The Bland AI alternatives fall into three groups. Retell AI, Vapi and LiveKit suit teams with engineers who want to build and run the agent themselves. ElevenLabs Agents is a self-serve builder sold in bundles of minutes. Synthflow, PolyAI, Cresta and HappyRobot sell to enterprises on quoted terms, and Synthflow, Cresta and HappyRobot can put their own engineers on the build.
If you run Bland today, the timing matters. Bland has asked every self-serve customer to move its pathways and personas onto its new Agents builder by November 15, 2026, and to test each agent before promoting it to production (Bland's migration guide). You are rebuilding and retesting either way, which makes this the cheapest point to compare. Every price and capability below is from each vendor's own pages as of November 4, 2026. We make Telvana. It is one row in the table and has one short section near the end.
Bland AI alternatives compared
The build column matters more than the price column. It tells you who rewrites the agent when a transfer rule turns out to be wrong.
| Platform | What it is | Who builds the agent | How calls reach it | Published price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bland AI, for reference | Voice AI platform running its own model, speech and telephony | Your team on Start and Build. Its forward-deployed engineers on Enterprise | Bland numbers, your own Twilio account, or a SIP trunk from your carrier | $0.14 a minute on Start. $0.12 a minute plus $299 a month on Build. Enterprise by contract |
| Retell AI | Voice agent platform, pay as you go | Your team or your developers | Retell numbers at $2 a month, or your Twilio numbers over SIP trunking | $0.07 to $0.31 a minute, with 20 concurrent calls included |
| Vapi | Developer platform where you pick each component | Your developers | Vapi numbers, Twilio, Vonage, Telnyx or SIP | $0.05 a minute for hosting, plus transcription, model and voice at provider cost |
| LiveKit | Open source agent framework, with a hosted cloud | Your developers, in code | LiveKit phone numbers or your own SIP provider | Open source to self-host. LiveKit Cloud has a free tier, then Ship from $50 a month, plus usage |
| ElevenLabs Agents | Self-serve agent builder from the voice company | Your team, in its workflow builder | ElevenLabs telephony, or Twilio or a SIP trunk | Monthly tiers that bundle minutes, such as $99 for 1,238 minutes. $0.08 per extra minute. Model usage on top |
| Synthflow | Enterprise voice agent platform | Its forward-deployed engineers with your team, when the contract includes launch support | Synthflow telephony, SIP trunking or approved enterprise telephony | Annual contract only. No free plan, trial or per-minute rate |
| PolyAI | Enterprise voice agents for customer service | Your contact center team in a no-code builder, or engineers through its development kit | Your numbers or PolyAI's. Your carrier connects over SIP at no charge | Per minute, quoted, with maintenance and 24/7 support included |
| Cresta | AI agents plus assist and analytics for human agents | Cresta, your team, or Cresta first and then your team | Through its integrations with the telephony you already run | No published price |
| HappyRobot | AI agents for operational calls in logistics, utilities, finance and insurance | Its forward-deployed engineers with your team | Your existing Twilio or SIP lines | No published price. Scoped to each deployment |
| Telvana (ours) | AI agents for calls, texts and web chat | Our team builds and tests it, and you approve it | An option in your phone menu, a forwarding rule or a dedicated number | From $399 a month, based on call volume, plus a one-time setup fee |
The per-minute figures are not like for like. Bland's rate covers the model, transcription and voice; Vapi's covers hosting only. Our comparison of what five voice agent platforms charge works through that and turns any quote into a cost per contact. If you are also weighing contact center platforms with AI built in, such as Genesys or NICE, the fourteen-vendor AI call center software comparison puts them side by side. For what an agent can actually finish on a call, whoever sells it, see what AI call center agents handle and how to add them.
Should you migrate to Bland Agents or switch?
Migrate on Bland if your agent works, your volume fits its caps and nobody needs an Enterprise-only feature. Price Bland Enterprise if you need warm transfers, SMS, a BAA or more than 2,000 calls a day and like the platform. Look elsewhere if nobody on staff can test and promote a rebuilt agent.
Bland's September 2026 update replaced conversational pathways and personas with agents. A pathway's node graph becomes a pathway inside an agent, a persona's skills become prompts, and the old global prompt becomes the agent's system prompt. Self-serve accounts pick one of three routes: rebuild it with a coding agent such as Claude Code or Codex, have Bland run simulated calls and build an upgraded agent, or copy it as is. Enterprise accounts have Bland run the migration with them. Migration only creates new agents. Your number keeps ringing the old pathway until you promote the new agent, and after November 15 Bland migrates the pathways still taking traffic itself and archives the rest (Bland's migration guide).
| Your situation | Likely move | Why |
|---|---|---|
| The agent works, your volume fits the caps, and someone on your team owns it | Migrate on Bland | The rebuild is a copy and a test, with nothing new to buy |
| You need warm transfers, SMS or web chat, a BAA, SSO or more than 2,000 calls a day | Get a Bland Enterprise quote and compare it with the enterprise vendors | On Bland's pricing table every one of these is Enterprise only |
| The person who built the pathway has left | A vendor whose team builds and maintains the agent | Someone still has to test the migrated agent and promote it |
| Your developers want to choose the transcription, model and voice | Vapi or LiveKit | Both bill providers separately and let you swap them |
| Cost per minute is the complaint | Model your own call mix before you move | Rates cover different components, so the cheapest headline rate may not be cheapest for you |
| You want AI agents and coaching for your human agents from one vendor | Cresta | It sells AI agents alongside agent assist and conversation intelligence |
Which Bland limits matter in a contact center?
For most contact centers the deciding limits are the caps and which features sit on Enterprise. Start allows 10 concurrent calls and 100 calls a day. Build allows 50 concurrent calls, 1,000 calls an hour and 2,000 a day. Bland's billing documentation says calls over a cap are rejected rather than billed (Bland billing).
Run your own peak against those numbers before anything else. A queue that sends the agent 250 calls an hour over an eight-hour day reaches Build's 2,000-call daily cap by close of business. At 5 minutes a call, that queue averages about 21 calls in progress (250 × 5 ÷ 60), well inside 50, so for this queue the daily cap binds first. Bland's billing documentation also lists a Scale tier at $499 a month with 5,000 calls a day and 100 concurrent calls, which its pricing page did not show on November 4, 2026, so ask whether it is still sold.
Transfers come next. Warm transfer, where Bland's AI calls your agent, briefs them and then merges the caller in, is available on Enterprise and on Bland's single-number Agent Phone tier (Bland warm transfer docs). On Start and Build the caller goes straight through, and transfer time costs $0.05 or $0.04 a minute on Bland's numbers and nothing on your own Twilio account.
SMS and web chat, the appointment scheduling node, in-call texts, a BAA, SSO and data residency are all Enterprise rows on Bland's plan comparison. If your center needs any of them, Build is off the table, so compare a Bland Enterprise quote with the other vendors' quotes.
The 8 Bland AI alternatives, one by one
Retell AI
Retell bills $0.07 to $0.31 a minute with no platform fee. Where you land in that range depends on the model, voice and telephony you choose, and 20 concurrent calls are included, with more on demand (Retell pricing). Numbers you already own can stay in Twilio, where purchasing, porting and billing remain, and connect to Retell over elastic SIP trunking (Retell integrations). Pick it if someone on your team will build and tune the agent and you want per-minute billing with no monthly fee.
Vapi
Vapi charges $0.05 a minute for hosting and passes transcription, model and voice through at the providers' cost. A usage-only account gets 4 concurrent calls, the $29 Core package gets 10 and the $999 Pro package 30, and extra lines are $10 each a month. HIPAA handling is a $2,000 monthly add-on (Vapi pricing). Developers who want to choose and swap every component tend to start here.
LiveKit
The LiveKit Agents framework and the LiveKit media server are open source, so you can run both on your own infrastructure. LiveKit Cloud hosts them on a free Build tier, Ship from $50 a month or Scale from $500, with per-minute usage on top (LiveKit pricing). Calls arrive through LiveKit Phone Numbers or your own SIP provider (LiveKit telephony docs). It fits a team that wants to own the whole pipeline and has the engineers to operate it.
ElevenLabs Agents
ElevenLabs sells agents in monthly tiers that bundle minutes and concurrency: Pro is $99 for 1,238 minutes and 20 concurrent calls, Scale is $299 for 3,738 minutes and 30, and Business is $990 for 12,375 minutes and 40. Extra minutes cost $0.08, calls over your concurrency limit are billed at a $0.16 burst rate, and the language model is billed separately. Its own telephony carries no extra charge, and Twilio or a SIP trunk bills you directly (ElevenLabs Agents pricing). It fits a team without developers that wants a self-serve builder and a predictable monthly bill.
Synthflow
Synthflow now sells only annual enterprise agreements, scoped to call volume, phone system, integrations, security review and launch support. It has no free plan, no trial and no per-minute rate. When the agreement includes launch support, its forward-deployed engineers implement, test and launch the agents with your team, and BPOs can add white-label to the contract (Synthflow pricing). It suits a buyer who wants an account team and can commit to a year.
PolyAI
PolyAI prices its voice agent per minute, with performance improvements, maintenance and 24/7 support included, and the rate comes from its sales team. Your own carrier connects over SIP at no charge (PolyAI pricing). A contact center team can build in Dialog Studio, its no-code builder, while engineers use its Agent Development Kit, and both edit the same agent (PolyAI's guide to call center voice AI). PolyAI also sells its Dialog-RSN-1 model on its own through an API at 2 cents a connected minute, without telephony or orchestration. The managed agent fits high-volume customer service lines where you want the vendor responsible for performance.
Cresta
Cresta sells AI agents next to agent assist and conversation intelligence for the people on your phones. It offers three ways to deploy: Cresta-managed, where Cresta leads delivery; guided transfer, where Cresta builds and launches your first agent and then coaches your team to own it; and customer-managed, where your team does the work in Cresta's tools (Cresta's implementation page). It publishes no price. It fits a center that wants one vendor for the AI agent and for coaching the humans who take the escalations.
HappyRobot
HappyRobot builds AI agents for operational work in logistics, utilities, airlines, finance and insurance, such as carrier sales, track and trace, and collections (HappyRobot). Its forward-deployed engineers build the first workflows with your team, existing Twilio or SIP lines can stay in place, and its price is scoped to each deployment (HappyRobot's own write-up). It fits operational calling more than general customer service.
What to take with you when you leave Bland
Export your conversations and settle where each phone number lives before you give notice, then write each pathway down as the spec for the rebuild. Plan to rebuild the agent rather than import it, and keep the old one taking calls until the new one has passed its tests on your call types.
| What | Where it is in Bland | How to get it out | Check before cutover |
|---|---|---|---|
| Call and message history | Conversations, under Monitor | The export button: calls and message threads come as separate files, up to 180 days per export, emailed as a link. Transcripts are left out of call exports unless you include them, and web chat has no export (Bland conversations docs) | Run one export for each 180-day window you need to keep, with transcripts included |
| Numbers on your own Twilio account | Your Twilio account, connected to Bland | They never left Twilio. Disconnect Bland and point them at the new vendor | Who repoints each number, and at what hour |
| Numbers on your own SIP carrier | Your carrier, attached to a Bland trunk | Route the trunk to the new vendor | Test inbound and outbound calls on every number |
| Numbers bought from Bland | Phone numbers, under Dispatch | Ask Bland for its port-out steps | Porting takes days. Bland quotes 7 to 14 business days to port numbers in (Bland SIP docs), so start before you give notice |
| Pathways and prompts | Each pathway, or each agent after migration | Copy the nodes, prompts, variables and transfer rules into one document | The new vendor builds and tests against this document |
| Knowledge | Knowledge, under Resources | Keep your original source files | Load the originals into the new system rather than copying text out of Bland |
| Dispositions and post-call webhooks | Agent configuration, and your own webhook endpoint | List every system that reads Bland's post-call data | Each one needs a feed from the new vendor before cutover |
| Custom or cloned voices | Voices, under Resources | Ask whether the voice can move | If it can't, choose and test a new voice before callers hear it |
Then move in stages: one number or one menu option first, a week of real calls, then the rest. If you are replacing a vendor that has shut down rather than one that is changing, our guide to the SimpleTalk AI shutdown covers what to recover and the questions to ask a replacement.
How a move to Telvana works
Our team builds your agent from your scripts, FAQs, policies and transfer rules, and the pathway document from the worksheet above can serve as that brief. We test it on your call types, and nothing takes a live call until you approve it. Calls reach the agent through an option in your phone menu, a forwarding rule or a dedicated number, so numbers on your own carrier or Twilio account can stay where they are. Our call center IVR guide covers when to add an AI agent to the menu you already run. Transfers go to the number you choose under the rules you set. Every call is recorded, transcribed, summarized and tagged by outcome, and BPOs get a separate workspace for each client program. Pricing starts at $399 a month, based on call volume, plus a one-time setup fee (pricing).
Frequently asked questions
What is the best alternative to Bland AI?
It depends on who will own the agent. Teams with engineers who want to build usually shortlist Retell AI, Vapi and LiveKit. Teams without them can use ElevenLabs Agents as a self-serve builder, or buy from Synthflow, PolyAI, Cresta or HappyRobot on quoted enterprise terms. Check each vendor's caps against your busiest hour first.
Do I have to migrate my Bland pathways by November 15, 2026?
Bland asks self-serve customers to migrate pathways and personas to agents by November 15, 2026. After that date it migrates the pathways still taking traffic itself and archives the rest, so nothing is lost. Enterprise accounts have Bland run the migration with them, and accounts opened after September 18, 2026 already use agents.
How much does Bland AI cost?
Bland's Start tier is $0.14 a minute with no platform fee, Build is $0.12 a minute plus $299 a month, and Enterprise is contracted to your volume. Transfer time on Bland's numbers costs $0.05 or $0.04 a minute and nothing on your own Twilio account. The rate covers the model, transcription and voice, and telephony is billed separately.
Does Bland AI support warm transfers?
Yes, on Enterprise and on Bland's single-number Agent Phone tier. With warm transfer on, Bland's AI places a second call to your agent, briefs them on the caller and then merges the two calls. On Start and Build a transfer sends the caller straight to the number you set, without the briefing call.
Can I keep my phone numbers if I leave Bland?
Numbers on your own Twilio account or your own SIP carrier stay with you, because Bland only connects to them. Numbers you bought through Bland have to be ported to a new carrier, so ask Bland for its port-out steps and allow time. Bland's own estimate for porting numbers in is 7 to 14 business days.
Bring one pathway to a demo
Send us one pathway and your top three call types. On the demo we'll show you which of those calls the agent can take, how the transfer rules would work, and let you hear it handle one. Book a demo.