TL;DR
At about 1,500 minutes of AI calls a month, a self-serve platform such as Ringg AI costs about ₹9,500 a month, while a managed service such as telecaller.ai costs ₹19,999 plus GST and a ₹15,000 setup fee. The ₹10,500 monthly gap pays for about 52 hours of your team's time at an assumed ₹200 an hour. If nobody will spend those hours building and fixing the agent, managed is cheaper.
For a real estate firm using about 1,500 minutes of AI calls a month, a self-serve platform such as Ringg AI costs about ₹9,500 a month, while a managed service such as telecaller.ai costs ₹19,999 plus GST and a one-time ₹15,000 setup fee. The ₹10,500 difference buys about 52 hours of your team's time at an assumed ₹200 an hour, so the platform is cheaper only if someone actually puts those hours in.
A managed service sells you a working agent. A platform sells you the parts, and your team assembles and maintains them. The maths below prices both, including the part that is easy to leave out: your own time.
What each model gives you
| Managed service | Self-serve platform | |
|---|---|---|
| Who writes the script and flow | The provider | Your team |
| Who tests and fixes it every week | The provider | Your team |
| Pricing | Monthly fee plus setup, or per live minute | Per minute, plus a phone number |
| Commitment | 3 months (telecaller.ai); 90-day pilot (SquadStack) | Pay as you go; Ringg sets a monthly minimum |
| Time to go live | About 2 weeks, then a pilot (SquadStack) | Minutes for a first agent, Bolna and Sarvam say |
| TRAI and DND work | telecaller.ai says it handles DLT and DND scrubbing | Your team |
| Best for | Firms with nobody to own the agent | Firms with a tech-comfortable operations person |
How we compared: prices and terms from each provider's official page, checked in September 2026. Prices exclude 18% GST unless stated.
The managed names to know are telecaller.ai, with plans from ₹19,999 a month; SquadStack, which charges per live minute on a quote and bundles human advisors and a dedicated customer success manager; and ConvoZen and Convin, which quote per client. On the self-serve side, Ringg AI charges ₹6 a connected minute with telephony included, Bolna ₹5.52 a minute for the AI with telephony billed separately, and the global platforms Retell and Smallest.ai bill in USD.
First-quarter cost for a Pune developer
Take a developer with 1,000 portal and Meta leads a month. Our assumption: calling each new lead within minutes and qualifying the ones who answer takes about 1,500 billable minutes a month, in Hindi and English. All figures below are our arithmetic from each vendor's rates.
A. Managed: telecaller.ai Starter (one agent, 1,500 minutes and 2 languages included)
- Month 1: ₹19,999 + ₹15,000 setup = ₹34,999
- Months 2 and 3: ₹19,999 each
- Quarter: ₹74,997, or ₹88,496 with 18% GST
B. Self-serve: Ringg AI
- Usage: 1,500 × ₹6 = ₹9,000, plus ₹499 for the number = ₹9,499 a month
- Quarter: ₹28,497, or ₹33,626 if 18% GST is added
- Your team's time, our assumption: 30 hours in month 1 to write the flow, connect the lead sheet and test; then 12 hours a month to review calls and fix answers. At ₹200 an hour, that is ₹6,000 + ₹2,400 + ₹2,400 = ₹10,800
- Quarter: ₹44,426 including GST and time. Ringg does not list its monthly minimum; if it is above your usage, you pay the minimum.
C. Self-serve: Bolna
- AI usage: 1,500 × ₹5.52 = ₹8,280 a month, or ₹24,840 a quarter, plus the same ₹10,800 of team time
- That is a floor, not a total: Bolna's docs bill telephony and a platform fee on top of the ₹5.52 rate without a rupee figure, and an Indian number costs $5 a month. Only Ringg's figure above is all-in.
D. Two telecallers instead
- AmbitionBox puts telecaller pay at ₹2 lakh to ₹2.2 lakh a year, or ₹16,667 to ₹18,333 a month each
- Two people for a quarter: ₹1,00,002 to ₹1,09,998 in salary alone, before phones and calling plans, and nobody calls at 10 pm
Two changes move the managed option up to telecaller.ai's Growth plan at ₹39,999 a month (two agents, three languages, 4,000 minutes): adding visit-reminder calls, which it runs as a separate Follow-Up Manager agent, or adding Marathi as a third language.
The break-even rule
The monthly gap between the two is ₹19,999 − ₹9,499 = ₹10,500 before GST. At ₹200 an hour, that pays for about 52 hours of your team's time every month.
- If running the agent yourself takes under about 52 hours a month, the platform is cheaper.
- If the only person who could run it is a senior salesperson worth ₹600 an hour, the same ₹10,500 buys just 17 hours, and managed usually wins.
- Reminders or a third language widen it. Both need telecaller.ai Growth, and at the same 1,500 minutes the gap becomes ₹39,999 − ₹9,499 = ₹30,500, or about 152 hours.
- So does volume. At 4,000 minutes, Growth costs ₹39,999 against ₹24,499 on Ringg AI, a gap of ₹15,500, or 77 hours at ₹200. At 9,000 minutes, Pro at ₹74,999 against ₹54,499 on Ringg is a gap of ₹20,500, or about 102 hours.
The ₹200 an hour is an assumption: replace it with the monthly salary of the person who would run the agent, divided by their working hours.
Try both before you commit
You do not have to choose on paper. Both models let you test on real leads for little money.
- Bolna's pilot plan costs $300 for 6,500 minutes or $500 for 12,000 minutes of AI time, billed in 30-second pulses, with telephony on top. It includes a month of support over WhatsApp and four one-to-one calls with its team, and you build the agent yourself.
- telecaller.ai's free pilot covers your first 100 inbound enquiries over 7 days, with no card needed.
- Free credits: Bolna's $5 sign-up credit covers about 80 AI minutes at its standard rate, before telephony, enough for 20 test calls to your own team, and Ringg AI also includes free credits.
Run the same week of leads through a pilot of each, then compare booked site visits per ₹1,000 spent, not the per-minute rate. For which product fits a property business, see our AI calling agent guide for lead qualification.
When a managed service is the better choice
- Nobody on the team is comfortable editing an agent's instructions or connecting a lead sheet.
- You need several languages and want the DND and TRAI paperwork handled.
- You want one named person accountable for results. SquadStack includes a dedicated customer success manager from day one, and telecaller.ai assigns a success manager from its Growth plan.
When a self-serve platform is the better choice
- Someone already runs your CRM automations with tools such as Zapier or Make; Bolna, for example, connects to Zapier, Make.com and n8n.
- Lead volumes swing from month to month, and pay-as-you-go suits you better than a 3-month plan.
- You launch new projects often and want to change the script the same day.
- You are ready to handle the TRAI declaration and DND checks yourself.
Ten questions to ask before you sign
A managed provider:
- If we leave, who keeps the number, the recordings and the lead data? telecaller.ai says calls go out from your number and recordings can be downloaded anytime.
- What is the minimum term and the notice period? telecaller.ai: 3 months, then 30 days' notice.
- What does each extra minute cost? telecaller.ai: ₹12, ₹10 or ₹8, depending on the plan.
- How many languages are included, and does Hinglish count as one?
- Who files the A2P declaration with the operator and scrubs numbers against DND?
A self-serve platform:
- Is telephony inside the per-minute rate? Ringg AI includes it; Bolna bills it separately.
- What is the monthly minimum? Ringg AI has one; get the amount.
- How many calls can run at once? Bolna's pilot allows up to 25.
- Can you give us an Indian number, and what KYC do you need? Ringg AI rents numbers at ₹499 a month and Bolna at $5; Sarvam rents numbers with KYC.
- Do unanswered calls cost anything? Ringg AI bills connected minutes only.
Who carries the TRAI risk
The calls go out in your firm's name, whichever model you buy. Under the amendment TRAI notified on 18 September 2026, calls started by software with an artificial voice are A2P calls that must be declared to the telecom operator with the number ranges used, or they are treated as spam. That rule takes effect 60 days after the amendment is published in the Gazette.
Penalties land on the sender: a first violation bars all outgoing calls for 15 days, and a repeat disconnects every number for a year (PIB, February 2025). A managed provider can do the paperwork; telecaller.ai says it will share its DLT registration certificate before you sign, so ask any provider for the same.
Where TalkEasy by GrowEasy fits
TalkEasy by GrowEasy is neither model. It is the phone system your sales team uses: one shared business number, calls routed to a sales team or whoever is free, recordings, AI call summaries and an AI receptionist that answers after hours, captures lead details and transfers the call or books a callback.
If most of your leads call you rather than the other way round, that may be all you need, at ₹999 + GST a month for TalkEasy Pro with unlimited users; the receptionist is not on the public price list.
To call portal leads automatically, pick one of the models above. For the same choice on a support desk, see our voice AI platform vs ready-made agent comparison. For product-by-product options, see our AI voice agents for real estate and AI voice agents by Indian language; for a human calling team, our telecalling app comparison; and for AI answering costs, our AI receptionist guide for India.
See TalkEasy's plans and what Pro includes
Last reviewed 24 September 2026.
