PolyAI vs Portkey (2026): Pricing, Features & Verdict
Portkey is our pick, scoring 7.8/10 against 7.1/10 for PolyAI on our AI Software criteria. Its biggest advantage: higher Cost score (7/10 vs 3/10). Only Portkey has a free plan.
Last updated: November 2026
PolyAI
7.1/10
PolyAI builds enterprise voice AI agents that answer and resolve customer service calls, with chat and messaging channels, for large contact centers.
Portkey
7.8/10
Portkey is an AI gateway and LLMOps control plane that routes, monitors, and governs requests to 1,600+ LLMs for engineering teams and enterprises.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
| Feature | | |
|---|---|---|
| Scores | ||
| Overall Rating | 7.1/10 | 7.8/10 |
| Integration | 8/10 | 9/10 |
| Analytics | 6/10 | 9/10 |
| Customization | 8/10 | 7/10 |
| Ease of Use | 6/10 | 8/10 |
| Support | 8/10 | 6/10 |
| Cost | 3/10 | 7/10 |
| Scalability | 9/10 | 8/10 |
| Security | 9/10 | 8/10 |
| Output Quality | 9/10 | Not listed |
| Pricing | ||
| Free plan | No | Yes |
| Cheapest paid plan | Contact for pricing | $49/mo Production |
| Estimated cost for 10 users | Contact for pricing | Free Open Source |
| Features | ||
| AI Agents | Not listed | |
| API Access | Not listed | |
| Chatbots | Not listed | |
| Enterprise Controls | Not listed | |
| Knowledge Base Search | Not listed | |
| Transcription | Not listed | |
| Voice and Audio | Not listed | |
| Workflow Automation | Not listed | |
| More features | ||
| API and CLI | Not listed | |
| Managed WordPress | Not listed | |
| Object Storage | Not listed | |
| Uptime SLA | Not listed | |
| Dedicated Servers | Not listed | |
| VPS Hosting | Not listed | |
| Shared Hosting | Not listed | |
PolyAI vs Portkey cost by team size
| Team size | PolyAI | Portkey |
|---|---|---|
| 1 user | Contact for pricing | FreeOpen Source |
| 5 users | Contact for pricing | FreeOpen Source |
| 10 users | Contact for pricing | FreeOpen Source |
| 25 users | Contact for pricing | FreeOpen Source |
| 50 users | Contact for pricing | FreeOpen Source |
The plan that fits each team size, billed monthly, before add-ons and usage charges. Each cost opens that tool's pricing calculator for the team size.
Who PolyAI and Portkey suit
PolyAI fits enterprise better; Portkey fits developers and startups better.
| Audience | PolyAI | Portkey |
|---|---|---|
| Developers | 5/10Self-serve Dialog-RSN-1 API and full-code Dialog Studio options serve builders. | 9/10Setup takes a few lines of code with OpenAI-compatible SDKs, and there is a free tier and an open-source gateway. |
| Startups | 4/10The Dialog-RSN-1 API with free credit lets developers experiment, but the core platform targets large brands. | 7/10A free tier and a $49 Production plan keep the entry cost low. |
| Enterprise | 10/10It is built for high-volume enterprise contact centers, handles up to 10,000 concurrent calls and holds enterprise compliance certifications. | 8/10The Enterprise plan adds SSO, RBAC, VPC deployment, and HIPAA/SOC 2 support, and the product is now part of Palo Alto Networks' Prisma AIRS. |
| Customer Support Teams | 9/10Voice agents resolve customer service calls across channels for large contact centers. | Not rated |
| E-commerce | 5/10Retail is a target and order management calls are supported, but aimed at large brands. | Not rated |
| Financial Services | 8/10Sells to banking with PCI DSS, SOC 2 and handles authentication and payments. | Not rated |
| Freelancers | 1/10Enterprise contact-center platform with sales-led pricing. | Not rated |
| Healthcare | 7/10Healthcare is a named target industry for its call agents. | Not rated |
| Mid-Market | 5/10The self-serve API and per-minute pricing give some access, but the managed platform is sold through sales. | Not rated |
| SaaS Companies | Not rated | 8/10Built for teams running production GenAI features across multiple LLM providers. |
| Small Business | 2/10Quote-based enterprise pricing and implementation projects suit small teams poorly compared with self-serve rivals. | Not rated |
| Utilities | 7/10Utilities are a named customer industry, with billing and troubleshooting tasks. | Not rated |
Which One Should You Choose?
Why choose PolyAI
- Higher Support score (8/10 vs 6/10)
- Higher Customization score (8/10 vs 7/10)
- Better fit for enterprise (10/10 vs 8/10)
Why choose Portkey
- Has a free plan (PolyAI does not)
- Higher Cost score (7/10 vs 3/10)
- Higher Analytics score (9/10 vs 6/10)
- Better fit for developers (9/10 vs 5/10)
- Better fit for startups (7/10 vs 4/10)
Pros & Cons
PolyAI
Pros
- Reviewers repeatedly praise its natural-sounding voices and its handling of interruptions and topic changes in multi-turn calls.
- PolyAI claims around 90% end-to-end call resolution on its largest deployments and 99.994% trailing uptime.
- Compliance is strong for regulated industries: SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001, PCI DSS, GDPR, and US, UK, EU and APAC data residency.
- Managed pricing bundles maintenance, model upgrades, integrations and 24/7 support.
- One agent can serve voice, SMS, WhatsApp, web chat and email.
- G2 reviewers describe support as responsive during implementation.
Cons
- The platform has no public price, so buyers must go through a sales-led quote.
- Some users report occasional lag or slow responses.
- Reviewers want deeper voice analytics and reporting.
- It can struggle with complex or unusual interactions.
- It relies on underlying telephony providers rather than bundling a full phone system.
- It is oriented toward large enterprises, which makes it a poor fit for small teams.
Portkey
Pros
- Unified API covering more than 1,600 models, with automatic fallbacks, retries, and load balancing.
- Detailed logs and traces show the latency, cost, and retry path of each request.
- An open-source core and a free tier let developers try it before paying.
- Enterprise governance features include budgets, rate limits, RBAC, SSO, and audit logs, with VPC deployment available.
Cons
- Since the 2026 acquisition, paid plans route through Palo Alto Networks' Prisma AIRS, which brings uncertainty about future pricing and roadmap.
- You pay for the gateway on top of LLM provider costs, and provider billing stays separate.
- Below Enterprise, support is community-only, and the free plan keeps logs for just 3 days.
- It may be more platform than needed for small prototypes that want only a simple proxy.
Not sold on either?
Frequently Asked Questions
Portkey scores higher on our AI Software criteria: 7.8/10 against 7.1/10 for PolyAI. The largest gap is in Cost: 3/10 for PolyAI and 7/10 for Portkey.
Portkey has a free plan; PolyAI does not list one.
Portkey is the better fit for developers: we rate it 9/10 for them, against 5/10 for PolyAI.
