ElevenLabs Conversational AI vs Vapi

ElevenLabs Conversational AI

Audio

Vapi

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Tagline

ElevenLabs Conversational AI

Low latency voice and chat interactions in dozens of languages with enterprise-grade security.

Vapi

Developer platform for building, deploying, and scaling production voice AI agents

Pricing

ElevenLabs Conversational AI

Freemium· Free plan costs $0 per month; Starter plan costs $6 for the first month, then $1 per month; Creator plan costs $22 for the first month, then $11 per month; Pro plan costs $99 per month; Scale plan costs $299 per month; Business plan costs $990 per month

Vapi

Freemium· Free tier · from $29/mo

Lowest paid tier

ElevenLabs Conversational AI

$6 per month · Starter

captured 2026-10-08

Vapi

$29 / month · Core

captured 2026-10-12

Free trial

ElevenLabs Conversational AI

Yes

Vapi

Yes

API

ElevenLabs Conversational AI

Yes

Vapi

Yes

Platforms

ElevenLabs Conversational AI

api

Vapi

—

Hacker News stories

ElevenLabs Conversational AI

—

Vapi

3

checked 2026-10-22

Model used

ElevenLabs Conversational AI

ElevenLabs Scribe (ASR) + pluggable LLM + ElevenLabs TTS

Vapi

Model-agnostic: OpenAI GPT-4o, Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini, Groq, DeepSeek, Llama; STT/TTS via Deepgram, ElevenLabs, PlayHT, Cartesia, Azure

Best for

ElevenLabs Conversational AI

—

Vapi

Product and engineering teams building voice agents for phone-based support, sales, or scheduling who want control over the model stack without engineering the real-time voice pipeline themselves.

Not for

ElevenLabs Conversational AI

—

Vapi

Non-technical operators looking for a fully packaged, no-code IVR replacement, or hobbyists who need a truly free tier with predictable flat pricing.

Editorial score

ElevenLabs Conversational AI

8.1 / 10

Vapi

—

Use cases

ElevenLabs Conversational AI

Telecommunications lead qualification and sales routingFinancial services support and compliance automationHealthcare patient intake and appointment schedulingRetail and e-commerce shopper guidance and support

Vapi

AI phone receptionistOutbound lead qualification callsAppointment scheduling and remindersVoice-based customer supportOrder taking and reservationsIVR replacementVoice-driven surveys and market researchDebt collection and payment remindersInsurance intake callsVoice interface for internal tools

Pros

ElevenLabs Conversational AI

• Sub-second responsiveness provides natural, real-time voice without awkward pauses.
• Real-time language detection and switching across more than 90 languages.
• The vendor says that support for SOC 2, HIPAA, and GDPR compliance with data encrypted in transit and at rest.
• Access to over 10,000 expressive voices and the ability to clone custom voices.
• Seamless continuity across voice, chat, phone, and web channels.

Vapi

• Model-agnostic stack lets you swap LLM, STT, and TTS providers per assistant and bring your own API keys
• Handles the real-time voice plumbing (interruption detection, endpointing, barge-in, backchanneling) that is painful to build from scratch
• First-class REST API and SDKs across Node, Python, Web, iOS, Android, Flutter, and React Native
• Built-in telephony: provisions phone numbers, supports SIP trunks, and covers inbound and outbound calls
• Tool/function calling and 25+ prebuilt integrations (Salesforce, HubSpot, Zapier, Make, Cal.com, etc.) for real workflows
• Enterprise compliance path: SOC 2, HIPAA (add-on), PCI, SSO, RBAC, Zero Data Retention available
• Transparent per-minute platform fee with model costs passed through at cost rather than marked up opaquely

Cons

ElevenLabs Conversational AI

—

Vapi

• Total cost is hard to predict because platform fee, LLM, STT, TTS, and telephony are billed separately and stack up
• HIPAA compliance and Zero Data Retention are paid add-ons ($2,000/mo and $1,000/mo) rather than included
• Latency and voice naturalness ultimately depend on the third-party providers you choose, not Vapi itself
• Build plan retains call history only 14 days and chat history 30 days, so long-term analytics require your own pipeline
• Not a no-code tool — meaningful agents still require prompt engineering, tool wiring, and webhook code
• Concurrency beyond 10 lines costs $10/line/month, which adds up for high-volume outbound campaigns

Website

ElevenLabs Conversational AI

elevenlabs.io

Vapi

vapi.ai

Editorial score: rule-based, 0–10, from AI-assisted profile inputs (see /methodology) — not a user rating; “—” means unscored. “Not listed” means we have no record of it, not that it is absent. GitHub figures and prices carry the date they were checked or captured; prices are shown as published, unconverted.