Bland AI vs Phonely Comparison (2025)

Bland AI charges $0.09 per minute plus a monthly fee, offering basic phone automation with a minimalist interface. But it only supports English by default, only integrates with Twilio, and charges extra for features like voice cloning or concurrency. While it’s pitched as developer-friendly, much of the work—like setting up context management or error handling—falls on you. The voice often sounds flat or overly scripted, and the system can struggle to handle complex flows without dropping threads. It’s an entry-level solution that quickly shows its limitations.

Phonely AI bills itself as a half-price, real-time, human-sounding receptionist, but in practice its $45–$900/month tiers hide gates around voice cloning, advanced analytics, and telemarketing workflows, forcing you into Growth or Agency plans just to unlock basic follow-up features. The voice quality can still wobble into robotic stress when handles complex queries, and “0s time to lead” claims evaporate once you factor in the manual routing tweaks and context-handoff hiccups that surface in real deployments. Integrations are limited to Google Calendar, Zapier, and a handful of CRM connectors—anything custom means wrestling with their sparse API docs—while the dashboard feels cluttered and the documentation skimpy. For companies seeking a truly plug-and-play AI receptionist, Phonely delivers half the promise but twice the maintenance.