Master Retell AI with our step-by-step tutorial, detailed feature walkthrough, and expert tips.
Sign up for a free Retell AI account at dashboard.retellai.com — no credit card required for initial development. Create your first voice agent using a pre
built template (customer support or appointment booking) in the dashboard. Configure your LLM backend (GPT
1 recommended for cost/quality balance), system prompt, and voice from 6 TTS providers. Set up webhook endpoints for function calling if your agent needs to interact with external systems like calendars or CRMs. Test via the web
based calling interface (WebRTC), then connect a phone number via Twilio import or SIP trunking for production.
💡 Quick Start: Follow these 4 steps in order to get up and running with Retell AI quickly.
Explore the key features that make Retell AI powerful for voice ai workflows.
Custom turn-taking model trained to interrupt, backchannel and recover gracefully.
Visual conversation pathways with version control, rollback and A/B testing.
Phone numbers in 50+ countries plus bring-your-own carrier for enterprises.
SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA and PCI; healthcare bundle adds BAA and clinical-language tuning.
Per-call transcripts, sentiment, success rates and routing-decision audit logs.
Retell AI uses modular per-minute pricing with three mandatory components: voice infrastructure ($0.055/min), TTS ($0.015-$0.040/min depending on provider), and LLM ($0.003-$0.16/min depending on model). Add optional extras like knowledge base (+$0.005/min), denoising (+$0.005/min), or PII removal (+$0.01/min). SIP trunking telephony is free; phone calls add ~$0.015/min. Realistic total: $0.10-$0.25/min for most production setups.
No, Retell AI is cloud-hosted only. The real-time voice orchestration runs on Retell's infrastructure. For HIPAA compliance, the Enterprise plan offers BAA agreements and data controls. For self-hosted alternatives, LiveKit provides open-source real-time audio infrastructure, though replicating Retell's turn-taking requires significant engineering.
For most use cases, GPT-4.1 ($0.045/min) or GPT-4.1 Mini ($0.016/min) paired with Retell Platform Voices ($0.015/min) offers the best balance. This gives you total costs of $0.115-$0.13/min with strong conversation quality. For budget agents handling simple tasks, GPT-5 nano ($0.003/min) brings total costs to ~$0.073/min.
Pay-as-you-go includes 20 concurrent calls, with additional capacity at $8/month per concurrent slot. Enterprise plans have no cap on concurrent calls and include dedicated server infrastructure for consistent performance under load.
Yes, Retell AI offers chat agents with per-message pricing separate from voice. Chat pricing ranges from $0.001/message (GPT-5 nano) to $0.03/message (Claude 4.5 Sonnet). Chat agents support SMS at $0.01/message and can share the same knowledge base and function calling setup as voice agents.
Now that you know how to use Retell AI, it's time to put this knowledge into practice.
Sign up and follow the tutorial steps
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See how it stacks against alternatives
Follow our tutorial and master this powerful voice ai tool in minutes.
Tutorial updated March 2026