The Synthflow alternatives split by how you buy them. Retell AI, Vapi and Bland AI bill by the minute and suit teams that will build the agent themselves. ElevenLabs Agents, PolyAI and CloudTalk sell monthly plans, and PolyAI and CloudTalk will help build the agent on their higher tiers. Parloa, like Synthflow, prices each enterprise deployment to your volume.
Synthflow itself changed how it sells. In June 2026 its pricing page still offered pay as you go. By early July it listed a single Enterprise plan, and today it says every new deployment starts on an annual enterprise agreement, with no free plan, trial or per-minute rate (Synthflow pricing). Prices and terms below come from each vendor's own pages as of November 11, 2026. We make Telvana, which gets one row in the table and one short section near the end.
Synthflow alternatives compared
Read the second column first. It is the part that changed at Synthflow: how you start, and what you commit to before the first call.
| Platform | How you start and commit | Who builds the agent | Published price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Synthflow, for reference | A demo, then an annual enterprise agreement | Your team, with Synthflow's forward-deployed engineers when the agreement includes launch support | None. No free plan, trial or per-minute rate |
| Retell AI | Sign up with $10 in free credits and no commitment | Your team, in its builder. Implementation support is an Enterprise add-on | $0.07 to $0.31 a minute |
| Vapi | Sign up with $5 in free credits and pay for the minutes you run | Your developers. Its Premier package adds a forward-deployed engineering advisor | $0.05 a minute for hosting, with models passed through at cost |
| Bland AI | Start with no platform fee and no card | Your team on Start and Build. A forward-deployed engineer is available on Enterprise | $0.14 a minute on Start. $0.12 a minute plus $299 a month on Build |
| ElevenLabs Agents | A free plan, then monthly plans | Your team, in its workflow builder | $99 a month for 1,238 minutes, up to $990 for 12,375. Language model billed by usage |
| PolyAI | A free trial of three monthly plans, or a quote for Enterprise | You, with its Wren agent builder. PolyAI or a partner on Enterprise | $49 a month for 250 minutes, $199 for 1,000, or $299 per location for 1,500 |
| CloudTalk | 50 free minutes, then a rolling monthly plan or a 3-month minimum | You, on AI Receptionist. A solutions consultant with you, on AI Specialist | $99 a month for 200 minutes. $349 a month for 1,000 with the consultant |
| Parloa | A demo, then a volume package built around your deployment | Your own team. Parloa says anyone can build an agent on it | None. Outcome-based pricing is available |
| Telvana (ours) | A demo, then our team builds the agent with you | Our team builds and tests it, and you approve it | From $399 a month, based on call volume, plus a one-time setup fee |
Those per-minute rates cover different parts of a call. Bland's includes the model, transcription and voice, CloudTalk's includes the phone line too, and Vapi's covers hosting only. Our comparison of what AI voice agent platforms charge turns any of them into a cost per contact. If your contact center platform sells its own AI agent, as Genesys Cloud CX, NICE CXone and Five9 do, the AI call center software comparison prices those, and teams leaving Bland instead of Synthflow have their own list of Bland AI alternatives.
What changed in Synthflow's pricing?
Synthflow stopped selling self-serve plans in mid-2026. Its pricing page offered pay as you go in June, showed one Enterprise plan starting at $30,000 a year from early July, and by late October described an annual agreement with no published figure at all. The page as captured on each date:
| Captured | What the pricing page offered |
|---|---|
| June 16, 2026 | Pay as you go: free to start, then billed by usage, with 5 concurrent calls and $20 a month for each extra line. Its FAQ put most setups at $0.15 to $0.24 a minute. Enterprise was for teams above 10,000 minutes a month |
| July 6, 2026 | Enterprise only: "Enterprise contracts start at $30,000 annually," with the final price scoped to volume, concurrency, telephony, integrations, security and launch support |
| October 14, 2026 | Still Enterprise only, still from $30,000 a year |
| October 29, 2026 | An annual enterprise agreement with no free plan, trial or per-minute rate, and no starting figure |
| November 11, 2026, live | Same as October 29. Every new deployment starts on an Enterprise contract |
If you built on the older plans, Synthflow's documentation treats workspaces on its earlier Pro, Growth and Agency plans as legacy accounts. Those plans are no longer sold, and existing workspaces keep their limits (Synthflow concurrency docs). The docs say nothing about pay-as-you-go accounts, so ask your account contact in writing what happens to yours, and for how long.
Which alternative fits an in-house contact center?
Start with who will own the agent after launch, then look at the commitment. A center with no developers should shortlist vendors that help build the agent. One with developers can buy by the minute, and one already paying for a contact center platform that sells an AI agent should get that price as well.
If nobody on your team will build or maintain the agent, PolyAI's Enterprise plan is built by PolyAI or a partner, CloudTalk's AI Specialist comes with a solutions consultant who plans the conversation and writes the prompts, and Bland AI's Enterprise plan has a forward-deployed engineer available. Ask each of them who edits the agent three months after launch, when a transfer rule turns out to be wrong.
If you have developers and want to pay only for minutes used, Retell AI, Vapi and Bland AI are built for you. Compare concurrency at your busiest hour before you compare rates. Retell includes 20 calls at once, Bland allows 10 on Start and 50 on Build, and Vapi gives usage-only accounts 4.
If you want a monthly plan your supervisors can run, look at ElevenLabs Agents, PolyAI's self-serve plans and CloudTalk's AI Receptionist. PolyAI's Scale plan charges per location and pools the minutes across up to nine of them, which helps when the center is split across sites. Before you pick a vendor, rank your call types by agent hours and how hard each is to automate, so the first agent takes a call worth taking.
What to settle before you sign a voice AI contract
Synthflow's pricing page names six things its contracts scope: calls, telephony, integrations, security and procurement, support, and launch. Add the term and how you leave, and the list works as a checklist for any vendor here, annual or monthly. Get each answer in writing before the agent takes a live call.
| What to settle | Ask the vendor | Why it is worth asking |
|---|---|---|
| Calls at once | How many calls can the agent take at our busiest hour, and what happens to the next one? | Overflow differs. Synthflow returns an error or queues the call briefly, depending on the account (docs). ElevenLabs bills calls over your limit at $0.16 a minute |
| Phone numbers and transfers | Do our numbers stay with our carrier, and do we pay for time after a transfer? | Bland charges $0.04 or $0.05 a minute of transfer time on its own numbers and nothing on your Twilio account (Bland billing). PolyAI connects your carrier over SIP at no charge |
| Integrations | Which of our systems will the agent read or write during a call, and who builds each connection? | Plans include different ones. PolyAI's $49 plan connects calendars and Zapier, and Salesforce and Zendesk start on its $299 plan |
| Security paperwork | Which agreements do you sign at our tier, such as a BAA or a DPA? | They often sit on the top tier. ElevenLabs offers BAAs to HIPAA customers on Enterprise, and Bland lists a BAA, SSO and data residency on Enterprise |
| Support | When the agent goes wrong on a live call, who answers and how fast? | Vapi's Core package promises a reply within two business days, Pro within one, and Premier within an hour for the most urgent issues |
| Build and changes | Who writes the agent, who tests it on our call types, and who changes it after launch? | Build help is priced differently everywhere. Retell sells it as an Enterprise add-on, and CloudTalk's consultant adds $50 a month at 1,000 minutes |
| Term and renewal | What is the minimum term, and what changes at renewal? | Terms run from none to a year. CloudTalk's AI Receptionist is month to month, AI Specialist has a 3-month minimum (six on its biggest bundle), and Synthflow's agreement is annual |
| Leaving | How do we get our call records out if we leave? | Synthflow exports call logs as a CSV from each agent's history, with automatic daily exports to S3, BigQuery or SFTP on Enterprise (docs) |
The alternatives, one by one
Retell AI
Retell sells what Synthflow stopped selling: pay as you go, with no commitment. The rate runs from $0.07 to $0.31 a minute, set by the model, voice and telephony you choose. Its Enterprise plan swaps that for custom pricing, removes the cap on concurrent calls and offers dedicated implementation support as an add-on (Retell pricing). Pick it if someone on your team will build and tune the agent.
Vapi
Vapi is built for developers. It charges $0.05 a minute to host the call and passes transcription, the model and the voice through at each provider's cost, so the bill depends on the stack your developers pick. Success packages start at $29 a month with 10 concurrent calls, and Premier adds a named support team with a forward-deployed engineering advisor (Vapi pricing).
Bland AI
Bland's rate is all in for the model, transcription and voice. Start has no platform fee but caps you at 10 concurrent calls and 100 calls a day, Build raises that to 50 and 2,000 for $299 a month, and Enterprise is contracted to your volume, with on-premises or VPC deployment available (Bland pricing). The Bland AI alternatives guide covers its move from pathways to agents.
ElevenLabs Agents
ElevenLabs is the voice company, and its agent builder is self-serve from a free plan up to $990 a month. A contact center that needs a BAA or single sign-on will be pricing Enterprise, which adds BAAs for HIPAA customers, custom SSO, custom DPA and SLA terms, and more than the Business plan's 40 concurrent calls (ElevenLabs Agents pricing).
PolyAI
PolyAI moved the other way from Synthflow. Its pricing page as archived on October 14, 2026 offered only a quoted per-minute price (archived page). On November 11 it lists three plans with a free trial, from Essentials at $49 a month to Scale at $299 per location, with extra minutes at 20 to 30 cents. Enterprise is aimed at contact centers: minutes and concurrency sized to your volume, a build by PolyAI or a partner, 24/7 support, and listed connections to NICE CXone, Five9, Genesys Cloud, Webex Contact Center and Zoom (PolyAI pricing).
CloudTalk
CloudTalk is a cloud call center platform that also sells AI voice agents without its phone system seats. AI Receptionist is the one you set up yourself, from $99 a month for 200 minutes. AI Specialist costs $349 a month for 1,000 minutes and comes with a solutions consultant who connects it to your systems. From 10,000 minutes a month, CloudTalk quotes a rate fixed for the contract term, as low as $0.15 a minute (CloudTalk pricing).
Parloa
Parloa, founded in the EU, sells AI agents to enterprise customer service teams on custom plans. You choose a volume package and apply it across your use cases, rates reflect how much reasoning each use case takes, and outcome-based pricing is supported where it makes sense (Parloa pricing). There is no published price, so plan on a scoping conversation before you see a number.
Where Telvana fits
You send us your scripts, policies and transfer rules. Our team turns them into the agent, runs it against your call types, and you sign off before it answers a real caller. Calls reach it through an option in your phone menu, a forwarding rule or a dedicated number, and it transfers to the number you choose under the rules you set. Every call is recorded, transcribed, summarized and tagged by outcome. Pricing starts at $399 a month, based on call volume, plus a one-time setup fee that covers building, testing and launching the agent (pricing).
Frequently asked questions
What is the best Synthflow alternative for a contact center?
It depends on who will own the agent. Centers with developers usually look at Retell AI, Vapi or Bland AI and pay by the minute. Centers without them can run ElevenLabs Agents, PolyAI or CloudTalk on a monthly plan, or get build help through PolyAI's Enterprise plan, CloudTalk's AI Specialist or Bland AI's Enterprise plan.
Does Synthflow still offer pay as you go?
No. Synthflow's pricing page lists only an annual enterprise agreement, with no free plan, trial or per-minute rate, and says every new deployment starts on an Enterprise contract. Its documentation adds that the earlier Pro, Growth and Agency plans are no longer sold, although existing workspaces on them keep their limits.
How much does Synthflow cost?
Synthflow no longer publishes a price. Its contracts are annual and scoped to call volume, phone system, integrations, security needs and launch support. From early July until at least mid-October 2026 its pricing page said enterprise contracts started at $30,000 a year. That figure is gone from the page, so ask for a written quote.
Which Synthflow alternatives do not need an annual contract?
Retell AI bills by usage with no commitment, Vapi charges for the minutes you run, Bland AI's Start plan has no platform fee, and ElevenLabs Agents and PolyAI sell monthly plans. CloudTalk's AI Receptionist runs month to month, while its AI Specialist, which includes a solutions consultant, needs at least three months.
How long does a Synthflow deployment take?
Synthflow says an Enterprise deployment goes live in weeks, depending on integrations, telephony setup, security review and launch requirements. When the agreement includes launch support, its forward-deployed engineers build, test and launch the agent with your team (Synthflow pricing).
Bring the checklist to a demo
Send us your top three call types and the eight questions above. On the demo we'll answer each one for our own setup, show you which of those calls the agent can take, and let you hear it handle one. Book a demo.