Quick answer: On US list prices read on 12 November 2026, an AI agent month of 15,000 outbound and 10,000 inbound streamed minutes, 21,000 texts, 3,000 replies and 20 numbers costs US$466.00 on Telnyx (lower-48 outbound at $0.005, on an account that has passed the KYC verification Telnyx requires for 10DLC texting) and US$529.30 at Plivo’s list rates, but Plivo sells SMS only on its Enterprise plan from US$1,000 a month. For streamed voice alone, Plivo’s rates are lower once more than about 24% of minutes are inbound.
Plivo and Telnyx are both CPaaS (communications platform as a service) vendors: they sell programmable voice, SMS, phone numbers and SIP trunking by API, and both now sell a hosted layer for AI voice agents (Plivo Voice AI Agents with AI Agent Studio; Telnyx Voice AI Agents). For a US build the comparison turns on call direction, whether WebSocket media streaming is billed, number rental, the A2P 10DLC fees set by The Campaign Registry (TCR), the AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon carrier fees, the plan each vendor puts SMS on, and the SLA and support terms. Every figure comes from each vendor’s own pages or machine-readable files, read on 12 November 2026, in US dollars, pay-as-you-go, before volume discounts.
Where Zian fits in a Plivo or Telnyx decision
If what you need is an agent that answers calls and follows up, rather than a carrier to build one with, Zian is our pick over either vendor’s own AI agent products. Zian is a standalone AI sales and reception agents platform, not a carrier, CPaaS, phone system or contact centre, and not an add-on to one. Its AI Receptionist answers inbound calls 24/7, qualifying callers, booking appointments, transferring calls and taking messages, and its outbound agents follow up by voice, SMS, email, WhatsApp, Instagram DMs and Facebook Messenger.
Zian handles answering machines and voicemail on calls, works in 30+ languages with voice cloning, integrates with HubSpot, Salesforce, HighLevel and Zapier, and uses SmartReach AI™ to pace follow-up by channel and timing. Zian reports 64,521+ qualified sales appointments set. It is in a partnership-application beta with no published prices; each of its three listed plans, including Intel + Widgets (Free Forever), starts with a partnership application, so this page does not price it against the two carriers. If you would rather hand the whole job over, LeadsNow.ai is the done-for-you option: it runs on Zian, is paid per result and answers leads in under 60 seconds, 24/7.
Plivo vs Telnyx: what each charges in the US
These are the US list prices an AI agent that calls and texts touches, read on 12 November 2026 from Plivo’s US voice, US SMS, US phone number and US SIP trunking pricing pages, and from Telnyx’s Voice API, SIP trunking, SMS and numbers pricing pages.
| Line item (US) | Plivo | Telnyx |
|---|---|---|
| Outbound call to a US local number, API path | $0.0115/min (Hawaii $0.0125; Alaska $0.0850) | $0.002 Voice API fee + SIP outbound “Starting at $0.005” = from $0.007/min |
| Inbound call to a local number, API path | $0.0055/min | $0.002 + SIP inbound “Starting at $0.0032” = from $0.0052/min |
| Outbound call to a toll-free number, API path | $0.0060/min | $0.002 + SIP toll-free outbound “Free” = $0.002/min |
| Inbound call to a toll-free number, API path | $0.0180/min | $0.002 + SIP toll-free inbound “Starting at $0.015” = from $0.017/min |
| WebSocket audio streaming to your own agent | “Audio streaming & noise cancellation: Included” | Media Streaming over WebSockets $0.0035/min |
| SIP trunking only, outbound / inbound local | “Starts at $0.0046/min” / $0.0028/min | “Starting at $0.005” / “Starting at $0.0032” per minute |
| Local number rental | $0.50/month (voice, SMS, MMS) | From $1.00/month, plus $0.10/month “to add SMS and MMS capabilities” |
| Toll-free number rental | $1.00/month | From $1.00/month |
| SMS segment, long code, outbound / inbound | $0.0077 / $0.0077 | $0.004 / $0.004 per message part |
| SMS segment, toll-free, outbound / inbound | $0.0079 / $0.0079 | $0.0055 / $0.0055 |
| MMS, long code, outbound / inbound | $0.0180 / $0.0180 | $0.015 / $0.005 |
| SMS carrier fee, long code, sent to AT&T / T-Mobile / Verizon | $0.0035 / $0.0045 / $0.0050 | $0.0035 / $0.0045 / $0.0045 |
| SMS carrier fee, long code, received from AT&T / T-Mobile / Verizon | $0.0035 / $0.0025 / NA | $0.0035 / $0.0025 / no carrier fee |
| SMS carrier fee, other networks, sent | “US Cellular & Other Carrier Networks” $0.0050 | Listed per carrier (U.S. Cellular $0.005; most named regional carriers $0.0045); “All other carriers: No carrier fee” |
| Answering machine detection | $0.0000/min | Standard $0.002 per call; premium $0.0065 per call |
| Call recording | $0.0000/min; storage free for 90 days, then $0.0004/min per month | $0.002/min; storage $0 per minute |
| Voice billing increment, API path | 60/60: “A 10-second call is billed as 1 minute” | 60/60: an 11-second call is charged as 60 seconds |
| Is SMS on the pay-as-you-go plan? | No: SMS and MMS are Enterprise only, from $1,000/month | Yes, once the account reaches Telnyx’s Verified tier: pay-as-you-go lists “All products available”, but a Paid (card-on-file) account has no 10DLC access |
Three lines decide most Plivo vs Telnyx bills. Telnyx bills every programmable call as the $0.002 Voice API fee plus the SIP trunk, and a third line if you stream the audio; Plivo bills one rate with streaming included. Telnyx’s SMS rate ($0.004) is about half of Plivo’s ($0.0077). Plivo rents a local number for half of Telnyx’s base price, and Telnyx adds $0.10 a month to text-enable each one.
The word “Starting” on Telnyx’s SIP pages covers destination zones. Telnyx’s public pricing API for outbound SIP, the source its pricing pages render, prices “United States 48 (Zone 1)” at $0.005 a minute, Hawaii at $0.01, Alaska at $0.07 and three high-cost zones at $0.01 to $0.181, all billed 60/60. Plivo also prices by zone: $0.0115 for the lower 48 on the API path, $0.0125 for Hawaii and $0.0850 for Alaska. Our Twilio vs Telnyx cost comparison for AI voice agents works through the same Telnyx rate structure against Twilio. The rate sheet also lists a $1 one-time cost per US local number, which the numbers page does not show.
One sentence to carry away: on US list prices Telnyx charges less per text ($0.004 against $0.0077) and per unstreamed outbound minute (from $0.007 against $0.0115), Plivo charges less per number ($0.50 against $1.10 text-enabled) and includes streaming, and the AT&T and T-Mobile carrier fees are the same on both.
The plan gates: Plivo’s $1,000 Enterprise floor and Telnyx’s verification tier
Plivo’s plans and pricing documentation lists two plans in the US data region. Professional is pay-as-you-go, covers the United States, has a $2,500 monthly usage limit and 2 calls per second by default, and includes voice, SIP trunking and voice AI agents. SMS and MMS, WhatsApp, Verify, short codes and custom sender IDs, BAA and HIPAA compliance, and SSO are marked as Enterprise only. Enterprise is “Custom, volume-based pricing — from $1,000/month”, and Plivo’s numbers documentation calls it “a $1,000/month minimum commit”. Its pricing page lists SMS under “Available in Enterprise plan only (starts at $1,000/month)”. Volume discounts are “only available on the Enterprise plan”.
Telnyx has no spend gate on a product: pay-as-you-go has a $0 minimum and “All products available” (pricing.md). Its gate is verification instead. Telnyx’s Paid account documentation lists “No access to 10DLC”, 5 concurrent outbound calls, 100 outbound calls a day, 10 outbound calls an hour and an automated-call announcement on machine-generated voice for a card-on-file account; its account upgrade page puts KYC and an AI agent evaluation, with no stated spend minimum, between that and the Verified tier, whose page lists none of those restrictions. Telnyx’s own pages disagree on the tiers above it, so both are printed. The pricing pages for voice, SMS, numbers and voice AI show Growth at “$2,000/ mo” monthly minimum spend with a “15% discount on Voice, Messaging and Numbers”, and Enterprise at “$5,000/ mo”. The pricing.md summary shows a “Committed” plan with a $500 monthly minimum and Enterprise at $5,000. All of these are monthly figures. Telnyx’s help centre also says there is no cancellation fee: “No contract, no fee.”
| Plan rule (US) | Plivo | Telnyx |
|---|---|---|
| Pay-as-you-go minimum | None (Professional) | $0/mo |
| Pay-as-you-go usage cap | $2,500 a month | None stated |
| SMS on pay-as-you-go | No | Yes, on a Verified account; a Paid (card-on-file) account has no 10DLC access |
| Next tier | Enterprise, from $1,000/month minimum commit | Growth $2,000/month minimum spend (pricing pages) or Committed $500/month (pricing.md) |
| Top tier | Enterprise, custom | Enterprise $5,000/month minimum spend |
| Volume discounts | Enterprise only | Automatic on pay-as-you-go (SMS from 100M parts a month; numbers above 50 bought a month); 15% on Growth |
| Free start | “$10 in free credits” (pricing page); “free credits for your first 3 weeks” (plans documentation) | “Sign up for free”; $25 in AI credits at Pretrial and $5 testing credit at Trial (account upgrade documentation); then pay-as-you-go with a card on file |
The quotable version: Plivo sells SMS only on Enterprise from $1,000 a month and Telnyx sells it on pay-as-you-go once the account passes its KYC verification, so a team that texts and would spend less than $1,000 with Plivo pays Plivo’s floor, not its rates. We read “minimum commit” as a floor that usage counts towards; confirm that in writing. The same gate drives our Twilio vs Plivo comparison of US voice and SMS costs.
A worked monthly bill for an AI agent that answers, calls and texts
Every input is a published list price you can replace with your own. The workload is a US sales and reception operation whose AI agent answers calls, calls leads back and follows up by text:
- 15,000 billed outbound minutes and 10,000 billed inbound minutes on US lower-48 local numbers, on the programmable (API) path;
- every minute streamed over a WebSocket to your own speech-to-text, model and text-to-speech pipeline;
- 21,000 outbound and 3,000 inbound single-segment SMS on 10DLC local numbers, split evenly across AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon (7,000 sent to and 1,000 received from each);
- 20 US local numbers, all text-enabled;
- one Standard 10DLC brand with vetting and one standard campaign.
Both bill API calls in whole minutes (Plivo’s billing concepts page; Telnyx’s billing increments article), so the billed minutes match.
| Line | Telnyx (list, lower-48 outbound rate) | Plivo (list rates) |
|---|---|---|
| Outbound calls, 15,000 min | 15,000 × ($0.002 + $0.005) = $105.00 | 15,000 × $0.0115 = $172.50 |
| Inbound calls, 10,000 min | 10,000 × ($0.002 + $0.0032) = $52.00 | 10,000 × $0.0055 = $55.00 |
| Media streaming, 25,000 min | 25,000 × $0.0035 = $87.50 | $0.00 (included) |
| Outbound SMS, 21,000 | 21,000 × $0.004 = $84.00 | 21,000 × $0.0077 = $161.70 |
| Inbound SMS, 3,000 | 3,000 × $0.004 = $12.00 | 3,000 × $0.0077 = $23.10 |
| Carrier fees on outbound SMS | 7,000 × ($0.0035 + $0.0045 + $0.0045) = $87.50 | 7,000 × ($0.0035 + $0.0045 + $0.0050) = $91.00 |
| Carrier fees on inbound SMS | 1,000 × ($0.0035 + $0.0025 + $0) = $6.00 | 1,000 × ($0.0035 + $0.0025) = $6.00 |
| 20 local numbers | 20 × ($1.00 + $0.10 SMS) = $22.00 | 20 × $0.50 = $10.00 |
| 10DLC standard campaign | $10.00 | $10.00 |
| Monthly total at list rates | $466.00 | $529.30 |
| What you would actually be billed | $466.00 on pay-as-you-go, on a Verified account (a Paid account has no 10DLC access and is capped at 100 outbound calls a day) | At least $1,000: SMS needs Enterprise |
| One-time, month one | Brand $4.50 + vetting $41.50 + campaign review $15 = $61.00, and the campaign fee billed three months up front (+$20.00) and the $1 one-time cost per number in its rate sheet (+$20.00): month one $567.00 | Brand $4.50 + vetting $41.50 + campaign vetting $15 = $61.00 |
At list rates Telnyx is $63.30 a month lower, and the lines pull in opposite directions. The SMS lines (segments, carrier fees, text-enable fee and campaign) are $201.50 on Telnyx against $291.80 on Plivo. The voice lines (calls, streaming and base number rental) are $237.50 on Plivo against $264.50 on Telnyx, because Plivo includes streaming and rents numbers for half the price. Once Plivo’s Enterprise floor applies, the billed gap for this workload is at least $534.00 a month.
Both bills assume every outbound minute goes to the lower 48; minutes to Hawaii, Alaska or Telnyx’s high-cost zones price higher on Telnyx, as Hawaii and Alaska do on Plivo. Neither total includes speech recognition, a language model or text-to-speech. For the segment and reply arithmetic on two-way texting in more depth, see our breakdown of A2P 10DLC costs for two-way AI SMS agents.
Want the agent rather than the carrier? Zian’s AI agents answer inbound calls 24/7 and follow up by voice, SMS, email, WhatsApp, Instagram DMs and Facebook Messenger, in 30+ languages. Apply For Partnership
The 24% inbound rule: which is lower for a streamed AI voice agent
Here is the rule in one line. For an AI voice agent that streams every call to your own pipeline on the API path, Plivo’s US list rates are lower once more than about 24% of your minutes are inbound, and Telnyx’s are lower below that, provided your outbound minutes go to the lower 48, which Telnyx prices at $0.005.
A streamed Telnyx minute costs $0.002 + $0.005 + $0.0035 = $0.0105 outbound and $0.002 + $0.0032 + $0.0035 = $0.0087 inbound. A Plivo minute costs $0.0115 outbound and $0.0055 inbound, with streaming included. Telnyx is $0.0010 lower on every outbound minute and $0.0032 higher on every inbound minute. If s is your inbound share, the two are equal where $0.0010 × (1 − s) = $0.0032 × s, which gives s = 0.0010 ÷ 0.0042 = 23.8%.
| Inbound share of streamed minutes | Telnyx per minute | Plivo per minute | Lower at list |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0% (outbound dialling only) | $0.01050 | $0.01150 | Telnyx |
| 10% | $0.01032 | $0.01090 | Telnyx |
| 24% | $0.01007 | $0.01006 | Even |
| 40% (our worked bill) | $0.00978 | $0.00910 | Plivo |
| 60% | $0.00942 | $0.00790 | Plivo |
| 100% (AI receptionist only) | $0.00870 | $0.00550 | Plivo |
Four conditions move the line, and each needs a sentence. Numbers: Plivo’s $0.50 against Telnyx’s $1.00 base rental adds to Plivo’s side at any mix, by $0.50 a number a month. Destination zone: the rule holds for the lower 48; any Telnyx outbound rate above $0.006 a minute ($0.0115 − $0.002 − $0.0035) would put Plivo’s lower-48 rate ahead even with every call outbound, so compare the zone rates if you dial Hawaii, Alaska or high-cost areas. Streaming: if you do not stream, a Telnyx minute is from $0.007 outbound and from $0.0052 inbound, lower than Plivo’s in both directions for the lower 48. SMS: once your agent texts, Plivo’s Enterprise floor of $1,000 a month outweighs a per-minute gap for any team that would spend less than that with Plivo.
If your agent connects over SIP trunking instead (LiveKit, Vapi, Retell and similar), Plivo’s published floors are lower in both directions: “Starts at $0.0046/min” out and $0.0028 in, against Telnyx’s “Starting at $0.005” and $0.0032. Billing increments on that path are inconsistent on both vendors’ own pages: Plivo’s SIP page says 6/6 for the US and its billing concepts page says per-second; Telnyx’s help centre says 60/60 and its llms.txt says “per-second billing”.
10DLC fees on Plivo and Telnyx
A2P 10DLC is the US carriers’ registration system for business texting from ordinary 10-digit numbers. Both vendors pass through the TCR schedule, Plivo in its 10DLC overview (“from Aug 1, 2025”) and Telnyx in its 10DLC fees and charges article, which says “Telnyx does not currently charge a markup on 10DLC fees.”
| Fee | Plivo | Telnyx |
|---|---|---|
| Brand registration | $4.50 one-time | $4.50 one-time |
| Brand vetting | $41.50 one-time, optional | $41.50 one-time (rate sheet) |
| Campaign vetting or review | $15 one-time | $15 per campaign review; a campaign “may be submitted multiple times for carrier review” |
| Standard campaign | $10/month | $10/month, “billed for three months initially” |
| Low-volume mixed campaign | $1.50/month, billed quarterly | $1.50/month |
| Authentication Plus | $12.50 one-time | $12.50 (rate sheet) |
| Appeal | Brand appeal $11 | Auth Plus appeal $11 (rate sheet) |
| Numbers on one brand or campaign | Standard brands: 3 campaigns and 49 long codes per campaign | T-Mobile number pool request, $50 one-time, if a campaign or use case needs 50 or more numbers on a brand |
One Telnyx inconsistency matters for the bill. Its 10DLC fees article (last modified 22 July 2026) lists registered-traffic carrier fees of $0.003 to send and receive on T-Mobile and $0.003 to send on AT&T, free to receive, while its live SMS pricing page lists $0.0045 and $0.0035 to send and $0.0025 and $0.0035 to receive. We priced the bill from the pricing page, which gives the higher carrier-fee total for this workload ($93.50 against $76.50 on the article’s figures), so the Telnyx total is not flattered. Plivo recommends brand vetting above 6,000 messages a day; at 21,000 texts a month (about 700 a day) vetting is optional on Plivo, and we included it on both bills so the totals are not flattered.
Which is better for an AI voice agent, Plivo or Telnyx?
Both vendors let you bring your own stack (Pipecat over a WebSocket stream, LiveKit over SIP) or run a hosted agent they operate. The rows come from each vendor’s own pages and release notes, read on 12 November 2026.
| Capability | Plivo | Telnyx |
|---|---|---|
| Hosted agent price | Voice AI Agent: “$0.03/min excluding telephony. Covers voice models, transcription, and orchestration.” | Voice AI Agents: $0.05/min for orchestration, speech-to-text and text-to-speech; LLM tokens billed per token; telephony at carrier cost plus the $0.002 Voice API fee |
| Hosted agent billing increment | Not stated on the pricing page | “Each call is billed in 60-second increments” |
| No-code builder | AI Agent Studio with Vibe Agent; voice only on Professional, all channels (voice, chat, SMS, WhatsApp) on Enterprise | Voice AI agent builder in the Telnyx portal |
| Bring-your-own audio stream | Audio Streaming over WebSocket, included in the call rate; PlivoFrameSerializer in Pipecat | Media Streaming over WebSockets $0.0035/min; Pipecat agents deployable to Telnyx Edge (release note, 28 October 2026) |
| Concurrent calls, pay-as-you-go | US Professional: 5, 10 or 25 by lifetime spend ($100 and $500 tiers); Enterprise 50 (account limits documentation) | 500 concurrent calls, 100 API requests a second, 50 SMS a second (voice AI pricing page); 5 concurrent outbound calls on a Paid account below the Verified tier (account levels documentation) |
| Outbound calls per second | 1, rising to 2 as lifetime spend grows; API calls above it are queued, SIP calls rejected | SIP trunking: 20 per source IP or SIP username by default; first 5 peak CPS free, then a monthly surcharge from $12 per CPS |
| Abandoned-call surcharge | Above 20% of monthly calls: $0.005 per excess call | Above 20% of outbound calls: $0.005 on all abandoned calls, “not just those that exceeded the threshold” |
| Short-call surcharge | Calls of 6 seconds or less: $0.015 per excess call above 10% (account limits) or “Less than 20% of volume” (US call quality page) | Outbound calls of 6 seconds or less above 15% of connected calls in a month: the charge applies to “ALL Short Duration calls made that month”; the rate sheet lists a US short-duration line at $0.01 a minute |
| AI-agent releases, last 90 days | Product-updates page’s newest entry is dated 6 January 2025, so there is no dated list to count; its AI agents page and docs also show the Plivo CLI for voice agents and an xAI Voice Agents SIP integration guide, neither dated | Including warm transfer acceptance (27 Aug), multiple transcription models (9 Oct), AI-based SMS opt-out detection (15 Oct), Agent Browser (22 Oct), Pipecat on Telnyx Edge (28 Oct), automatic SMS chunking (29 Oct) |
The hosted prices are not like for like, so compare scope before price. Plivo’s $0.03 line names voice models, transcription and orchestration and does not name the language model; Telnyx’s pricing page bills the language model per token in addition to its $0.05 and estimates a realistic agent near $0.06 a minute all in with its own hosted model. Telnyx’s llms.txt file describes the same product as “bundled SIP + STT + LLM + TTS at $0.05/min”, which does not match its pricing page; the product page is the one to rely on, and the one to quote back to Telnyx. On our 25,000 minutes the hosted lines alone are $750 on Plivo and $1,250 on Telnyx, each before telephony, and before the language model on Telnyx.
Concurrency is the row most likely to stall a small build. Plivo’s account limits page starts a US Professional account at 5 concurrent calls, rising to 10 and 25 as lifetime spend passes $100 and $500 (US accounts created before 1 October 2026 keep custom limits), and rejects calls above the limit immediately. Plivo’s pricing page shows pay-as-you-go with “2 RPS & 50 call concurrency”, which does not match that table; we print both. Telnyx’s voice AI pricing page lists 500 concurrent calls on pay-as-you-go, but its Paid account documentation limits a card-on-file account to 5 concurrent outbound calls until it reaches the Verified tier, its help centre’s concurrent outbound calls article (older verification framework) gives 2 by default and 10 after Level 2 verification, and its machine-readable rate-limits file lists 1 call a second on a “free” plan and 10 on “pro”, so ask Telnyx which applies to your account.
Plivo vs Telnyx uptime SLA, support and network
| Term | Plivo | Telnyx |
|---|---|---|
| Uptime figure | “99.99% uptime SLA” on its Twilio-alternative page and llms.txt | “99.99% uptime SLA for core voice and messaging services” in /ai/sla.json, linked from llms.txt |
| Credits | None stated in its legal SLA document | 10% below 99.99%, 25% below 99.9%, 50% below 99.0%, per monthly billing cycle |
| Where it is written | Legal Service Levels and Support Services document (last updated 20 December 2024) states no percentage or credit | Machine-readable file; pricing.md lists “Custom SLA” (Committed) and “Custom SLA with credits” (Enterprise) |
| Support | Professional onboarding “Self-serve”; Enterprise “Dedicated Slack channel”; Twilio-alternative page promises “24/7 premium support” | Pay-as-you-go “Community support”; Growth “Support 24/7 via chat or call”; help centre lists a 24/7 support phone line |
| Network | “1,600+ Tier 1 carrier relationships, 7 global points of presence, and 2 network operations centers” | “We hold the telecom licence, not a reseller arrangement”; 30+ carrier licences and 25+ points of presence (network page) |
Telnyx’s SLA file excludes scheduled maintenance “notified 72h in advance”, force majeure, customer-caused outages and “Internet routing issues beyond Telnyx network”. Plivo’s SLA document points to plivo.com/support-plans/ for response targets; as at 12 November 2026 that address redirects to Plivo’s Contact Sales page. If a percentage and a credit matter to you, put them in the order form with either vendor. Our ranking of which CPaaS platforms publish an uptime SLA for voice and SMS sets both against six other platforms on one evidence rule.
Each vendor describes its network in its own terms, and neither description is a measurement: Telnyx calls itself “carrier-owned” in its llms.txt, and Plivo cites “Premium direct carrier routes”. What you can measure is your own answer rate and delivery receipts on a test month with each.
Who each is wrong for
Plivo is the wrong pick for a team that needs SMS and would spend less than $1,000 a month, because SMS sits in the Enterprise plan. It is also the wrong pick if your voice usage will pass $2,500 a month before you are ready for Enterprise, if you need more than 25 concurrent calls without a sales contract, or if you need an uptime percentage and credit in a published SLA document. Check Telnyx in writing on both counts too: its own pages give default concurrency figures from 2 to 500, and its pricing.md lists “Custom SLA with credits” under Enterprise, not pay-as-you-go.
Telnyx is the wrong pick if your agent mostly answers calls and streams them to your own pipeline: past the 24% inbound line, Plivo’s included streaming and lower inbound rate make its voice lines lower. It is also the wrong pick for a launch that cannot wait for business verification: Telnyx’s developer documentation gives a card-on-file Paid account no 10DLC access, 5 concurrent outbound calls, 100 outbound calls a day and 10 an hour until the account reaches the Verified tier (KYC and an AI agent evaluation).
Neither is the right purchase if you do not want to build the agent at all: Zian is a standalone AI sales and reception agents platform whose agents hold the conversations, book the appointments and run the follow-up themselves.
| If you want to… | Use | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Run an AI agent that answers calls and follows up, without building it | Zian | AI Receptionist 24/7 plus outbound follow-up by voice, SMS, email, WhatsApp, Instagram DMs and Facebook Messenger; 30+ languages; HubSpot, Salesforce, HighLevel and Zapier integrations |
| Hand the whole job to a managed team | LeadsNow.ai | Done-for-you, pay-per-result, runs on Zian, answers leads in under 60 seconds, 24/7 |
| Build a voice and SMS agent on pay-as-you-go, or an outbound-heavy voice agent | Telnyx | SMS on pay-as-you-go at $0.004 a part once the account is Verified; lower streamed outbound minute to the lower 48; 500 concurrent calls on its voice AI pricing page, 5 outbound until Verified |
| Build an inbound-heavy streamed voice agent, a SIP-trunked agent, or a voice and SMS build that already justifies $1,000 a month | Plivo | Streaming included; $0.0055 inbound; $0.50 numbers; lower SIP floors; Enterprise for SMS |
Want the agent rather than the carrier? Zian’s AI agents answer inbound calls 24/7 and follow up by voice, SMS, email, WhatsApp, Instagram DMs and Facebook Messenger, in 30+ languages. Apply For Partnership
Plivo vs Telnyx: frequently asked questions
Is Telnyx cheaper than Plivo?
It depends on what you send. On US list prices read on 12 November 2026, Telnyx charges $0.004 per SMS part against Plivo’s $0.0077 and sells SMS on pay-as-you-go once an account passes its KYC verification, while Plivo sells SMS only on its Enterprise plan from $1,000 a month. For voice alone, Plivo includes media streaming and charges $0.0055 a minute inbound, so a streamed agent with more than about 24% inbound minutes costs less on Plivo’s list rates. Plivo also rents local numbers for $0.50 a month against Telnyx’s $1.00.
Can I send SMS on Plivo’s pay-as-you-go plan?
No, not in the US data region as at 12 November 2026. Plivo’s plans page marks SMS and MMS as unavailable on Professional, its pay-as-you-go plan, and available on Enterprise, priced as custom and volume-based “from $1,000/month”. Telnyx lists SMS on pay-as-you-go from $0.004 a message part plus carrier fees, though its developer documentation opens 10DLC only once an account passes verification beyond the card-on-file Paid level.
Do Plivo and Telnyx charge the same 10DLC fees?
Mostly. Both list $4.50 to register a brand, $41.50 for brand vetting, $15 for campaign vetting or review and $10 a month for a standard campaign. Telnyx bills the campaign fee for three months up front, may charge the $15 review more than once if a campaign is resubmitted, and says in its 10DLC fees article that it does not currently mark up 10DLC fees.
Which has the better uptime SLA, Plivo or Telnyx?
Both say 99.99%. Telnyx publishes credits of 10%, 25% and 50% in a machine-readable SLA file linked from its llms.txt, while its pricing.md lists “Custom SLA with credits” under its $5,000-a-month Enterprise plan. Plivo states 99.99% on its marketing pages, but its legal Service Levels and Support Services document, last updated 20 December 2024, states no percentage or credit. Ask either vendor to put the figure and the credit in your order form.
Which is better for an AI voice agent, Plivo or Telnyx?
Neither wins on every count. Plivo includes audio streaming in its call rate and prices its hosted Voice AI Agent at $0.03 a minute before telephony; Telnyx charges $0.0035 a minute to stream, prices its hosted Voice AI Agents at $0.05 a minute plus language-model tokens, and lists 500 concurrent calls on pay-as-you-go, although its own account-level documentation holds a card-on-file account to 5 concurrent outbound calls until it passes verification; Plivo’s account limits documentation gives 5 to 25 on Professional. If you want the agent itself rather than a carrier, Zian is an AI agent platform rather than a carrier.
Does Telnyx charge extra to text from a phone number?
Yes. Telnyx’s numbers pricing page lists local numbers from $1 a month and says an additional $0.10 a month applies to add SMS and MMS capabilities to a number. Plivo lists a US local number at $0.50 a month with voice, SMS and MMS capability, although SMS on Plivo requires its Enterprise plan.
Where every figure on this page comes from
| Figure | Who published it | Link | Date read |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plivo US voice rates ($0.0115, $0.0055, $0.0060, $0.0180, Hawaii $0.0125, Alaska $0.0850), streaming included, AMD and recording $0.0000, storage $0.0004 after 90 days | Plivo | United States Voice API Pricing | 12 Nov 2026 |
| Plivo US SMS/MMS rates ($0.0077, $0.0079, $0.0180) and carrier surcharges ($0.0035, $0.0045, $0.0050, $0.0025) | Plivo | SMS Messaging API Pricing, United States | 12 Nov 2026 |
| Plivo number rental ($0.50, $1.00) | Plivo | United States Phone Number Pricing | 12 Nov 2026 |
| Plivo SIP trunking ($0.0046, $0.0028, 6/6) | Plivo | SIP Trunking Pricing, United States | 12 Nov 2026 |
| Plivo Enterprise from $1,000/month; SMS Enterprise only; $2,500 usage limit; 2 CPS; volume discounts Enterprise only; free credits for 3 weeks | Plivo | Plans and Pricing | 12 Nov 2026 |
| Plivo “$1,000/month minimum commit” | Plivo | Numbers overview | 12 Nov 2026 |
| Plivo Voice AI Agent $0.03/min; $10 free credits; “2 RPS & 50 call concurrency”; Enterprise-only SMS | Plivo | Pricing | 12 Nov 2026 |
| Plivo 60/60 Voice API billing; per-second US SIP | Plivo | Billing Concepts | 12 Nov 2026 |
| Plivo 10DLC fees; 3 campaigns and 49 numbers; vetting above 6,000 a day | Plivo | 10DLC overview | 12 Nov 2026 |
| Plivo concurrency 2 / 5 / 10 / 25 / 50, $100 and $500 tiers; surcharges $0.005 and $0.015; 20% and 10% thresholds | Plivo | Account and feature limits | 12 Nov 2026 |
| Plivo short-call threshold “Less than 20% of volume”; 1 to 2 CPS; queued calls | Plivo | Outbound Call Quality and CPS in the US | 12 Nov 2026 |
| Plivo SLA document, last updated 20 December 2024; support-plans link | Plivo | Platform Service Levels and Support Services | 12 Nov 2026 |
| Plivo “99.99% uptime SLA”, “24/7 premium support”, 1,600+ Tier 1 carrier relationships, 7 points of presence, 2 network operations centres | Plivo | Twilio alternative page; llms.txt | 12 Nov 2026 |
| Plivo AI Agent Studio, Vibe Agent, channels | Plivo | AI Agents | 12 Nov 2026 |
| Plivo product-updates page, newest entry 6 January 2025 | Plivo | Product updates | 12 Nov 2026 |
| Plivo CLI for voice agents; xAI Voice Agents SIP integration guide | Plivo | Plivo CLI with a coding agent; xAI Voice Agents Integration | 12 Nov 2026 |
| Telnyx Voice API $0.002/min, streaming $0.0035, recording $0.002, AMD $0.002 and $0.0065, Growth $2,000 and Enterprise $5,000 | Telnyx | Voice API Pricing | 12 Nov 2026 |
| Telnyx SIP “Starting at $0.005” out, $0.0032 in, toll-free inbound $0.015, toll-free outbound free | Telnyx | SIP Trunking Pricing | 12 Nov 2026 |
| Telnyx SMS $0.004 and toll-free $0.0055 per part, MMS $0.015 / $0.005, carrier fees, automatic tiers at 100M parts | Telnyx | SMS API Pricing | 12 Nov 2026 |
| Telnyx numbers from $1/month, $0.10 SMS/MMS enablement | Telnyx | Global Numbers Pricing | 12 Nov 2026 |
| Telnyx Voice AI Agents $0.05/min, 60-second increments, ~$0.06 all-in estimate, 500 concurrent calls, Community support, Growth support 24/7 | Telnyx | AI Voice Agent Pricing | 12 Nov 2026 |
| Telnyx Committed $500 / Enterprise $5,000; $1 one-time number cost; US short-duration line $0.01; 10DLC vetting $41.50, Auth Plus $12.50, appeal $11 | Telnyx | pricing.md | 12 Nov 2026 |
| Telnyx 99.99% SLA, credits 10% / 25% / 50%, exclusions | Telnyx | /ai/sla.json, linked from llms.txt | 12 Nov 2026 |
| Telnyx “carrier-owned”, “CLEC + mobile core”, “bundled SIP + STT + LLM + TTS at $0.05/min”, per-second SIP billing | Telnyx | llms.txt | 12 Nov 2026 |
| Telnyx US outbound SIP zones: lower 48 $0.005, Hawaii $0.01, Alaska $0.07, high-cost $0.01 to $0.181, 60/60 | Telnyx | Public pricing API, elastic-sip-outbound, US | 12 Nov 2026 |
| Telnyx Paid account limits (no 10DLC, 5 concurrent outbound calls, 100 outbound calls a day, 10 an hour); Verified tier criteria; $25 and $5 starting credits | Telnyx | Paid Account Privileges & Limitations; Account Upgrade | 12 Nov 2026 |
| Telnyx concurrent outbound calls: 2 by default, 10 after Level 2 | Telnyx | Limits on Concurrent Outbound Calls | 12 Nov 2026 |
| Telnyx rate limits by plan (1 and 10 calls a second) | Telnyx | /ai/rate-limits.json | 12 Nov 2026 |
| Telnyx 30+ carrier licences, 25+ points of presence, “not a reseller arrangement” | Telnyx | Our Network | 12 Nov 2026 |
| Telnyx 10DLC fees, no markup, three months up front, $15 per review, $50 number pool, help-article carrier fees | Telnyx | 10DLC Fees and Charges | 12 Nov 2026 |
| Telnyx 60/60 billing | Telnyx | Billing increments | 12 Nov 2026 |
| Telnyx 20 CPS per source IP; peak CPS surcharge first 5 free, from $12 | Telnyx | CPS limits; CPS surcharge | 12 Nov 2026 |
| Telnyx short-duration calls: 6 seconds or less, 15% threshold, applies to all such calls; $0.01 international fee | Telnyx | What are Short Duration Calls? | 12 Nov 2026 |
| Telnyx abandoned-call surcharge $0.005 above 20% | Telnyx | Surcharge for High Abandoned Call Rates | 12 Nov 2026 |
| Telnyx “No contract, no fee” | Telnyx | Is there a cancellation fee? | 12 Nov 2026 |
| Telnyx releases, 27 August to 29 October 2026 | Telnyx | Release Notes | 12 Nov 2026 |
| Worked bill, 24% inbound rule, per-minute threshold table, $0.006 break-even | Zian (our arithmetic on the rates above) | This page | 12 Nov 2026 |
Method and disclosure. zian.ai publishes this page; Zian is not priced here and is not a carrier. Rates are list prices for the US, pay-as-you-go, before volume or committed discounts, and Plivo’s Enterprise pricing is custom, so its SMS rates under contract may differ from the list rates we used. Plivo’s help centre is a JavaScript application we could not search, so Plivo facts come from its pricing, documentation and legal pages. Re-check each rate before you sign.