Pricing · 6 min read
Voice AI pricing compared: what hospitals actually pay (2026)
Most voice AI platforms publish a low platform fee, then bill LLM tokens, voice generation, and telephony separately. By the time a call connects, the real per-minute cost can be 3–5× the headline number. Here is the all-in picture for hospitals, in rupees.
Headline fee vs. effective rate
The number on a pricing page is rarely the number on your invoice. Platform fees are quoted separately from the LLM, the speech-to-text and text-to-speech engines, and the telephony that actually carries the call. Add a HIPAA or compliance tier and a monthly subscription, and a '$0.05/min' platform becomes far more expensive in production.
The table below shows the effective per-minute rate — what you'll actually budget for — converted to INR at ₹83/USD.
| Platform | Effective rate / min | What's actually in the price |
|---|---|---|
| Aarvox | ₹5.5 | Flat, all-inclusive: STT, LLM, TTS, telephony, platform. One rate, locked 12 months. |
| Bolna AI | ~₹5.52 | $0.02 platform + ~$0.06 model — excludes telephony. Subscriptions $10–$2,500/mo. |
| Ringg AI | ₹5–8.3 | $0.06 Enterprise / $0.10 Flexible per connected call. Telephony separate. |
| ElevenLabs | ₹6.6–19.9 | $0.08–$0.24/min for the voice pipeline. No hospital-specific tuning. |
| Bland AI | ₹7.5–12.5 | ~$0.09/min usage + tier subscription (Scale plan $499/mo). |
| Retell AI | ₹10.8–25.7 | $0.07 headline, but $0.13–$0.31 effective once LLM, voice, telephony added. |
| Vapi | ₹16.6–27.4 | $0.05/min platform + $0.15–$0.28/min third-party stack. HIPAA add-on $1,000/mo. |
Why Aarvox is one flat number
Aarvox charges ₹5.5/min, all-inclusive: speech-to-text, LLM inference, text-to-speech, telephony, and the platform are in that single rate. No token bills, no voice-engine surcharge, no monthly platform subscription, no HIPAA add-on, no per-branch multi-tenant fee, and setup, onboarding and training are waived.
- —What's included: STT, LLM, TTS, telephony/PSTN bridging, live analytics dashboard, per-branch configuration.
- —What's never extra: LLM tokens, voice-engine fees, monthly subscription, HIPAA/compliance add-ons, multi-tenant fees, setup and training.
- —Volume: ₹5.5/min locked for 12 months at ~1L minutes/month; renegotiated downward beyond 1.5L minutes/month, floor ₹4.75/min at full scale.
What to ask any vendor before you sign
- —Is telephony included, or billed separately per connected minute?
- —Are LLM tokens and the voice engine inside the per-minute rate, or metered on top?
- —Is there a monthly platform subscription or seat fee regardless of usage?
- —Is HIPAA / compliance a paid add-on?
- —Are there per-branch or multi-tenant fees as you roll out across a network?
The right question isn't 'what's the platform fee?' — it's 'what will a 2-minute patient call actually cost me, all in?'
For a hospital network running ~2,00,000 minutes a month, the gap between a ₹5.5 flat rate and a ₹15–25 effective rate is the difference between a budget line and a runaway cost. Predictability matters as much as the headline.