Billing Examples

End-to-end examples estimating voice workflow cost on Vapi.

Case Examples

Here are a few case-examples of what billing would look like on Vapi for different voice pipeline configurations.

Read our guide on estimating costs to learn more about provider pricing.

Call Center (Inbound Phone)

A customer is looking to use Vapi to assist their call center staff taking phone calls inbound:

1

Scenario

“I want to use Vapi voice assistants to support my human customer service reps in a call center. However, I have a custom LLM I would prefer to use instead of the ones offered through the platform.

Expected monthly usage will be 10,000 calls, with an average of 2 minutes per call. For Voice, PlayHT will suit our needs.

What is my pricing breakdown?”

2

Providers

The providers used will determine per-minute cost. The following providers will be involved:

Deepgram: transcription

Custom Model: model

PlayHT: voice

Twilio: telephony (receiving inbound phone calls)

The customer will be using a custom model & taking inbound phone calls.

3

Cost Breakdown

We will break down the costs of each piece of the voice pipeline, then later multiply by call volume:

Deepgram: ≈ $0.01/min

Custom Model: ≈ $0.04/min (vague assumption, can vary widely)

PlayHT: ≈ $0.07/min

Twilio: ≈ $0.02/min (inbound, toll-free number) (see Twilio phone call pricing)

Vapi: $0.05/min

Our estimating costs guide can help you determine these values.

4

Final Estimate

Call Minutes / Month: 10,000 calls x 2 min/call = 20,000 call minutes

Transcription: $0.01/min x 20,000 = $200

Custom Model: $0.04/min x 20,000 = $800

Voice: ≈ $0.07/min x 20,000 = $1,400

Telephony: ≈ $0.02/min x 20,000 = $400

Vapi: $0.05/min x 20,000 = $1,000

Total: $3,800/mo

Real Estate Lead Generation (Outbound Phone)

A customer doing real estate lead generation is looking to use Vapi to automate parts of their sales calling operation:

1

Scenario

“I have a company that does real estate lead generation, and would like to use Vapi voice assistants to automate parts of my sales process.

Calls would average ~4 minutes, for Model I want to use GPT-4-turbo through your platform, and for Voice I will be using a ElevenLabs.

I’d like a breakdown based on sending 1,000 outbound calls in one month.”

2

Providers

Deepgram: transcription

OpenAI (GPT-4 Turbo): model

ElevenLabs: voice

Vonage: telephony (sending outbound phone calls)

The customer will be using GPT-4 & making outbound phone calls.

3

Cost Breakdown

Deepgram: ≈ $0.01/min

OpenAI (GPT-4 Turbo): ≈ $0.20/min

ElevenLabs: ≈ $0.04/min

Vonage: ≈ $0.01/min (outbound call) (see Vonage’s phone call pricing)

Vapi: $0.05/min

Our estimating costs guide can help you determine these values.

4

Final Estimate

Call Minutes / Month: 1,000 calls x 4 min/call = 4,000 call minutes

Transcription: $0.01/min x 4,000 = $40

Model: $0.20/min x 4,000 = $800

Voice: ≈ $0.04/min x 4,000 = $160

Telephony: ≈ $0.01/min x 4,000 = $40

Vapi: $0.05/min x 4,000 = $200

Total: $1,240/mo

Mock Intervieweing Application (Web)

A web engineer is looking to develop a website that helps job candidates practice for job interviews. They are looking to use Vapi for their virtual interviewers:

1

Scenario

“Hi, I’m looking to develop a web application for mock interviews. Users will be able to practice for a variety of job interviews with AI interviewers.

Interviews will be 30-minutes each (at max), for model I’ll be using a custom open-source model hosted with Baseten & for voice I’ll be using PlayHT.

How much would this cost me each month if I service 1,000 interviews per month?”

2

Providers

Deepgram: transcription

Custom Model: model

PlayHT: voice

The customer will be using a custom model & making web calls (no telephony will be involved).

3

Cost Breakdown

Deepgram: ≈ $0.01/min

Custom Model: ≈ $0.10/min (vague assumption, can vary widely)

PlayHT: ≈ $0.07/min

Vapi: $0.05/min

Our estimating costs guide can help you determine these values.

4

Final Estimate

Call Minutes / Month: 1,000 calls x 30 min/call = 30,000 call minutes

Transcription: $0.01/min x 30,000 = $300

Model: $0.10/min x 30,000 = $3,000

Voice: ≈ $0.07/min x 30,000 = $2,100

Vapi: $0.05/min x 30,000 = $1,500

Total: $6,900/mo

Further Reading

Provider Costs

Learn more about where provider costs end up getting billed.

Estimating Costs

Learn more about determining per-minute costs for providers.