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Retell AI vs Thoughtly

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. Retell AI starts at $0.07, Thoughtly at $500. Only Retell AI has a free tier. Both ship a public API.

Retell AIBuild and run AI phone agents that book, qualify and transfer calls, billed by the minute.ThoughtlyVoice agents that phone a new lead within seconds, then chase by SMS, email and WhatsApp

Side by side

FactRetell AIThoughtly
CategoryVoice Agents & Phone AIVoice Agents & Phone AI
Pricing modelFreemiumPaid
Starts at$0.07 minute$500 month
Public APIYesYes
PlatformsWeb, APIWeb, API
CompanyRetell AI Inc.Thoughtly
Launched2023—
Last verifiedSep 6, 2026Sep 6, 2026

What our research says

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

Thoughtly

Narrower than the general voice-agent platforms and better for it: this is speed-to-lead, with the phone call as the first touch and SMS, email and WhatsApp as the follow-through, all written back to the CRM. The $500 floor means it only makes sense where a recovered lead is worth real money.

Pros

  • Calls within about ten seconds of a form submission, then escalates across SMS, email and WhatsApp
  • All channels included in the plan price with no per-channel or per-seat surcharge
  • Automatic classification of call outcomes with CRM write-back to Salesforce and HubSpot
  • Public developer documentation and API for wiring it into your own stack

Cons

  • Entry price of $500 a month and no self-serve signup
  • No published per-minute rate, so cost at volume cannot be modelled before a sales call
  • Scale and Enterprise pricing is entirely opaque

Which one fits

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

Choose Thoughtly if you need

  • Inbound lead teams where response time decides whether a deal happens
  • Insurance, education and home-services operations with high inbound volume
  • Teams that want call outcomes landing in Salesforce or HubSpot without manual logging

More comparisons

All Thoughtly alternatives →Browse all Voice Agents & Phone AI →