Is ClawCall a Retell AI alternative?

Only for one slice of the market. Retell AI sells voice infrastructure that engineering teams use to build their own AI voice, SMS, and chat agents, billed pay as you go from $0.07 per voice minute. ClawCall sells a finished outbound AI phone agent plus a drop-in skill for AI coding agents (Claude Code, Cursor, ClawHub, OpenClaw), billed flat at $4.99, $8.99, or $14.99 a month. If your goal is 'I want to make a phone call from my code or my web dashboard today,' ClawCall is a direct alternative. If your goal is 'I want to build a custom call-center product with my own LLM and routing,' Retell is the right tool and ClawCall is not a substitute.

How does pricing actually compare?

Retell AI's pricing page lists pay as you go at $0.07 to $0.31 per voice minute depending on the model and voice, plus telephony at $0.015 a minute on Retell numbers and optional add-ons such as knowledge base, denoising, PII removal and branded calls. Twenty concurrent calls are included, and extra concurrency costs $8 a month each. Enterprise pricing is custom. ClawCall is flat: $4.99 a month for Unlimited, $8.99 for Unlimited Reserve and $14.99 for Unlimited Reserve Plus, after a free trial of 30 calls and 30 minutes, whichever lasts later, with no card.

Can ClawCall replace Retell AI for an inbound receptionist or outbound sales campaign?

Not really. Retell AI is explicitly designed for inbound receptionists, lead qualification, customer support, dispatch service, and outbound campaigns at scale, with batch calling, CRM integrations, and Enterprise compliance (SSO, RBAC, custom MSA/DPA/BAA). ClawCall is built for consumer outbound jobs (appointments, hold-time, bill disputes, cancellations) and for AI coding agents that need a phone tool. ClawCall allows individual outreach calls and prohibits bulk or robocall-style promotions, while voicemail is available when instructed, and no HIPAA/PCI/SOC2 attestation today, so it is the wrong tool for a regulated outbound call-center workload.

Does ClawCall let me bring my own LLM or voice provider?

No. ClawCall is a managed product — calls run on LiveKit Agents with Meta Muse speech recognition, a Claude voice model, and ElevenLabs v4 Turbo voices, and telephony is Telnyx. That is part of the trade: you don't pick components, but you also don't manage them or pay for them as separate line items. Retell AI is the opposite — its February 2024 Launch HN post told developers to bring their own LLM into Retell's pipeline, and you configure the voice provider and telephony routing per agent.

Which one is easier for an AI coding agent to use?

ClawCall is built for that case. For hosts without remote MCP and OAuth, it offers a packaged agent skill for Claude Code, Cursor, ClawHub, and OpenClaw, so installing the skill gives an AI agent a working phone tool in seconds. The REST API is fire-and-poll: POST /call returns a call_id immediately, the agent polls GET /call/:id until the call is finalized, and the response carries captured transcript evidence when present and temporary recording access when available. On the REST fallback, the first anonymous POST /call returns an API key you can keep using, and it carries over when you sign up. Retell AI exposes a webhook-and-API surface designed for engineering teams to integrate, not a packaged skill for AI agents to drop in.

Does ClawCall always say it is an AI on the call?

Yes — that is a non-negotiable product rule. ClawCall always discloses it is an AI when asked, can leave voicemail when instructed, and does not send bulk or robocall-style promotions, while individual outreach calls are allowed. This is part of how the product is positioned for consumer outbound jobs (appointments, hold-time, dispute calls) where the human on the other end deserves to know what they're talking to. Retell AI's public materials do not describe a comparable platform-level disclosure policy; behavior there is configured per agent by the team building it.

Comparison

ClawCall vs Retell AI

Retell AI is a pay-per-minute platform for engineering teams building custom voice agents; ClawCall is a finished calling agent for developers and AI agents on flat monthly plans.

Try a free call Visit Retell AI

The short answer

Retell AI is a platform for engineering teams that build their own voice, SMS and chat agents, billed pay as you go at $0.07 to $0.31 per voice minute depending on the model and voice you choose, with 20 concurrent calls included and custom Enterprise pricing for compliance terms such as a BAA. ClawCall is a finished AI phone agent that calls US numbers in English for $4.99-$14.99 a month flat: you give it a number and a task, and it works through the phone menu, waits on hold, talks to whoever answers and can loop you in, after a free trial of 30 calls and 30 minutes, whichever lasts later.

Pick Retell if you are building a call-center, receptionist or campaign product and want to bring your own model, configure voices and telephony per agent, and buy enterprise terms; pick ClawCall if you or your AI agent need a working phone agent today and prefer one predictable monthly bill to per-minute metering.

Connect ClawCall to ChatGPT, Claude, Grok Bot or another AI agent, or call it from your own code. See how AI agents connect.

Feature comparison

Check Retell AI details on the vendor’s own site before you buy.

Feature	ClawCall	Retell AI
Product shape	Finished outbound AI phone agent + skill for AI coding agents	Developer platform / conversational speech API for building voice agents
Pricing model	Flat monthly: $4.99 / $8.99 / $14.99	Pay as you go: $0.07 to $0.31 per voice minute; chat billed per message
Free tier	30 calls and 30 minutes, whichever lasts later, no credit card required	Free signup on pay as you go with 20 concurrent calls included
Enterprise tier	Not offered today	Custom pricing; third-party guides report a $3,000-a-month threshold (Dograh) and an $8,000 entry (Zeeg)
End-to-end latency	Not published	About 800 ms end to end at launch (Launch HN, February 2024)
Agent connection	Hosted OAuth MCP at api.clawcall.dev/mcp (preferred); REST API + packaged skill fallbacks	Unspecified
Telephony	Telnyx (managed for the user)	Configurable telephony routing
Voice stack	LiveKit Agents: Meta Muse STT, Claude, ElevenLabs v4 Turbo (managed)	Bring-your-own LLM; configurable voice provider per agent
Ways to use it	Web dashboard, SMS/iMessage, hosted OAuth MCP, REST API and packaged skill	Voice, SMS and chat agents
Concurrency (default)	One outbound call at a time per account on every plan	20 included; $8 a month per extra concurrent call; no cap on Enterprise
AI-disclosure / voicemail policy	Always discloses it is an AI; can leave voicemail when instructed; no bulk or robocall-style promotions; individual outreach calls allowed	Unspecified — supports inbound, outbound campaigns, and lead qualification
Compliance	No HIPAA / PCI / SOC2 attestation today	Enterprise: SSO, role-based access, custom MSA, DPA and BAA, dedicated server

Which one fits

Choose ClawCall if…

You want a working AI phone agent today, not a platform to assemble one — install the skill, POST /call, and poll GET /call/:id until the call is finalized.
You want one predictable monthly bill ($4.99, $8.99, or $14.99 a month) instead of per-minute metering that stacks with knowledge base, batch call, denoising, and PII removal add-ons.
You are a consumer or a coding agent making calls on behalf of a person (appointments, hold-time, bill disputes, cancellations) and need a packaged dashboard plus an SMS/iMessage interface.
You require an AI that always discloses it is an AI and can leave voicemail when instructed and does not send bulk or robocall-style promotions, while individual outreach calls are allowed.
You want a free trial of 30 calls and 30 minutes, whichever lasts later, with no credit card to evaluate the actual finished product end-to-end.

Choose Retell AI if…

You are an engineering team building a custom voice product and want to bring your own LLM into the pipeline and configure voice and telephony per agent, which is how Retell pitched itself in its Launch HN post.
You need pay-as-you-go billing that scales beyond 20 concurrent calls into thousands on the Enterprise tier for inbound call-center or outbound campaign workloads.
You need enterprise compliance artifacts — SSO, role-based access control, custom MSA/DPA/BAA, dedicated stable server — for healthcare, financial services, or insurance deployments.
Your workflow needs inbound receptionist, dispatch, lead qualification, or CRM-integrated call campaigns with batch calling, simulation testing, and analytics out of the box.

Two different things that both say 'AI voice agent'

Retell AI is voice infrastructure. Retell's Launch HN post from February 2024 describes it as a conversational speech engine with speech-to-text, LLM, and text-to-speech components plus an orchestration layer in between, hitting roughly 800ms end-to-end latency, with the explicit pitch that you bring your own LLM into the pipeline.

The drag-and-drop builder, IVR tree support, webhooks, CRM integrations, batch calls, knowledge bases, and simulation testing are aimed at engineering teams standing up a custom call center, dispatch service, or lead-qualification workflow. ClawCall is the opposite shape: a finished outbound calling product where speech recognition (Meta Muse), the voice model (Claude), the voices (ElevenLabs v4 Turbo), and the telephony (Telnyx) are pre-wired on LiveKit Agents and managed.

You don't choose components, you make a call. The drop-in skill for Claude Code, Cursor, ClawHub, and OpenClaw means an AI coding agent gets a phone number in seconds — POST /call returns a call_id immediately, you poll GET /call/:id until the call is finalized, and you get back captured transcript evidence when present and temporary recording access when available. Different products, different buyers. The comparison only matters because both surface a REST API.

How does Retell AI pricing compare with a flat monthly plan?

Retell's pricing page lists pay as you go at $0.07 to $0.31 per voice minute, built from parts: $0.055 a minute for Retell's voice infrastructure, a text-to-speech rate such as $0.015 a minute for platform voices or $0.040 for ElevenLabs voices, an LLM rate that runs from under a cent to more than $0.30 a minute depending on the model, and $0.015 a minute for telephony on Retell's Twilio or Telnyx numbers.

Add-ons stack on top: knowledge base and denoising at $0.005 a minute each, PII removal at $0.01 a minute, branded calls at $0.10 per outbound call, $2 a month per Retell number, and $8 a month for each concurrent call beyond the first 20. Enterprise pricing is custom; third-party guides from Dograh and Zeeg report a threshold around $3,000 a month and an $8,000 entry for managed setup, which Retell's own page does not confirm.

ClawCall is flat: $4.99 a month for Unlimited calls from a shared outbound number pool, $8.99 for Unlimited Reserve with a private reserved caller-ID number, and $14.99 for Unlimited Reserve Plus with AI answering on that number, after a free trial of 30 calls and 30 minutes, whichever lasts later, with no card. A single 40-minute hold costs $2.80 to $12.40 on Retell plus $0.60 of telephony, and nothing extra on a ClawCall plan. At call-center volume, Retell's metered model and enterprise discounts are the better fit.

Scope, scale, and what each one will not do

Retell AI advertises 20 concurrent calls on pay-as-you-go and no cap on Enterprise, with customer stories spanning healthcare, financial services, insurance, logistics, home services, retail, travel, and debt collection. Listed use cases include inbound receptionist, lead qualification, customer support, dispatch service, and outbound campaigns — many of which need the Enterprise tier's compliance artifacts (RBAC, SSO, custom MSA/DPA/BAA, dedicated stable server).

ClawCall is intentionally smaller-scope today: US only (+1 NANP), English only, one outbound call at a time per account on every plan, no HIPAA/PCI/SOC2 attestation, and no outbound SMS via the public API. The product is built around consumer outbound jobs — doctor and dentist appointments, restaurant reservations, disputing medical and utility bills, cancelling subscriptions, airline rebookings, DMV, insurance, hold-time elimination — and around AI coding agents that need to make a real phone call as part of a larger workflow.

The 'loop_in_user' tool lets the AI hand the live call to the user when a human answers or verification is needed, which is not the same shape as a call-center transfer.

How fast can a developer place the first call on each?

Both products expose a REST API and webhooks, but the entry path is different. With Retell, a developer creates an agent in the builder (or via API), brings their own LLM, picks a voice, configures telephony routing, and writes the integration code that drives calls and consumes events — the platform is designed to be flexible, so the developer owns the assembly.

On ClawCall's fallback path, a host can install the packaged skill: drop it into Claude Code, Cursor, ClawHub, or OpenClaw and your coding agent immediately has a working phone tool. On the REST fallback, the first anonymous POST /call returns an API key you can keep using, and it carries over when you sign up, so an agent can start calling before any account exists.

POST /call is fire-and-poll: it returns call_id immediately, the client polls GET /call/:id until the call is finalized, and the response carries nullable transcript and recording_url fields. Docs are CC BY 4.0. If you are building a voice product, Retell gives you more knobs; if you are an agent that needs a phone, ClawCall hands you one.