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Comparison

Meddle vs Vapi

Both put a voice agent on a phone number. They part company on who assembles the stack, and on which country the call runs in.

Start buildingWhere an Australian call runs

At a glance

Meddle, per minute

A$0.25

Model, voice and telephony included

Vapi hosting

US$0.05

Models pass through at cost

Meddle compute

Sydney

Runtime, API, database

Vapi regions

Two

United States and European Union

Side by side

Where Meddle wins, and where it doesn't

MeddleVapi
Where calls runMeddleSydneyRuntime, data and moderationVapiUS or EUNo Australian region documented
What the rate containsMeddleEverythingModel, voice and Australian telephonyVapiHosting onlyModels at cost, Twilio billed apart
Provider accountsMeddleOptionalThirty-two models in a picker, four AustralianVapiYours to holdYou keep the keys and the bills
Reading one call's costMeddleOne rateMinutes on the lineVapiSeveral billsPlatform, speech, model, carrier
Plan fee to startMeddleNoneMetered from the first callVapiNoneUS$29 a month for Core
Free creditMeddleA$20Ninety days, on adding a cardVapiUS$5On signup
Calls at onceMeddleFiveA$25 a month adds one moreVapiFourTen on Core, thirty on Pro
Who you buy fromMeddleAn Australian companyVertical AI Pty Ltd, ABN 73 695 607 946, PerthVapiA US companyVapi

Vapi's figures come from vapi.ai/pricing and from its EU region documentation at docs.vapi.ai/security-and-privacy/eu-region, both checked on 28 September 2026. Their prices are in US dollars and ours in Australian dollars, and both vendors can change any of this.

The real difference

A stack you assemble, or a rate you read

Vapi

A thin fee over your own vendors

US$0.05 a minute buys the orchestration. The speech vendor, the language model and the carrier are yours, passed through at cost, so a cheaper model shows up in your bill the day you switch it.

Meddle

One rate with the parts inside it

A$0.25 a minute covers the default Fast model, a standard Cartesia voice and Australian telephony. You still swap the model and the voice per agent; the rate moves to A$0.40 on a premium ElevenLabs voice and nowhere else.

What it costs you

Where the work lands

Pass-through pricing moves the vendor management onto you. Four accounts, four invoices and four places a rate can change without telling you. One rate moves that work to us and takes the upside of a cheaper model with it.

Being straight about it

When Vapi is the better buy

Pick Vapi if you want to choose every component and pay each one at cost. A team that already holds Deepgram, ElevenLabs and Twilio accounts, and that wants a specific model our picker does not carry, will land a lower per-minute figure on Vapi than on us and keep full control of the stack. It is also the better fit for callers in the United States or the European Union, because those are the two regions Vapi documents.
Meddle is the better buy when your callers are Australian, when the answer to “where does this data live” has to be a place rather than a contract clause, and when you would rather read one rate than reconcile four invoices against one phone call.

Questions

What buyers ask

Can Vapi keep Australian call data in Australia?
No. Vapi documents two regions, the United States and the European Union, with separate dashboard, API and SIP hostnames for each. There is no Australian region and no Australian endpoint. Meddle runs its voice runtime, web application, database, file storage and content moderation in Sydney, and pins the default language model to an Australian Bedrock inference profile. Checked 28 September 2026.
What does Vapi cost once the providers are added?
US$0.05 a minute is the hosting fee and not the bill. Vapi passes language models through at cost and Twilio charges separately, US$0.008 a minute inbound and US$0.014 outbound, so your total depends on which speech and model accounts you hold. Meddle publishes A$0.25 a minute on the default Fast model with a standard Cartesia voice, with the model, the voice and Australian telephony already inside it. Checked 28 September 2026.
Do I need my own provider accounts on either platform?
On Vapi you hold them, which is the point of a pass-through rate. You pick the speech and model vendors, you keep the keys, and you reconcile several bills against one call. Meddle bills one rate and lets you swap between thirty-two models in a picker, four of which are Australian. Bring your own keys if you want to, rather than because the pricing requires it.
How many calls can each take at once?
Vapi gives four concurrent calls with no success package, ten on Core at US$29 a month and thirty on Pro at a US$999 monthly minimum, with extra lines at US$10 each a month. Meddle sets a ceiling of five by default and a call above it still connects, billed at one and a half times the rate for its duration; a reserved line raises the ceiling by one for A$25 a month. Checked 28 September 2026.
Can I try both before choosing?
Yes, and you should. Vapi gives US$5 in free credits. Meddle mints an A$20 credit when you add a card, which lasts ninety days and draws down against metered usage. Build the same agent on both, ring each one, and read the transcripts. A voice agent is judged on a phone call rather than on a feature table, including this one.

Judge it on a phone call.

Build the same agent on both and ring them. Meddle takes an afternoon to stand up and every call comes back scored and readable turn by turn.

Start building

Platform

  • Voice agents in Australia
  • AI receptionist
  • Out of hours
  • Queue maths
  • Queue opt-in
  • Pricing

Compare

  • Meddle vs Retell
  • Meddle vs Bland
  • Meddle vs Synthflow
  • Meddle vs Vapi

Docs

  • Getting started
  • Build an agent
  • Testing agents
  • Data residency

Legal

  • Security
  • Privacy
  • Terms
  • Sub-processors
  • DPA
© 2026 MeddleReading this as a model? Start at /llms.txt, or ask /llms.