Voice, Messaging & AI Pricing | SignalWire
Flexible pricing for communications and AI infrastructure.
Compare approaches, estimate costs, explore pricing, and find the right solution for your business - all from one place.
Full pricing reference
Transparent, detailed pricing for every SignalWire product. No hidden fees.
AI Agents
Voice API
Messaging API
MFA API
Video API
Fax API
SignalWire AI Agent Runtime
$0.16
/min
What's Included
- Real-time STT, LLM, and standard TTS
- AI orchestration with barge-in, memory, and tool calls
- Full media control and real-time API triggers
- Voice transport and TTS playback billed transparently at cost
- Built-in Agent memory and retrieval (RAG-style grounding)
Standard TTS is included in the $0.16/min runtime. Premium TTS available for a small additional per-minute cost.
Voice transport (SIP/PSTN/WebRTC) is billed at standard rates.
Most customers see an all-in rate of ~$0.163–$0.168/min for standard SIP/PSTN usage with standard TTS.
Platform Comparison
DIY stacks piece together STT, LLM, TTS, and orchestration from multiple vendors, reprocessing audio and context at every step. SignalWire runs it all in one runtime.
| Category | SignalWire | DIY Stack (Vapi, LiveKit, etc.) |
|---|---|---|
| AI Runtime | One flat rate ($0.16/min for full-stack AI voice). | Multiple vendors: LLM, STT, TTS, logic with each billed separately. |
| Voice Infra + TTS | Telecom and TTS passed through at cost. | Separate contracts and fees across providers (SIP, WebRTC, TTS). |
| Setup Complexity | No integrations required, hosted SDK and APIs. | Orchestrate 4–6 APIs for voice, media, AI, routing, memory and more. |
| Billing | Single invoice with transparency, bundled pricing. | Fragmented invoices with unpredictable usage costs. |
| Operations & Scaling | Fully hosted, runs in containers or serverlessly. No infrastructure or token limits. | Dev time to deploy, scale, and monitor usage across APIs. Hidden costs from token spikes. |
| Price Predictability | Transparent per-minute rate includes media, logic, and AI. | Per-minute cost is unclear; token usage varies by vendor and model. |
| Context & Memory | Built-in Memory and local RAG included via Datasphere. | Requires custom vector DBs (e.g., Pinecone) and external LM tools to manage memory or context grounding. |
Voice Transport
Billed at standard rates, additive to AI runtime.
| Channel | Rate |
|---|---|
| SIP / WebRTC | $0.0030 /min |
| PSTN (10DLC) — Inbound | $0.0066 /min |
| PSTN (10DLC) — Outbound | $0.0080 /min |
| Toll-Free — Inbound | $0.0147 /min |
| Toll-Free — Outbound | $0.0069 /min |
Standard voices included in runtime; premium voices available for a small additional fee.
Monthly Cost Breakdown
Example: 10,000 calls/month, 2 minutes/call.
| Category | SignalWire | DIY Stack |
|---|---|---|
| Total Minutes | 20,000 | 20,000 |
| Rate per Minute | $0.163¹ | $0.13² |
| Total Hard Cost | $3,260 | $2,600 |
| Dev + Ops Overhead | $0.00 (Fully Hosted Platform) | $2,000+/month (20+ hrs of integration, monitoring, and issue resolution) |
| Overages + Spikes | $0.00 (Flat rate includes LLMs, STT, TTS generation, and logic) | $500.00+ (token burn, retries, and compute charges) |
| Total Monthly Cost | $3,260 | $5,100+ |
| Savings | 56% | — |
¹ Based on inbound SIP transport and standard TTS playback (~$0.008/min passthrough). Includes full AI runtime: STT, LLM, orchestration, and media.
² Blended estimate based on public pricing for Deepgram (STT), OpenAI GPT-4o (LLM), ElevenLabs (TTS), a SIP trunking provider, and Vapi (orchestration layer). Assumes average usage across standard 2-minute calls with minimal retries.
Real-world rates often exceed this due to token spikes, retries, or premium voices.
Pricing List
- SignalWire AI Agent Runtime
- Platform Comparison
- Voice Transport
- Monthly Cost Breakdown
- Pricing Notes
Standard TTS is included in the $0.16/min runtime. Premium TTS (ElevenLabs, Rime, etc.) is available for an additional per-character cost.
Voice transport (SIP/PSTN/WebRTC) is billed at standard rates on top of the AI runtime — see breakdown below.
Most customers see an all-in rate of ~$0.163–$0.168/min for standard SIP/PSTN usage with standard TTS.
No token limits, no infrastructure overhead. Flat rate includes LLMs, STT, orchestration, and media logic.
Stop assembling. Start building.
The infrastructure you keep rebuilding already exists. SMS, voice, video, subscribers, and every communications primitive running inside one carrier-grade platform.