Retell AI

by Retell AI

Don’t want to sign up for Retell AI? Drop the file here.

The first 20 minutes of any recording are transcribed free: a recording up to 20 minutes transcribes in full, a longer one is previewed, and a pack from $6 (500 minutes) transcribes the rest and opens every export, and credits never expire.

Real-time voice-agent platform with low-latency conversational AI.

API  ·  per-minute

TL;DR

Best for builders shipping real-time voice agents with custom prompts and tool calls. Pricing: per-minute (see Retell pricing).

Category
Products
Pricing
per-minute (see Retell pricing)
Platforms
API

What it is

Retell AI is a voice-agent platform focused on low-latency conversation. Developers configure agents with prompts, tools, and integrations; Retell handles ASR, LLM, TTS orchestration, telephony, and metrics. Common use cases: receptionists, scheduling bots, sales follow-up. Best fit: builders shipping real-time voice agents with custom prompts and tool calls. Caveats: cost stacks (retell orchestration + llm + voice provider). Pricing as listed: per-minute (see Retell pricing). Feature flags from vendor docs: word-level timestamps, streaming. Directory tags: voice-intel, voice-agent. Last vendor-page check: 2026-05-12.

Best for: Builders shipping real-time voice agents with custom prompts and tool calls.
Watch out for: Cost stacks (Retell orchestration + LLM + voice provider).

Install / use

Retell AI REST API + websocket

What people actually do with Retell AI-style transcription

The tool is the means. These are the jobs — each one priced at published rates, each one wired up on its own page.

Wire it into Google DriveMake.comZapiern8nZoomSlack

Features

Speaker diarizationNo
Word-level timestampsYes
Streaming / real-timeYes
Languages supportedNone
HIPAA eligibleNo

Retell AI vs Whipscribe

FeatureRetell AIWhipscribe
CategoryProductsTranscription APIs
PricingNot verified$6–$24 one-time packs (credits never expire) · first 20 minutes free
Speaker identificationNot verifiedNamed in the summary, key quotes and chapters
Word timestampsNot verifiedYes
StreamingNot verifiedNo
Languages—99
PlatformsAPIWeb, API, MCP

Alternatives to Retell AI

Frequently asked about Retell AI

How much does Retell AI cost?

Retell AI is a paid product — published pricing: per-minute (see Retell pricing). Pricing changes; verify on the vendor's own page before budgeting.

What platforms does Retell AI support?

Retell AI is an API — you call it from whatever you build, on any platform with an HTTP client.

How do I get started with Retell AI?

Retell AI is used through its API: get a key from the vendor, then call it from your own code. There is no desktop app to install.

What are the limitations of Retell AI?

Cost stacks (Retell orchestration + LLM + voice provider).

Who is Retell AI best for?

Builders shipping real-time voice agents with custom prompts and tool calls.

Is Retell AI open source?

No. Retell AI is a proprietary product. If you need source you can read and run yourself, the open-source tools in this directory are the place to look.

What kind of tool is Retell AI?

In this directory Retell AI is filed under voice intel, voice agent as a product.

What are the alternatives to Retell AI?

There is a side-by-side page at /tools/retell-ai-alternatives comparing Retell AI with the closest tools in the same category on price, platform and features.

Can I automate Retell AI-style transcription without running it myself?

Yes. If what you want is transcripts rather than the tool itself, Whipscribe does the same job as a hosted API: submit a file or URL, poll a job id, pull the result as txt, json, srt, vtt or docx. $0.012 a minute — about $0.72 an audio hour — bought as credits that never expire. The automation recipes on this site show it wired to Drive folders, Zoom recordings, S3 buckets and no-code platforms.

How is Whipscribe different from Retell AI?

Retell AI is another vendor's product; Whipscribe is a per-minute transcription service. Recordings are transcribed on our own servers and never used for training, and every job returns five formats plus an AI summary, quotes and topics. The first 20 minutes of any recording are transcribed free, and a pack from $6 (500 minutes) transcribes the rest and opens every export.

What does transcription cost if I use Whipscribe instead of Retell AI?

$0.012 a minute — about $0.72 an audio hour — bought as credits that never expire. There is no subscription and no monthly minimum: a 3-hour recording is about $2.16, a thousand-hour archive is about $720 once. The first 20 minutes of any recording are transcribed free, and a pack from $6 (500 minutes) transcribes the rest and opens every export, so you can see what your recording holds before paying anything.

Where is the Retell AI category heading?

Three things are moving across the whole speech-to-text market right now: summaries, action items and speaker insights generated on top of the transcript rather than sold separately; private, secured deployment where the audio never leaves a boundary you control; and agent access — transcription exposed as a tool that Claude, Cursor or a workflow runner can call directly. Whipscribe ships all three today: per-job insights, our own servers, and an MCP server.

Whipscribe is a hosted transcription service. If you want transcripts without running infrastructure, paste a URL or drop a file in the form below — you'll have a transcript in seconds.

Transcribe your recordings

Explore

Have the recording already?

Skip the setup and send the file or the link: see transcribing a long MP3 or M4A, a podcast episode as text from its link and the SRT file generator.

Comparing tools before you pay?

If you would rather pay a service than run software yourself: see the best transcription services side by side, the cheapest way to transcribe an hour of audio and our transcription service with prices and turnaround.