Retell AI
VS Vapi

Data as of October 2026

Which is better, Retell AI or Vapi?

Retell AI suits teams that want production phone agents without building the stack, while Vapi suits developers who want to assemble every layer themselves. Vapi charges $0.05 per minute for hosting plus pass-through costs for transcription, model and voice. Retell starts at $0.07 per minute with no platform fee, 20 free concurrent calls and a self-serve HIPAA BAA, as of October 2026.

Retell AI

4.9

Vapi

2.5

Retell AI 4.9 on Trustpilot (810+ reviews), Vapi 2.5 on Trustpilot (13 reviews), both as of October 2026

Building Blocks vs Production Platform

Developer-first platforms are brilliant at flexibility. Feed Vapi a well-specced architecture and a solid engineering team, and you can build almost any voice workflow from scratch.

The trade-off

More control means your team owns more of the build. Someone has to design the agent logic, choose each provider and set up telephony. Retell packages those parts for teams that want to launch without a dedicated voice engineer.

Retell is voice AI with the hard parts already built. Workflows, analytics, and compliance come in the box with no wiring, no APIs to duct-tape together. Give it a use case, like "qualify inbound leads" and it runs the call.

Preset functions, workflows out of the box
Post-call analysis and dashboards built in
Warm transfer and IVR navigation included, branded calls as an add-on
Top LLMs integrated
Quick and easy drag-and-drop builder

You start with a call. Retell helps you finish with a production deployment.

Why Retell is Different

An agent that ships in minutes, not quarters

Go live in minutes, not sprints

Vapi offers a no-code dashboard, but advanced builds on its API-first stack often need engineers. Retell's drag-and-drop builder, templates and simulation testing let ops teams launch and edit a voice agent in minutes. Ship faster, with fewer hands on deck.

Enterprise call features, built in

Vapi supports warm transfer and SIP trunking, and leaves caller ID branding to your phone number provider. Retell offers all three natively, plus verified phone numbers that fight "Spam Likely" labels and a built-in knowledge base. Branded calls cost $0.10 per outbound call on US numbers.

Compliance & security included

Vapi covers SOC 2 Type II for every customer but charges $2,000 per month for HIPAA. Retell includes HIPAA with a self-serve BAA at no extra fee, plus SOC 2 Type 1 and Type 2 and GDPR on every plan. Enterprise security shouldn't be an upsell.

Transparent per-minute pricing

Vapi charges a $0.05 per minute hosting fee, then passes through transcriber, model, voice and telephony costs, so your rate depends on the stack you assemble. Retell starts at $0.07 per minute with no platform fee and lists every component and add-on on its pricing page.

Try Retell for Free

Overview

Feature, Pricing & Compliance Breakdown

Features	Retell AI 4.9	Vapi 2.5

Core Approach	Built for every moment of the call	Developer-first, API and config as code
Ease of Launch	Easy drag-and-drop builder	No-code dashboard for basic agents; advanced builds need engineers
Telephony	Warm transfer, native SIP trunking	Warm transfer, SIP trunking with your carrier
Post-Call Analytics	Insights & dashboards built in	Call analysis and custom dashboards
Compliance	HIPAA (self-serve BAA), SOC 2 Type 1 & 2, GDPR on every plan	SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, PCI; HIPAA is a $2,000/mo add-on
Pricing	From $0.07/min, no platform fee	$0.05/min hosting plus provider costs at no markup (as of October 2026)
User Experience	Ease of Use, Intuitive Workflows	Dashboard and API; Composer assistant in alpha
Preset Functions	Supported	Built-in tools: transfer, end call, SMS, DTMF, API request
Branded Calls	Built in for US numbers (+$0.10 per outbound call)	Through your phone number provider (CNAM)
IVR & DTMF Support	IVR with DTMF tone recognition	Supported
Voice & Audio Quality	Excellent	Depends on the voice provider you choose
Latency	About 600ms	Sub-500ms claimed; varies by provider stack

Built for Contact Centers, Not Demos

Retell is the AI Voice Platform Enterprise Contact Centers Run On

Retell lets you build, test and deploy AI phone agents that handle real call volume, so your team spends its time on the conversations that need a person.

SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA compliant. Trusted by teams running 1.000+ calls a day.

More Than A Toolkit

A voice platform built for production

Warm Transfer and native SIP

Retell ships warm transfer and native SIP trunking, so calls reach humans or systems with full context intact. Vapi supports warm transfer too, but its five traditional warm-transfer modes work on Twilio calls only.

Knowledge base built in

Retell's knowledge base lets agents pull accurate answers from your documents across multi-turn calls, and the first 10 knowledge bases are free. Vapi also supports knowledge bases, which it runs as a query tool over files you upload.

Verified Phone Numbers

Retell's verified numbers register your US numbers with carriers to cut "Spam Likely" labels and lift answer rates. On Vapi, you set up STIR/SHAKEN, CNAM and caller reputation through your phone number provider.

Scale without limits

Retell includes 20 concurrent calls on every account and adds capacity at $8 per concurrent call per month, with custom concurrency on Enterprise. Vapi includes 4 concurrent calls on usage-only billing, 10 on Core and 30 on Pro, and charges $10 per extra line per month.

When to Use Each Tool

Use Vapi when you:

Have a dedicated engineering team
Want to pick and swap every transcriber, model and voice provider
Are building voice as a core part of your product, not a workflow
Want to manage agents as code in git and CI

Vapi is for teams who want to build voice AI, not buy it.

Use Retell when you:

Need production voice agents, faster
Want warm transfer, SIP trunking, and analytics
Support customers in 55 languages
Need HIPAA with a self-serve BAA at no extra fee
Want per-minute pricing with no platform fee
Want your own team to keep improving the agent after launch

Retell excels when the call has to work and you want to focus on outcomes.

Try Retell for Free

FAQ

Common Questions

How fast can we launch a voice agent with Retell?

Fast. Retell's drag-and-drop builder, pre-built templates and simulation testing let non-technical teams go from signup to a live agent in minutes. No engineering ticket required.

What telephony features are included out of the box?

All the ones that matter in production: warm transfer, native SIP trunking, IVR navigation with DTMF, and batch calling. Branded caller ID and verified phone numbers are available for US numbers as published add-ons, so you see the price before you switch them on.

How does Retell's pricing work?

Pay as you go from $0.07 per minute, depending on the LLM, voice and telephony you choose, billed to the nearest second. Speech-to-text is included. Phone numbers are $2/month standard or $5/month toll-free. Published add-ons include branded calls (+$0.10 per outbound call), verified numbers and batch calling (+$0.005 per dial). No platform fees.

What LLMs can we use inside Retell?

Retell is LLM-agnostic. Pick GPT, Claude, Gemini, an open-source model, or your own fine-tune, and swap between them whenever a better model ships. Top models are integrated natively, and custom LLMs work through the API.

Can Retell handle high call volume?

Yes. Every account includes 20 concurrent calls for free, additional capacity is $8 per concurrent call per month, and Enterprise plans offer custom concurrency starting at 50+ calls. Batch calling is a first-class feature, so you can run large outbound campaigns without degrading call quality.

What compliance and security coverage does Retell include?

Retell is HIPAA and GDPR compliant and SOC 2 Type 1 and Type 2 certified on every plan, not gated behind enterprise tiers. You can self-sign the BAA and DPA at no extra fee. Every plan includes per-agent PII and data retention controls, PII removal costs +$0.01 per minute, and Enterprise adds custom role-based access control.

Can Retell integrate with our existing phone system?

Yes. Retell supports native SIP trunking and works with Twilio, Vonage, Telnyx and most major carriers, so you can keep your existing numbers and telephony stack. Retell charges no telephony fee when calls run over your own SIP trunk.

How customizable are Retell's voice agents?

Very. You control the prompt, tools, workflows, voice, LLM, transfer logic, and integrations, through the dashboard or the API. Retell also ships with preset functions and templates, so you can start from a working agent and tune from there instead of facing a blank page.