What an AI voice agent call costs
The total of everything one answered call consumes — the phone line, hearing the caller, understanding them, and speaking back. Measured on real calls, not estimated.
Seven real calls of 2½ to 3 minutes cost ₹3.07 – ₹4.31 each. One 7½-minute call cost ₹7.70.
Set your own call volume
How much to fund each account
Four services run behind each call, and you hold a separate account with each. These are the amounts to keep funded per month at the call volume set above — the same 30% headroom included.
Google Gemini
Plivo
Raya
Sarvam
Total to keep funded ₹6,700 a month. Plivo also charges a separate monthly rental for the phone number itself.
What these numbers
assume
Every figure on this page was measured on one specific set of services: Google Gemini for the conversation, Plivo for the phone line, Raya for the voice, and Sarvam for speech recognition — each on a particular model.
Change any one of them and the numbers change with it. This is not a small effect. In our own testing, switching the voice provider alone moved that line of the bill by roughly seven times. A different language model, or even a newer model from the same provider, moves the largest line on this page.
You may well need a different set — for language coverage, for data residency, because you already hold a contract, or because one provider is simply more accurate on your kind of calls. That is a normal outcome, not a problem. We re-run these figures for whatever your project actually uses, before you commit to anything.
What we settle first
The setup fee and the monthly AMC are not list prices. Both depend on what the agent has to do and what it has to connect to, which is also why one project costs more than another. These are the questions we work through with you first.
The conversation itself.
How many steps, how many outcomes, how much the agent has to ask, confirm and record. An agent that answers enquiries is a different build from one that qualifies a lead, books a site visit and transfers to a person.
Languages.
Each language needs its own prompt work, pronunciation fixes and testing on real calls. Adding one is not a setting we switch on.
Integrations.
CRM, calendar, WhatsApp, payments, your own internal systems. Each one is separate scope.
What the agent must know.
Whether it answers from your price list, inventory or documents, and how often those change.
Volume and concurrency.
How many calls at once. This sizes the server and feeds straight back into the monthly cost.
Your data.
Where recordings and transcripts are kept, who can see them, and for how long.
Telephony is settled first
How the agent receives calls affects both the setup work and the monthly cost more than any other single choice. There are four routes and they are not equivalent.
Your existing number
Keep the number you already advertise and route it to the agent. Usually the quickest route, though it depends on what your current operator allows.
A new virtual number
A fresh cloud number, quick to provision. KYC documents are required and must be in your name.
Your existing PBX
If you already run Asterisk, FreePBX or similar, the agent connects over a SIP trunk. Needs network and firewall access from your side.
A full telephony build
No usable phone system yet, so we build one — on your premises or on a cloud server. The largest scope of the four.
Until this is settled, any quote is a guess. It is the first thing we look at, and we would rather give you the number after we know the answer than before.
Who provides what
Every rupee on this page is paid by you, directly to the provider. Samcom takes no margin on any of it.
Setup, then ongoing management
- One-time consultancy fee. Building the agent, deploying it to your server, connecting your phone line, and tuning it on real calls until it performs.
- Monthly AMC. Managing and running the agent day to day — auditing calls, tuning the conversation, applying provider updates, monitoring, and responding when something breaks.
Both are quoted separately, and both depend on the scope settled above. They are the only amounts Samcom charges.
The accounts, the number and the data
- Provider accounts. Google, Plivo, Raya and Sarvam — opened in your name, on your billing, with auto-recharge on. You keep the keys.
- The phone number and its KYC. Numbers are issued against documents in the account holder’s name. You complete that; it cannot be done on your behalf. Plivo also charges a small monthly rental per number.
- The server. The agent runs on your own machine or cloud account, in your name. Sized once at setup, then a flat monthly cost.
- Your data. Recordings, transcripts and customer details stay in your systems and your accounts.
- Compliance. Consent, calling hours and any regulation that applies to calling your own customers.
- Call usage. Everything priced on this page, billed by each provider directly to you.
Nothing here passes through Samcom. You can see every charge on your own dashboards.
We are engaged as consultants. Samcom designs, builds, deploys and maintains the agent. We do not hold, own or operate your provider accounts, your server, your phone number or your data on your behalf, and we take no ownership of any of them. Rates reach you straight from the providers with nothing added, so you can audit every bill yourself.
What that means in practice. The accounts are yours, so the agent is yours. If you ever stop working with us, everything keeps running and everything stays where it is — nothing has to be handed back, migrated or unlocked.
How these numbers
were reached
Every figure is traceable to a real call. Where something is still an estimate, it says so.
Ask us about your case →How these numbers were reached
Measured on eight real calls placed through the live agent on 2 September 2026, billed at each provider's published rate. A call costs a fixed ₹1.24 the moment it connects — the greeting and the minimum telephony charge — plus ₹0.87 for every minute it runs. That is why short calls cost more per minute than long ones.
Why the per-minute rate changes with call length
Because of that fixed ₹1.24, a 2½-minute call works out at ₹1.37 a minute while a 7-minute call costs only ₹1.03. Both are correct. Quote the rate for the length of call you actually expect — for enquiry calls that is 2 to 3 minutes.
Why keep more funded than a normal month costs
Measured calls ranged ₹1.03 to ₹1.53 per minute. The variation comes from how each conversation goes, not from anything that can be tuned away. The funded figure adds 30% on top, which is roughly what a month made entirely of the dearest calls we recorded would cost.
The first month runs higher than this
Setting the agent up means placing test calls, and those bill like real ones. On one tuning day, testing was two-thirds of the day’s total spend. Budget the first month at roughly double, then it settles.
One estimate remains
Speech recognition is billed on audio actually processed, roughly a quarter of call time. That ratio comes from the provider's usage dashboard rather than per-call metering. It is 10% of the total, so even a large error here moves the bill only slightly.
What would this cost
for your business?
Tell us roughly how many calls you take a day and in which languages. We will come back with the setup scope, the monthly AMC, and a running-cost estimate built the same way as the figures on this page.
More on what we build: AI call centre solutions · AI voice agent development · Contact
Want the same numbers for your own project?
We re-run every figure on this page against the providers and call volumes your project actually needs — before you commit to anything.