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PolyAI vs Vapi
PolyAI and Vapi are AI voice agent platforms, which answer and make phone calls with an AI agent that talks to the caller. Our editors read both companies' own sites, then read what contact center and developer teams say about the two tools in public reviews, community boards and chat forums. The table below compares price, limits and features.
| What buyers compare | PolyAI | Vapi |
|---|---|---|
| Price per monthSources 3, 4 | Not published | Pay per minute. Core $29. Pro $999 minimum or 10% of hosting fees. Premier: quote |
| Free plan or trialSources 3, 4 | Free trial | $5 in free credits |
| How usage is countedSources 3, 4 | Not published | Per-minute costs for the transcriber, model and voice provider, plus telephony. Concurrent calls: 4 free, 10 Core, 30 Pro |
| Integrations and featuresSources 3, 4 | Agent Studio with no-code to full-code building, prebuilt integrations, a self-serve Connect Portal and open APIs | Choice of transcriber, model and voice providers. Vapi telephony and SIP free; Twilio, Vonage and Telnyx at their rates |
| Security and deploymentSources 3, 4 | SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001, PCI DSS and GDPR. Data residency in the US, UK, EU and APAC | Pro: role-based access and zero data retention. Premier: SSO and 99.9% uptime SLA |
| Best forSources 1, 2 | Contact centers and CX teams that want production phone agents with vendor-led conversation design and ongoing maintenance | Developer teams that want to pick each part of a voice agent themselves, including the transcriber, model, voice and phone carrier |
List prices in US dollars per month before tax, as published on each vendor's site on October 16, 2026, billed monthly unless the cell says otherwise. "Quote" means the vendor sets the price through its sales team. A green check marks a row where the published data shows a clear edge.
Which one fits
PolyAI builds and runs agents for large contact centers, while Vapi gives developers parts to build their own.
Choose PolyAI if
- You run a contact center and want phone agents that resolve calls without a human handoff.
- You want the vendor to design and maintain the conversations. PolyAI runs agents on its own dialog models.
- You need regional data residency or PCI DSS for card payments over the phone.
Choose Vapi if
- You want to pick each part of the voice stack: the transcriber, the language model and the voice.
- You are a developer team that wants to start small. Core costs $29 per month with 10 concurrent calls.
- You use your own phone carrier. Vapi connects to Twilio, Vonage, Telnyx or SIP.
What buyers say
“Vapi is better for developers prototyping agents with flexible voice models. PolyAI is better when procurement wants an enterprise voice platform, not an API playground.”
muzani · HN · · source
“Start on Vapi to prove the use case. Only look at PolyAI-class deals when volume, reliability, and services wrap matter more than tinkering.”
Modiji_fav_guy · r/AI_Agent_Reviews · · source
“PolyAI designs and maintains our phone agents, and regional data residency and PCI DSS for card payments mattered to us. Vapi gives developers more control over each part of the stack, but we did not want to own that.”
Head of contact center operations, consumer payments company
Representative buyer view
Verdict
Choose PolyAI (7.8 out of 10, Recommend) if you run a contact center and want the vendor to design, run and maintain your phone agents. Choose Vapi (7.7 out of 10, Recommend) if your developers want to build their own agents from parts they pick, starting at $29 per month, and connect them to the phone carrier you already use.
Methodology
We read the PolyAI and Vapi pricing pages and product sites on October 16, 2026 and recorded every published price, limit and plan feature. A cell reads "Not published" when the vendor does not state that detail on its site, and rows where neither vendor publishes anything were left out.
Scores, best-fit notes and buyer quotes come from the AIR reviews of each product, which weight practitioner reviews at 40%, hands-on product checks at 35%, pricing at 15% and docs at 10%. Paid reviews and pay-for-play sites are excluded. Quotes marked Representative buyer view are written by AIR to reflect buyer feedback and carry no source link.