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Bland

Bland

AI phone calling agents.

VoiceAI Agents
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About Bland

Most voice AI platforms are three vendors in a trench coat: a third-party speech-to-text model listens, a third-party LLM thinks, and a third-party text-to-speech engine talks back. Bland's whole pitch is that it doesn't work that way. It runs its own models for all three layers, Listen, Think and Talk, on its own infrastructure. The company says calls never leave to a third party, so your customer data doesn't train someone else's model and an upstream provider can't silently change behavior on you mid-quarter. On top of that stack you build agents that call tools during the conversation. The site's own demo shows a caller changing an autopay date: the agent runs lookup_account, authenticates identity with an SSN, then fires update_autopay. Those agents deploy on phone, SMS and web.

That architecture explains who Bland is chasing. The homepage is blunt about it: "Voice AI for the calls that can't go wrong," meaning healthcare triage and refills, insurance claims, collections, income verification and IVR replacement. The compliance list backs it up with FedRAMP, SOC 2 Type 2, HIPAA, PCI DSS, GDPR and ISO 27001. There's also an observability layer that shows why the agent made each decision, plus a test environment where you can run a new version against the live one. Their example shows V3 in test at an 88% resolution rate versus 81% for live V2. Bland also claims its voice ranks #1 on an audio realism benchmark at 0.91, ahead of ElevenLabs at 0.61, though that's Bland's own chart, so treat it as marketing until you've heard it on your own calls.

Pricing is refreshingly simple. One per-minute rate covers the LLM, STT, TTS and telephony, with no token charges. The Start tier is $0.14/min with no platform fee and no card required, but it caps you at 100 calls a day and 10 concurrent calls. Build drops to $0.12/min but adds a $299/month platform fee. The things regulated teams actually need, like BAAs, SSO, data residency and on-prem or VPC deployment, sit in the custom-priced Enterprise tier. If you're a developer prototyping, it's cheap to start. If you're a hospital, you're having a sales conversation.

Key features

Fully in-house voice stack

Bland runs its own speech-to-text, language model and text-to-speech instead of stitching together third-party vendors, so there's one team responsible when a call goes wrong.

Tool-calling agents across channels

Agents can call your systems mid-conversation, like looking up an account or updating autopay, and you can deploy them on phone, SMS and web.

Decision-level observability

You can see exactly why the agent made each decision on a call, which makes debugging far less of a guessing game than with a black-box bot.

Safe testing against live versions

You can test changes to an agent without touching live calls and compare metrics like resolution rate between versions before you promote one.

Compliance coverage for regulated industries

Bland lists FedRAMP, SOC 2 Type 2, HIPAA, PCI DSS, GDPR and ISO 27001, with BAAs, SSO and data residency available on Enterprise.

All-in per-minute pricing

A single per-minute rate covers the LLM, transcription, premium voices and telephony, with no token charges or model-provider pass-throughs.

Best for

  • healthcare, insurance and finance teams automating regulated phone calls
  • call centers replacing an IVR phone tree
  • developers prototyping voice agents without a credit card
  • teams that need after-hours and overflow call coverage
  • orgs that want on-prem or VPC voice AI deployment

Skip if

  • Skip this if you want to plug in your own preferred LLM or voice vendor, because Bland's selling point is that it runs entirely on its own models.
  • Skip this if you're a small team that needs more than 100 calls a day but can't justify a $299/month platform fee on top of usage.
  • Skip this if you need a HIPAA BAA or SSO on a self-serve plan, since those are only listed under the custom-priced Enterprise tier.

Pros & cons

Pros

  • The free-to-start Start tier has $0 platform fee, no card required and includes 2 credits plus an inbound number.
  • One per-minute rate ($0.14 or $0.12) covers LLM, STT, TTS and telephony, so you won't get surprise token bills.
  • Owning every layer means your call data isn't sent to third-party model providers and you aren't exposed to their unannounced model changes.
  • The compliance list is unusually long for a voice AI vendor, including FedRAMP, PCI DSS and ISO 27001.
  • Built-in version testing lets you compare a test agent against the live one before rolling it out.

Cons

  • The Build tier's $299/month platform fee is a steep jump from the free Start tier, with nothing in between.
  • Start is tight: 100 calls a day, 10 concurrent calls and only 1 voice, which won't survive real production traffic.
  • The #1 realism ranking comes from Bland's own benchmark chart, so you'll want to verify voice quality yourself.
  • Enterprise essentials like BAAs, data residency and on-prem deployment are custom-priced, so regulated buyers can't self-serve the full package.

Pricing

TierPriceIncludes
Start$0.14/min, $0 platform fee2 credits plus an inbound number ($15/mo value), no card required, $0.05/transfer min, 10 concurrent calls, 100 calls/day, 10 knowledge bases, 1 voice
Build$0.12/min + $299/month platform fee$0.04/transfer min, 50 concurrent calls, 2,000 calls/day, 1,000 calls/hour, 50 knowledge bases, 5 voices
EnterpriseCustomDedicated infrastructure, concurrency sized to your volume, unlimited calls, voices and knowledge bases, on-prem or VPC option, forward deployed engineer, BAA, SSO, data residency

Frequently asked questions

How much does Bland cost?

The Start tier is $0.14/min with no platform fee, and Build is $0.12/min plus a $299/month platform fee. Enterprise is custom pricing contracted to your volume.

Does Bland charge for LLM tokens?

No. The per-minute rate includes the language model, speech-to-text, text-to-speech and telephony, so unlike stacks built on OpenAI plus a separate voice vendor, there are no token charges.

How is Bland different from Vapi or Retell AI?

Bland says it runs its own STT, LLM and TTS rather than stitching third-party models together, which most competing platforms do. The tradeoff is less freedom to swap in a model you prefer.

Is Bland HIPAA compliant?

Bland lists HIPAA alongside SOC 2 Type 2, PCI DSS, GDPR, FedRAMP and ISO 27001. BAAs are listed as part of the Enterprise tier.

What are the call limits on each plan?

Start allows 100 calls per day and 10 concurrent calls, while Build allows 2,000 calls per day, 1,000 per hour and 50 concurrent. Enterprise has no daily or hourly cap.

How Bland compares

Bland vs Vapi

Vapi suits developers who want to mix and match their own STT, LLM and voice providers, while Bland is the better pick if you'd rather have one vendor own the whole stack and the compliance story.

Bland vs Retell AI

Retell AI is a strong fit for teams building phone agents on familiar third-party models, but Bland's in-house models and FedRAMP and PCI DSS claims give it the edge for heavily regulated call centers.

Bland vs ElevenLabs

ElevenLabs is the go-to if voice quality across many use cases is your main concern, whereas Bland is purpose-built for phone calls and bundles telephony, tool calling and observability into one per-minute price.

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