{
    "title": "Bland AI Alternatives 2027: 10 Paid, Free & Open-Source",
    "url": "https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/bland-ai/",
    "summary": "The best Bland AI alternatives in 2027 are Vapi (best overall, $0.05/min hosting fee), ElevenLabs Agents (best free plan) and Pipecat (best open source, BSD-2-Clause). Bland AI itself starts at $0.14/min. Zekai checked these prices on vendor pages on 13 Nov 2026; 7 more are compared below, including 2 with a free plan and 2 open source.",
    "tool": {
        "name": "Bland AI",
        "starting_price": "$0.14/min",
        "free_plan": "2 credits plus an inbound number, no card",
        "price_checked": "2026-11-13",
        "pricing_url": "https://www.bland.ai/pricing"
    },
    "task": "AI voice agent / phone calls",
    "prices_checked": "2026-11-13",
    "date_modified": "2026-11-13",
    "alternatives": [
        {
            "name": "Vapi",
            "type": "Free",
            "starting_price": "$0.05/min hosting fee",
            "free_plan_limit": "$5 free credit; 4 concurrent calls",
            "best_for": "Developer API for custom voice agents",
            "difference": "Charges a $0.05 per minute hosting fee and passes LLM, transcription and voice costs through at cost; the page estimates $82 to $129 a month for 1,000 minutes, about $0.08 to $0.13 per minute.",
            "price_checked": "2026-11-13",
            "pricing_url": "https://vapi.ai/pricing",
            "website": "https://vapi.ai",
            "zekai_score": 9.2,
            "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/vapi/"
        },
        {
            "name": "Retell AI",
            "type": "Free",
            "starting_price": "$0.07-$0.31/min",
            "free_plan_limit": "$10 free credit; 20 concurrent calls",
            "best_for": "Pay-as-you-go phone agents with chat support",
            "difference": "Voice infrastructure is $0.055 per minute with 20 concurrent calls included free, and the same platform builds chat agents from $0.002 per message.",
            "price_checked": "2026-11-13",
            "pricing_url": "https://www.retellai.com/pricing",
            "website": "https://www.retellai.com",
            "zekai_score": 9.1,
            "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/retell-ai/"
        },
        {
            "name": "Bolna AI",
            "type": "Free",
            "starting_price": "from $0.06/min",
            "free_plan_limit": "$5 free credit at signup",
            "best_for": "Low per-minute calling for Indian-market teams",
            "difference": "Pay-as-you-go starts at $0.06 per minute, and a $500 Pilots pack buys 12,000 minutes at about $0.042 per minute with up to 25 concurrent calls; telephony is added on top.",
            "price_checked": "2026-11-13",
            "pricing_url": "https://www.bolna.ai/pricing",
            "website": "https://www.bolna.ai",
            "zekai_score": 5.9,
            "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/bolna-ai/"
        },
        {
            "name": "Synthflow",
            "type": "Paid",
            "starting_price": "Not checked",
            "free_plan_limit": "No free plan",
            "best_for": "Enterprise voice agents on annual contracts",
            "difference": "Sells only an annual enterprise agreement scoped on call volume, concurrency and telephony, with no free plan, no trial and no published per-minute rate.",
            "price_checked": "2026-11-13",
            "pricing_url": "https://synthflow.ai/pricing",
            "website": "https://synthflow.ai",
            "zekai_score": 7.4,
            "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/synthflow/"
        },
        {
            "name": "PolyAI",
            "type": "Paid",
            "starting_price": "$49/mo",
            "free_plan_limit": "No free plan",
            "best_for": "Branded voice assistants for contact centres",
            "difference": "Lists tiered plans from $49 a month with 250 minutes included, then 30 cents per minute, plus a Platform option from 9.5 cents per minute with $20 free credit.",
            "price_checked": "2026-11-13",
            "pricing_url": "https://poly.ai/pricing",
            "website": "https://poly.ai",
            "zekai_score": 8.1,
            "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/polyai/"
        },
        {
            "name": "Stammer AI",
            "type": "Paid",
            "starting_price": "$49/mo",
            "free_plan_limit": "No free plan",
            "best_for": "White-label chat and voice agents for agencies",
            "difference": "Standard is $49 a month with 120 voice minutes and 500 chat replies, and Pro White Label at $99 adds 5 voice agents for reselling under your brand.",
            "price_checked": "2026-11-13",
            "pricing_url": "https://stammer.ai/pricing",
            "website": "https://stammer.ai",
            "zekai_score": 7.3,
            "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/stammer-ai/"
        },
        {
            "name": "ElevenLabs Agents",
            "type": "Free plan + paid",
            "starting_price": "$6/mo",
            "free_plan_limit": "Free plan: 15 minutes a month, 4 concurrent calls",
            "best_for": "Voice agents using ElevenLabs voices",
            "difference": "Free plan includes 15 minutes a month with 4 concurrent calls, and paid plans bundle minutes (Creator 275 for $22, Pro 1,238 for $99).",
            "price_checked": "2026-11-13",
            "pricing_url": "https://elevenlabs.io/pricing/agents",
            "website": "https://elevenlabs.io/agents",
            "zekai_score": 9.2,
            "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/elevenlabs/"
        },
        {
            "name": "Pipecat",
            "type": "Open source",
            "starting_price": "Free (self-hosted)",
            "free_plan_limit": "No limit (self-hosted)",
            "licence": "BSD-2-Clause",
            "best_for": "Python framework for real-time voice agents",
            "difference": "BSD-2-Clause Python framework where you chain speech-to-text, LLM and text-to-speech services into a pipeline; its releases page shows v1.16.0 published 2026-11-12.",
            "website": "https://www.pipecat.ai",
            "repository": "https://github.com/pipecat-ai/pipecat",
            "zekai_open_source_page": "https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/pipecat/",
            "last_release": "2026-11-12",
            "zekai_score": 7.5,
            "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/pipecat/"
        },
        {
            "name": "LiveKit Agents",
            "type": "Open source",
            "starting_price": "Free (self-hosted)",
            "free_plan_limit": "No limit (self-hosted)",
            "licence": "Apache-2.0",
            "best_for": "Realtime voice agents on WebRTC infrastructure",
            "difference": "Apache-2.0 framework running agents as workers over LiveKit's WebRTC rooms; the releases page shows livekit-agents 1.8.11 published 2026-11-05.",
            "website": "https://livekit.io",
            "repository": "https://github.com/livekit/agents",
            "zekai_open_source_page": "https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/livekit-agents/",
            "last_release": "2026-11-05",
            "zekai_score": 7.5,
            "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/livekit-agents/"
        },
        {
            "name": "Vocode",
            "type": "Open source",
            "starting_price": "Free (self-hosted)",
            "free_plan_limit": "No limit (self-hosted)",
            "licence": "MIT",
            "best_for": "Phone-call agent library, lightly maintained",
            "difference": "MIT-licensed Python library for phone-call agents; its newest GitHub releases are pre-release v0.1.114a2 and 0.1.113 dated 2024, so activity is far lower than Pipecat.",
            "website": "https://vocode.dev",
            "repository": "https://github.com/vocodedev/vocode-core",
            "zekai_open_source_page": "https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/vocode/",
            "last_release": "2024-08-07",
            "zekai_score": 5,
            "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/vocode/"
        }
    ],
    "faq": [
        {
            "q": "What is the best alternative to Bland AI in 2027?",
            "a": "Vapi is the best overall Bland AI alternative on this page ($0.05/min hosting fee). For no cost, ElevenLabs Agents has a free plan (Free plan: 15 minutes a month, 4 concurrent calls). To self-host, Pipecat is open source (BSD-2-Clause)."
        },
        {
            "q": "Is there a free version of Bland AI?",
            "a": "Yes. Bland AI has a free plan: 2 credits plus an inbound number, no card. Paid plans start at $0.14/min, checked on 13 Nov 2026."
        },
        {
            "q": "Is there a 100% free alternative to Bland AI?",
            "a": "Yes. Pipecat, LiveKit Agents, Vocode are open source and free to self-host. Vapi, Retell AI, Bolna AI, ElevenLabs Agents have a free plan with limits, shown in the table."
        },
        {
            "q": "What is cheaper than Bland AI?",
            "a": "Bolna AI starts at from $0.06/min, against $0.14/min for Bland AI, as listed on each vendor's pricing page on 13 Nov 2026."
        },
        {
            "q": "How much do Bland AI alternatives cost for a team of 5?",
            "a": "If each of 5 people buys the entry paid plan, at the prices Zekai checked on 13 Nov 2026, the monthly cost is ElevenLabs Agents $30/mo, PolyAI $245/mo, Stammer AI $245/mo. Team and business plans can cost more per seat. The Zekai Cost Finder on this page recalculates for any team size."
        },
        {
            "q": "Which is better, Vapi or Bland AI?",
            "a": "Charges a $0.05 per minute hosting fee and passes LLM, transcription and voice costs through at cost; the page estimates $82 to $129 a month for 1,000 minutes, about $0.08 to $0.13 per minute. Choose Vapi if you want to pick your own LLM, transcriber and voice and pay each provider at cost. Stay with Bland AI if you want one per-minute rate that already includes the LLM, speech-to-text and voices."
        },
        {
            "q": "Why are people leaving Bland AI?",
            "a": "The documented reasons are: Connected-minute rates became plan-based for self-serve customers: Start $0.14, Build $299 a month with $0.12, and Scale $499 with $0.11, with transfer rates of $0.05, $0.04 and $0.03 (5 Dec 2025); The current pricing page lists only Start, Build and Enterprise; Build is capped at 2,000 calls a day and 50 concurrent calls, while the older billing docs still show a Scale tier at $499 (13 Nov 2026). Each is sourced in the section above."
        },
        {
            "q": "What is the best Bland AI alternative?",
            "a": "Vapi suits developers who want to choose their own LLM and voice, Retell AI suits pay-as-you-go phone agents, and Pipecat or LiveKit Agents suit teams that want to self-host open-source code."
        }
    ],
    "publisher": "Zekai (zekaiwork.com) — independently reviewed; prices read on vendor pages on the dates shown.",
    "licence": "Free to quote with a link to https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/bland-ai/. Bulk copying or republishing the dataset is not permitted."
}