Pricing

Retell AI Pricing Explained: What It Costs Per Minute

We break down Retell AI's per-minute voice, LLM and telephony costs from its pricing page and compare them with RizzDial's AI-minute rate.

By James Hill, Founder, RizzDial · 2026-11-10

TL;DR: Retell's pricing page quotes AI Voice Agents at 7 to 31 cents a minute, but that range hides four separate meters: voice infrastructure, a text to speech voice, an LLM, and phone transport, each priced on its own and stacked at checkout. A realistic middle stack lands well above the headline floor, before an agency adds a dialer, a CRM, or texting. RizzDial charges AI talk time at 6 to 20 cents a minute, talk time only, with the dialer, carrier calling, a built-in CRM, and iMessage through Beam already in the same account. We build RizzDial, so treat this comparison as disclosed, and check Retell's live pricing page before quoting a client.

An agency that asks "what does Retell cost" and gets a single number is only getting part of the answer. Retell is a developer-first voice AI platform, and its pricing page reflects that: pick a voice tier, pick an LLM tier, add telephony, and each choice carries its own rate. That's useful for granular control, but a poor fit for quoting a client a flat monthly number, because the figure the client sees first is a range, not a bill.

This piece pulls apart Retell's published per-minute components, builds a worked example at a realistic monthly volume, and sets the result next to RizzDial's AI-minute rate. Every Retell figure below is sourced to retellai.com/pricing, checked November 10, 2026. Rates can change, so verify the live page before building a quote around any number here.

What Does Retell AI Actually Charge per Minute?

Retell's pricing page, checked November 10, 2026, headlines AI Voice Agents at 7 to 31 cents a minute on its pay-as-you-go plan, with ten dollars of free credit to start. That range isn't one meter; it's the sum of a voice infrastructure fee, a text to speech voice you choose, an LLM you choose, and telephony, each billed separately with its own menu of options:

Source: retellai.com/pricing, checked November 10, 2026. None of those four layers is skippable: no infrastructure means no connected call, no LLM means no agent, no voice vendor means no speech, no telephony means no call. The published 7 to 31 cent range comes from stacking the cheapest combination at one end and a pricier one at the other, which is why a flat quote built on the headline number tends to run wrong.

What Do Retell's Monthly Fees and Add-Ons Cost on Top of That?

Underneath the per-minute meters sit flat monthly and per-event charges that don't show up in the headline range at all. Per retellai.com/pricing, checked November 10, 2026, a Knowledge Base costs eight dollars a month per base, with the first ten included free, plus half a cent a minute of usage once attached to a call. Advanced Denoising and Safety Guardrails each run half a cent a minute, and PII Removal runs one cent a minute, stacked on top of the base rate whenever you turn them on.

AI Quality Assurance is free for the first 100 minutes, then runs 10 cents a minute after that, per Retell's pricing page. Branded Call costs 10 cents per outbound call. A verified phone number runs ten dollars a month plus a one-time ten dollar fee; an ordinary number runs two dollars a month, or nothing for a custom number you bring yourself. Retell SMS runs twenty dollars a month, and the account includes 20 free concurrent calls before retellai.com/pricing adds eight dollars a month for each additional line.

Those items are on the page, but they sit outside the 7 to 31 cent headline. Knowledge Base lookups, PII removal, and a couple of verified numbers add a separate monthly bill before a single call connects.

What Does an Agency Still Have to Add Beyond the AI Minute?

Every rate above answers one question: what the AI conversation costs. It doesn't answer what it costs to run an agency's calling operation, because Retell is a voice AI platform, not a dialer, a CRM, or a texting tool.

• A dialer for human reps. Retell places and receives AI agent calls. It doesn't include a predictive or power dialer for a sales team working a list by hand, so that's a separate tool and a separate bill.
• CRM routing. Getting a transcript, a disposition, and a pipeline stage update into a CRM a sales team works from is either built against Retell's developer tools or wired by hand, not included in the per-minute rate.
• Texting after the call. Retell is a voice platform. Follow-up SMS or iMessage is a different product with its own account.
• Nurture after the first call. A per-minute rate says nothing about a lead that doesn't convert on the first call. A real pipeline needs a cadence, not a single call cost.

That doesn't make Retell weaker at what it's built for: letting a developer pick a specific voice and model. It does mean the pricing page is the start of an agency's bill, not the end of it. Our guide to Vapi's pricing and our guide to Kixie's pricing walk through the same pattern on two other platforms.

How Does RizzDial's Price Compare?

RizzDial folds those pieces into one account instead of four meters plus add-ons. AI talk time runs 6 to 20 cents a minute, talk time only, and that price already includes the dialer, carrier calling, the CRM, and texting.

For the full feature comparison beyond price, see RizzDial versus Retell and the Retell alternatives page.

What Would a High-Volume Month Actually Cost on Each Platform?

Running real volume through both platforms shows a different shape of bill, not just a different total. On Retell's lean end, stack voice infrastructure, a standard voice, and the budget Claude 5.5 Haiku tier with 1.5 cent telephony: 5.5 plus 1.5 plus 0.32 plus 1.5 comes to 8.82 cents a minute. Run ten thousand minutes a month through that stack and the bill lands around eight hundred eighty-two dollars, close to Retell's own published floor.

Retell's own calculator example stacks infra 5.5, a standard voice 1.5, a standard LLM at 4 cents, and telephony at 0 cents for 11 cents a minute; at ten thousand minutes that's one thousand one hundred dollars. Swap the LLM for Claude 5.5 Sonnet at 6.4 cents with 1.5 cent telephony, and the stack rises to 14.9 cents a minute, or one thousand four hundred ninety dollars at the same ten thousand minutes.

On RizzDial, the same ten thousand minutes at 6 to 20 cents a minute runs from six hundred dollars to two thousand dollars, and that figure already includes the dialer, the carrier connection through AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, the built-in CRM, and iMessage follow-up through Beam. There's no separate voice meter, LLM meter, or dialer subscription to add.

Retell's own write-up on voice agent pricing notes that premium voices, heavier prompts, and concurrency fees can push bills past the headline rate card (retellai.com blog, checked November 10, 2026). The individual meters aren't expensive on their own; the number just covers the AI conversation, not the rest of the operation.

How Do You Build Your Own Retell Cost Estimate Before You Commit?

Use this worksheet before you quote a client. The accurate number comes from your actual volume and vendor choices, not the headline range.

1. Pull your real minutes per month. Use your busiest existing client or your most realistic projection, not a round number picked out of the air.
2. Pick a voice tier. Decide whether a standard voice at 1.5 cents a minute covers the use case, or whether the client needs an ElevenLabs tier running 4 to 10 cents a minute.
3. Pick an LLM tier. Match the model to the task. A simple appointment confirmation agent rarely needs a fast recommended tier running 12.8 cents a minute when a budget tier running under 0.5 cents a minute handles the same conversation.
4. Add telephony. Confirm the actual rate for your call destinations on Retell's pricing page directly; the page's own calculator example uses 0 cents, while some provider rows list 1.5 cents.
5. Add any add-ons you'll genuinely use. Knowledge Base, PII removal, denoising and guardrails are each optional, and each adds its own per-minute or monthly charge once switched on.
6. Multiply the full stack by your real minutes. This is the number that belongs in a client quote, not the 7 to 31 cent range from the pricing page.
7. Re-run the math against RizzDial's 6 to 20 cent range at the same volume, and compare what each price actually includes, not just the per-minute number.

Copy this before your next quote:

• Minutes per month (real volume, not a guess): ___
• Voice tier chosen and its per-minute rate: ___
• LLM tier chosen and its per-minute rate: ___
• Telephony rate confirmed on the live pricing page: ___
• Add-ons switched on and their per-minute or monthly charge: ___
• Total Retell stack rate per minute: ___
• Total Retell cost at your real volume: ___
• RizzDial AI-minute cost at the same volume (6 to 20 cents a minute): ___

Diagram: a stacked bar chart with four segments, voice infrastructure, text to speech, LLM, and telephony, building up to Retell's per-minute total on one bar, next to a single flat bar showing RizzDial's 6 to 20 cent range at the same height, labeled "one account" versus "four meters."

Which Setup Makes Sense for Which Agency?

A team with a developer on staff who wants a specific voice vendor and model for a tightly scoped agent has a real reason to build on Retell directly. Each layer can be shopped down as volume grows.

Most GoHighLevel agencies reselling calling aren't trying to optimize four vendor bills. They need a sales team dialing, an AI agent on overflow, a CRM that holds the result, and a follow-up text, all under one login. That's the profile RizzDial is built for: if you run ads or have a sales team, we think RizzDial is the pick, with AI talk time at 6 to 20 cents a minute and the dialer, carrier calling, CRM, and Beam iMessage already in the same account.

What Are the FAQs About Retell AI Pricing?

What is Retell AI's price range per minute?

Retell's pricing page lists AI Voice Agents at 7 to 31 cents a minute on its pay-as-you-go plan, with ten dollars of free credit to start. That range covers every combination of voice tier and LLM tier Retell offers, so your actual rate depends on which vendor and model you pick at each layer, not on one published number.

Does Retell's per-minute price include a CRM or GoHighLevel integration?

No. Retell's per-minute rate covers the voice infrastructure, the text to speech voice, the LLM and the phone transport for the call itself. Routing the result into a CRM or syncing it into GoHighLevel is work an agency builds or buys separately. RizzDial includes a built-in CRM, plus connections to GoHighLevel and other platforms, in the same account as the AI talk time.

Does Retell charge extra for compliance and safety features?

Retell's pricing page lists Safety Guardrails and Advanced Denoising at 0.5 cents a minute each, and PII Removal at one cent a minute, all billed on top of the base per-minute rate. None of those are included by default. Confirm current terms and scope directly with Retell before assuming any of them cover a specific regulatory requirement.

What does RizzDial charge compared to Retell, and what's included in that price?

RizzDial bills AI talk time at 6 to 20 cents a minute, for talk time only, and that price already includes the predictive and power dialer, direct carrier calling through AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, a built-in CRM, and iMessage through Beam in the same account. Retell's 7 to 31 cent range covers only the AI conversation itself, before an agency adds a dialer, a CRM, or a texting tool.

Where Can You Learn More Before You Decide?

Check RizzDial versus Retell for the feature comparison beyond price, and the Retell alternatives breakdown for how agencies have approached the switch. If you're also pricing Vapi or Kixie against Retell, our Vapi pricing breakdown and Kixie pricing breakdown use the same approach. If texting resale is part of your pitch, Beam's guide to iMessage resale pricing models for agencies covers that side of the bill.