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Bland AI vs Vapi

Two fact sheets from our own research, side by side — pricing, platforms, API access and status re-checked by us rather than quoted from the vendors. Bland AI starts at $0.14, Vapi at $0.05. Both ship a public API.

Bland AIPhone-call agents billed per minute, with model, speech, voice and telephony bundled inVapiDeveloper platform for building and running voice phone agents, billed per minute of call time.

Side by side

FactBland AIVapi
CategoryVoice Agents & Phone AIVoice Agents & Phone AI
Pricing modelPaidPaid
Starts at$0.14 minute$0.05 minute
Public APIYesYes
PlatformsWeb, APIWeb, API
CompanyBlandVapi Inc.
Launched20232020
Last verifiedSep 6, 2026Sep 6, 2026

What our research says

Bland AI

One of the few voice-agent vendors that quotes a single all-in per-minute rate and publishes compliance certifications, which makes cost modelling straightforward. The catch is that the cheap minute rate sits behind tier-gated limits, so real call-centre volume pushes you onto a monthly platform fee as well.

Pros

  • All-in per-minute rate covers model, transcription, voice and telephony
  • Documented REST API with batch dispatch and live in-call calls
  • SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA and PCI DSS v4.0 compliance stated
  • Free start credits and an inbound number without a card

Cons

  • Concurrency, daily call caps and voice counts are gated by tier
  • Build and Scale add $299 and $499 monthly fees on top of minutes
  • A closed in-house stack means less choice of underlying models

Vapi

The default answer when a developer needs a voice agent on a phone line rather than a chat widget: it handles the hard real-time parts — barge-in, latency, turn-taking, telephony — and lets you swap in your own models. Enterprise adoption at Ring and Intuit is real validation. Cost forecasting is the hard part, because the platform fee is only one of four meters running.

Pros

  • Handles real-time voice mechanics: turn-taking, interruptions, latency and telephony
  • Bring-your-own-key support across OpenAI, Anthropic and Google avoids double model markup
  • CRM and helpdesk integrations for Salesforce, HubSpot and Zendesk
  • SOC 2, HIPAA and PCI compliance plus SSO and RBAC on the enterprise tier
  • Proven at scale, with Amazon Ring routing inbound support volume through it

Cons

  • The $0.05/minute platform fee sits on top of speech, model and voice provider costs
  • Concurrency beyond ten lines costs $10 per line per month
  • Enterprise compliance features require an annual Scale contract
  • It is a developer platform, so there is no usable no-code path

Which one fits

Choose Bland AI if you need

  • Teams replacing IVR menus with agents that can be interrupted
  • Outbound qualification and appointment confirmation at volume
  • Regulated industries needing HIPAA or PCI paperwork on file

Choose Vapi if you need

  • Developers building phone-based support, booking or qualification agents
  • Replacing IVR trees with something that actually listens
  • Teams that want to bring their own model and voice provider keys

More comparisons

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