AI Voice Agent Pricing Calculator
The full three-part bill — speech-to-text + LLM + text-to-speech — priced per minute, per call, and per month. LLM prices updated 2026-09-15.
- Per call
- $—
- Per month
- $—
- STT / LLM / TTS split
- —
- vs human agent ($0.75/min)
- —
Reference prices used (checked 2026-08-02)
| Layer | Service | Approx. price |
|---|---|---|
| Speech-to-text | OpenAI Whisper API | $0.006/min |
| Speech-to-text | OpenAI GPT-4o Transcribe | $0.006/min |
| Speech-to-text | Deepgram Nova | $0.0043/min |
| Speech-to-text | AssemblyAI Universal | $0.0062/min |
| Speech-to-text | Google Cloud STT | $0.016/min |
| Text-to-speech | OpenAI TTS — ~$15/1M chars ≈ $0.015/min of speech | $0.015/min |
| Text-to-speech | Google Cloud TTS (Neural) | $0.016/min |
| Text-to-speech | ElevenLabs (Creator tier) — premium quality | $0.1/min |
| Text-to-speech | Cartesia Sonic | $0.02/min |
LLM cost is computed live from our model pricing data. For the LLM layer alone across every model, use the API cost calculator. And if you're deciding what to charge for a voice agent — not just what it costs — the voice agent pricing guide covers margins and pricing models.
Frequently asked questions
› How much does a voice AI agent cost per minute?
A typical stack in 2026 lands between $0.03 and $0.15 per conversation minute: speech-to-text ($0.004–$0.016/min) + LLM reasoning ($0.005–$0.08/min depending on model and verbosity) + text-to-speech ($0.015–$0.10/min depending on voice quality). Premium voices (ElevenLabs-class) can push the total past $0.15/min — at scale, TTS choice is usually the biggest lever.
› What dominates the bill: STT, LLM, or TTS?
For flagship-LLM stacks, the LLM dominates. For mini-model stacks (the sensible default for routine calls), premium TTS becomes the largest line item — often 50–70% of the total. Cheap-TTS + mini-LLM stacks get a full voice minute under $0.04.
› How do these per-minute costs compare to human agents?
A human call-center minute costs $0.50–$1.50 in most Western markets (fully loaded). Even a premium voice AI stack at $0.15/min is 3–10× cheaper, which is why voice agents are among the fastest-growing AI workloads — and why getting the per-minute math right before scaling matters.
› What hidden costs should I budget for?
Telephony (Twilio-class per-minute charges, ~$0.007–$0.02/min), silence and hold time (you often pay STT for it), interruption handling (regenerated TTS), and conversation logging/analytics. Add 20–30% to the raw stack estimate for a realistic production budget.