Retell AI
"#1 AI Voice Agent Platform for Automating Calls" [1]
Retell AI is a voice agent platform for automating phone calls, supporting both inbound and outbound use cases such as customer support, appointment booking, lead qualification, and call center operations. Pricing is usage-based at $0.055 per minute with a $10 free credit on signup, and an enterprise plan is available for higher-volume needs. The REST API supports bring-your-own LLM and voice, SIP trunking, WebRTC web calling, and function calling, with SDKs for Python, Node.js, and browser JavaScript. The platform holds SOC 2 Type II certification and is HIPAA and GDPR compliant, though it currently operates only from US-based infrastructure.
Best for / Avoid if
Best for: Regulated or enterprise workloads - compliance attestations and an enterprise plan; AI agents and automation - an agent-ready surface (MCP / llms.txt); Teams needing broad API coverage out of the box
Avoid if: You want to try it free before paying
Pricing & procurement
- Pricing model
- Usage-based [2]
- Published pricing
- ✓ Yes [3]
- Free tier
- ✗ No [4]
- Free tier details
- $10 one-time trial credit on sign-up (not a recurring free tier)
- Self-serve signup
- ✓ Yes
- Requires sales call
- ✗ No
- Enterprise plan
- ✓ Yes [5]
| Plan | Item | Per | Amount | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pay As You Go | Voice agent all-in rate (low end) | minute | $0.07 | source |
| Pay As You Go | Voice agent all-in rate (high end) | minute | $0.31 | source |
| Pay As You Go | Retell voice infrastructure (platform/orchestration fee) | minute | $0.055 | source |
| Pay As You Go | TTS — Retell Platform Voices / Minimax / Fish / Cartesia / OpenAI | minute | $0.015 | source |
| Pay As You Go | TTS — ElevenLabs voices | minute | $0.04 | source |
| Pay As You Go | LLM — GPT 5.5 | minute | $0.16 | source |
| Pay As You Go | LLM — GPT 5.4 | minute | $0.08 | source |
| Pay As You Go | LLM — GPT 5.2 | minute | $0.056 | source |
| Pay As You Go | LLM — GPT 5.1 / GPT 5 | minute | $0.04 | source |
| Pay As You Go | LLM — Claude 4.6/4.5 Sonnet | minute | $0.08 | source |
| Pay As You Go | LLM — Claude 4.5 Haiku | minute | $0.025 | source |
| Pay As You Go | LLM — Gemini 3.0 Flash | minute | $0.027 | source |
| Pay As You Go | LLM — Gemini 2.5 Flash | minute | $0.035 | source |
| Pay As You Go | Telephony — US (Twilio/Telnyx) | minute | $0.015 | source |
| Pay As You Go | Telephony — SIP trunking / custom telephony (BYO) | minute | $0 | source |
| Pay As You Go | Knowledge base add-on | minute | $0.005 | source |
| Pay As You Go | Knowledge base subscription (first 10 free) | knowledge base/month | $8 | source |
| Pay As You Go | Safety Guardrails add-on | minute | $0.005 | source |
| Pay As You Go | Advanced Denoising add-on | minute | $0.005 | source |
| Pay As You Go | PII Removal add-on | minute | $0.01 | source |
| Pay As You Go | AI Quality Assurance (first 100 min/month free, then) | minute | $0.1 | source |
| Pay As You Go | Batch call dial fee | dial | $0.005 | source |
| Pay As You Go | Branded Call ID add-on | outbound call | $0.1 | source |
| Pay As You Go | Burst concurrency surcharge (calls exceeding limit) | minute (entire call duration) | $0.1 | source |
| Pay As You Go | Additional concurrent calls (beyond 20 free) | concurrent line/month | $8 | source |
| Pay As You Go | Phone number | number/month | $2 | source |
| Pay As You Go | Retell SMS | month | $20 | source |
| Pay As You Go | Verified phone number (recurring) | phone number/month | $10 | source |
| Pay As You Go | Verified phone number (one-time setup fee) | phone number | $10 | source |
| Enterprise | Voice agent orchestration | minute (custom) | - | source |
Capabilities
- Supported actions
- realtime_conversation, inbound_telephony, outbound_telephony, sip_trunking, web_calling_webrtc, call_transfer, function_calling, tool_calling, interruption_handling, byo_llm, byo_voice, knowledge_base, batch_calling, call_recording, call_analytics, post_call_analysis, ai_quality_assurance, pii_redaction, dtmf_capture, ivr_navigation, dynamic_variable_injection, webhooks, mcp_server, simulation_testing, voice_cloning, safety_guardrails, voicemail_detection, ab_testing, agent_versioning [6]
- Regions
- United States, Canada, International (via custom SIP/BYO telephony) [7]
- Languages
- English (US), English (India), English (UK), English (Australia), English (New Zealand), Spanish (Spain), Spanish (Latin America), French, Chinese (Mandarin), German, Hindi, Japanese, Portuguese (Portugal), Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Italian, Korean, Dutch, Dutch (Belgium), Polish, Turkish, Vietnamese, Romanian, Danish, Finnish, Greek, Indonesian, Norwegian, Slovak, Swedish, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Malay, Catalan, Thai, 50+ languages total (dashboard is source of truth; list expands continuously) [8]
- Input types
- PSTN phone call, SIP, WebRTC, web widget, audio stream [9]
- Output types
- audio stream, call transcript, webhook events, call recording, structured call summary, post-call analysis, SMS [10]
- Webhooks
- ✓ Yes [11]
- Sandbox / test mode
- ✗ No
- SDK languages
- Python, Node.js, JavaScript (browser/client) [12]
- MCP server
- ✓ Yes [13]
Trust & compliance
- SOC 2
- SOC 2 Type II [14]
- HIPAA
- ✓ Yes [15]
- GDPR
- ✓ Yes [16]
- ISO 27001
- ✗ No [17]
- PCI DSS
- ✗ No [18]
- Published SLA
- ✓ Yes [19]
- Rate limits
- Pay-as-you-go plan includes 20 free concurrent calls; additional concurrent call capacity at $8/concurrent call/month. Burst mode allows temporarily exceeding the limit at a $0.10/min surcharge for the entire call duration (burst cap = lower of 3× limit or limit + 300). Max call duration is 1 hour (expandable to 2 hours). Enterprise plan: no cap, custom options starting at 50+ concurrent calls. [20]
- Known restrictions
- Services not currently operational within the EU (GDPR compliant via AWS but US-region only), Not designed for medical, emergency, aviation, nuclear, or safety-critical environments, Cannot submit HIPAA/PCI/biometric data without a signed BAA or express authorization, Reselling AI-generated voices as standalone products is prohibited, TCPA, FCC, and Do-Not-Call compliance is the customer's responsibility [21]
Developer surface
Integration
- API style
- rest
- Base URL
- https://api.retellai.com
- Version
- v2
- Versioning
- url
- Stability
- ga
- Auth methods
- api_key
- Idempotency keys
- ✗ No
- Error format
- vendor-specific JSON: {"status": "error", "message": "..."}
- Webhook signing
- hmac_sha256
- Rate limit
- 20 / concurrent calls
Adoption & maturity
- Launched
- 2023-01-01
- GA
- 2024-02-01
- Notable customers
- Lenovo, Asbury Auto, Anker, StorageVault
Other Realtime Voice Agent APIs
ElevenLabs Conversational AI (ElevenAgents)
"Deploy human-like Conversational AI in minutes. ElevenLabs delivers low latency interactions in dozens of languages with enterprise-grade security."
OpenAI Realtime API (gpt-realtime)
"The Realtime API enables low-latency, bidirectional audio communication for building voice agents and audio applications."
Telnyx Voice AI Agents
"Carrier-grade Voice AI from Telnyx. Sub-200ms latency, 80+ languages, A-level STIR/SHAKEN attestation, and one platform that replaces 5 vendors."
Twilio ConversationRelay
"Twilio's Conversation Relay empowers you to build powerful AI voice experiences for your customers. Let Twilio handle the heavy lifting of speech recognition, text-to-speech, and voice synthesis."
Vapi
"Build and deploy voice agents that deliver the outcomes you want at the scale your customers need."
Cartesia Line
"Turn any text agent into a world-class conversational agent, deployed anywhere."
References
- ↑Description: retellai.com
- ↑Pricing model: retellai.com · retellai.com
- ↑Published pricing: retellai.com
- ↑Free tier: retellai.com · retellai.com
- ↑Enterprise plan: retellai.com
- ↑Supported actions: docs.retellai.com · docs.retellai.com
- ↑Regions: retellai.com · docs.retellai.com
- ↑Languages: community.retellai.com · retellai.com
- ↑Input types: docs.retellai.com
- ↑Output types: docs.retellai.com
- ↑Webhooks: docs.retellai.com
- ↑SDK languages: docs.retellai.com
- ↑MCP server: docs.retellai.com
- ↑SOC 2: retellai.com · docs.retellai.com
- ↑HIPAA: retellai.com · docs.retellai.com
- ↑GDPR: docs.retellai.com · docs.retellai.com
- ↑ISO 27001: docs.retellai.com
- ↑PCI DSS: docs.retellai.com
- ↑Published SLA: docs.retellai.com · retellai.com
- ↑Rate limits: docs.retellai.com · docs.retellai.com
- ↑Known restrictions: retellai.com · docs.retellai.com
Change history
- 2026-06-21 Capabilities: {} → {"byo_models":true,"outbound_calling":true,"telephony_included":true}
- 2026-06-21 Summary Md: (none) → Retell AI is a voice agent platform for automating phone calls, supporting both…
- 2026-06-21 Score Pricing Transparency: (none) → 85
- 2026-06-21 Score Setup Speed: (none) → 60
- 2026-06-21 Score Docs Quality: (none) → 35
- 2026-06-21 Score Procurement Friction: (none) → 85
- 2026-06-21 Score Trust Readiness: (none) → 75
- 2026-06-21 Best For: (none) → Regulated or enterprise workloads - compliance attestations and an enterprise p…
- 2026-06-21 Scoring Methodology: (none) → Scores are computed deterministically from this profile's published, sourced fi…
- 2026-06-21 Avoid If: (none) → You want to try it free before paying
- 2026-06-21 Score Agent Friendliness: (none) → 65
- 2026-06-21 Changelog URL: (none) → https://www.retellai.com/changelog
- 2026-06-21 Llms Txt Present: (none) → Yes
- 2026-06-21 Llms Txt URL: (none) → https://www.retellai.com/llms.txt
- 2026-06-21 Rendering: (none) → static
- 2026-06-21 Has Structured Data: (none) → Yes
- 2026-06-21 Robots Allows Agents: (none) → Yes
- 2026-06-21 Status Page URL: (none) → https://status.retellai.com
- 2026-06-21 Docs URL: (none) → https://docs.retellai.com/general/introduction
- 2026-06-21 Has Published Pricing: set to Yes
- 2026-06-21 Free Tier Available: set to No
- 2026-06-21 Free Tier Details: set to $10 one-time trial credit on sign-up (not a recurring free tier)
- 2026-06-21 Self Serve Signup: set to Yes
- 2026-06-21 Requires Sales Call: set to No
- 2026-06-21 Enterprise Plan Available: set to Yes
- 2026-06-21 SOC 2: set to type_2
- 2026-06-21 HIPAA: set to Yes
- 2026-06-21 GDPR: set to Yes
- 2026-06-21 ISO 27001: set to No
- 2026-06-21 PCI DSS: set to No
- 2026-06-21 SLA Published: set to Yes
- 2026-06-21 SLA URL: set to https://www.retellai.com/legal/terms-of-service
- 2026-06-21 Data Retention Policy URL: set to https://docs.retellai.com/accounts/data-retention
- 2026-06-21 Documented Rate Limits: set to Pay-as-you-go plan includes 20 free concurrent calls; additional concurrent cal…
- 2026-06-21 Rate Limit Requests: set to 20
- 2026-06-21 Rate Limit Window: set to concurrent calls
- 2026-06-21 Known Restrictions: set to Services not currently operational within the EU (GDPR compliant via AWS but US…
- 2026-06-21 Auth Methods: set to api_key
- 2026-06-21 Auth Docs URL: set to https://docs.retellai.com/accounts/api-keys-overview
- 2026-06-21 API Style: set to rest
- 2026-06-21 API Version: set to v2
- 2026-06-21 Versioning Scheme: set to url
- 2026-06-21 Stability: set to ga
- 2026-06-21 Deprecation Policy URL: set to https://docs.retellai.com/deprecation-notice/5-30
- 2026-06-21 MCP URL: set to https://mcp.retellai.com
- 2026-06-21 Quickstart URL: set to https://docs.retellai.com/get-started/quick-start
- 2026-06-21 Idempotency Supported: set to No
- 2026-06-21 Error Format: set to vendor-specific JSON: {"status": "error", "message": "..."}
- 2026-06-21 Webhook Signing: set to hmac_sha256
- 2026-06-21 Webhook Events URL: set to https://docs.retellai.com/features/webhook
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