+
+
+### Exceeding Billing Limits
+
+Once you have used all of your starter credits, or exceeded your set monthly usage limit, you will start seeing errors in your dashboard & via the API mentioning `Billing Limits Exceeded`.
+
+
+ 
+
diff --git a/fern/billing/cost-routing.mdx b/fern/billing/cost-routing.mdx
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..59c887b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/fern/billing/cost-routing.mdx
@@ -0,0 +1,55 @@
+---
+title: Cost Routing
+subtitle: Learn more about how your Vapi account is billed for provider expenses.
+slug: billing/cost-routing
+---
+
+
+
+ 
+
+
+During calls, requests will be made to different providers in the voice pipeline:
+
+- **transcription providers:** providers conducting speech-to-text
+- **model providers:** LLM providers
+- **voice providers:** providers conducting text-to-speech
+- **telephony providers:** providers like [Twilio](https://www.twilio.com)/[Vonage](https://www.vonage.com) that facilitate phone calls
+
+
+
+
+### General Provider Estimates
+
+The provider costs listed below are subject to change as we get more data, but they will always reflect our best estimate of the provider costs per minute:
+
+
+
+
+Here is what each line item corresponds to:
+
+- `STT`: Speech-to-text (providers often bill per-minute, prorated)
+- `LLM`: LLM inference (providers often bill per-million or per-thousand tokens)
+- `TTS`: Text-to-speech (providers often bill per-character)
+- `Vapi`: the Vapi platform fee of 5¢/minute (prorated per-second)
+- `Transport`: telephony costs (incurred for inbound/outbound phone calls to/from a phone number) (providers often bill per-minute)
+
+This method can be effective because **per-minute costs will not scale** with the amount of call minutes you consume. The cost for the 1st minute will be the same as the 10,000th minute.
+
+
+
+
+## Case Examples
+
+Here are a few case-examples of what billing would look like on Vapi for different voice pipeline configurations.
+
+
+ "I want to use Vapi voice assistants to support my human customer service reps in a call
+ center. However, I have a custom LLM I would prefer to use instead of the ones offered through
+ the platform.
+
+
+
+ Expected monthly usage will be 10,000 calls, with an average of 2 minutes per call. For Voice,
+ PlayHT will suit our needs.
+
+
+ What is my pricing breakdown?"
+
+ **Transcriber:** Deepgram
+ **Model:** custom model
+ **Voice:** PlayHT
+ **Telephony:** Twilio (receiving inbound phone calls)
+
+ + +
+
+ + +
**Deepgram:** ≈ \$0.01/min
+ **Custom Model:** ≈ \$0.04/min (vague assumption, can vary widely)
+ **PlayHT:** ≈ \$0.07/min
+ **Twilio:** ≈ \$0.02/min (inbound, toll-free) (see Twilio [phone call pricing](https://www.twilio.com/en-us/voice/pricing))
+ **Vapi:** \$0.05/min
+
+ **Transcription:** \$0.01/min x 20,000 = **\$200**
+ **Custom Model:** \$0.04/min x 20,000 = **\$800**
+ **Voice:** ≈ \$0.07/min x 20,000 = **\$1,400**
+ **Telephony:** ≈ \$0.02/min x 20,000 = **\$400**
+ **Vapi:** \$0.05/min x 20,000 = **\$1,000**
+
+ **Total**: **\$3,800**/mo
+
+ **Transcriber:** Deepgram
+ **Model:** OpenAI (GPT-3.5 Turbo)
+ **Voice:** ElevenLabs
+ **Telephony:** Vonage (sending outbound phone calls)
+
+ + +
+
+ + +
**Deepgram:** ≈ \$0.01/min
+ **OpenAI (GPT-3.5 Turbo):** ≈ \$0.02/min
+ **ElevenLabs:** ≈ \$0.04/min
+ **Vonage:** ≈ \$0.01/min (outbound call) (see Vonage's [phone call pricing](https://www.vonage.com/communications-apis/voice/pricing))
+ **Vapi:** \$0.05/min
+
+ **Transcription:** \$0.01/min x 4,000 = **\$40**
+ **Model:** \$0.02/min x 4,000 = **\$80**
+ **Voice:** ≈ \$0.04/min x 4,000 = **\$160**
+ **Telephony:** ≈ \$0.01/min x 4,000 = **\$40**
+ **Vapi:** \$0.05/min x 4,000 = **\$200**
+
+ **Total**: **\$520**/mo
+
+ **Transcriber:** Deepgram
+ **Model:** custom model
+ **Voice:** PlayHT
+
+ + +
+
+ + +
**Deepgram:** ≈ \$0.01/min
+ **Custom Model:** ≈ \$0.02/min (vague assumption, can vary widely)
+ **PlayHT:** ≈ \$0.07/min
+ **Vapi:** \$0.05/min
+
+ **Transcription:** \$0.01/min x 30,000 = **\$300**
+ **Model:** \$0.02/min x 30,000 = **\$600**
+ **Voice:** ≈ \$0.07/min x 30,000 = **\$2,100**
+ **Vapi:** \$0.05/min x 30,000 = **\$1,500**
+
+ **Total**: **\$4,500**/mo
+
+ 
+
+
+ 
+ .png)
+ 
+ 
+ 
+ 
+ 
+ 
+ 
+ 
+ 
+ 
+ 
+ 
+ 
+ 
+ 
+ 
+ 
+ 
+ 
+ 
+