Last verified October 10, 2026.
Details about Retell AI come from its public pages as they were on October 10, 2026. Retell AI may have changed them since, and a page that was unclear to us may be clear to you. Corrections: support@calldesk.tech. We make Calldesk, so read this page with that in mind and check anything important with Retell AI directly.
About Retell AI
How Retell AI positions itself: A pay-as-you-go voice agent platform with a visual flow builder and API, bundling voice infrastructure in the per-minute rate while LLM, voice and telephony are priced as selectable line items.
Side by side
A row is shown when we could read both sides. Where Retell AI's pages did not say, a cell reads "not stated on the pages we reviewed" rather than a guess. It rests on published pricing, setup and wording, and does not use call-quality or benchmark results.
| Topic | Calldesk | Retell AI |
|---|---|---|
| How pricing works | Per minute of call time on three plans: Lite 2¢, Standard 5¢, Pro 9¢. No monthly minimum. Phone carrier charges are billed separately. | Pay as you go, no subscription: a voice infrastructure rate plus the chosen LLM, voice and telephony per minute, with optional add-ons; custom enterprise pricing. (source: retellai.com) |
| Published starting price | 2¢ to 9¢ per minute depending on the plan, before phone carrier charges | $0.07 to $0.31 per minute depending on the model and voice chosen; voice infrastructure is $0.055 per minute, and the vendor's example configuration totals $0.11 per minute. (source: retellai.com) |
| Billed separately or extra | The phone carrier is billed separately unless you buy numbers from us; Expert backup is an optional extra on Lite and Standard at 1.5 cents per minute | LLM: per-minute, depends on model (examples: GPT 4.1 mini $0.0128, GPT 5 $0.04, Claude Sonnet $0.064 to $0.08); Text-to-speech: $0.015 per minute for Retell platform voices; ElevenLabs voices $0.04 to $0.10 per minute; Telephony: about $0.015 per minute on Retell Twilio/Telnyx numbers; no charge for custom telephony/SIP trunking; Optional add-ons: Knowledge Base +$0.005/min, Advanced Denoising +$0.005/min, Safety Guardrails +$0.005/min, PII Removal +$0.01/min, Batch Call +$0.005/dial, Branded Call +$0.10 per outbound call; Phone number $2/month, verified phone number $10/month, SMS $0.01 per message (source: retellai.com) |
| Trying it first | A free demo call on the Calldesk site | $10 in free credits on sign-up. (source: retellai.com) |
| Bring your own carrier | Yes, on every plan, at no extra charge, by forwarding calls to a number you register (no SIP trunking) | Yes (source: docs.retellai.com) |
| Phone numbers from the provider | A paid extra on every plan: Telnyx $1.00 per month per number plus 1 cent per inbound minute; Twilio $2.00 per month per number plus 1.5 cents per inbound minute. Registering a number you already own costs nothing extra. | Retell sells US and Canada numbers ($2 per month; US toll-free $5 per month); custom telephony via SIP trunking or SIP URI is supported with no Retell charge for the trunk. (source: docs.retellai.com) |
| HIPAA | Not claimed | Stated on their pages (source: docs.retellai.com) |
| SOC 2 | Not claimed | Stated on their pages (source: docs.retellai.com) |
| GDPR | Not claimed | Stated on their pages (source: docs.retellai.com) |
| Integrations and developer tools | REST API, MCP server and signed webhooks, plus calendar booking | Twilio, Telnyx, Vonage, Genesys Cloud, Five9, Avaya, Make, n8n, HubSpot, Go High Level, Google Drive, OneDrive and Notion knowledge-base sync and Custom LLM over WebSocket |
About Retell AI's compliance wording: Stated by vendor, self-attested: documentation says HIPAA compliant (BAA required), SOC 2 Type 1 and Type 2 certified, and GDPR compliant via AWS with a DPA. A Vanta trust center is referenced but was not opened.
Retell AI pricing details
- Pay-as-you-go includes full platform access and 20 concurrent calls free; additional concurrency is $8 per concurrent call per month. (source: retellai.com)
- Enterprise: custom pricing, custom MSA/DPA, SSO, role-based access control, no cap on concurrent calls. (source: retellai.com)
- Example from the page: Retell platform voice $0.015, LLM about $0.04 (varies by model), voice infrastructure $0.055 = $0.11 per minute. (source: retellai.com)
- Phone numbers: $2 per month for US and Canada numbers purchased from Retell; US toll-free $5 per month (docs). (source: retellai.com)
- Testing is billed at production rates (docs). (source: retellai.com)
What Retell AI does well
- True pay-as-you-go with no contract and 20 concurrent calls included, so small teams can start without a sales call. (source: retellai.com)
- Wide choice of LLMs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, custom LLM over WebSocket) and voice providers with transparent per-minute rates listed publicly. (source: retellai.com)
- Self-service BAA and DPA signing at no extra fee, with per-agent data retention and PII controls documented. (source: docs.retellai.com)
- Broad telephony options: Retell-purchased numbers or custom telephony via elastic SIP trunking, with guides for Twilio, Telnyx, Vonage, Genesys, Five9 and Avaya. (source: docs.retellai.com)
- Built-in tooling beyond calls: simulation testing, AI quality assurance, batch calling, call transfer, SMS and verified/branded caller ID. (source: retellai.com)
Conditions to check with Retell AI
These are limits or conditions described on the pages we reviewed. We list them so you can check whether they matter for your calls.
- Retell-purchased phone numbers are limited to the US and Canada, and outbound calls from them are supported to 15 countries; other countries need custom telephony. (source: docs.retellai.com)
- Per-minute cost varies widely ($0.07 to $0.31) with model and voice, and several features (knowledge base, denoising, guardrails, PII removal) are priced as per-minute add-ons. (source: retellai.com)
- The vendor states it does not currently operate services within the European Union. (source: docs.retellai.com)
Where Calldesk is different
- Billing: Retell AI's headline price does not cover LLM, text-to-speech, telephony and optional add-ons and more, which its pages bill separately or as extras (the table above has the details). Calldesk bills one per-minute rate for the plan you choose (Lite 2¢, Standard 5¢ and Pro 9¢ per minute), and the phone carrier is billed separately unless you buy numbers from us. Compare the two on a month of your own calls.
- Phone setup: both support bringing your own carrier. With Calldesk you register a number you own and forward calls to it. Calldesk does not offer SIP trunking, which Retell AI's pages describe. Calldesk also sells numbers from Telnyx and Twilio if you prefer not to bring one.
- Languages: Calldesk supports 40+ languages, including English; agents in a language other than English need the Standard or Pro voice, because the Lite voice speaks English only.
- Developer tools: Calldesk has a REST API, an MCP server and signed webhooks for call.completed, call.transferred and call.analyzed events (/docs).
- Compliance: Calldesk does not currently claim any compliance certification, so if your industry requires one, ask us what we can show you before you rely on it.
Which one fits
Retell AI may suit you if this describes you: teams that want a self-serve, usage-priced voice agent platform with a visual builder and a wide choice of models and voices, from startups through regulated enterprises.
Calldesk may suit you if your calls match one of its plans. Lite is for straightforward calls such as confirmations and quick questions, where cost matters most. Standard is for most businesses: reception, booking, intake and after-hours coverage. Pro is for complex or high-stakes calls where reasoning and tone matter most. Current prices are on the pricing page at /pricing.
What we could not confirm about Retell AI
- Exact HIPAA/BAA availability by plan is shown in a comparison table whose cell values we could not read; the compliance documentation says BAA/DPA self-signing has no additional fee.
- Whether Retell-provided numbers can be ported out was not found.
- The Vanta trust center was not opened.
- The pricing page lists future-dated model names; per-model rates should be re-checked on the live page before quoting a specific model price.
Sources
- Retell AI pricing page (retrieved October 10, 2026)
- Retell docs: Testing pricing (retrieved October 10, 2026)
- Retell docs: Purchase phone number (retrieved October 10, 2026)
- Retell docs: Custom telephony (retrieved October 10, 2026)
- Retell docs: Security and compliance (retrieved October 10, 2026)
- Retell API: Get Voice Agent (retrieved October 10, 2026)
- Retell docs index (retrieved October 10, 2026)
- Retell API: List Phone Numbers (retrieved October 10, 2026)
- Retell docs: Call and chat history (retrieved October 10, 2026)