AI phone assistant costs
What does an AI phone assistant cost? Costs and prices compared
At Call0 from €110 per month, including 700 call minutes and 1 phone number. The trial with 15 minutes is free.
On this page
- In short: the cost of an AI phone assistant
- What the Call0 price already includes
- Price comparison: 12 providers of AI phone assistants
- Three pricing models on the market
- The three Call0 plans
- What may be added
- Four worked examples
- The complete cost formula
- The eight cost blocks
- Four common calculation mistakes
- A reliable figure in two weeks
- One plan, more than one channel
- Frequently asked questions about costs
- Sources and date of review
In short: the cost of an AI phone assistant
The 12 providers compared here publish entry plans between €0 and €119 per month. Platforms that bill by usage charge no base fee and state between $0.05 and $0.31 per minute. Individual providers for large companies state prices only on request. As of October 2026.
Call0 sells packages: Launch costs €110 per month and includes 700 call minutes and 1 phone number; each additional minute costs €0.16.
A base fee or a per-minute price alone says little. What counts is the monthly total for your own call volume, and what that total already contains: speech recognition, language model, voice, telephony and phone numbers are included with some providers and billed separately by others. The comparison table shows what each provider publishes; the sections below it show how to turn that into a budget.
What the Call0 price already includes
The monthly price is only half the calculation. What counts is what you get for it without paying extra or building it yourself.
Telephony and AI in the minute price
The 700 minutes of Launch include speech recognition, language model, voice and telephony. There is no separate bill from a model or telephony provider.Several lines from the start
3 concurrent calls and 1 phone number are included in Launch. Additional numbers cost €15 per month.Testing every month
30 browser test minutes per month in every paid plan, so changes can be tried out without using up call minutes.Integrations without extra cost
Over 500 integrations for calendars, CRM and ticketing systems are part of the platform, not an add-on.Monthly cancellation
Paid monthly, the plans can be cancelled every month. Paying yearly in advance lowers the price.
Price comparison: 12 providers of AI phone assistants
As of October 2026. The table shows the prices as they are published on the pricing page of the respective provider. Currency, unit and tax note are not converted.
| Provider | Base fee per month | Price per minute | Minutes included | Contract term | Source | As of |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Call0Our recommendation | Launch: €110 per month; net | €0.16 per additional minute | 700 | can be cancelled monthly; annual payment in advance is optional | ||
| Bland AI | Start: $0 platform fee; Build: $299 per month | Start: $0.14; Build: $0.12; telephony is billed separately | on request | on request | ||
| ElevenLabs Agents | Free: $0; Starter: $6 per month (first month $1); excluding taxes | $0.08 per additional minute; LLM usage is billed on top | Free: 15; Starter: 75 | monthly billing, can be cancelled at any time | ||
| famulor | Prepaid: €0; Plus: €27 per month with annual billing | Prepaid: €0.18; Plus: €0.16 per additional minute | Prepaid: 0; Plus: 100 | Prepaid: no contract commitment; Plus: annual billing | ||
| fonio | Solo: €119 per month, €99 per month with annual billing; net | Add-on package: €15 for 100 minutes | 1,000 | on request | ||
| IONOS KI-Telefonassistent | Flex: €39 per month; including VAT | no per-minute billing; €0.49 per additional call | 30 calls | can be cancelled monthly | ||
| Parloa | on request | on request; according to the pricing page, billing is usage-based per minute | on request | on request | ||
| Retell AI | $0 | $0.07 to $0.31 | none; $10 in starting credit | no contract, no minimum | ||
| sipgate sona | Free: €0; Starter: €69.95 per month; plus VAT | Additional minutes €0.12 or €0.10, depending on the plan | Free: 500; Starter: 1,000 | can be cancelled monthly | ||
| Synthflow | Enterprise contracts from $30,000 per year | on request | on request | on request | ||
| Vapi | $0 to start | $0.05 for Vapi hosting; model costs are added at cost | none; $5 in starting credit | Prepaid | ||
| VITAS | FLEX: €49 per month, €40 per month with annual billing; net | no per-minute billing; €0.28 per conversation | no included volume | on request; the 30-day trial ends automatically |
Currency and unit are left as each provider publishes them. US dollar prices are not converted, and a price per call or per conversation is not turned into a price per minute, because that would require an assumed call length.
“on request” means that the provider’s pricing page states no figure for this item. Where a provider offers several plans, the table shows the entry plan and, if there is one, the plan without a base fee.
Net and gross differ: several providers state net prices, one states prices including VAT, others say nothing about it. The note is in the cell. Annual billing lowers the monthly amount with several providers and requires payment for a year.
Three pricing models on the market
Package: a monthly price with included minutes; further minutes cost extra. This is how Call0 bills.
By usage: no base fee, every minute is charged. The language model and telephony may be added separately.
Custom: the price is in the contract, usually for large volumes and after a sales call.
Which model fits depends mainly on your call volume and on who operates the system. Billing by usage suits a small or fluctuating volume and teams that want to put together model, voice and telephony themselves; in return, the invoice changes every month and has several items.
A package suits a call volume that stays roughly the same and a budget that should contain one fixed amount. Included minutes you do not use are paid for all the same, and additional minutes cost extra, so the plan should match your real volume and not the largest month of the year.
Custom contracts pay off at volumes at which negotiating saves more than a list price. Getting started takes longer, because it goes through sales, and prices can only be compared once you have an offer in writing.
The three Call0 plans
| Plan | Per month | Per year | Minutes included | Concurrent calls | Each additional minute | Phone numbers |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Launch | €110 | €1,188 | 700 | 3 | €0.16 | 1 |
| Growth | €220 | €2,388 | 1,500 | 5 | €0.14 | 1 |
| Scale | €550 | €5,988 | 4,000 | 10 | €0.12 | 2 |
What may be added
| Item | Price or rule |
|---|---|
| Annual payment | annual amount in advance, at least 1 monthly fee less than 12 monthly fees |
| Monthly payment | Can be cancelled monthly |
| Additional phone number | €15 per month |
| Browser test minutes in paid plans | 30 per month |
| Enterprise | Custom terms and Zero Data Retention on request |
| Prices | Net, plus VAT |
Four worked examples
Monthly payment, excluding VAT. In each case the plan with the lowest monthly total is chosen.
- 100 calls of 2 minutes each = 200 minutes → fits into Launch (700 minutes included): €110 per month.
- 200 calls of 2 minutes each = 400 minutes → fits into Launch (700 minutes included): €110 per month.
- 600 calls of 3 minutes each = 1,800 minutes → Growth plus 300 additional minutes at €0.14 each: €262 per month.
- 1,500 calls of 2 minutes each = 3,000 minutes → Growth plus 1,500 additional minutes at €0.14 each: €430 per month.
When the next plan pays off
- From 1,388 minutes per month, Growth costs less than Launch with additional minutes: €220 instead of €220.08.
- From 3,858 minutes per month, Scale costs less than Growth with additional minutes: €550 instead of €550.12.
Calculated with monthly payment, excluding VAT. If you are above the threshold for several months, the larger plan is the lower total; for a single busy month the additional minutes are enough.
The complete cost formula
Monthly total budget
Platform + call minutes + telephony + phone numbers + speech recognition (STT) + language model (LLM) + speech output (TTS) + knowledge and tools + support + internal operating effort
With a bundled plan, several of these items are already in the package. With a developer platform they are billed separately or paid through your own contracts with the model and telephony providers. Both models can be economical; what matters is which work your own team has to take on.
The table above shows the difference. Vapi states a hosting fee per minute and adds the model costs at cost. ElevenLabs states a price per additional minute and bills the language model on top. Bland AI bills telephony separately. With such prices, the published per-minute figure is the first summand of the formula, not its result.
In a package, the formula shrinks to three summands: base fee, additional minutes and extras. At Call0, Launch contains 700 minutes, 3 concurrent calls and 1 phone number; the section “What may be added” lists the extras. What remains is your internal effort for setup, knowledge maintenance and quality checks, which no price list shows.
The eight cost blocks
Each summand of the formula is a cost block of its own. In a package, several of them are contained in the monthly price; for each block, ask whether it is included or billed separately.
- Platform: Subscription, orchestration or infrastructure fee. Ask what the fee contains and whether it is charged per month, per user or per concurrent call.
- Telephony: Incoming and outgoing minutes, country, mobile network and call transfers. A transfer to a person can be billed as a second connection for as long as it lasts.
- Speech recognition: Model, real-time class and any transcription after the call. Accuracy with names, numbers and dialects decides how often a caller has to repeat something, and every repetition costs call time.
- Language model: Input, cached, output and, where applicable, reasoning tokens. A long instruction text is sent along with every turn of the conversation, so its length affects every single minute.
- Speech output: Characters, credits or call minutes, depending on the voice provider. Premium voices are in a higher price class with several platforms.
- Knowledge and tools: Vector search, knowledge base, calendar, CRM or an automation provider. Tools that are called during the call can carry their own fees with the respective provider.
- Concurrency and phone numbers: Additional lines, regions or number types. Whoever receives many calls at the same time on Monday morning needs more lines than the monthly average suggests.
- Operation: Monitoring, quality assurance, prompt maintenance, data protection and support. This block is on no invoice of the provider and is often the largest one in the first weeks.
Four common calculation mistakes
| Mistake | Why it is a problem | What to measure |
|---|---|---|
| Counting only speaking time | Many providers bill the duration of the connection or minimum blocks, not the time someone speaks | Use the connection time from real call logs |
| Reading the platform price as the total price | Model providers and telephony can be added | Put all invoices of one month side by side and add them up |
| Calculating with the average, without peak load | The number of concurrent calls decides whether callers get through | Evaluate the busiest 15-minute windows |
| Testing with a demo prompt | Long real instructions can cause more tokens or surcharges | Test with a production-like prompt and your real knowledge |
What providers document about their own billing:
Retell AI documents a minimum charge of 10 seconds for calls with a dynamic opening message in which the agent speaks first, and a proportionally scaled duration for agents whose prompts use more than 4,000 LLM tokens. Source: docs.retellai.com
ElevenLabs describes billing by call duration, with a 95% discount for periods of silence longer than 10 seconds, and passes on the LLM costs separately. Source: elevenlabs.io
Vapi shows the costs of the model providers in addition to its own hosting fee; according to the pricing page they are passed on at cost. Source: vapi.ai
A reliable figure in two weeks
A two-week pilot with real call durations is more accurate than any example calculation. Five steps are enough.
- Export call volume, average duration and peak concurrency from your existing phone system. If there is no export, a tally sheet over five working days will do.
- Define three frequent and three difficult types of call, for example an appointment request, a question about opening hours and a complaint.
- Test with production-like knowledge and real telephony, not only in the browser. Forward part of your calls for this, such as the calls outside opening hours.
- Calculate the cost per connected, successfully completed request, not only per minute: monthly total divided by the number of requests that were resolved correctly.
- Include wrong transfers, repeat calls and manual follow-up work. They appear on no invoice and still cost working time.
The most economical solution is the one that makes a correctly resolved request reliably less expensive or more available. A low per-minute price with many repeat calls can cost more in the end than a higher one with conversations that are finished after the first call.
You can start the first part at Call0 without a contract: the Free plan includes 15 test minutes in the browser, without a credit card. For the test with real telephony you need a paid plan; with monthly payment it can be cancelled monthly.
One plan, more than one channel
With the same account and the same knowledge, Call0 also covers the channels next to the phone.
- Phone assistant
Answers calls around the clock, books appointments, records requests and makes outbound calls. Speaks 13 languages.
Phone assistant → - Handover to your team
When a person is needed, the phones of your team ring: queue with hold music, ringing in turn, hold and transfer, opening hours and fallback rules.
- WhatsApp assistant
Replies to customer messages on WhatsApp with the same knowledge as on the phone. You choose between assist, approval and autopilot.
WhatsApp assistant → - Email assistant
Reads your inbox and prepares replies. Sensitive topics always go to a person; nothing is deleted or archived.
Email assistant → - Website chatbotComing soon
Answers visitors on your website from the same knowledge and hands over requests to your team.
Website chatbot → - Agent0 and integrations
Agent0 sets up and adjusts the assistant with you in plain language. Over 500 integrations connect calendars, CRM and ticketing systems.
Integrations →
Frequently asked questions about costs
What does an AI phone assistant cost per minute?
Among the 12 providers compared, platforms that bill by usage publish between $0.05 and $0.31 per minute; additional minutes in packages cost between €0.10 and €0.18. The low platform prices often contain neither the language model nor telephony. At Call0, each additional minute costs €0.16, €0.14, €0.12, depending on the plan. As of October 2026.
Are there free AI phone assistants?
A plan or a start without a monthly base fee is published by Bland AI, ElevenLabs Agents, famulor, Retell AI, sipgate sona and Vapi. These offers are limited by minutes or starting credit, or every minute is billed. Call0 has a Free plan with 15 test minutes in the browser, without a phone number. As of October 2026.
Which AI phone assistant costs the least?
That depends on your call volume. With few minutes, billing by usage without a base fee usually results in the lower total; with many minutes, a package with included minutes does. A single per-minute price says little, because language model, telephony and phone numbers are partly billed separately. Calculate the monthly total for your own minutes; this page does not rank providers.
Is an AI phone assistant worth it for small businesses?
It is worth it when calls are lost today or tie up working time. Calculate it like this: missed calls per month, times the share that would have become an order, times the average order value. At Call0 this is set against €110 per month in the Launch plan. A business that is rarely called usually does not need one.
What does an AI phone assistant cost at Call0?
Launch costs €110 per month or €1,188 per year and includes 700 call minutes. All prices are net, plus VAT.
What happens when the included minutes are used up?
The assistant keeps answering calls. Depending on the plan, each additional minute costs €0.16, €0.14, €0.12.
Does the phone number cost extra?
Every paid plan includes at least one number. Each additional number costs €15 per month. You can also forward your existing number.
Can I test for free beforehand?
Yes. The Free plan includes 15 test minutes, without a credit card and without a phone number. Every paid plan also includes 30 browser test minutes per month.
Is annual payment worth it?
With annual payment you pay the annual amount in advance and save at least 1 monthly fee compared with 12 monthly fees. Monthly payment can be cancelled monthly.
Why are per-minute prices hard to compare?
Some providers state a package price that covers everything, others only a platform fee and bill the language model and telephony separately. So always compare the monthly total for your call volume.
What does the email assistant cost?
The email assistant has plans of its own: Launch €89, Growth €220, Scale €550 per month; with yearly billing €79, €199, €499 per month. All prices exclude VAT. Launch: 500 emails per month, 1 mailbox. Growth: 2,000 emails per month, 3 mailboxes. Scale: 6,000 emails per month, 10 mailboxes. Every email the assistant answers, drafts or sorts counts; observing alone does not. Once the allowance is used up, the assistant pauses until the next contract month or until you change the plan. During the pause emails stay untouched and unread in the mailbox; afterwards the assistant handles only emails of the last 24 hours and no longer answers older ones. There are no extra charges.
Sources and date of review
- Bland AI, Pricing page: bland.ai,
- Call0, Pricing page: call0.ai,
- ElevenLabs Agents, Pricing page: elevenlabs.io,
- famulor, Pricing page: famulor.io,
- fonio, Pricing page: fonio.ai,
- IONOS KI-Telefonassistent, Pricing page: ionos.de,
- Parloa, Pricing page: parloa.com,
- Retell AI, Pricing page: retellai.com,
- sipgate sona, Pricing page: sipgate.de,
- Synthflow, Pricing page: synthflow.ai,
- Vapi, Pricing page: vapi.ai,
- VITAS, Pricing page: telefonassistent.de,
- Retell AI, Documentation: billing exceptions: docs.retellai.com,
- ElevenLabs, Help center: cost of ElevenLabs Agents: elevenlabs.io,
Every price of another provider was read on that provider’s own pricing page on the date stated; comparison portals, blogs and search results were not used. Call0 prices come from the current Call0 price configuration, the same one the pricing page uses.
The examples do not replace a binding offer. Taxes, exchange rates, country prices and individual contract terms are not fully covered. The published pricing page of the respective provider or a written offer is authoritative.
As of 12 October 2026. The ranking follows the criteria named on the page. Information about other providers comes from their linked pages and was checked on the date stated; the provider’s own page is authoritative. Brand names belong to their owners; no partnership is claimed. If an item is no longer correct, write to support@call0.ai.