Software
Retell AI Alternatives and Competitors in 2025
Optimizing customer support through AI automation has never been more crucial in today’s competitive landscape.
As customer expectations continue to soar, businesses are seeking AI solutions that deliver seamless, cost-effective, and scalable support. Retell AI, known for its HIPAA-compliant AI voice agents and human-like chatbots, offers preset functions for basic workflow automation.
However, Retell AI's modular pricing structure and limited flexibility may pose challenges for scaling businesses, potentially increasing costs by up to 30% compared to bundled competitors.
This guide will help you explore Retell AI's limitations and discover top alternatives designed to optimize customer interactions, enhance scalability, and reduce operational costs.
Reasons Why Retell AI Should Stay in Your Past
Retell AI shines in healthcare applications, offering a HIPAA-compliant conversational AI platform with pre-built templates that simplify launching voice assistants for tasks like appointment booking and patient follow-ups.
Its emphasis on compliance and ease of setup makes it a strong choice for providers focused on streamlined, ready-to-deploy solutions.
However, when businesses require advanced functionality, challenges begin to emerge.
For example, custom integrations with Retell often involve a significant technical overhead, with businesses frequently reporting an additional 15–20 hours spent on development due to limited developer support.
Unlike competitors such as Synthflow, which offer code-free customization, Retell's platform leaves developers largely unsupported when building dynamic, multi-function calling workflows.
Retell's multi-prompt capabilities also lag behind top alternatives in 2025, limiting its adaptability for complex use cases. While its templates cater well to basic needs, the lack of robust functionality can hinder businesses seeking more comprehensive AI solutions.
Here’s why Retell AI might not be the best fit for your evolving needs:
Cost
Retell's modular approach, where you use add-ons and other subscriptions to access features, can quickly be costly and difficult to manage. Your API, LLM agent and telephony are all billed separately.
Retell AI's pay-as-you-go plan includes 10 knowledge bases, but each additional knowledge base is billed at $0.005/c per minute.
This modular pricing model can be particularly challenging for growing enterprises, startups, and call centers. As businesses expand, the cost of managing separate subscriptions and add-ons can quickly add up.
In contrast, alternatives like Synthflow offer bundled services at a single, low-cost subscription, providing businesses with a more predictable pricing structure that supports growth without the burden of unexpected fees.
Businesses to cut operational costs may find Retell too expensive.
Deployment
Retell AI's deployment process requires a certain level of technical expertise, particularly when it comes to customizing templates. While you can quickly create basic voice bots, advanced features like voice cloning and multi-function calling require coding knowledge, making the process more complex and time-consuming.
For businesses without a dedicated technical team, this can create significant barriers. Unlike Retell, platforms like Synthflow offer a no-code solution, allowing businesses to deploy fully functional AI voice agents in under 30 minutes. This can save up to 15 hours of development time per bot, providing a much faster and more accessible deployment option.
For small to medium-sized businesses, the complexity of Retell’s deployment can limit scalability and operational efficiency, as it may require additional resources or delay the launch of more advanced AI capabilities.
Competitors like Goodcall streamline the process opposed to their competitors, offering businesses the ability to quickly deploy AI solutions without the need for coding expertise.
Multi-lingual Support
Retell AI offers basic language configuration for its voice agents, allowing businesses to set up responses in specific languages. However, it lacks true multilingual capabilities, meaning the AI cannot seamlessly understand or switch between multiple languages during a conversation.
This limitation can result in missed opportunities, particularly for businesses with a diverse, global customer base. Customers may experience frustration and disengagement if they are unable to communicate in their preferred language, leading to potential lost sales and reduced satisfaction.
In contrast, Synthflow’s multilingual AI models can effortlessly handle conversations in English, Spanish, German, French, and Portuguese, enabling businesses to engage customers in their native language.
For example, an international e-commerce business using Synthflow can manage customer inquiries in five languages during a single session, boosting global customer satisfaction rates by up to 20%. This seamless experience not only improves customer satisfaction but also enhances conversion rates and expands market reach.
With 60% of customers expecting support in their native language, leveraging AI-powered multilingual bots is crucial for businesses looking to scale and meet customer expectations on a global level.
What Should the Best Alternatives to Retell AI Offer?
No-Code API
High-quality AI technologies have little to no code required for set-up. Unless you've got a dedicated development team at your disposal, you probably don't have the time to learn the technical skills needed to fine-tune code to suit your existing systems.
Competitors like Synthflow that are code-free are faster, more accessible and simpler to use.
You can integrate their API into your apps and products in a matter of minutes without having to touch code.
Human-like Voice Agents
Retell's supported voice models include OpenAI (Deepgram) and Elevenlabs voices. AI speech technology is becoming more advanced and realistic, so it's important to choose a solution that offers human-like voice agents for a more satisfying customer experience.
Voice Cloning Technology
For businesses looking to create a more humanized and engaging customer experience, voice cloning technology plays a crucial role.
Retell AI offers basic voice options, but its limited voice cloning capabilities can fall short for businesses aiming to establish a personal connection with their customers. Without the ability to create custom voices that mirror real human agents, customers may feel like they are interacting with a machine, which can lead to disengagement and lower satisfaction.
Industries like retail and hospitality could see significant benefits from advanced voice cloning.
For example, a retail business could use customized voice agents to deliver a consistent brand experience across customer service interactions, leading to a 15% increase in customer satisfaction and improved loyalty.
The same can be found in hospitality, personalized voice agents can make guests feel more welcome by providing tailored recommendations and greetings, enhancing the overall guest experience and increasing repeat bookings by 10%.
In contrast, Synthflow's advanced voice cloning technology allows businesses to create AI agents that sound like real people, providing a more personal and engaging interaction.
This technology is especially beneficial for companies looking to improve customer relationships and drive measurable business outcomes through more natural, human-like conversations.
Sentiment Analysis
By analyzing voice tone and sentiment, Synthflow’s AI can identify upset customers and immediately escalate the call to a human agent, reducing churn by 12% in customer retention programs.
Compared to Retell AI’s static IVR (Interactive Voice Response) system, which operates on preset scripts and responses. This provides a structured but rigid approach to customer interactions, which handles inquiries efficiently, however it lacks the flexibility to adjust in real-time based on customer sentiment or emotional tone.
Pricing Transparency
Hidden fees quickly skyrocket your overhead costs. Retell heavily markets its low-cost, pay-as-you-go system. On their website, they highlight how it costs $0 to start. Unfortunately, this is highly misleading.
If you check out the detailed pricing section, you'll notice all of these additional fees:
ServiceProviderCostVoice Engine APIElevenlabs $0.07/minOpenAI $0.08/minLLM AgentGPT 4o mini$0.006/minGPT 4o$0.05/minClaude 3$0.012/minClaude 3.5$0.02/minClaude 3.5 sonnet$0.06/minTelephonyRetell Twilio $0.01/min Your TwilioFree Others & Add-OnsKnowledge Base10 for free, then $8.00/mth for each additional Knowledge Base.When a Knowledge Base is used during calls, the bill is $0.005/min. Phone Numbers$2.00/mth
Users can get 60 minutes of calls for free, and they can run 20 calls concurrently without paying a penny. The minimum per-minute cost for Retell’s PAYG plan is $0.11.
Meet the Best Retell AI Alternatives and Competitors
Alternative 1 – Synthflow AI
Synthflow is an honest, feature-rich alternative that works well and is importantly, easy to use and understand. With upfront pricing, no hidden fees it does everything you need it to and more.
Synthflow is better than Retell because it offers greater features that operate at a higher quality. Call’s sound better, have zero latency and offer call analytics.
Features
- No-code, human-sounding functional voicebot bots
- Mid & post-call actions
- Zero latency & advanced call analytics
- CRM Integrations – Highlevel, HubSpot
- Top language models (GPT4 & GPTo) included in all tiers of pricing
Synthflow Pricing
Alternative 2 – Bland AI
Bland aims to revolutionize customer conversations with AI-driven phone agents that use NLP and emotive sentiment analysis for human-like conversation. With live data integration, multi-prompt voice flows and function calling features, Bland is a robust solution for automating customer support at scale.
Compared to Retell, Bland has more customizability and advanced calling features. However, its complex pricing structure and performance limitations make it less ideal for businesses seeking a more streamlined and cost-effective alternative.
Features
- AI agents that sound human-like
- API integration for real-time data during calls
- 10 lines of code to integrate Bland into your website
- Live call transfers with intelligent routing
Bland AI Pricing
It’s difficult to find information on Bland’s pricing. Calls start from $0.09/minute. There are a lot of hidden fees and charges, as broken down in our guide here.
Alternative 3 – Vapi AI
Made for developers, Vapi allows users to build, test and deploy functional AI voice assistants quickly. Highly scalable, users can run 1 million+ concurrent calls using the software.
Vapi’s reliance on developer knowledge and coding to create conversational AI agents can make it difficult for many business owners to take advantage of its features. This steep learning curve may hinder its adoption by businesses looking for a simple and user-friendly solution.
Vapi’s usage-based pricing can quickly get expensive for businesses with high call volumes. Users seeking a code-free alternative, with all of their minutes bundled together in a transparent pricing structure may find Synthflow more suitable.
Tried Vapi AI already? Check out our Vapi AI alternatives.
Features
- Build, test and deploy in minutes
- Basic function bots - send SMS, book appointments, capture leads etc
- Humanlike voice AI with natural language processing
- Multi-action workflows and prompting
Vapi AI Pricing
Alternative 4 – Goodcall
Goodcall offers an intuitive solution for handling real-world conversations. Code-free and HIPAA-compliant, Goodcall allows businesses to capture leads, schedule appointments, and automate critical workflows.
Like Retell, Goodcall aims to simplify the development of conversational AI. Goodcall's artificial intelligence adapts its responses based on the context of the conversation, providing natural and fluid interactions with users.
Limited in its features, with only basic function bots and hit-and-miss call quality, Goodcall is primarily suited for smaller businesses. It can't handle the volumes of calls that competitors like Synthflow can, and additional agents in Goodcall can quickly get expensive.
Already tried Goodcall? Check out our top alternatives here.
Features
- 24/7 call handling and live routing
- Call analysis and reporting
- Seamless, code-free interface
- Sentiment analysis and intonation response
Goodcall Pricing
Alternative 5 - Play AI
Features
- 24/7 emotive voice assistant
- Global time zone services & instant emergency response
- Easy function calls - voice sync your calendar, schedule appointments, and more
- Integrations for lead prioritization and handling
Pricing
| Plan | Price | Features |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Starter |
- $9.00 per month - 50 minutes - $0.18/min for extra usage - 10 voice clones - Unlimited private playnotes - 3 concurrent conversations, playnotes, and text-to-speech transcriptions |
| Creator | $49.00 per month |
- Everything in Starter, plus: - 300 minutes - $0.16/min for extra usage - 50 voice clones - 1 professional voice clone - 5 concurrent playnotes, text-to-speech generations, and agent conversations |
| Pro | $99.00 per month |
- Everything in Creator, plus: - 700 minutes - $0.14/min for extra usage - 500 voice clones - 3 professional voice clones |
| Scale | $299.00 per month |
- Everything in Pro, plus: ConclusionRetell AI’s HIPAA compliance, seamless pre-built templates, and human-sounding, customizable voices make it a strong choice for healthcare providers looking to automate customer support. For growing businesses or those outside of healthcare however, Retell’s scalability and pricing structure is not the best fit. If you're seeking a more flexible, cost-effective solution with greater ease of use, alternatives like Synthflow offer the adaptability and budget-friendly pricing you need. Take the next step today by exploring how Synthflow’s powerful features, such as advanced voice cloning and sentiment-based real-time adjustments, can help optimize your customer experience and scale your business efficiently. Don’t settle for a one-size-fits-all solution—discover the benefits of a more tailored, dynamic AI platform. This is some text inside of a div block. This is some text inside of a div block.  Read more |
