Vapi vs Retell AI: the honest comparison

The short answer

Edition v2026.Q3 · pricing and status verified 2026-08-06.

Choose Vapi for developer teams who want full control of the voice stack — pick your own STT/LLM/TTS, test it, and ship a production support line as code. Choose Retell AI for ops-led teams who want production support agents this week — dashboard-built, transparent per-minute menu pricing, monitoring and QA included.

On the elems table, Vapi holds seat #1 of the Voice Support element and Retell AI holds #2 — this is the closest call in the category, and the honest answer depends on which trade-off you can live with.

The case for each

1. 1VapiVapi (YC W21)

   $0.05/min platform + models/voices at cost ($0 BYOK) · 10 concurrent lines incl., +$10/line/mo · HIPAA +$2k/mo, zero-retention +$1k/mo · enterprise volume-based

   Best for Developer teams who want full control of the voice stack — pick your own STT/LLM/TTS, test it, and ship a production support line as code.

   Watch Orchestration-only means you own the debugging across four vendors' models. Add-ons bite: HIPAA is $2,000/mo before a single call. Ops teams without engineers ship faster on Retell or no-code tools. Series B valuation undisclosed.

   $50M Series B led by Peak XV, $72M total raised (May 12, 2026) [src] · 1B+ calls handled; enterprise revenue 10x YoY; Ring at 100% of inbound (May 2026) [src]

2. 2Retell AIRetell AI (YC W24)

   Pay-as-you-go $0.07–0.31/min all-in (infra $0.055 + TTS + LLM menu) · 20 concurrent incl. · $10 free credit · AI QA +$0.10/min · enterprise custom

   Best for Ops-led teams who want production support agents this week — dashboard-built, transparent per-minute menu pricing, monitoring and QA included.

   Watch A ~$5M war chest against $11B-and-up rivals is a real asymmetry if the category turns capital-intensive. Component pricing stacks: knowledge base, PII redaction, and QA add-ons push the effective rate toward the top of the range. ARR and call-volume figures are Sacra-sourced, not company-published.

   $60M ARR, +650% YoY (Apr 2026); ~$45M end of 2025 [src] · 40M+ real-time AI phone calls per month; $4.6M seed (Aug 2024) is nearly all it has raised [src]

Vapi vs Retell AI: side by side

Edition v2026.Q3 · verified 2026-08-06.

What each side won't tell you

Vapi: Orchestration-only means you own the debugging across four vendors' models. Add-ons bite: HIPAA is $2,000/mo before a single call. Ops teams without engineers ship faster on Retell or no-code tools. Series B valuation undisclosed.

Retell AI: A ~$5M war chest against $11B-and-up rivals is a real asymmetry if the category turns capital-intensive. Component pricing stacks: knowledge base, PII redaction, and QA add-ons push the effective rate toward the top of the range. ARR and call-volume figures are Sacra-sourced, not company-published.

If it's neither

The rest of the top five: ElevenLabs Agents (best voices, cheapest entry) · Sierra (voice) (pay-per-resolution enterprise) · Bland (flat-rate, self-hosted stack). The complete field — 16 more tools including the graveyard — is on the element page.

This analysis is drawn from the Voice Support element dossier — the ranked top 5, the comparison matrix, and the complete field of 16 more tools live there, with every source. Data: vs.json (CC BY 4.0).