# Alternatives to Bland > Source: https://theagentsindex.com/bland-ai/alternatives (current datasheets, evidence-ranked) Candidates share the baseline category or are previously researched peers. Requirements, preserved strengths, explicit trade-offs and research coverage decide the order; paid tier does not. ## Shortlist ### 1. ElevenLabs Agents Hosted platform for building voice and chat agents, with telephony, SDKs and a choice of LLM. **Research coverage:** 35/35 criteria **Where it improves on Bland:** - [Writes code: partial — ElevenLabs agents do not author code themselves; the Cursor integration lets an agent launch Cursor background agents that do, and needs a paid Cursor plan.](https://elevenlabs.io/docs/eleven-agents/customization/integrations/cursor) - [Multi-agent: yes — An orchestrator agent routes a live conversation to specialist agents on natural-language conditions, and transfers can be nested; the transcript carries across.](https://elevenlabs.io/docs/eleven-agents/customization/tools/system-tools/agent-transfer) - [Agent permissions: yes — Tool use is gated per MCP server and per tool: always ask, fine-grained (auto-approved, requires approval, disabled), or no approval at all.](https://elevenlabs.io/docs/eleven-agents/customization/tools/mcp) **Trade-offs against Bland:** - [In your editor: no — The vendor enumerates its surfaces as web widgets, mobile apps, phone systems and custom integrations; no editor or IDE extension appears in that list.](https://elevenlabs.io/docs/eleven-agents/integrate/overview) [View ElevenLabs Agents](https://theagentsindex.com/elevenlabs-conversational-ai) ### 2. PolyAI Enterprise platform for building voice and chat agents that resolve customer calls, priced per minute. **Research coverage:** 35/35 criteria **Where it improves on Bland:** - [Writes code: partial — Wren generates agent configuration and the Python tool functions that call your APIs from a description; it does not author application source code.](https://docs.poly.ai/wren/building) - [Whole-codebase work: partial — Wren applies one change across every part of an agent project at once, but it is scoped to the project you are in and cannot reach other projects.](https://docs.poly.ai/wren/building) - [Claude: yes — Claude is one of the third-party models you can run instead of Raven; the model docs list Claude options under the Amazon Bedrock provider tab, selectable per channel.](https://poly.ai/blog/agentic-dialog-platform-open-to-builders) **Trade-offs against Bland:** - [Multi-agent: no — The only 'team of agents' feature is assigning several TTS voices to one agent; no coordination between multiple agents on a single task is documented, and the build assistant works one branch at a time.](https://docs.poly.ai/voice-channel/multi-voice) - [Self-hosted: no — Runs only as PolyAI-hosted SaaS on AWS with region-specific workspaces; no on-premise or customer-cloud deployment appears anywhere in the vendor's docs or security pages.](https://poly.ai/security) - [Pooled budget: partial — Conversation volume draws on one account-level Subscription Volume of CX Tokens, but the Wren builder allowance is per person and not shared.](https://docs.poly.ai/wren/usage-and-limits) [View PolyAI](https://theagentsindex.com/polyai) ### 3. Vapi Developer platform for building, testing and deploying voice AI agents that make and receive phone calls. **Research coverage:** 35/35 criteria **Where it improves on Bland:** - [Multi-agent: yes — Squads route one conversation across several specialised assistants with context-preserving handoffs.](https://docs.vapi.ai/quickstart/introduction) - [Claude: yes — Claude is selectable as the assistant's LLM, on Vapi's integration or your own Anthropic account.](https://docs.vapi.ai/providers/model/anthropic) - [GPT: yes — OpenAI GPT models are selectable as the assistant's LLM.](https://docs.vapi.ai/providers/model/openai) **Trade-offs against Bland:** - [In your editor: partial — No agent runtime in the editor; `vapi mcp setup` teaches Cursor, Windsurf and VSCode the Vapi API so you can build from the IDE.](https://docs.vapi.ai/cli) - [Certifications: partial — SOC 2 Type II and a HIPAA BAA sit in the Scale contract, and the plan table shows SOC2 only in that column; HIPAA mode is a $2,000/month add-on on either plan.](https://docs.vapi.ai/enterprise/plans) [View Vapi](https://theagentsindex.com/vapi) ### 4. Cartesia Real-time speech models and a managed runtime for production phone and web voice agents. **Research coverage:** 35/35 criteria **Where it improves on Bland:** - [Claude: yes — Anthropic Claude models are named in the SDK's supported-models table and used in its examples.](https://docs.cartesia.ai/line/sdk/agents) - [GPT: yes — OpenAI GPT models appear in the same supported-models table.](https://docs.cartesia.ai/line/sdk/agents) - [Open models: partial — The LLM layer routes through LiteLLM to 100+ providers, but the vendor names only Anthropic, OpenAI and Google, and its own speech models are API-only.](https://docs.cartesia.ai/line/sdk/agents) **Trade-offs against Bland:** - [Debugs and fixes: no — Its debugging surface is call logs for conversations, not diagnosis or repair of source code.](https://docs.cartesia.ai/line/introduction) - [Writes tests: no — The evaluations framework scores live calls against metrics you define; it produces no test code.](https://www.cartesia.ai/agents) - [Done-for-you service: no — Self-serve software: you build and deploy the agent yourself; sales contact exists for Enterprise terms, not for building it for you.](https://www.cartesia.ai/agents) [View Cartesia](https://theagentsindex.com/cartesia) ### 5. Synthflow Enterprise voice AI platform with in-house telephony for inbound and outbound call automation. **Research coverage:** 35/35 criteria **Where it improves on Bland:** - [Multi-agent: yes — Subflows act as specialised agents that a parent flow triggers for individual tasks.](https://synthflow.ai/) - [Agent permissions: yes — Flow logic, approved knowledge sources, end-call reasons and handoff triggers bound what an agent may say or do.](https://synthflow.ai/) - [GPT: yes — The model selector lists GPT-4o, GPT-4.1 and multiple GPT-5 variants for agent responses.](https://docs.synthflow.ai/general-configuration) **Trade-offs against Bland:** - [In your editor: partial — No Synthflow editor extension; Claude, Claude Code and Cowork can drive the workspace over MCP from where a developer already works.](https://docs.synthflow.ai/anthropic) - [On the command line: no — The deployment channels are enumerated as telephony, WhatsApp, WebSocket, chat, API, Workflows, Zapier and GoHighLevel; Synthflow ships no command-line tool.](https://docs.synthflow.ai/deploy-your-agent) - [Self-hosted: no — Deployment choice is limited to picking one of three Synthflow-operated clusters at workspace creation.](https://docs.synthflow.ai/customer-region) [View Synthflow](https://theagentsindex.com/synthflow-ai) ### 6. Retell AI Pay-as-you-go platform for building, testing and running AI phone, chat and SMS agents. **Research coverage:** 34/35 criteria **Where it improves on Bland:** - [Multi-agent: yes — One call can be handed between several specialised AI agents mid-conversation, with the destination agent inheriting the full transcript, so work is split across agents rather than one monolith.](https://docs.retellai.com/build/conversation-flow/transfer-agent-node) - [Claude: yes — Claude models are selectable as the agent's conversation model and priced per minute for voice and per message for chat, alongside GPT and Gemini options.](https://www.retellai.com/pricing) - [GPT: yes — Multiple GPT tiers are offered as conversation models, each with its own per-minute rate and an optional faster tier for lower latency.](https://www.retellai.com/pricing) **Trade-offs against Bland:** - [In your editor: partial — There is no editor plugin for building calls, but the hosted MCP server lets IDE-based assistants such as Cursor create, publish and inspect Retell agents from inside the editor.](https://docs.retellai.com/get-started/mcp-server) - [On the command line: no — The docs enumerate every way to drive Retell: dashboard, REST API, Node/Python SDKs and MCP server. No command-line tool is among them.](https://docs.retellai.com/general/introduction) - [Self-hosted: no — The platform runs on Retell's own infrastructure: pay-as-you-go uses shared servers and the most isolation offered is a dedicated Retell server sold as an Enterprise add-on, with no customer-infrastructure deployment documented.](https://www.retellai.com/pricing) [View Retell AI](https://theagentsindex.com/retell-ai) ## Method Unknown data is never treated as a benefit or a trade-off. Featured placement is labelled but cannot alter recommendation order.