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Case Examples

Here are a few case-examples of what billing would look like on Vapi for different voice pipeline configurations.

Call Center (Inbound Phone)

A customer is looking to use Vapi to assist their call center staff taking phone calls inbound:
1

Scenario

“I want to use Vapi voice assistants to support my human customer service reps in a call center. However, I have a custom LLM I would prefer to use instead of the ones offered through the platform.
Expected monthly usage will be 10,000 calls, with an average of 2 minutes per call. For Voice, PlayHT will suit our needs.
What is my pricing breakdown?”
2

Providers

The providers used will determine per-minute cost. The following providers will be involved:
Transcriber: Deepgram
Model: custom model
Voice: PlayHT
Telephony: Twilio (receiving inbound phone calls)


3

Cost Breakdown

We will break down the costs of each piece of the voice pipeline, then later multiply by call volume:
Deepgram: ≈ $0.01/min
Custom Model: ≈ $0.04/min (vague assumption, can vary widely)
PlayHT: ≈ $0.07/min
Twilio: ≈ $0.02/min (inbound, toll-free) (see Twilio phone call pricing)
Vapi: $0.05/min
Our estimating costs guide can help you determine these values.
4

Final Estimate

Call Minutes / Month: 10,000 calls x 2 min/call = 20,000 call minutes
Transcription: $0.01/min x 20,000 = $200
Custom Model: $0.04/min x 20,000 = $800
Voice: ≈ $0.07/min x 20,000 = $1,400
Telephony: ≈ $0.02/min x 20,000 = $400
Vapi: $0.05/min x 20,000 = $1,000
Total: $3,800/mo
A customer doing real estate lead generation is looking to use Vapi to automate parts of their sales calling operation:
1

Scenario

“I have a company that does real estate lead generation, and would like to use Vapi voice assistants to automate parts of my sales process.Calls would average ~4 minutes, for Model I want to use GPT-3.5-turbo through your platform, and for Voice I will be using a ElevenLabs.I’d like a breakdown based on sending 1,000 outbound calls in one month.”
2

Providers

Transcriber: Deepgram
Model: OpenAI (GPT-3.5 Turbo)
Voice: ElevenLabs
Telephony: Vonage (sending outbound phone calls)


3

Cost Breakdown

Deepgram: ≈ $0.01/min
OpenAI (GPT-3.5 Turbo): ≈ $0.02/min
ElevenLabs: ≈ $0.04/min
Vonage: ≈ $0.01/min (outbound call) (see Vonage’s phone call pricing)
Vapi: $0.05/min
Our estimating costs guide can help you determine these values.
4

Final Estimate

Call Minutes / Month: 1,000 calls x 4 min/call = 4,000 call minutes
Transcription: $0.01/min x 4,000 = $40
Model: $0.02/min x 4,000 = $80
Voice: ≈ $0.04/min x 4,000 = $160
Telephony: ≈ $0.01/min x 4,000 = $40
Vapi: $0.05/min x 4,000 = $200
Total: $520/mo
A web engineer is looking to develop a website that helps job candidates practice for job interviews. They are looking to use Vapi for their virtual interviewers:
1

Scenario

“Hi, I’m looking to develop a web application for mock interviews. Users will be able to practice for a variety of job interviews with AI interviewers.Interviews will be 30-minutes each (at max), for model I’ll be using a custom open-source model hosted with Baseten & for voice I’ll be using PlayHT.How much would this cost me each month if I service 1,000 interviews per month?”
2

Providers

Transcriber: Deepgram
Model: custom model
Voice: PlayHT


3

Cost Breakdown

Deepgram: ≈ $0.01/min
Custom Model: ≈ $0.02/min (vague assumption, can vary widely)
PlayHT: ≈ $0.07/min
Vapi: $0.05/min
Our estimating costs guide can help you determine these values.
4

Final Estimate

Call Minutes / Month: 1,000 calls x 30 min/call = 30,000 call minutes
Transcription: $0.01/min x 30,000 = $300
Model: $0.02/min x 30,000 = $600
Voice: ≈ $0.07/min x 30,000 = $2,100
Vapi: $0.05/min x 30,000 = $1,500
Total: $4,500/mo

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Further Reading

Provider Costs

Learn more about where provider costs end up getting billed.

Estimating Costs

Learn more about determining per-minute costs for providers.