Ten minutes of speech-to-speech conversation costs $6.90 in model tokens when prompt caching misses and $0.93 when it holds — a 7.4× spread on identical audio. Run as a cascade of Deepgram Nova-3, gpt-5.6-luna and Aura-2, the same conversation costs $0.22. Architecture sets the bill, not the rate card.
What this covers
- What does an AI voice agent actually cost per minute?
- Why does minute 8 of my call cost more than minute 1?
- The worked calculation, with the inputs stated
- What that costs, minute by minute
- Caching is the single largest driver, and OpenAI says it is not guaranteed
This is a technical summary. The full guide — with the tables and worked examples — is on our site: *Voice AI Cost Per Minute: Realtime vs Pipeline*.
Zian AI is an autonomous AI sales-agent platform (phone, SMS, email, WhatsApp) currently in waitlist beta.
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