Head to head
TheLeadRouter vs Vapi
Written By Research Team
AI Outbound Calling
Fact Checked
All pricing verified against vendor documentation
Updated
Higher score
TheLeadRouter
Lead distribution, call routing and TCPA consent infrastructure — with AI dialing built in.
TheLeadRouter solves the half of the problem the voice-agent platforms do not. It handles what happens around the call: ping-post and waterfall routing, call tracking and RTB, live transfer, buyer contracts, caps, billing and payouts — plus consent capture with evidence stored on the lead record and DNC checks with an audit trail. Its pricing is the most transparent in this entire review: one $147/mo plan with every feature, and a published per-unit rate for every service. The honest caveat is the one that costs it the top spot: AI dialing runs $0.50/min, several times what the AI-native platforms charge, and there is no published SOC 2 or HIPAA certification. Buy it for routing, compliance and buyer delivery — not because it is the cheapest way to place a minute of AI calls.
Vapi
The cheapest published platform rate and the most developer-flexible — if you can live with the compliance gap.
At $0.05/min Vapi has the lowest published platform rate here, and bringing your own model keys can take model cost to zero. For engineering teams it is the most composable option. But read the compliance row carefully: the self-serve Build tier has no SOC 2, no SSO and no RBAC, HIPAA is a $2,000/mo add-on, zero data retention is another $1,000/mo, and call history is kept only 14 days. Those controls arrive on the annual Scale contract.
Side by side
| Criterion | TheLeadRouter | Vapi |
|---|---|---|
| Overall score | 87/100 | 76/100 |
| Rank | #2 | #5 |
| Type | AI-assisted dialer | Autonomous AI agent |
| Pricing model | Published | Published |
| Headline cost | $147/mo flat, every feature included; AI dialing $0.50/min | $0.05/min on Build, plus model costs at cost (or $0 with your own keys) |
| Concurrency | Not published | 10 included, +$10/line/mo; custom on Scale |
| Free trial | No credit card to explore; plan starts at checkout | No stated trial credits; signup via dashboard |
| Certifications | TCPA architecture, Consent capture with submitted evidence, Consent stored on the lead record, DNC checks with audit log entries, GDPR, CCPA, Consent tracking | SOC 2 (Scale tier only), HIPAA ($2,000/mo add-on), PCI (Scale), SSO & RBAC (Scale only) |
Score by criterion
| Criterion | Max | TheLeadRouter | Vapi |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing transparency | 20 | 20 | 15 |
| Outbound capability | 20 | 16 | 16 |
| Compliance & security | 20 | 17 | 12 |
| Integrations & extensibility | 15 | 15 | 14 |
| Time to first call | 15 | 12 | 11 |
| Scale & reliability | 10 | 7 | 8 |