Twilio vs Telnyx for AI Voice Agents: Price and Setup

Pick Twilio for its spoken transfer introduction, its Regions or an account you already run. Pick Telnyx when the per-minute rate matters most. A 5-minute inbound AI call costs $0.0435 on Telnyx and $0.0645 on Twilio. Dograh, the open-source AI voice agent platform we build, works with both. You can self-host it or run it on Dograh Cloud.

Key Takeaways

• Count streaming on both carriers, $0.0044 on Twilio and $0.0035 on Telnyx.
• Telnyx's SIP fees are "from" prices that vary by destination.
• Both carriers support Transfer Call in Dograh, and only Twilio adds the spoken introduction.

This post is part of our guide to Twilio pricing, which prices each Twilio line under one AI call. Here we put Telnyx beside it: a quick verdict for each, a line-by-line table, the same call on both carriers, regions and numbers, then switching between them in Dograh.

Pick Twilio if

Twilio fits teams that already build on it, or that need a feature only it offers among the two. Pick it if you hand callers to staff and want the short spoken introduction Dograh can play to both people before a transfer connects, which works on Twilio only.

Pick it too if you need its Regions. Programmable Voice runs in the US, Ireland and Australia, so a team in Europe or Australia can keep call processing closer to home. And pick it if your numbers, compliance records and billing already sit in a Twilio account. Moving all that costs time that a lower rate may not repay at small volume.

Twilio's minute rates are higher. A 5-minute inbound AI call costs about half as much again on Twilio as on Telnyx, so the case for Twilio is features and familiarity, paid for per minute.

Pick Telnyx if

Telnyx fits teams whose bill is mostly minutes. Pick it if you run high call volume, where the per-minute gap below turns into real money each month, or if you rent many numbers. Telnyx charges $1.00 a month for a US local or toll-free number, falling to $0.25 a number above 5,000.

Pick it too if your callers are spread across many countries. Telnyx says inbound calling reaches more than 130 countries and that it holds carrier licences in more than 30, on a private network it runs itself. Those are Telnyx's own claims, so test call quality from your callers' countries before you move.

Plan for more variable prices. Telnyx's SIP trunking fees are "from" rates that change by destination and volume tier, so price your own call mix before you budget.

Twilio vs Telnyx, line by line

The table compares the US rates for the lines an AI agent call actually uses (Twilio), with how each carrier works under Dograh in the last rows. On Telnyx, every minute is the Voice API fee plus a SIP trunking fee.

Open Source Alternative to Vapi / Retell

Self-hosted voice agent platform — no per-minute fees

dograh-hq/dograh

Star on GitHub

One 5-minute AI call on each carrier

Here is one worked example: the same 5-minute call to a US local number, then the same length outbound, with streaming included because an AI agent needs the audio. Both columns use US list rates.

Telnyx comes out about a third lower inbound and over 40% lower outbound on these list rates. Streaming and both of Telnyx's minute fees belong in the sum, so leave none of them out when you compare your own calls.

Transfers add to both. On either carrier, a transfer adds a second, outbound leg to the person and conference minutes while they talk. Telnyx also lists $0.10 for each use of its own transfer command, but Dograh joins the call through a conference instead of using that command.

Regions, numbers and setup

By default, Twilio processes calls in the US1 Twilio Region, and Programmable Voice also runs in Ireland (IE1) and Australia (AU1). Twilio's Regions guide says not every product is available outside US1 and that it does not guarantee all data stays in the chosen Region. Twilio rents numbers in more than 100 countries.

Telnyx prices numbers lower and in tiers. Telnyx's US numbers start at $1.00 a month and drop to $0.79, $0.50, $0.39 and then $0.25 as you add more. Its Growth plan takes a $2,000 monthly minimum spend in exchange for 15% off voice, messaging and numbers. Twilio's volume discounts apply automatically as usage grows, with committed-use pricing through its sales team.

Setup in Dograh is short on both. Twilio connects with your Account SID and Auth Token. Telnyx connects with an API Key, and Dograh creates the Call Control application for you when you save, with its inbound webhook already set. You then assign your Telnyx numbers to that application. Both carriers send the agent 8 kHz phone audio.

Switching carriers under Dograh

Under Dograh the agent doesn't care which carrier carries the call. Each carrier is a telephony configuration, an organisation can hold several, and one is marked as the default for outbound calls. Moving a number to the other carrier means adding a configuration and pointing the number at the same agent, with no rebuild.

That makes a pilot easy. Run one number on each carrier for a month, compare call quality and the bill on your own traffic, then move the rest. For how carriers, numbers and SIP trunks fit together, see Telephony 101 for voice AI, and for Telnyx's own voice agent product, see Telnyx voice AI pricing.

Self-hosted Dograh has no per-minute platform fee, but servers, model keys and phone minutes still cost money. Dograh Cloud charges a 1¢-a-minute platform fee. The fee is the same on either carrier. Your speech-to-text, language model and voice run on your own keys, so the carrier is the only line this choice changes.