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Calldock vs Retell AI

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. Calldock starts at $49, Retell AI at $0.07. Only Retell AI has a free tier. Both ship a public API.

Side by side

FactCalldockRetell AI
CategoryAI SDRs & Sales AgentsVoice Agents & Phone AI
Pricing modelPaidFreemium
Starts at$49 month$0.07 minute
Public APIYesYes
PlatformsWeb, APIWeb, API
CompanyCalldockRetell AI Inc.
Launched20252023
Last verifiedSep 6, 2026Sep 6, 2026

What our research says

Calldock

A packaged speed-to-lead caller rather than a voice platform: the agent, the calendar write-back, the SMS follow-up and the human handoff all come assembled, and API access starts on the cheapest plan instead of being an enterprise upsell. The pricing is honest about being metered but easy to misread — $49 buys roughly a hundred minutes of US calling, not a month of unlimited dialling. Vendor transparency is thin, with no company registration or country published.

Pros

  • Books appointments straight into a connected calendar during the call
  • Transfers to a human when the conversation needs one
  • SMS and email follow-up are part of the same workflow
  • API access, playground and code examples start on the $49 tier
  • Connects to Gmail, Slack, Google Calendar and Zapier out of the box

Cons

  • Monthly fee only buys a credit balance; talk time is charged on top
  • US calls at $0.22 a minute make long conversations expensive
  • No company registration, address or country is published
  • Non-US call rates are not stated on the pricing table

Retell AI

One of the more honest voice-agent stacks: the pricing page breaks out infrastructure, TTS and LLM cost per minute so you can predict a call's cost instead of guessing. Telephony choice is wide and the concurrency allowance is generous. The catch is that per-minute billing plus add-ons makes a busy contact centre expensive fast, and the cheap end of the range only holds if you pick the cheap models.

Pros

  • Per-minute cost broken down by voice infrastructure, TTS provider and LLM on the public pricing page
  • Telephony via SIP trunking, Twilio and Vonage plus n8n, HubSpot, Make and Go High Level integrations
  • 20 concurrent calls included before any concurrency charge
  • Voice, chat and SMS agents share one platform and API
  • HIPAA path exists via a signed BAA covered in the terms of service

Cons

  • Cost per minute more than quadruples between the cheapest and most capable model combinations
  • Knowledge base, denoising, PII removal and branded caller ID are all metered extras
  • No flat-rate plan, so a spike in call volume lands straight on the invoice

Which one fits

Choose Calldock if you need

  • Sales teams that need inbound leads called back within minutes
  • Agencies running outbound qualification for several clients
  • Founders who want appointments booked without hiring an SDR

Choose Retell AI if you need

  • Teams replacing an outbound qualification or booking script
  • Contact centres that already have Twilio, Vonage or SIP trunking
  • Developers who want per-minute cost visibility before launch

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