Voice AI per minute versus an offshore agent — with escalation priced in.
For CX, contact center and BPO leaders choosing between voice AI and added seats. Occupancy-adjusted agent cost against a full ASR, LLM, TTS and telephony stack.
Your inputs
Benchmarks show typical enterprise ranges — override every field with your own numbers.
Benchmark: 50k–500k for an enterprise voice queue set
Talk plus hold plus after-call work
Benchmark: 5–9 minutes for service voice
Contained calls only — no queue, hold or wrap
Benchmark: 3–6 minutes, typically 25–35% shorter
Offshore $9–$16 · nearshore $14–$22 · onshore $28–$45
Benchmark: $14 offshore blended
Paid time actually spent handling contacts — idle time is real cost
Benchmark: 72–85% in a well-run centre
Calls fully resolved by voice AI with no human transfer
Benchmark: 35–60% on scoped intents in year one
ASR + LLM + TTS + telephony, all-in
Benchmark: $0.06–$0.20 per minute
Benchmark: $5k–$30k depending on platform and channels
Baseline agent cost minus AI spend and the human handling still required after escalation.
Directional estimate. Escalated calls are charged 40% of AI handle time before transfer, plus full human handling. Assumes a $250k implementation investment.
Three-scenario view
Finance reviewers expect a range. These scenarios flex adoption and implementation cost around the model you entered.
Slower adoption, higher integration effort
Your inputs as entered
Strong sponsorship, clean data, phased scale-up
How enterprise leaders use this model
- What goes into voice AI cost per minute?
- Four stacked components: speech recognition, the language model turn, speech synthesis, and telephony or SIP transport. Platform and orchestration fees sit on top. Most enterprise stacks land between $0.06 and $0.20 per minute all-in before escalation.
- Why compare against offshore agents rather than onshore?
- Because that is the real alternative on the table. Against a $28–$45 loaded onshore hour, almost any voice AI clears. Against a $9–$16 offshore hour the margin is thinner, and containment rate — not per-minute price — decides the outcome.
- How does escalation change the economics?
- An escalated call costs the AI minutes plus the full human handling that follows, so it is more expensive than a human-only call. That is why cost per contained call matters more than cost per minute: at 40% containment you are paying for AI on every call and humans on most of them.
- Does AI handle time differ from human handle time?
- Usually yes, and often shorter — no hold, no after-call wrap on contained calls, no queue. This model lets you set both separately rather than assuming parity.