# Bland AI Alternatives 2027: 10 Paid, Free & Open-Source

Source: https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/bland-ai/
Prices checked: 2026-11-13 (Zekai Price Ledger)

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 | Type | Starting price | Free plan limit | Licence | Best for | Price checked | Links |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bland AI (the tool being replaced) | — | $0.14/min | 2 credits plus an inbound number, no card | — | — | 2026-11-13 | [pricing](https://www.bland.ai/pricing) |
| Vapi | Free | $0.05/min hosting fee | $5 free credit; 4 concurrent calls | — | Developer API for custom voice agents | 2026-11-13 | [site](https://vapi.ai) [pricing](https://vapi.ai/pricing) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/vapi/) |
| Retell AI | Free | $0.07-$0.31/min | $10 free credit; 20 concurrent calls | — | Pay-as-you-go phone agents with chat support | 2026-11-13 | [site](https://www.retellai.com) [pricing](https://www.retellai.com/pricing) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/retell-ai/) |
| Bolna AI | Free | from $0.06/min | $5 free credit at signup | — | Low per-minute calling for Indian-market teams | 2026-11-13 | [site](https://www.bolna.ai) [pricing](https://www.bolna.ai/pricing) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/bolna-ai/) |
| Synthflow | Paid | Not checked | No free plan | — | Enterprise voice agents on annual contracts | 2026-11-13 | [site](https://synthflow.ai) [pricing](https://synthflow.ai/pricing) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/synthflow/) |
| PolyAI | Paid | $49/mo | No free plan | — | Branded voice assistants for contact centres | 2026-11-13 | [site](https://poly.ai) [pricing](https://poly.ai/pricing) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/polyai/) |
| Stammer AI | Paid | $49/mo | No free plan | — | White-label chat and voice agents for agencies | 2026-11-13 | [site](https://stammer.ai) [pricing](https://stammer.ai/pricing) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/stammer-ai/) |
| ElevenLabs Agents | Free plan + paid | $6/mo | Free plan: 15 minutes a month, 4 concurrent calls | — | Voice agents using ElevenLabs voices | 2026-11-13 | [site](https://elevenlabs.io/agents) [pricing](https://elevenlabs.io/pricing/agents) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/elevenlabs/) |
| Pipecat | Open source | Free (self-hosted) | No limit (self-hosted) | BSD-2-Clause | Python framework for real-time voice agents |  | [site](https://www.pipecat.ai) [code](https://github.com/pipecat-ai/pipecat) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/pipecat/) |
| LiveKit Agents | Open source | Free (self-hosted) | No limit (self-hosted) | Apache-2.0 | Realtime voice agents on WebRTC infrastructure |  | [site](https://livekit.io) [code](https://github.com/livekit/agents) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/livekit-agents/) |
| Vocode | Open source | Free (self-hosted) | No limit (self-hosted) | MIT | Phone-call agent library, lightly maintained |  | [site](https://vocode.dev) [code](https://github.com/vocodedev/vocode-core) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/vocode/) |

## How each alternative compares with Bland AI

- **Vapi** (Free, $0.05/min hosting fee, checked 2026-11-13): 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. Switch 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.
- **Retell AI** (Free, $0.07-$0.31/min, checked 2026-11-13): 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. Switch if you need 20 included concurrent calls and want chat agents on the same account. Stay with Bland AI if you want a flat all-in minute rate without choosing LLM and voice vendors.
- **Bolna AI** (Free, from $0.06/min, checked 2026-11-13): 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. Switch if your call volume is high and low per-minute rates matter more than enterprise compliance. Stay with Bland AI if you need Bland's 10 to 50 concurrent calls, BAA, SSO and regulated-industry controls.
- **Synthflow** (Paid, Not checked): 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. Switch if you are buying for a large call centre and prefer a scoped annual contract over metered billing. Stay with Bland AI if you want to start with no card on a $0 platform fee and pay only per minute.
- **PolyAI** (Paid, $49/mo, checked 2026-11-13): 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. Switch if you want bundled monthly minutes per location with an enterprise voice-assistant vendor. Stay with Bland AI if you want a self-serve $0 platform fee with transparent per-minute rates from the start.
- **Stammer AI** (Paid, $49/mo, checked 2026-11-13): 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. Switch if you resell voice and chat agents to clients and want white-label plans at a flat monthly fee. Stay with Bland AI if you need per-minute metering with 50 concurrent calls and an enterprise compliance stack.
- **ElevenLabs Agents** (Free plan + paid, $6/mo, checked 2026-11-13): 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). Switch if you want a recurring free allowance and ElevenLabs voices inside the agent. Stay with Bland AI if you want minutes billed pay-as-you-go with no monthly subscription tier to manage.
- **Pipecat** (Open source, Free (self-hosted)): 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. Switch if you want to code the voice pipeline in Python and host it without per-minute platform fees. Stay with Bland AI if you want hosted telephony, call dashboards, concurrency and compliance handled for you.
- **LiveKit Agents** (Open source, Free (self-hosted)): 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. Switch if you want WebRTC-based voice agents in your own app with a permissive licence. Stay with Bland AI if you want one managed per-minute phone-agent service with no workers or media servers to run.
- **Vocode** (Open source, Free (self-hosted)): 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. Switch if you want a small MIT library for phone-call agents and can maintain the code yourself. Stay with Bland AI if you need an actively maintained platform with current releases and support.

## Open-source options in detail

- **Pipecat** (https://github.com/pipecat-ai/pipecat): Licence: BSD-2-Clause; Last release: 2026-11-12
- **LiveKit Agents** (https://github.com/livekit/agents): Licence: Apache-2.0; Last release: 2026-11-05
- **Vocode** (https://github.com/vocodedev/vocode-core): Licence: MIT; Last release: 2024-08-07

## Questions

### What is the best alternative to Bland AI in 2027?
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).

### Is there a free version of Bland AI?
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.

### Is there a 100% free alternative to Bland AI?
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.

### What is cheaper than Bland AI?
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.

### How much do Bland AI alternatives cost for a team of 5?
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.

### Which is better, Vapi or Bland AI?
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.

### Why are people leaving Bland AI?
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.

### What is the best Bland AI alternative?
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.

## Related on Zekai

- [Retell AI alternatives](https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/retell-ai/)
- [Bolna AI alternatives](https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/bolna-ai/)
- [Synthflow alternatives](https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/synthflow/)
- [ElevenLabs Agents alternatives](https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/elevenlabs/)
- [AI for Customer Support & Experience](https://zekaiwork.com/professions/ai-customer-support-experience-automation/)

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Live table, team cost finder and price alerts: https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/bland-ai/