Retell AI.
Voice agent platform with sub-second latency and 30-language coverage.
What it is.
San Francisco voice infrastructure platform built around a proprietary turn-taking model that handles interruptions, backchannels, and overlapping speech better than open-source equivalents. Y Combinator W24. Retell sells the orchestration layer; buyers bring their own LLM and pay the platform per minute.
Where it fits.
Contact-center operations replacing first-line agents on qualification, scheduling, and FAQ calls. Insurance, fintech, and home-services verticals are the heaviest adopters. Strong fit when the buyer needs production-grade interruption handling — the differentiator that decides whether a caller stays on the line.
- Best-in-class turn-taking and interruption handling
- 30-language coverage at native prosody
- Production observability and call-recording controls built in
- Less flexible than Vapi for non-phone voice surfaces
- Pricing favours volume — small deployments cost more than competitors
Frequently asked.
How does Retell differ from Vapi?
Retell ships its own turn-taking model and prioritises call-quality polish. Vapi is more modular and developer-leaning. Most evaluations come down to which sounds more human on the buyer's specific script.
What languages perform best?
English, Spanish, German, French, and Hindi are the most-deployed. Japanese and Mandarin shipped to general availability in Q1 2026.
Does Retell offer SOC 2 and HIPAA?
SOC 2 Type II on all tiers. HIPAA with BAA on Enterprise. PCI-DSS compliance ships in Q3 2026.
