8 min read
Vapi or Retell, or a white-label AI platform?
A voice API is cheaper per minute than a white-label platform and costs more of your time. Here are the real numbers from Vapi and Retell, and when each route wins.
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The Lumina Sales blog
Updates, ideas, and practical notes from Lumina Sales on building and selling AI software.
Follow via RSSA voice API is cheaper per minute than a white-label platform and costs more of your time. Here are the real numbers from Vapi and Retell, and when each route wins.
n8n's license lets you build and run workflows for clients on your own instance, but not host it for them or white-label it. Here is what n8n covers, what it leaves out, and when a white-label stack fits.
GoHighLevel is software you operate. A white-label stack is a finished build you sell. Here is what each costs for five clients, using GoHighLevel's own published prices, and when each one is the right pick.
ElevenLabs launched a self-serve AI receptionist from $29 a month. Here is what it includes, where a custom buildout still wins, and what to change on your next demo call.
Published rates put a human answering service at $3.45 to $5.00 a minute, or $7 to $11.50 a call. The infrastructure behind an AI receptionist runs under 15 cents a minute. Here is the full comparison, where the answering service still wins, and what to say when your prospect already pays for one.
Three different products get sold as an AI agency in a box: a course, a reseller license, and a wholesale fulfillment stack. Only one of them answers who builds the client's system after you close. Here is what each costs, with vendor pricing, and who should skip all of it.
Hiring a developer looks like the serious choice and is usually the expensive way to learn what you should have built. Here is the arithmetic, using published developer wages and the telephony and model prices that arrive either way.
A complete buildout costs your agency $500 a month wholesale. Sell it at $1,500 and you keep $1,000 on every client. Here is the full margin math at each tier, what quietly eats it, and the kind of client the numbers never work on.
An affiliate deal pays you a percentage of a price someone else set. A white-label deal lets you set the price and own the account. Here is what 40% recurring actually buys, what the voice platforms really charge, and the margin math on one client over a year.
ChatGPT waits for a person to open it. What you sell answers the phone at 2am when nobody opens anything. Here is the one-sentence answer to the objection, what ChatGPT Business actually costs and does, what it really takes to put a model on a phone line, and when the prospect is right and you should walk.
Building your own voice stack is cheaper per minute and more expensive per month. The vendor fees are public and small. The demo site, client portal, branding and intake are the parts nobody quotes you on.
