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Provider expenses can either end up provider-side, or at-cost in your Vapi account.

During calls, requests will be made to different providers in the voice pipeline:
  • transcription providers: providers conducting speech-to-text
  • model providers: LLM providers
  • voice providers: providers conducting text-to-speech
  • telephony providers: providers like Twilio/Vonage that facilitate phone calls
Per-minute telephony costs only occur during inbound/outbound phone calling. Web calls do not incur this cost.

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Where Provider Costs End-up

There are 2 places these charges can end up:
  1. Provider-side: in the account you have with the provider.
  2. With Vapi: in your Vapi account.

Billed Provider-side

If we have provider keys on file for a provider, the cost will be seen directly in your account with the provider. Vapi will have made the request on your behalf with your provider key.No charge will be made to your Vapi account.Charges for inbound/outbound phone calling (telephony) will always end up where the phone number was provisioned. If you import a phone number from Twilio or Vonage, per-minute charges for calling those numbers will appear with them.

Billed with Vapi

If no key is found on-file for the provider, Vapi will make the API request itself (with Vapi’s own keys, at Vapi’s expense). This expense is then passed on at-cost to be billed directly to your Vapi account.No charge will show up provider-side.

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Billing That “Just Works”

The central idea is that everything is designed to “just work”. Whether you are billed provider-side, or on Vapi’s side, you will never be charged with any margin for provider fees incurred during calls.
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