Head to head
Bland AI vs Retell AI
Written By Research Team
AI Outbound Calling
Fact Checked
All pricing verified against vendor documentation
Updated
Higher score
Bland AI
Purpose-built outbound AI calling with the clearest compliance posture in the category.
Bland is the only vendor we reviewed that publishes a flat per-minute rate, states daily call and concurrency ceilings for every tier, and holds SOC 2 Type II, a HIPAA BAA, GDPR and PCI DSS at once. It also offers on-prem/VPC deployment, which almost nothing else at this price does. You can start with no credit card. It loses points only on ecosystem breadth: there is less turnkey CRM tooling than platforms built around integrations.
Retell AI
The most granular, itemised pricing in the category — and the easiest honest cost model to audit.
Retell publishes a full component breakdown: voice infrastructure, TTS, each LLM, and every add-on priced separately. That is unusual and genuinely pro-buyer — you can model your real cost per minute before signing anything. It is also the most generous free start, with $10 in credits and 20 concurrent calls at no cost. The trade-off is that the headline '$0.07–$0.31/min' is a wide band, and your actual rate depends entirely on which model you pick.
Side by side
| Criterion | Bland AI | Retell AI |
|---|---|---|
| Overall score | 91/100 | 84/100 |
| Rank | #1 | #4 |
| Type | Autonomous AI agent | Autonomous AI agent |
| Pricing model | Published | Published |
| Headline cost | $0.14/min on the free Start tier; $0.12/min on Build at $299/mo | $0.07–$0.31/min depending on voice and model, from $0 with $10 free credits |
| Concurrency | 10 (Start) / 50 (Build) / sized to volume (Enterprise) | 20 free concurrent calls; additional concurrency $8/mo each |
| Free trial | 2 credits plus an inbound number ($15/mo value), no card required | $10 in free credits and 20 free concurrent calls |
| Certifications | SOC 2 Type I, SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA-eligible with signed BAA, GDPR, PCI DSS, On-prem / VPC available | SOC 2 certified, HIPAA-ready, Custom SSO, Dedicated server on Enterprise |
Score by criterion
| Criterion | Max | Bland AI | Retell AI |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing transparency | 20 | 19 | 18 |
| Outbound capability | 20 | 18 | 17 |
| Compliance & security | 20 | 20 | 15 |
| Integrations & extensibility | 15 | 11 | 12 |
| Time to first call | 15 | 14 | 14 |
| Scale & reliability | 10 | 9 | 8 |