CentriWebVapi pricing has two layers: a Vapi hosting fee of US$0.05 a minute, plus the cost of the providers underneath that do the listening, thinking and speaking, which Vapi passes through at cost. As at November 2026, Vapi’s own calculator puts 1,000 minutes a month at roughly US$82 to US$129 in total, depending on which model and voice you pick, before any plan or add-on.
All figures here come from Vapi’s pricing page and documentation, opened in November 2026, in US dollars. Check their page for current prices before you commit, because rates in this market move. CentriWeb builds and looks after voice agents for clients, on platforms of this kind, so weigh our view with that in mind.
What Vapi is, before you look at the price
Vapi describes itself as “the developer platform for building voice AI agents”. It runs the infrastructure that connects a phone call to three separate services: one that turns the caller’s speech into text, a language model that decides the reply, and a voice that speaks it. You choose each of those.
Its documentation offers a dashboard path with no coding for a first phone agent, and a code path with SDKs for anything more involved. That matters for the bill: Vapi gives you a lot of choice, and every choice has a price attached. A non-technical owner can get a test agent running, but a production agent that books into your calendar and writes to your CRM usually needs someone comfortable with APIs.
How Vapi pricing works: the hosting fee plus the providers
On Vapi’s pricing page, each minute of a call is the sum of these parts:
- Vapi hosting: US$0.05 a minute, prepaid.
- Transcriber (speech to text): the page shows Deepgram at US$0.0095 to US$0.0099 a minute.
- Model (the AI that decides what to say): the page shows OpenAI models at US$0.0077 to US$0.0452 a minute.
- Voice (text to speech): the page shows ElevenLabs at US$0.0146 to US$0.0238 a minute.
- Transport (the phone line): Vapi’s own telephony, SIP and web calls are listed as free. Twilio is listed at US$0.008 a minute inbound and US$0.014 outbound, Vonage at US$0.00814, and Telnyx at US$0.0055, charged by those providers.
Those provider ranges are for the providers the page shows. Vapi supports others, and their rates differ, so treat the ranges as a guide to the shape of the bill.
| Part | Who charges | Published rate per minute |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting | Vapi | US$0.05 |
| Transcriber (Deepgram) | Passed through at cost | US$0.0095 to US$0.0099 |
| Model (OpenAI) | Passed through at cost | US$0.0077 to US$0.0452 |
| Voice (ElevenLabs) | Passed through at cost | US$0.0146 to US$0.0238 |
| Phone line | Vapi (free) or your carrier | US$0 to US$0.014 on the listed carriers |
The plans
Vapi lists four ways to pay for the platform itself:
- No success package: US$0 to start, US$5 of free credit, one included phone number, four calls at once and 14 days of call data kept.
- Core: US$29 a month, with five included numbers, ten calls at once and 30 days of data kept.
- Pro: 10 per cent of the hosting fee with a US$999 monthly minimum, 30 calls at once and 180 days of data kept.
- Premier: custom pricing through sales.
Add-ons are priced separately: extra concurrent call lines at US$10 a line a month, extra organisations at US$20 each a month, and HIPAA compliance (a US health privacy standard) at US$2,000 a month. For most small businesses, the decision is between the free start and Core, and it comes down to how many calls you need to handle at the same moment.
A worked example for a small clinic
Say a clinic wants an agent to take calls when reception is busy or closed. It expects 300 calls a month averaging three minutes, or 900 minutes. These are example numbers, so swap in your own call log. Using the rates on Vapi’s page and Twilio inbound for the line:
- Hosting: 900 minutes at US$0.05 is US$45.
- Transcriber: about US$8.55 to US$8.91.
- Model: about US$6.93 to US$40.68, the widest range by far.
- Voice: about US$13.14 to US$21.42.
- Phone line: about US$7.20 on Twilio inbound.
That totals about US$80.82 at the low end and US$123.21 at the high end for the month, or roughly 9 to 14 US cents a minute. Add US$29 if the clinic needs Core for more numbers or more calls at once.
The model choice moves the bill most. A smaller model is cheaper and often fine for booking and taking messages. A larger one may handle tricky questions better. Test both on real call types before you decide.
Bringing your own provider keys
Vapi lets you plug in your own accounts with the providers. Its provider keys documentation says that once your key is validated, you are not charged for that provider through Vapi and the provider bills you directly. Keys are added in the Vapi dashboard under Integrations.
This does not remove the Vapi hosting fee. What it changes is who sends you the bill, and whether any volume discount or existing account you hold with that provider applies. It also means more accounts and invoices to keep track of, which is worth weighing for a small office.
Phone lines for an Australian or New Zealand business
Vapi lists its own telephony as free to use, and one or more included numbers come with each plan. If you need a local Australian or New Zealand number, check which countries Vapi’s own numbers cover before you assume they will. Otherwise you connect a carrier such as Twilio, Vonage or Telnyx, and that carrier charges you at its rates for your country, which can differ from the US figures shown on Vapi’s page.
Remember too that the bill arrives in US dollars. Budget with a margin for the exchange rate.
What the Vapi price does not include
Vapi charges for the platform and the providers. It does not charge for, or do:
- Writing the agent’s instructions and testing them against real calls.
- Connecting tools so the agent can check your calendar, book, and write notes to your CRM.
- Monitoring calls and fixing failures, such as a booking that did not save.
- Keeping the agent current as your services, hours and prices change.
Someone does that work, whether it is you, a staff member or an outside partner. Our guide on building a voice agent yourself or having one built covers the choice, and how much an AI receptionist costs compares the total against staff and answering services.
Who Vapi suits, and who it may not
Vapi’s pricing rewards people who like to choose each part and watch the numbers. It suits a business with a technical person on staff, or one working with a partner who builds on it, and call volume high enough that tuning the model and voice saves real money.
It may not suit an owner who wants one predictable monthly figure and no provider accounts to manage. Some platforms charge one all-in rate per minute or a plan with included minutes, which is easier to budget even if the rate is higher. For a clinic or health business taking a modest number of calls, that simplicity can be worth more than a cent or two a minute.
Questions to answer before you sign up
- How many minutes will the agent really handle each month, based on your call log?
- How many calls ring at the same moment at your busiest time? That decides the plan.
- Which model and voice sound right to your callers, at what per-minute cost?
- Where will your local number come from, and what does that carrier charge?
- Who will build it, and who will check it every week once it is live?
If you are still choosing a platform, compare this with Retell AI pricing, which also adds up separate per-minute charges but sets the rates on one price list, or read our list of Vapi alternatives. For practices that want the agent built and looked after, see our AI services.