Vapi vs Bland AI on price
With the cheapest picks each lists, a minute costs Vapi $0.0681 and Bland AI $0.12, before the phone line; with the dearest, $0.1313 and $0.14. At 10,000 minutes a month that comes to $681 on Vapi and $1,400 on Bland AI, so Vapi is cheaper. Vapi charges $0.05 a minute for Vapi hosting, plus $0.0181 for the cheapest speech to text, language model and voice it lists (AssemblyAI, Google and Cartesia); Bland AI charges $0.12 to $0.14 a minute, depending on the plan, with language model, speech to text and voice included.
Part by part
A minute of conversation, as each vendor's pricing page splits it:
| Part | Vapi | Bland AI |
|---|---|---|
| Platform fee | $0.05 (Vapi hosting) | $0.12 to $0.14 by plan (Talk time), language model, speech to text and voice included |
| Speech to text | $0.00521 (AssemblyAI) to $0.01221 (OpenAI), at the provider's price | Included in the $0.12 to $0.14 rate |
| Language model | $0.006 (Google) to $0.04523 (OpenAI), at the provider's price | Included in the $0.12 to $0.14 rate |
| Voice | $0.00689 (Cartesia) to $0.02383 (ElevenLabs), at the provider's price | Included in the $0.12 to $0.14 rate |
| Phone line | Free over Vapi telephony or SIP; other carriers at their own price, $0.0055 to $0.014 | Billed separately: your own carrier, or Bland's Twilio at pass-through cost (no rate given) |
| A minute, before the phone line | $0.0681 to $0.1313 | $0.12 to $0.14 |
| With a US inbound line | $0.0681 to $0.1313 Vapi Telephony / SIP: $0 | $0.1285 to $0.1485 Twilio local number, inbound, at Twilio's price: $0.0085 |
The range runs from the cheapest to the dearest option each vendor lists for every part, without add-ons. The US line is the vendor's own where it sells one, otherwise a Twilio local number at Twilio's inbound price; number rental is left out.
What a month costs
| Minutes a month | Vapi | Bland AI |
|---|---|---|
| 100 minutes | $6.81 to $13.13 | $14.00 |
| 1,000 minutes | $68.10 to $131 | $140 |
| 10,000 minutes | $681 to $1,313 | $1,400 |
| 50,000 minutes | $3,405 to $6,564 | $6,299 Build plan |
Each side's cheapest picks on the plan that costs least for that volume, then (smaller) its dearest picks; bold marks the cheaper, before the phone line. Plans with included minutes or a lower rate are counted where they lower the bill; phone number rental, extra concurrency and taxes are left out.
How the language model is billed
- Vapi passes it through at the provider's price with no markup: $0.006 to $0.04523 a minute across the providers in its calculator.
- Bland AI includes it in its $0.12 to $0.14 rate, whatever the model, with no token charges.
Free credit and calls at once
- Vapi: Usage is prepaid. New accounts get $5 of free credit, one Vapi phone number and 4 concurrent calls. Add-ons: extra concurrent call lines cost $10 a month each, extra organizations $20 a month, and HIPAA-eligible data handling $2,000 a month.
- Bland AI: Calls at once by plan: Start 10 and Build 50.
Latency, in each vendor's words
- Vapi: “<500ms average latency”
- Bland AI: “And all this with latency so low you might miss it. 400 ms 1,240 ms Bland Industry Average” A graphic on Bland's home page: 400 ms for Bland against 1,240 ms for an industry average it doesn't define.
These are the vendors' own claims. None says what is timed or under what conditions, and they don't use the same measure, so they can't be ranked against each other; test on your own calls.
Price your own stack
Pick a platform, then its parts and your minutes. The phone line opens on an inbound call to a Twilio US local number at Twilio's price; set it to none for web or app calls.
1,000 minutes a month on Vapi: $81.87 to $129, or $0.0819 to $0.129 a minute on average.
| Part | Per minute | Per month |
|---|---|---|
| Vapi hosting | $0.05 | $50.00 |
| Transcriber (speech to text) Deepgram | $0.00953 to $0.00994 | $9.53 to $9.94 |
| Language model OpenAI | $0.00774 to $0.04523 | $7.74 to $45.23 |
| Voice (text to speech) ElevenLabs | $0.0146 to $0.02383 | $14.60 to $23.83 |
| Transport (phone line) Vapi Telephony / SIP | $0 | $0 |
| Success package No success package | – | $0 |
| Total | $0.0819 to $0.129 | $81.87 to $129 |
Vapi or Bland AI: quick answers
Is Vapi cheaper than Bland AI?
Yes. With the cheapest picks each lists, Vapi costs least: $0.0681 a minute on Vapi and $0.12 a minute on Bland AI, before the phone line. At 1,000, 10,000 and 50,000 minutes a month: Vapi $68.10, $681 and $3,405; Bland AI $140, $1,400 and $6,299.
How much do Vapi and Bland AI cost per minute?
Vapi: a platform fee of $0.05 (Vapi hosting); $0.0681 to $0.1313 a minute before the phone line, from its cheapest to its dearest picks. Bland AI: a platform fee of $0.12 to $0.14 by plan (Talk time), language model, speech to text and voice included; $0.12 to $0.14 a minute before the phone line, from its cheapest to its dearest picks.
What do Vapi and Bland AI include in the price, and what's billed on top?
Vapi: only its own fee in the rate; speech to text, language model and voice billed on top; phone line: free over Vapi telephony or SIP; other carriers at their own price, $0.0055 to $0.014. Bland AI: language model, speech to text and voice in the rate; phone line: billed separately: your own carrier, or Bland's Twilio at pass-through cost (no rate given).
How is the language model billed on Vapi and Bland AI?
Vapi passes it through at the provider's price with no markup: $0.006 to $0.04523 a minute across the providers in its calculator. Bland AI includes it in its $0.12 to $0.14 rate, whatever the model, with no token charges.
Do Vapi and Bland AI give free credit, and how many calls can run at once?
Vapi: Usage is prepaid. New accounts get $5 of free credit, one Vapi phone number and 4 concurrent calls. Add-ons: extra concurrent call lines cost $10 a month each, extra organizations $20 a month, and HIPAA-eligible data handling $2,000 a month. Bland AI: Calls at once by plan: Start 10 and Build 50.
Which is faster, Vapi or Bland AI?
Vapi says “<500ms average latency”. Bland AI says “And all this with latency so low you might miss it. 400 ms 1,240 ms Bland Industry Average”. None says what is timed or under what conditions, and they don't use the same measure, so the figures can't be ranked against each other.
Each platform in full: Vapi, Bland AI. Every platform side by side: AI voice agent cost per minute.
Other comparisons: Retell AI vs Vapi, Vapi vs ElevenLabs Agents, Retell AI vs Bland AI, Vapi vs Twilio ConversationRelay, Retell AI vs Vapi vs ElevenLabs Agents.
Sources
Read on 7 October 2026:
- vapi.ai/pricing
- bland.ai/pricing
- docs.bland.ai/platform/billing
- twilio.com/en-us/voice/pricing/us
- vapi.ai/
- bland.ai/
Show the quoted text
No Success Package Get started for free, and then pay only for the minutes that run $0 to start Pre-paid, $0.05/min Vapi hosting. Models pass-through at cost Start building $5 free credits to get you started 2 organizations 1 included Vapi phone number 4 concurrent calls
vapi.ai/pricing
Core For builders & early teams $29 / month Pre-paid, auto-renew Models pass-through at cost Contact Sales 2 organizations 5 included Vapi phone numbers 10 concurrent calls
vapi.ai/pricing
Pro For scaling teams in production 10% of Vapi hosting fee $999/mo minimum Models pass-through at cost Contact Sales 10 organizations 10 included Vapi phone numbers 30 concurrent calls
vapi.ai/pricing
Four components: speech-to-text, the language model, text-to-speech, and transport. Each is billed at the provider's listed price with no markup. Vapi's $0.05/min hosting fee is added on top.
vapi.ai/pricing. The answer to the page's question "What exactly is in the per-minute cost?", from the page's own data.
It's a percentage of your Vapi hosting fees, model costs are not included.
vapi.ai/pricing. The answer to the page's question "How is the Pro package price calculated?", from the page's own data.
Transcriber Deepgram $0.0095 - $0.0099/min Intelligence Model OpenAI $0.0077 - $0.0452/min Voice ElevenLabs $0.0146 - $0.0238/min
vapi.ai/pricing. The calculator's default picks.
{"id":"transcriber","label":"Transcriber","providers":[{"value":"deepgram","label":"Deepgram","priceLow":0.00953,"priceHigh":0.00994},{"value":"assemblyai","label":"AssemblyAI","priceLow":0.00521,"priceHigh":0.00747},{"value":"openai","label":"OpenAI","priceLow":0.0118,"priceHigh":0.01221}]
vapi.ai/pricing. The calculator's own data: the per-minute range it shows for each transcriber.
{"id":"model","label":"Intelligence Model","providers":[{"value":"openai","label":"OpenAI","priceLow":0.00774,"priceHigh":0.04523},{"value":"anthropic","label":"Anthropic","priceLow":0.00818,"priceHigh":0.03656},{"value":"google","label":"Google","priceLow":0.006,"priceHigh":0.03329}]
vapi.ai/pricing. The calculator's own data: the per-minute range it shows for each model provider.
{"id":"voice","label":"Voice","providers":[{"value":"elevenlabs","label":"ElevenLabs","priceLow":0.0146,"priceHigh":0.02383},{"value":"vapi","label":"Vapi","priceLow":0.00695,"priceHigh":0.01934},{"value":"cartesia","label":"Cartesia","priceLow":0.00689,"priceHigh":0.01294}]
vapi.ai/pricing. The calculator's own data: the per-minute range it shows for each voice provider.
Transport Fee Network and data transport services (Charged by provider, not Vapi) Vapi Telephony / SIP Vapi Telephony / SIP Free Vapi WebSockets Free Daily WebRTC Free Twilio Inbound $0.008 / min Twilio Outbound $0.014 / min Vonage $0.00814 / min Telnyx $0.0055 / min
vapi.ai/pricing
Your Estimate Hosting Fee 1,000 minutes $50 Transcriber Deepgram $10 Intelligence Model OpenAI $8 - $45 Voice ElevenLabs $15 - $24 Transport Fee Vapi Telephony / SIP $0 Success Package No Success Package $0 Estimated Total $ 82 – $ 129 /mo
vapi.ai/pricing
HIPAA compliance HIPAA eligible data handling. Standard Data Processing Agreement and Business Associate Agreement $2,000 / month Additional concurrency Extra concurrent call lines beyond your package default $10 / line / month Additional organizations Extra workspaces beyond your package default $20 / organization / month
vapi.ai/pricing
FOR DEVELOPERS Start 2 credits + an inbound number ($15/mo value). $0.14 /min $0 platform fee. No card required. Start building $0.05/transfer min 10 concurrent calls 100 calls/day 10 knowledge bases FOR TEAMS Build Lower per-minute rates. Higher rate limits. $0.12 /min $299/month platform fee Start building $0.04/transfer min 50 concurrent calls 2,000 calls/day 50 knowledge bases
bland.ai/pricing
Included in your per-minute rate LLM No token charges STT Real-time transcription TTS Premium voices
bland.ai/pricing
Clear pricing across every call No token charges. No model-provider pass-throughs. No surprise bills.
bland.ai/pricing
Bland's per-minute rate covers the LLM, STT, and TTS in one number, with no token charges and no model-provider pass-throughs. Telephony is billed separately, on your own carrier or Bland's at pass-through cost.
bland.ai/pricing
Yes. Bland integrates with your existing Twilio account, with SIP trunks from any contact-center or telephony provider, or you can use Bland's built-in Twilio at pass-through cost. BYOT customers do not pay transfer fees. You handle carrier costs directly and Bland charges only the per-minute AI rate.
bland.ai/pricing
New Pricing Structure (Effective December 5th, 2025) Plan Price Connected Minute Rate Transfer Time Rate Start Free $0.14 / min $0.05 / min Build $299 $0.12 / min $0.04 / min Scale $499 $0.11 / min $0.03 / min
docs.bland.ai/platform/billing
Call Time Prorated to the exact second. Only active call time is counted. Per minute rate based on plan
docs.bland.ai/platform/billing
Outbound Minimum Minimum charge per outbound call attempt using Bland’s telephony. $0.015 / call
docs.bland.ai/platform/billing
Connected time is the full AI conversation duration of the call. Transfer time is billed additionally when the call is transferred to a human using Bland-provided numbers. BYOT (Bring Your Own Twilio) customers do not pay transfer fees.
docs.bland.ai/platform/billing
Number type To make calls To receive calls Refer from Twilio Local calls $0.0140 / min $0.0085 / min Toll-free calls $0.0140 / min $0.0220 / min Browser/app $0.0040 / min $0.0040 / min SIP interface $0.0040 / min $0.0040 / min
twilio.com/en-us/voice/pricing/us
<500ms average latency
vapi.ai/
And all this with latency so low you might miss it. 400 ms 1,240 ms Bland Industry Average
bland.ai/. A graphic on Bland's home page: 400 ms for Bland against 1,240 ms for an industry average it doesn't define.
Prices on this page were checked against the official pricing pages on .