Retell AI Pricing: Retell Pricing per Minute, Add-Ons and What an Outbound Month Costs

Retell AI is priced per minute of connected call time, with no platform fee and no seat licence. Its pricing page quotes $0.07 to $0.31 a minute for voice agents, and its own calculator lands at $0.11 a minute for a default setup. The real rate is the sum of four meters: $0.055 voice infrastructure, a language model from under a cent to $0.32, a voice from $0.015 to $0.040, and $0.015 US telephony unless you bring your own. Read from retellai.com/pricing on September 18, 2026.

Retell is one of the three or four platforms most teams price when they decide to build their own AI phone agent, alongside Vapi and Bland. It is also one of the more transparent: the whole rate card sits on one public page, model by model. The catch is that the headline range hides which of those choices you will actually make, and for outbound calling the add-ons billed per dial can end up larger than the minutes.

Below is every line of the rate card that matters for a US sales team, a worked outbound month, and where a done-for-you AI SDR comes out cheaper or more expensive.

How much does Retell AI cost per minute?

Between about $0.07 and $0.43 a minute for a US voice agent, depending almost entirely on the language model. Retell advertises $0.07 to $0.31, and its calculator's default of $0.11 assumes you bring your own phone line, which makes telephony free. Add Retell's own US numbers and the default becomes $0.125.

The minute is built from four meters, and you pick three of them:

Billing is per second. Retell's FAQ says each call is tracked to the nearest second and charged on total accumulated minutes at the end of the cycle, with no rounding up per call.

Which language model should you price Retell with?

The model is the single biggest line, and Retell's own "recommended" labels span up to a fivefold price difference. Here is what the pricing page lists for the models most teams actually test, per minute of conversation:

Speech to speech models are priced as a single line instead: GPT Realtime and GPT Realtime 1.5 at $0.345 a minute, GPT Realtime 2 and 2.1 at $0.38, and the mini versions at $0.07.

Two things follow. First, the $0.31 at the top of Retell's headline range is not a ceiling. GPT 6 Astra on the standard tier plus infrastructure, an ElevenLabs voice and Retell telephony is $0.43 a minute, and on the fast tier $0.75. Second, for sales calls the model is not a place to save blindly. A cheap model that misreads an objection costs you the meeting, and that costs more than the difference between $0.016 and $0.064 on a three minute call.

What does Retell charge for besides minutes?

This is the part most Retell pricing roundups skip, and for outbound teams it is the part that moves the bill. The per minute add-ons are small. The per call and monthly items are not always.

Retell is also clear about three billing edge cases, which is worth giving it credit for. Failed calls that never connect are not charged. Voicemail is charged only for the time the agent is active on the line. And silence or hold time is charged, because the speech engine keeps listening. After a transfer to a human, the AI agent fee stops and only telephony continues.

Retell AI pricing for outbound cold calling: a worked month

Here is a month for a small B2B outbound program, using only Retell's published rates. The inputs are ours, chosen to be typical rather than flattering, and you should replace them with your own: 20,000 dials, 6,000 connected minutes, a recommended model, an ElevenLabs voice, branded calling on, ten Retell numbers and one knowledge base.

The minutes themselves come to $1,104, about $0.184 each. The branded calling line is almost twice that on its own, because it is billed per outbound call, and cold calling is mostly calls that never become conversations. Ask Retell whether unanswered attempts count toward it before you switch it on. Turn it off and the month is $1,224, but then your calls arrive as an unknown number, and whether that is worth $2,000 depends on your answer rates. We compared what branded caller ID costs across the providers that sell it on our branded caller ID page.

What the table does not include is the work. Someone writes the prompt and the objection handling, builds the function calls that check your DNC list and book the calendar slot, enforces calling hours by the prospect's time zone, and writes the outcome back to the CRM. On Retell that is your team. If the engineering lands on you, a coding agent that plans and writes the integration work will get the first version out faster, but you still own maintaining it.

Is Retell AI free?

No, but it is free to start. A new account gets $10 in free credits with full platform access and no commitment, which at the $0.11 default rate is roughly 90 minutes of testing. After that every minute is billed. There is no free plan, no seat fee and no annual contract on pay as you go.

Retell AI enterprise pricing

Enterprise is custom priced, for both voice and chat agents. What the page lists for it: custom concurrency starting at 50 or more calls with no cap, a dedicated stable server as an add-on, dedicated implementation support as an add-on, custom MSA and DPA terms, role-based access control, custom SSO and 24/7 support with a dedicated portal. Pay as you go gets community and email support only. Retell describes the platform as SOC 2 certified and HIPAA-ready and lists HIPAA and BAA terms in its compliance comparison, so confirm which plan your BAA is signed under before any health data touches a call.

Is Retell AI expensive compared with Vapi and Bland?

Not on the minute. Vapi charges $0.05 a minute for hosting and passes models through at cost, with 10 concurrent lines included and $10 for each extra line a month. Bland includes the model, transcription and voice in one rate, $0.14 a minute on its Start plan with no platform fee, and caps daily calls at 100 on that plan. Retell sits between them, with the most generous free concurrency of the three at 20 calls. We set all three side by side on AI voice agent pricing, and head to head in Vapi vs Retell AI.

Where they are all the same is what you are buying: infrastructure. None of them decides who to call, scrubs the list, stays inside legal calling hours or knows what a qualified meeting looks like for your business. That is the product you build on top.

Retell AI vs a done-for-you AI SDR

Here is the honest comparison. If you have an engineer with time, a compliance process you trust, and more than a few thousand minutes a month, Retell's raw minutes at around $0.18 will beat any packaged AI SDR on price per minute. That is a real advantage and it is why developers choose it.

ColdCalls.ai is the other shape. Growth is $1,490 a month for three AI SDR seats and about 6,000 connected minutes, and it arrives with the parts you would otherwise build: AI disclosure on every call, real-time DNC scrubbing, calling hours by time zone, qualification against your criteria, objection handling and meetings booked straight into your calendar with the notes in your CRM. Starter is $499 for one seat and about 1,500 minutes. Our full plan list is on the pricing page, and the other voice platforms buyers compare us with are on our Retell AI alternative page.

One rule applies whichever you pick. The FCC confirmed in February 2024 that AI-generated voices are artificial voices under the TCPA, so calls to consumers need prior express consent, and your state may add more. The requirements for AI calls specifically are on our TCPA compliant AI calling page.

Frequently asked questions about Retell AI pricing

How much is Retell AI per minute?

Retell advertises $0.07 to $0.31 a minute for voice agents, and its calculator's default setup is $0.11. A typical outbound build with a recommended model, an ElevenLabs voice and Retell telephony is about $0.184 a minute before add-ons. The most expensive models on its rate card push past $0.43.

Does Retell AI charge a monthly fee?

There is no platform or seat fee on pay as you go. Monthly charges only appear for extras: $2 per phone number, $10 per verified number, $8 per concurrent call beyond the first 20, $8 per knowledge base beyond the first 10, and $20 for Retell SMS.

Does Retell charge for voicemails and unanswered calls?

Calls that fail to connect are not charged, according to Retell's pricing FAQ. Calls that reach voicemail are charged only for the time the AI agent is active on the line. Silence and hold time on a connected call are charged, because the speech engine keeps listening.

How many concurrent calls does Retell AI include?

Every account includes 20 concurrent calls free. Each additional concurrent call is $8 a month and can be added or removed at any time. Enterprise plans offer custom concurrency starting at 50 or more calls, with no cap.

Is Retell AI cheaper than hiring an SDR?

On raw cost, by a wide margin: 6,000 connected minutes at about $0.184 is roughly $1,100 a month in usage. The comparison is incomplete without the build and upkeep, because Retell supplies the voice, not the list scrubbing, calling rules, qualification logic or CRM write-back that a sales rep or a packaged AI SDR brings. Our AI cold calling cost breakdown puts all three side by side.