When calls break on a stitched stack, no one owns the fix.
Retell wires together someone else's LLM, speech engine, and Twilio telephony: multiple vendors, multiple bills, and finger-pointing when calls fail. Telnyx owns the network, the GPUs, and the AI platform end to end. One provider, one bill.
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Owns the carrier network, GPU infrastructure, and AI platform end to end. A single owned stack.
Orchestration layer that stitches together third-party LLM, STT, TTS, and telephony providers it doesn't own.
A Retell deployment bills per component: voice engine, LLM, TTS, Twilio telephony, and per-number fees, each from a different vendor. Telnyx bundles STT, standard TTS, and orchestration into one rate on one contract. Customers typically save ~45% consolidating onto the full-stack platform.
Low lift. Use the built-in import tool to bring your Retell agents directly into Telnyx: system prompts, tools, and flow logic carry over automatically. Port your numbers, point traffic at one owned stack, and drop the Twilio middle layer entirely.
Python
from telnyx import Telnyx
client = Telnyx(api_key="YOUR_TELNYX_API_KEY")
agent = client.ai.assistants.create(
name="support-agent",
model="Qwen/Qwen3-235B",
instructions="You are a helpful support agent.",
voice="Telnyx.Natural-HD",
)From carrier network to co-located GPU compute, Telnyx owns every layer your agents need to run voice AI and inference in real time. No Frankenstack. No rented infrastructure. One control plane for inference, voice AI, and global communications. Configure once, deploy globally.
Telnyx bundles STT, standard TTS, and orchestration at $0.05 per minute on one contract, with LLMs on Telnyx-owned GPUs and telephony priced separately. A Retell deployment bills per component: voice engine, LLM, TTS, Twilio telephony, and per-number fees, each from a different vendor. Customers typically save ~45% consolidating onto Telnyx.
Telnyx co-locates GPU-accelerated STT, LLM, and TTS with the voice infrastructure that carries the call, keeping the round trip short and predictable. Retell's audio traverses separate STT, LLM, TTS, and telephony providers, so latency depends on the multi-vendor routing path.
Telnyx is the carrier: native enterprise SIP trunking and direct PSTN on a private global IP network. Retell doesn't own a carrier and routes calls through Twilio or a SIP trunk you supply.
Open-weight models like Qwen3-235B and Kimi-K2.5 hosted on Telnyx-owned GPUs, plus OpenAI and BYOK options. Retell relies on third-party LLMs only, billed separately per provider.
Yes. Telnyx has a built-in import tool for Retell agents: bring them over directly, with system prompts, tools, and flow logic carried across. You can also recreate agents via the AI Assistants API and SDKs (Python, Node, and more). Port your numbers or keep your SIP trunk pointed at Telnyx, and drop the Twilio middle layer entirely.
Customers switching from Retell to Telnyx typically cite latency and the cost of stitching together multiple vendors. Retell is an orchestration layer on top of third-party telephony and speech providers, which adds a network hop between every component. When Ultradoc, a healthcare AI platform, evaluated Retell alongside ElevenLabs and Twilio, their CEO reported "ridiculously long response times" where callers would wait a full second before hearing back. On Telnyx, STT, LLM inference, TTS, and call control run on one owned stack. The latency drop is structural, not incremental. Read the Ultradoc customer story.