What counts as a minute?
Use the full active session, including silence and backend waiting. GPT-Live bills per second; a carrier may round each leg. An average-length call is only a planning approximation.
THE VOICE AGENT BUDGET PLANNER
Plan your voice agent budget.
Start with three inputs.
Choose a billing route, monthly sessions and duration. Get a known subtotal, then add the costs that apply to your stack.
No accountInputs stay in your browserUSD estimates
LOOK PAST THE HEADLINE RATE
Voice + models + carrier
÷ successful calls
÷ successful calls
Missing costs stay visible. Every assumption is yours to change.
YOUR SCENARIOIllustration
Known monthly subtotal
$150.00
Excludes unknown model/tools, carrier and fixed costs.
Example only. Calculate to apply your inputs.
Per session$0.15
Per successful session$0.21At 70% assumed success
See breakdown & success scenarios
What if success changes?
Same cost and volume; success ±20 percentage points. Scenarios are assumptions.
Planning estimate, not a quote. Taxes, discounts, retries, extra call legs and unentered fees are not modeled. Your inputs are never sent to our servers.
A BETTER BUDGET CONVERSATION
Three things a headline rate cannot tell you.
What is still missing?
A hosting fee is not a complete voice stack. Add architecture-specific models, tools, speech, carrier, phone numbers and support. Blank fields remain listed as excluded costs.
Did the task get done?
Monthly subtotal divided by successful sessions gives the modeled cost per outcome. A low minute price can still be expensive when calls fail. Validate your success rate with a real pilot.
See the formulas and planning limits
Active minutes = sessions × active seconds ÷ 60. Known subtotal = active minutes × (voice/hosting + model/tools + separate speech rates) + carrier billed minutes × carrier rate + fixed monthly costs. Blank components are excluded, not assumed free.
When carrier rounding is on, billed minutes = sessions × ceil(seconds ÷ 60). Real invoices round each actual call leg individually; this simplified planner assumes equal session lengths and one leg. Cost per success = known subtotal ÷ (sessions × success percentage ÷ 100). Zero sessions or zero success produces “Not defined,” not a misleading zero.
Effective per-minute model rates must come from your own pilot or invoice; this tool does not convert token prices into minutes. GPT-Live's 15-second WebRTC initialization charge is credited against running duration, so do not add 15 seconds to each completed call. Failed initialization, retries, minimums and multi-leg transfers need separate allowance.
CHECK THE BILLING, THEN THE BUDGET
Sources you can inspect.
Download public rates, formulas and example (JSON). Schema 1.0; formula 1.0. USD; published usage-only tiers, no negotiated discounts. No carrier region is assumed. Unknown components stay excluded.
Rates checked October 9, 2026. Published defaults cover only the stated component. All other numbers are your assumptions. Recheck provider terms before spending.
OpenAI · GPT-Live-1 pricing ↗
$0.05 per active session minute, per-second billing. Backend model/tool charges are separate.
Vapi · usage-only hosting ↗$0.05 per hosting minute. Models pass through at cost; speech and carrier depend on your stack. This preset is not a GPT-Live-through-Vapi quote.
OpenAI · voice cost mechanics ↗Session duration, initialization and separate backend costs.
Twilio · example carrier pricing ↗Direction, country and call legs matter. No carrier rate is preselected.
Your inputs are your business.
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