PolyAI vs Vapi
A side-by-side comparison of PolyAI and Vapi on what each one charges, what it meters, and which plan every capability actually sits on.
The short answer
1 of the 8 capabilities tracked on both differs.
| Measure | PolyAI | Vapi |
|---|---|---|
| Starts at | Sales-gated | Sales-gated |
| AI billed at | Not published | $0.01 per AI interaction |
| Included, where the other says no | 0 capabilities | 0 capabilities |
Capability by capability
1 of the 8 capabilities tracked on both products differs.
Channels
| Capability | PolyAI | Vapi |
|---|---|---|
| Live chat | Not published | IncludedBuild, at $0.005 a message. A Chat API with streaming and non-streaming modes, an OpenAI-compatible endpoint, session management, and a drop-in web widget that runs in chat or voice mode from one script tag. |
| Voice | IncludedThe only channel. Calls arrive over a SIP or PSTN integration into the customer's existing CCaaS platform or telephony provider. | IncludedBuild. Voice is the product, billed at $0.05 a minute of connected call time on top of provider cost. |
| SMS | Not published | IncludedBuild, billed on the same $0.005 a message meter as chat. Requires a 10DLC-approved Twilio number, and inbound SMS is documented as US only. |
AI resolution
| Capability | PolyAI | Vapi |
|---|---|---|
| Resolution over knowledge base | Not published | IncludedA query tool retrieves from knowledge bases built in Vapi, billed as a knowledge-base line in the call cost array. A custom knowledge base server is the documented alternative, and keeps the corpus out of Vapi entirely. |
| Action-taking (API calls) | Included"Other systems can be integrated via APIs", with an Agent Developer Kit for custom functions and flow control, and a Connect Portal handling OAuth 2.0 and field mapping. Card payments are taken through a documented PCI Pal integration. | IncludedTools are first-class and versioned: an API Request tool with configurable retries, custom function tools, client-side tools in the web SDK, argument encryption, and a tool rejection plan. Squad handoffs carry a contextEngineeringPlan controlling how much conversation and how many tool results move to the next assistant. |
| Handoff to human | Not published | IncludedBlind transfer, warm transfer, assistant-based warm transfer, dynamic destinations and on-hold specialist transfer are each documented separately. Nothing published says the $0.05 hosting meter stops when a call reaches a human. |
| Multilingual AI | IncludedPublished counts conflict: 75 languages on the about page, 45 as standard on the technology page FAQ, and 43 individually named on the languages page under a 75+ title. | Via middlewareDelivered by whichever third-party transcriber you select rather than by Vapi, which ships no speech recognition of its own and publishes no language count. The docs compare providers instead: Deepgram 100+ languages with auto-detection, Google STT 125+, Gladia 110+, AssemblyAI 18, while Azure, Whisper, Speechmatics and Talkscriber carry many languages but cannot detect them. So whether an agent can switch language mid-call is a consequence of a configuration choice, and the documented way to tell the agent it is multilingual is to list the languages in your own system prompt. |
AI voice
| Capability | PolyAI | Vapi |
|---|---|---|
| Voice agent | IncludedThe entire product. PolyAI describes itself as an Agentic Dialog Platform answering inbound calls for enterprise contact centres. | IncludedTransport is modular: SIP, WebSocket, WebRTC via LiveKit or Daily, or PSTN through an imported Twilio, Telnyx, Plivo, Vonage, DIDWW, Zadarma, didlogic or Amazon Chime number. Up to five free Vapi US numbers per account, US area codes only. |
| Real-time transcription | Not published | IncludedStreaming recognition from a choice of eleven transcriber providers, or your own over a WebSocket. Both the caller and the assistant are transcribed, which is why a minute of call is two channels of audio on the provider bill. |
| Call summarization | Not published | IncludedCall analysis produces a summary and schema-defined structured outputs after the call, attached to the call record and readable through the API. Under HIPAA mode structured outputs are not stored unless each one is explicitly opted in. |
QA & workforce
| Capability | PolyAI | Vapi |
|---|---|---|
| Automated QA coverage | Not published | IncludedScorecards grade every call automatically by awarding points when structured outputs meet conditions you define, landing in call.artifact.scorecards within seconds of call end. No per-call charge is published for grading, unlike Retell's $0.10 a minute. API only for now, by the vendor's own admission. Evals and AI-driven simulations sit alongside for pre-production testing. |
Reporting
| Capability | PolyAI | Vapi |
|---|---|---|
| Raw data export | Not published | API onlyEverything comes out through the API or a mirrored bucket; there is no export UI. Recordings and logs are served as 302 redirects to short-lived signed URLs against a private bucket, so a cached URL stops working. |
Enterprise
| Capability | PolyAI | Vapi |
|---|---|---|
| SAML SSO | Not publishedNot addressed anywhere on poly.ai or docs.poly.ai. Consistent with a product that has no seat model, but not stated either way. | IncludedEnterprise only, marked "-" against Build on the pricing page. SAML 2.0 or OIDC against any IdP, with Google Workspace, Microsoft Entra ID and Okta named. |
| SCIM provisioning | Not published | NoStated outright in the SSO documentation: "Vapi does not support SCIM provisioning." Members sign themselves up and an administrator invites them, so removing a leaver is a manual step even on an SSO contract. |
| Role-based access control | Not published | IncludedThe pricing page prints RBAC as a Scale row with "-" against Build, while the SSO documentation describes the three roles as ordinary organization behaviour. Which of the two governs a Build account is not resolved by anything published. |
| HIPAA / BAA | Not publishedHedged rather than certified: "Where relevant, our systems are designed to meet HIPAA requirements." No attestation and no BAA offer is published, and healthcare is a named vertical. | Paid add-on$2000/mo add-on, priced identically on Build and Scale, or included by negotiation on an Enterprise subscription. A signed BAA is required first, started by emailing security@vapi.ai. Organization-wide with no per-assistant exception, not settable through the API, and mutually exclusive with Zero Data Retention. |
| SOC 2 | IncludedNone stated. No plans are published, so plan gating cannot be assessed either way. | IncludedThe trust center lists SOC 2 with reports behind an access request, while the pricing page prints SOC2 as a Scale-only row. The certification is account-wide; the report and the contractual commitment are what the enterprise tier buys. |
| ISO 27001 | IncludedNone stated. No plans are published. | Not publishedAbsent from the trust center compliance list, which enumerates CCPA, GDPR, SOC 2 and PCI DSS v4.0.1, and claimed nowhere in the docs. |
| GDPR | IncludedNone stated. No plans are published. | IncludedListed on the trust center alongside CCPA. The compliance page names its legal bases, enumerates data subject rights including portability, publishes its third-party processors, and covers transfers to the United States under standard contractual clauses. A full subprocessor register is public, with each entry showing purpose and processing location, which is more than most of this census publishes. |
| Data residency | Not publishedAWS is named as the host with no region, no residency option and no EU-only inference. No VPC, dedicated or on-premises tier is published. | IncludedAn isolated EU region exists (dashboard.eu.vapi.ai, api.eu.vapi.ai, sip.eu.vapi.ai) with its own outbound IP block, and an organization belongs to exactly one region. It is closed to new self-serve signups: EU support and self-serve growth are frozen until 2027, feature parity with the US is not guaranteed, and EU residency is reachable only through sales. |
| Data retention policy | Not publishedNot covered on the compliance page or the security page. Call recordings and transcripts are generated by the product, so the missing window is a real gap rather than an inapplicable field. | IncludedFixed rather than configurable on Build: 14 days of call history, 30 days of chat history. Custom on Scale. Per-assistant artifactPlan flags switch recording, logging and transcription off individually, and PCI mode deletes recordings and transcripts permanently when no bucket or webhook is configured. |
| Right-to-erasure tooling | Not published | IncludedBy request to support@vapi.ai under GDPR and CCPA. The privacy policy states that retention depends on the customer's configuration and that data is deleted on request, while also reserving the right to retain recordings, transcripts and logs to train and improve the AI models. |
Developer
| Capability | PolyAI | Vapi |
|---|---|---|
| REST API | IncludedOpen APIs and an Agent Developer Kit are published as product surfaces. No public API reference and no data-export endpoint is documented, so what the API can read out is Unknown. | IncludedNo plan gate. A private key from the dashboard works on Build. |
| Webhooks | Not published | IncludedServer URLs with authenticated server events, an end-of-call-report event, campaign pre-dial webhooks, and local development tooling in the CLI. |
| SDKs | IncludedThe Agent Developer Kit is published as the programmatic control surface, documented at docs.poly.ai. | IncludedServer SDKs for TypeScript and Python, real-time SDKs for web, iOS, Flutter, React Native and a vanilla script tag, an official CLI, and a docs MCP server. Custom transcriber, custom LLM and custom TTS servers are each documented, so every pipeline stage except the proprietary orchestration layer can run on your own infrastructure. |
Both entries last checked Sep 9, 2026.
What PolyAI costs
- Billing unit
Per minute of voice agent use - Free tier
Not published - AI pricing
Not published - Vendor calls it
minute - Human handoff
Not published - Reopened chat
Not published - AI billing window
Not published - Data export
Not published - Automation export
Not published
7 of 9 not published by PolyAI, checked
What Vapi costs
- Billing unit
Pure consumption against a prepaid credit balance - Free tier
No - AI pricing
$0.05 per minute - Vendor calls it
Vapi Hosting - Human handoff
Still billed - Reopened chat
Not published - AI billing window
Not published - Data export
Self-serve - Automation export
Full
2 of 9 not published by Vapi, checked