Retell AI Pricing Explained: Per-Minute Costs, Hidden Fees and What You Actually Pay

*Exact LLM rates vary by model, but the examples above stay within Retell’s published per‑minute ranges.

The 0.07 dollars per minute figure you see in Retell’s marketing reflects voice infrastructure alone. It does not include the AI model, text‑to‑speech, or telephony, and in real usage you pay for all four together.

What a “Real” Minute Typically Costs

When you stack every component, your effective per‑minute price depends on how powerful a model and voice you choose:

Even the cheapest possible configuration costs nearly 40% more than the advertised $0.07 headline rate. The mid-range setup, which is what most businesses would use for natural-sounding conversations, costs almost double the advertised figure.

Retell AI Hidden Costs Beyond Per-Minute Rates

The stacked per‑minute rate is only one layer of what you pay for with Retell. There are also monthly, one‑time, and per‑minute add‑ons that sit on top of your base call costs.

Here are some of the most important extras to factor in:

If you are running a mid‑range configuration at about 0.125 dollars per minute and you enable knowledge base usage, safety guardrails, and PII removal, those three add‑ons alone add 0.005 + 0.005 + 0.01 = 0.02 dollars per minute, pushing your effective rate to roughly 0.145 dollars per minute. That is an increase of around 15 to 20 percent over the base configuration, which sits comfortably in the 10 to 25 percent uplift range once you include other possible extras such as advanced denoising or AI QA.

There is also a token surcharge applied when your AI agent's prompt exceeds 3,500 tokens. If your business needs detailed instructions, product catalogs, or service menus loaded into the AI, you will likely exceed that threshold, and the surcharge increases your LLM cost further.

Once you understand how Retell’s stacked per‑minute pricing and add‑ons work, the next question is how much you can actually test before you start paying out of pocket. That is where Retell’s free usage credits come in.

Retell AI Free Credits: What 10 Dollars Gets You

Retell does not offer a traditional free trial with a fixed number of days. Instead, new accounts start at 0 dollars and receive 10 dollars of free credits to test the platform. Those credits are consumed at whatever per‑minute rate your chosen configuration uses.

Here is how far 10 dollars stretches across different setups, using the configurations and all‑in per‑minute rates defined earlier:

At a mid‑range configuration, 80 minutes of usage translates to roughly 25 to 30 calls if your average call lasts about 3 minutes, which is enough to validate basic behavior and call quality. Once your 10 dollars of free credits are used up, your account continues on the same usage‑based, pay‑as‑you‑go model that Retell applies to all voice minutes.

Retell AI Enterprise Pricing: A Detailed Breakdown

Retell offers an Enterprise tier for teams that outgrow the self‑serve, pay‑as‑you‑go plan and need higher limits, stricter security, and tailored contracts. This tier is designed for organizations running Retell as core infrastructure, not for typical small service businesses.

On Enterprise, pricing shifts from public per‑minute rates to custom quotes based on your volume and requirements. What you get in return includes:

• Custom pricing for voice and chat usage
• Dedicated, stable server infrastructure for predictable performance at scale
• Higher concurrency caps beyond the 20 concurrent calls included on self‑serve
• Single sign‑on (SSO) and granular role‑based access control
• 24/7 support with a dedicated support portal and implementation specialists
• Custom legal and compliance terms, including MSA, DPA, and BAA where required

The documentation does not list a specific minimum monthly spend, but the emphasis on custom pricing, dedicated servers, and enterprise‑grade support signals that this tier is built for high‑volume deployments handling large numbers of calls every month. For smaller service businesses such as dental clinics, law firms, plumbing companies, and salons, a ready‑to‑use AI receptionist with straightforward monthly plans, like Welco AI phone answering service, is usually a more practical fit.

In the next section, lets do detailed comparison between Retell AI and Welco AI.

Retell AI vs. Welco AI: Side-by-Side Comparison

The most important thing to understand about this comparison is that Retell AI and Welco AI are built for fundamentally different buyers. Retell is a developer API platform designed for engineering teams building custom voice AI applications. Welco AI is a ready-to-use AI receptionist built for service-based business owners who need their phones answered professionally without writing code or managing infrastructure.

That distinction shapes everything from pricing structure to feature set to the day-to-day experience of using each platform.

The Developer Dependency Factor

Retell AI is an API‑first platform designed for teams that want to build and control custom voice agents. To get a production‑ready AI phone agent, you typically need an engineer to define the agent’s behavior, connect it to your phone system, wire it into your calendar and CRM, and keep it updated as your processes change. Freelance voice‑AI developers often charge professional hourly rates, and building a robust agent can take dozens of hours, which turns into a meaningful upfront implementation cost plus ongoing maintenance whenever you change scripts or integrations.

With Welco AI, setup is designed for non‑technical owners. You walk through a guided, no‑code flow, set your greeting, add your business details, define how you want calls handled, and then forward your number. There is no need to write code or manage infrastructure, and ongoing changes can be made directly in the interface without involving a developer.

Who Is Retell AI Pricing Really For?

Retell AI’s voice agent pricing and platform design make the most sense when you are building voice AI as a product, not just replacing a receptionist. It suits engineering teams and AI agencies that want fine‑grained control over models, telephony, and call flows, and are comfortable owning the API work and infrastructure. It also fits larger organizations and call centers with high, steady call volumes, where custom enterprise pricing and dedicated infrastructure can offset the complexity of the stacked, usage‑based model.

Is Retell AI Pricing Worth It?

Retell AI is a strong platform on its own terms. The voice quality is high, model options are flexible, and the API gives developers fine‑grained control over how calls are handled. For product teams and agencies building voice AI as a core offering, that control and the pay‑as‑you‑go structure can be both fair and cost‑effective.

For service‑based business owners, the key question is different: do you actually need a developer platform at all?

If your main goal is to stop missing calls, capture caller details, and book more appointments, a stacked per‑minute API with four billing components is overkill.

You need a finished receptionist that works the day you sign up. That is why, for owners running dental clinics, plumbing companies, law firms, salons, and similar service businesses, Retell AI pricing only makes sense if you already have the technical resources to use it well.

If you do not, a ready‑to‑use AI receptionist like Welco AI, with flat monthly pricing and no‑code setup, is usually the more practical choice.

Welco AI is a AI answering service built for service businesses that want every call answered without hiring more staff. It runs 24/7, greets callers in a natural voice, captures key details, and books or routes calls based on rules you set. You do not need developers or API keys: setup happens through a guided, no‑code interface that most teams complete in a few minutes.

If Retell feels too technical, too variable, or too open‑ended, Welco AI gives you a focused product that does one thing very well: answer your calls like a trained AI call receptionist and help you turn more of those calls into booked business.