What an AI phone agent costs: per-minute pricing, explained
How AI phone agent pricing works: flat monthly plans, included minutes, per-second billing, overage rates and monthly ceilings, with worked examples from Apollo's own plans.
Apollo team4 min read
"How much does it cost?" is usually the first question about an AI phone agent, and the honest answer is: it depends on how long your calls are. Almost every voice agent is priced by the minute somewhere, because every minute of a live conversation costs real money to run: listening, thinking and speaking, plus the phone line itself.
This post explains how that pricing works in general, then walks through Apollo's plans with real numbers so you can estimate your own bill before you sign up.
The three ways AI phone agents are priced
1. Pure per-minute
You pay a rate for every minute of talk time and nothing else. Simple, and cheap for a line that barely rings, but your bill moves with every busy week, which makes it hard to budget.
2. Flat monthly with included minutes
You pay a fixed price each month that includes a set of minutes. Past that, extra minutes cost a per-minute rate. This is how most phone plans work, and how Apollo works. It's predictable for a normal month, and the overage rate tells you what a busy month costs.
3. Per call or per resolution
Some services charge per call handled or per booking made. That can be easy to reason about, but a two-minute question and a twelve-minute catering inquiry cost the same, so read what counts as a billable call.
What to look for in any quote
- How minutes are counted. Per second, or rounded up to the next minute on every call? Rounding up can add a lot on a line with many short calls.
- Whether testing is free. You'll call your agent dozens of times before launch. It shouldn't eat your minutes.
- What happens past the allowance. Do calls stop, or keep going at a known rate? Is there a ceiling?
- What the number costs. Is a phone number included, and what do extra numbers cost?
- What's actually included. Recordings, transcripts, integrations and seats are sometimes add-ons.
- Contract length. Monthly, or locked in for a year?
How Apollo's pricing works
Building and testing an agent is free. You can chat it into shape, add actions and data tables, run readiness tests and call it in your browser on the Free plan. You pay when you want it answering a real phone number.
Every paid plan is a flat monthly price that includes minutes, agents, numbers and team seats:
| Plan | Price | Included minutes | Extra minutes | Numbers | Seats |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $49/mo | 200 | $0.25/min | 1 | 2 |
| Growth | $129/mo | 600 | $0.22/min | 3 | 5 |
| Pro | $299/mo | 1,500 | $0.20/min | 10 | 15 |
Enterprise is priced for your volume and adds outbound campaigns. The pricing page always has the current numbers and the full comparison.
Minutes are counted to the second
A minute is talk time on a real call, inbound or outbound, and it's counted to the second. A 40-second call is 40 seconds, not a minute. Test calls in your browser don't count at all. Conversations through a talk link are real conversations, so on a paid plan they count like a call.
Past your included minutes
Calls keep getting answered. Extra minutes are billed per second at your plan's rate and show up on your next monthly invoice. There's a monthly ceiling, though, so a runaway line can't run up a surprise bill:
| Plan | Monthly ceiling | Most the minutes can cost in a month |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | 600 minutes | $149 |
| Growth | 1,800 minutes | $393 |
| Pro | 4,500 minutes | $899 |
At the ceiling, your numbers pause until next month or until you upgrade. Owners are warned as they get close, so it's never a surprise.
Working out your own bill
To estimate, you need two numbers: roughly how many calls you get a month, and how long a typical call lasts. Your phone bill or call history usually has both. Multiply them and you have your monthly minutes.
For example, take a line with 400 minutes in a month (say, a few hundred short calls). On Starter, that's $49 plus 200 extra minutes at $0.25, or $99. On Growth, it's inside the included minutes, so $129. When your estimate sits near the top of a plan, the next plan up is often the better deal.
These are examples, not predictions. Your own call volume and call length are what matter. Start on the plan your estimate points to and move up or down after a month of real calls; plans are monthly and you can change any time.
The effective rate per minute
If you use every included minute, each plan works out to:
- Starter: about $0.24 a minute ($49 ÷ 200 minutes)
- Growth: about $0.21 a minute ($129 ÷ 600 minutes)
- Pro: about $0.20 a minute ($299 ÷ 1,500 minutes)
Bigger plans are cheaper per minute and come with more agents, numbers and seats. Pro also suits several locations, with up to 10 numbers.
What's included on every plan
The backend comes with the agent on every plan, Free included: actions that run mid-call, data tables, webhooks, dashboards, readiness tests and the public API. Paid plans add phone numbers, the call log with recordings, transcripts and summaries, and the Inbox of details captured from calls. Extra numbers beyond your plan's allowance are $3/month each. There are no AI or phone accounts to set up and no API keys to bring.
Comparing against the alternatives
An AI agent isn't the only way to answer the phone. A person on staff, an answering service and plain voicemail all have different costs and trade-offs, and the right answer depends on what your callers need. We compare them, without made-up numbers, in AI receptionist vs. answering service vs. voicemail.
Try before you pay
Because building and testing are free, the cheapest way to find out whether an AI phone agent is worth it for you is to build one and call it. Start building free, then check the pricing page or the FAQ when you're ready for a number.