Vapi vs AssemblyAI Pricing (2026)

How do these two stack up on price? Here's what each one costs, what you get, and where the value sits.

Vapi pricing AssemblyAI pricing
Starts at $29/mo Custom
Number of plans 4 2
Free plan —
Free trial — —
Pricing model hybrid usage-based

Price is one row. To weigh the features too, use our feature comparison template →

Vapi pricing

Official page

No Success Package

$0/mo
  • $5 free credits to get you started
  • 2 organizations
  • 1 included Vapi phone number
  • 4 concurrent calls
  • 14 days raw data retention
  • Full model catalog
  • Full platform access
  • Peer to peer support via Discord community
  • Email support without SLA

Core

$29/mo
  • 2 organizations
  • 5 included Vapi phone numbers
  • 10 concurrent calls
  • 30 days raw data retention
  • ZDR included
  • Email support
  • 2 business day response SLA

Pro

$999/mo
  • 10 organizations
  • 10 included Vapi phone numbers
  • 30 concurrent calls
  • 180 days raw data retention
  • RBAC + ZDR
  • Email + dedicated Slack support
  • 1 business day response SLA
  • 99% uptime SLA

Premier

Custom
  • Elevated orgs, concurrency, and data retention
  • Custom number of Vapi phone numbers
  • Priority support
  • Named support team with Agent Strategist, FDE Advisor, and onboarding support
  • 1 hour for P0 response SLA
  • 99.9% uptime SLA
  • Custom RBAC + ZDR + SSO
  • Dedicated SIP available

AssemblyAI pricing

Official page

Pay as you go

Custom
  • Universal-3.5 Pro ($0.21/hr)
  • Universal-2 ($0.15/hr)
  • Universal-3.6 Pro Realtime ($0.45/hr)
  • Universal-Streaming ($0.15/hr)
  • Universal-Streaming Multilingual ($0.15/hr)

Custom

Custom
  • Get custom rate limits, enhanced concurrency, and enterprise-grade flexibility tailored to your AI workloads.

Vapi vs AssemblyAI FAQ

Which one is cheaper?
One or both use custom pricing, so it depends on your specific needs.
Can I use either one for free?
Vapi has a free plan. AssemblyAI doesn't — you'll need to pay from day one.
How do they charge?
Different approach here. Vapi uses hybrid pricing, while AssemblyAI goes with usage-based. That changes the math depending on your team size and usage.
Which one is a better deal?
Depends on what you need. Vapi: Vapi plays the developer-first middle: a low $0.05/min platform fee with transparent pass-through costs undercuts bundled all-in-one voice agent platforms, though your real per-minute cost lands much higher once models are added. It's courting builders and agencies who want control over their stack rather than a turnkey product. AssemblyAI: With no free plan or trial and rates behind a calculator, they're signaling a quality-first API vendor rather than the race-to-the-bottom option, though the low-cent add-on prices keep the entry cost approachable. They're clearly targeting builders embedding speech AI into products who care about accuracy and model breadth over the cheapest per-minute rate.

Still deciding? See the best Vapi alternatives or the best AssemblyAI alternatives, ranked with verified pricing.

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