Choosing between Retell and enterprise voice infrastructure isn't about features—it's about math. This post breaks down real monthly costs, per-minute pricing, and hidden expenses with clear TCO tables comparing Retell's managed platform vs RingAI's carrier-grade infrastructure.
The pricing everyone sees
| Platform | Listed Price/Min | What's Included |
|---|---|---|
| Retell | $0.10-0.15 | AI + telephony bundled |
| RingAI | Pay-per-call | Full stack, analytics included |
The costs nobody talks about
Retell's hidden costs at scale
- Concurrent call limits force tier upgrades
- Premium voices cost extra
- Custom integrations require enterprise plan
- Failed call attempts still bill minutes
- No visibility into carrier costs (you're paying markup on markup)
RingAI's transparent infrastructure
- Direct carrier interconnect = wholesale rates
- Failed calls don't bill (we own the retry logic)
- All 500+ integrations included
- Unlimited concurrent calls (we provision capacity, not seats)
- Full analytics and call recordings included
Real TCO at 100k minutes/month
| Cost Component | Retell | RingAI |
|---|---|---|
| AI inference | Bundled | Included |
| Telephony | Bundled | $0.008/min carrier wholesale |
| Failed call retries | ~$1,200 (12k mins @ 12% fail rate) | $0 (retries don't bill) |
| Analytics/monitoring | Add-on $500/mo | Included |
| Custom integrations | Enterprise tier +$2k/mo | Included (500+ MCP integrations) |
| Monthly total | $12,000-15,000 | $4,800-6,200 |
| Effective $/min | $0.12-0.15 | $0.048-0.062 |
Break-even analysis
At 10k minutes/month: Retell's simplicity might win (setup time matters more than cost)
At 50k minutes/month: RingAI saves ~$4k/month ($48k annually)
At 250k minutes/month: RingAI saves ~$22k/month ($264k annually)
The real question: Do you want telephony that works for AI, or AI bolted onto telephony?
Retell is a smart abstraction layer. They're reselling Twilio, adding AI orchestration, and charging for convenience. That model works—until scale, latency, or control matters.
RingAI is carrier-grade telephony infrastructure built for voice AI. We own the SIP trunks, provision numbers directly, and process calls at sub-300ms latency because we control the entire stack. Our RT-VLM processes speech-to-speech natively—no middleware, no latency tax.
When Retell makes sense
- You're prototyping and need something working today
- Volume under 20k minutes/month
- You don't need sub-300ms latency
- You're okay with managed platform constraints
When RingAI makes sense
- You're running production contact centers (50k+ minutes/month)
- Sub-300ms latency isn't optional (sales, support, collections)
- You need full analytics and call data ownership
- Cost per minute matters to your unit economics
- You're serving pay-per-call affiliates or networks
The latency tax nobody calculates
Retell averages 800ms-1.2s end-to-end latency under load. That's fine for simple IVR. It breaks conversational AI.
RingAI maintains sub-300ms because we own the stack. Our RT-VLM processes speech-to-speech natively. No middleware = no latency tax.
Ready to run the numbers for your use case?
Start a free trial or talk to our team about volume pricing for contact centers and affiliate networks.