Written By Research Team
AI Outbound Calling
Fact Checked
All pricing verified against vendor documentation
Updated
Ranked #5 · Autonomous AI agent
The cheapest published platform rate and the most developer-flexible — if you can live with the compliance gap.
Our Verdict
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.
Best for: Engineering teams building custom voice products who will bring their own model keys.
Score Breakdown
Total 76/100 — grade B+. Scored against the published rubric.
- Pricing transparency
- 15/20
- Outbound capability
- 16/20
- Compliance & security
- 12/20
- Integrations & extensibility
- 14/15
- Time to first call
- 11/15
- Scale & reliability
- 8/10
Pricing
- Pricing model
- Published publicly
- Headline cost
- $0.05/min on Build, plus model costs at cost (or $0 with your own keys)
- Plans
- $0 on Build; fixed platform fee with committed volume on Scale
- Concurrency
- 10 included, +$10/line/mo; custom on Scale
- Free trial
- No stated trial credits; signup via dashboard
- STT, LLM and TTS are billed at cost — $0 if you bring your own API key.
- Concurrency: 10 lines included, then $10 per line/mo.
- HIPAA is a $2,000/mo add-on; Zero Data Retention a further $1,000/mo.
- Build retains call history 14 days and chat history 30 days.
Compliance & Security
- SOC 2 (Scale tier only)
- HIPAA ($2,000/mo add-on)
- PCI (Scale)
- SSO & RBAC (Scale only)
Integrations
- REST API
- Bring-your-own LLM/STT/TTS keys
- Webhooks
- Custom tooling
Pros And Cons
What We Liked
- Lowest published platform rate in the review at $0.05/min
- Bring your own model keys and pay $0 for inference
- Highly composable — the most developer-flexible option here
- Concurrency priced transparently at $10/line/mo
Watch Out For
- Build tier has no SOC 2, SSO or RBAC — those require the annual Scale contract
- HIPAA costs $2,000/mo and zero data retention another $1,000/mo
- Call history retained only 14 days on Build
- No stated free trial credits
What Users Say On Reddit
We pulled 5 comments about Vapi from 2 public Reddit threads. These are unverified individual opinions, not our findings — we quote them verbatim and they do not affect the score.
r/AI_Agents
View thread ↗“Is vapi actually the best voice agent platform”
- We've tested a few of them over the last year. Hard to narrow it down to the final one. Vapi is okay if you want flexibility I guess and dont mind wiring more pieces together yourself. If you're doing larger production deployments, especially where reliability and security matter then I'd put Bland on the shortlist. We evaluated both because they target slightly different needs. I'd also think about if you need Twilio or if you want something that's more managed from day 1. What kind of calls are you trying to automate because that changes the recommendation quite a bit
- Basically, Vapi retell AI: there are so many voice agent platforms available in the market, but, in my opinion, using voice llm API and trying to build harness agentic engineering based on business requirements is the best way to create a voice agent solution If you integrate Twilio and other telephonic partners, they sarvam AI There are lots of platforms, Bolana I didn't mention more names, but there are so many platforms available If you need to, try exploring and serving AI without Twilio integration They provide voice agentic solutions
r/vapiai
View thread ↗“Whos making money with vapi”
- Selling AI agents for inbound and outbound calls. Using both Vapi and Retell. I have clients and agency partners.
- It varies based on number of locations, agents, complexity, etc. Set up fee $1000+ and monthly $500+.
- I have partners that use both and depends on the client. Different scenarios. I like Retell better and they have chat now!
Comments are quoted as written from public Reddit threads and may contain errors, bias or out-of-date information. We filtered out obvious vendor and competitor pitches, and excluded threads matching the vendor's name but not the product. We do not endorse these views.
Featured Partner Offer
iVapi
- Lowest published platform rate in the review at $0.05/min
- Bring your own model keys and pay $0 for inference
- Highly composable — the most developer-flexible option here
On vapi.ai
Featured Partner · Our Company
iTheLeadRouter
Scored 87/100 · Ranked #2Lead distribution, call routing and TCPA consent infrastructure — with AI dialing built in.
- The most transparent pricing in this review — every service has a published per-unit rate
- One $147/mo plan includes every feature, with no tier-gating of compliance tools
- Consent evidence stored on the lead record with DNC checks and an audit trail
- Ping-post, waterfall routing and RTB for buyer delivery that voice platforms do not offer
Ownership disclosure: AI Outbound Calling and TheLeadRouter are owned by the same company. This is a paid placement by us. TheLeadRouter is also scored on the same published rubric as every other platform — it earned 87/100 and ranks #2 on merit, not because we own it.
Sources
- 1.Vapi pricing page — retrieved 2026-09-12