AI hands calls to, the desktop your human agents use, supervisor listen and barge, campaign pacing, calling-hour and do-not-call checks, recordings, reports and WhatsApp follow-up are yours to build, integrate or buy separately. Put your own figure on that, in engineering time or in another platform's seats, before comparing totals. Our build vs buy analysis gives a framework.
Billing details that move the number. Retell bills to the nearest second; DialerBee bills per started connected minute, so many very short calls cost relatively more on DialerBee. Retell stops its AI fee once a call is transferred. At high volume, DialerBee also offers your own model keys: your model provider bills you directly and a flat monthly fee replaces the $0.60 rate (price on request). For outcome-based comparisons, see AI voice agent pricing and cost per resolved call and the full plan details on pricing.
Inputs: vapi.ai/pricing and retellai.com/pricing, checked October 2026. Excludes Vapi Success Packages and add-ons, Retell add-ons (for example knowledge base +$0.005/min), taxes and carrier minutes.
Be honest first
Who should choose Vapi or Retell, and who should choose DialerBee?
Choose Vapi or Retell AI if…
- The voice agent is your product. You are building voice into an app, a device or a SaaS product, and there is no contact center to plug into.
- You need API-level control. You want to pick the speech, model and voice providers yourself, or run your own server as the model (Vapi), and wire tools into your own code.
- You already own the contact center. Queues, human agents, recording and reporting exist in-house, and you need the conversational piece.
- Lowest cost per AI minute matters most. On published prices, both are well below DialerBee's $0.60 per minute.
- You are prototyping. Free credits ($5 on Vapi, $10 on Retell) and pay-as-you-go make a first experiment cheap.
Between the two: Vapi if you want to choose and pay each provider yourself; Retell if you want one bill that already includes its voice infrastructure.
Choose DialerBee if…
- AI and people share the calls. Layla hands off to a human agent in the same platform, into ACD queues with SLA targets, and supervisors can listen, whisper and barge.
- You run outbound at scale. AI campaigns use the same lists and pacing as your human campaigns, with compliance-supporting controls: DNC checks, consent, calling hours per jurisdiction and frequency limits, applied at the dial.
- Customers reach you on more than voice. WhatsApp, SMS and email sit in one omnichannel inbox, and the AI agent follows up by SMS or WhatsApp after the call.
- Your callers speak Arabic dialects. The voice agent handles Gulf, Levantine and Egyptian Arabic, plus 10 more languages.
- You want your own carrier. BYOC on any SIP trunk, or keep your PBX, with no per-minute platform fee on carrier minutes.
- Operations, not engineers, run it. Agent Studio covers personas, a knowledge base, versions with publish and rollback, A/B experiments and kill switches per scope.
A hybrid also works: build a custom voice experience on an API, and run your contact center on a platform whose REST API and webhooks connect the two. See the hybrid patterns in AI voice API vs AI contact center platform.
Already there on day one
What does DialerBee include that an AI voice API leaves to you?
These are the pieces you would otherwise build or integrate around a voice API. On DialerBee they sit in the same platform as the AI voice agent.
Queues and routing
ACD queues pick the next agent by FIFO, round-robin or longest-idle, with SLA targets, position and wait announcements. Each number routes to a queue, a user, an IVR flow, a campaign or the AI voice agent.
Human hand-off
When the conversation needs a person, Layla hands the call to a human agent in your contact center rather than ending in a dead loop.
Supervisor control
Listen, whisper and barge on live calls, a real-time wallboard, and 15 report types with CSV, Excel and PDF export.
Outbound campaigns
AI outbound campaigns and AI callbacks on the same list and pacing machinery as human campaigns, with preview, power, progressive and predictive dialing for agents.
A result for every call
The recording, the transcript and the outcome, pushed into the CRM so the AI call sits in the same customer history as the human ones.
Guardrails and kill switches
Candidate replies pass guardrails before they are spoken, only catalogue prices can be quoted, and supervisors can stop one agent, one campaign or all AI calling.
Answering inbound calls only? The same agent runs as an AI receptionist on your numbers. For what a good hand-off looks like, read AI voice agent to human hand-off.
Listen
Is there an alternative to Vapi or Retell for Arabic callers?
On Vapi and Retell, Arabic quality depends on the speech and voice providers you pick and how you prompt them; Retell lists Arabic in its language-support documentation. DialerBee's voice agent handles Gulf, Levantine and Egyptian Arabic as dialects rather than one flattened Arabic. Judge any of them with your own callers. Two recordings to start with:
Salon booking in Jordanian Arabic
AI voice agent demo — simulated caller · 49 seconds
Clinic questions and a callback request, in English
AI voice agent demo — simulated caller · 70 seconds
The callers are synthetic voices and the businesses are fictional: no real call or customer. Transcripts are on the AI voice agent page. More on dialects: Arabic AI voice agent.
Before you sign
How do you choose an AI voice agent platform for a contact center?
-
1. Write down where the call goes when the AI cannot finish it
A phone number? A queue? Who answers, what do they see, and who supervises them? If the answer is "we will build that", count the build.
-
2. Price your real minutes, not the headline
Take last month's call count and average length. On Vapi, add the hosting fee to the transcriber, model and voice you will actually use. On Retell, pick the model and voice in its calculator. On DialerBee, multiply by $0.60 and add the seats your human agents need.
-
3. Count concurrency
Vapi includes 4 concurrent calls with no package, Retell 20; extra lines cost $10 and $8 a month respectively. A busy Monday morning or an outbound campaign can need more.
-
4. Test in your callers' language
Call each agent the way your customers do, on a mobile line, in their dialect, with your own questions. A studio clip in a vendor's best language tells you little.
-
5. Ask who can stop it
When the agent says something wrong on a Saturday night, can an operations manager stop it from a console, or is it an engineer and a deploy?
A fuller scoring sheet: the AI voice agent evaluation matrix.
Vapi and Retell AI alternative: frequently asked questions
What is the best Vapi alternative?
Vapi vs Retell AI: what is the difference?
Is DialerBee cheaper than Vapi or Retell AI?
Can DialerBee's AI voice agent hand a call to a human?
Can I keep my own SIP trunk with DialerBee?
Does DialerBee have an API like Vapi and Retell?
Which is better for Arabic: Vapi, Retell AI or DialerBee?
What about Bland AI as an alternative?
Bland AI source: bland.ai/pricing, checked October 2026.
See the AI agent and your human team on one platform
Bring a call flow and a number. We will run the agent on a demo tenant, hand a call to a human queue, and show you the result it leaves behind.
Self-serve trial needs your own SIP trunk or PBX. Want us to set up the number? Talk to sales.
More comparisons
VICIdial Alternative & Migration Guide
Leaving VICIdial? A fair VICIdial vs DialerBee comparison, when to stay, a cost framework with stated assumptions, and a step-by-step migration plan.
White-Label vs Referral Reselling
White-label vs referral reselling for dialer resellers: compare branding, margin, customer ownership, and control. See why white-label builds a real product
AI AMD vs Beep Detection
Compare AI transcript classification vs beep-based AMD. DialerBee AI AMD supports 11 languages with dialect awareness. Book a demo to see it live.
AI Dialer vs Traditional Dialer
AI dialer vs traditional dialer compared: transcript-based AMD, live transcription, AI summaries and adaptive pacing across 11 languages, on your own carriers.
Auto Dialer vs Predictive Dialer
Auto dialer vs predictive dialer: how each pacing method works, and which fits your team size, compliance needs, and contact-rate goals. DialerBee runs both.
Browser Dialer vs Softphone
Compare WebRTC browser dialers vs installed softphones. DialerBee runs in any browser with HD audio and zero installs. Book a free demo today.