Bolna

What Bolna is

Bolna is a voice AI platform for building conversational phone agents. Its homepage says you can build, test, deploy and scale conversational voice AI agents and go from idea to live calls "in minutes, not weeks", and its own description calls it "a conversational Voice AI API platform that enables automated phone calls using intelligent agents." The pitch is voice agents "for India that sound natural, understand context and take action". The pages say it serves BFSI, e-commerce, EdTech, HealthTech and hospitality, among other sectors. It speaks to both groups the homepage names: no-code builders working with simple clicks, and developers who want code control. The site footer gives the company as Whismurwave Inc. and links a YC Launch page.

What you build and how

There are two ways in. The no-code playground is 3 steps: sign in to the dashboard, configure an agent by choosing a pre-built template or building from scratch, then click to call, which can trigger calls, campaigns or connect the agent to your phone number. The developer route is an API with code samples in Python, JavaScript and cURL. The API documentation lists agents, phone calls, call data, phone numbers, inbound agents, knowledge bases, batch calls, sub-accounts, SIP trunks and dispositions.

The editor is organized in tabs. The docs list Agent Studio with an Agent tab, Intelligence tab, Languages tab, Calling tab, Inbound Calling, Engine tab, Tools tab and Extractions tab. There is also a Graph Agents editor for more structured conversations, where the documentation covers managing nodes and transitions, variables, validation, testing, import and export, version history, edges and routing, static nodes, router nodes, event injection, and tools and RAG. In other words, you can write a prompt-driven agent or lay one out as a graph and version it.

The data layer is the knowledge base. The docs and homepage mention PDFs, RAG and knowledge bases, and function tool calling so an agent can act during a call. The integrations page says tools let an agent take action rather than just talk, for example booking a calendar slot. It lists Cal.com for booking, rescheduling and canceling appointments during live calls, and automation connectors: Make, which the page still labels "formerly Integromat", Zapier ("6,000+ apps" for post-call work and follow-ups), n8n for self-hostable workflows and viaSocket. For messaging it lists AiSensy, which sends WhatsApp messages and follow-ups triggered by a voice agent's conversation. Product docs also cover using Twilio, Plivo and Vobiz with Bolna voice agents.

The homepage feature list fills in the runtime: bulk calling with thousands of AI calls at once, custom API triggers that call external APIs during a live conversation, instant transfer to a human agent, replies with "<300ms latency", integration with 20+ ASR, LLM and TTS models, and model switching so each call runs on the models suited to it. The voice stack is something you choose. The integrations page separates speech-to-text, which it says includes streaming providers optimized for telephony audio and models for Indian languages, from text-to-speech, where it says Bolna integrates with the fastest providers. The docs have sections on choosing providers, latency, using custom LLMs, capturing precise transcripts, keywords and context, and DTMF keypad input.

Templates are organized by job. The agents page offers a reminders agent for English and Hindi, e-commerce agents that verify customer intent and delivery details before dispatch, a recruitment agent that runs first-round screening calls and captures structured answers, an onboarding agent for healthcare, a hospitality front desk agent and a property tech agent for real estate that qualifies buyers or renters and routes serious leads to a showing. Each has an "Import this agent" button. A builders page shows agents built by the community, including a voice agent that recovers failed autopay payments with Bolna and Razorpay payment links and a red-teamed Hinglish pizza-ordering agent.

Because the chatbot-builders category is a membership here, note the limits: the pages describe voice agents, and WhatsApp messaging runs through the AiSensy integration.

What the pages state

Pricing is usage-based, in 3 plans. Pay-as-you-go lets you buy credits from $10 to $5000 with no commitment. The volume-based table shows a standard rate of 6.00¢ (₹5.52) per minute, with a payment slider at tiers of $15, $60, $150, $300, $600, $1.5K and $3K; the $15 tier buys 250 minutes, and the rate falls to 4.51¢ a minute at the top of the slider. The Enterprise Plan offers custom pricing at committed volumes, customized integrations and deployment, priority support and a dedicated account manager. A separate Pilot plan is a one-time purchase at a fixed per-minute rate, billed in 30-second pulses: $500 for 12,000 minutes (about 4.2¢ a minute) or $300 for 6,500 minutes (about 4.6¢ a minute). Both Pilot tiers include up to 25 concurrent calls, enterprise features and a month of dedicated support through a WhatsApp channel and 1:1 calls with your point of contact.

The site says you can bring your own keys for LLM, TTS and ASR providers to reduce costs. When credits run out, agents stop making calls, and you can set up automatic top-ups or low-balance notifications. Enterprise plans and volume discounts are available for committed usage. New sign-ups get $5 in free credits, which is a starter credit rather than a free plan.

The pricing page says "1000+ Companies rely on Bolna to power their Voice AI Stack across 10+ vernacular Indian languages including Hinglish, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu." The homepage lists India- or USA-specific data residency among its privacy features. The docs index has an Enterprise and Security section listing an enterprise plan, AWS Marketplace, sub-accounts, concurrency management, organization and members, data residency, Indian server routing, on-premise deployments (marked enterprise) and compliance.

Customer stories on the homepage give figures. Awign automated technical screening, with an average interview of 6.8 minutes. Hyreo runs a 24x7 AI helpline for candidates, with 10000+ voice AI call conversations. GoKwik handles cart recovery, surveys and collections, with 4,00,000+ unique engagements and 250+ peak concurrent calls. Hypothesis says it recovered ₹2.5 Cr+ in revenue through recovery calls, and Futwork ran a national campaign at 10K+ calls daily. A Product Hunt review from Pavan Kapoor credits Bolna's recruitment platform with cutting the time to hire a backend developer from an entire month to 3 days.

Support and learning material sit around the product. The docs have a Platform Concepts section with agent types, call flow, latency, choosing providers, security and a glossary, plus a pricing section covering call pricing, agent pricing, preferred models, concurrency tiers and downloading invoices. The site links a status page, an "Ask us on Slack" channel, a changelog, a "Build with AI" guide and a Book a Demo button for a personalized demo. The industry sections on the agents page describe e-commerce phone work as order status calls, COD confirmations, recovery campaigns and support triage, and real estate as picking up property calls, answering questions about listings, qualifying the buyer or renter and scheduling showings on your calendar.

Who it suits and who it does not

Bolna fits teams building phone agents for Indian callers: collections and EMI reminders, order confirmation and recovery in e-commerce, recruitment screening and front desk calls. Developers get a CLI, API, SIP trunk and batch endpoints, and agencies can use sub-accounts. A mixed team can prototype in the playground and move to the API.

The caveats are the focus and the pricing structure. The positioning is India-first, so a business serving an English-only market gets less of what makes the platform distinctive. The credit model needs top-ups to keep agents calling, and bringing your own keys is the stated route to lower costs, which means managing provider accounts yourself.