# Vapi: what's new, verdict & setup Canonical: https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/vapi · First covered by us (no vendor release date published): 2026-10-25 · Last verified: 2026-10-25 · Evidence: Reported (not run by us) · Vendor: Vapi · Official site: https://vapi.ai/ > Developer platform for voice agents; $5 free credits, then pay for the minutes you run. ## Verdict **Developer platform for voice agents; $5 free credits, then pay for the minutes you run.** Good for: - Developers who want to assemble their own voice stack Skip if: - You want a flat per-seat price Status: Reported. Written from official release notes and docs; we have not run this release ourselves. Pricing: Partly verified. Read from vapi.ai/pricing on 2026-10-25. Provider costs (speech, model, telephony) add to the per-minute rate. (checked 2026-10-25) ## Best for - [Best AI tool for AI voice and speech](https://theagenticweekly.com/best/voice-ai) (#-): Platform for building and deploying voice AI agents. ## Key facts Vapi's pricing page offers $5 in free credits, pay-per-minute use (pre-paid with $0.05 a minute Vapi hosting), and lists plan amounts of $29 and $999 a month plus enterprise. - License: Proprietary - Platforms: API and dashboard - Pricing model: Pay as you go - Free tier: $5 free credits - Paid plans: Pay per minute (Vapi hosting $0.05/min pre-paid, plus provider costs); plan amounts of $29 and $999 per month listed; Enterprise custom - How to start: Sign up for $5 in free credits and create an assistant. - Catalog entry: facts read from the vendor's pages on 2026-10-25. We do not track release notes for this entry. ## How to set it up: Get started with Vapi These steps come from the vendor's own pages as read on 2026-10-25. We have not run Vapi. 1. **Get access.** Sign up for $5 in free credits and create an assistant. 2. **Check the limits and costs first.** $5 free credits. Paid: Pay per minute (Vapi hosting $0.05/min pre-paid, plus provider costs); plan amounts of $29 and $999 per month listed; Enterprise custom. Read from vapi.ai/pricing on 2026-10-25. Provider costs (speech, model, telephony) add to the per-minute rate. ## Pros and cons Pros: - Pay for minutes used - Developer focus Cons: - Total cost depends on chosen providers ## Alternatives - [Retell AI](https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/retell): Voice AI agents for phone calls with pay-per-minute pricing and 20 free concurrent calls. - [Cartesia](https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/cartesia): Realtime voice AI: text-to-speech, speech-to-text in 44 languages and voice agents, with a free plan and credit tiers. - [Deepgram](https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/deepgram): Voice AI APIs for speech-to-text, text-to-speech and agents with $200 in free credit. - [AssemblyAI](https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/assemblyai): Speech AI APIs for transcription and understanding; start free, pay as you go. - [Murf AI](https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/murf-ai): Text-to-speech platform with a $10 free API trial, pay-as-you-go credits and per-character API pricing. - [Resemble AI](https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/resemble-ai): Resemble AI now leads with real-time deepfake detection and watermarking for audio, video and images; plans from free to $1,000 a month. - [Speechify](https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/speechify): Text-to-speech app that reads PDFs, books and web pages aloud, with a Free plan and a $29 monthly premium price. - [Piper](https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/piper): Fast local neural text-to-speech that runs on CPU. - [faster-whisper](https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/faster-whisper): Speech-to-text library that runs OpenAI Whisper models with CTranslate2. ## FAQ ### What is Vapi? Vapi's pricing page offers $5 in free credits, pay-per-minute use (pre-paid with $0.05 a minute Vapi hosting), and lists plan amounts of $29 and $999 a month plus enterprise. ### Is Vapi free? $5 free credits. Paid: Pay per minute (Vapi hosting $0.05/min pre-paid, plus provider costs); plan amounts of $29 and $999 per month listed; Enterprise custom. Read from vapi.ai/pricing on 2026-10-25. Provider costs (speech, model, telephony) add to the per-minute rate. Checked 2026-10-25; prices change, so confirm on the vendor's page. ### What license is Vapi under? Its license: Proprietary. Read from the project's own pages on 2026-10-25. ## What we have not verified - Release date (none published on the pages we read; the date shown is the day we first covered this entry) - What the $29 and $999 amounts buy ## Sources - [Vapi](https://vapi.ai/) (fetched 2026-10-25) - [Vapi pricing](https://vapi.ai/pricing) (fetched 2026-10-25) ## How to cite Agentic Weekly, "Vapi: what's new, verdict & setup", last updated 2026-10-25, https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/vapi Keep the Reported or Tested label when you quote the verdict.