Cascade vs VAPI

VAPI is a developer platform for building voice agents on hosted orchestration. Cascade is a ready voice-agent engine we run for you, with its own orchestration. LeadsLiner started on VAPI and moved to Cascade in October 2026.

Where VAPI is strong

A large developer platform with many STT, model and voice providers
Your own keys and custom LLMs
SOC 2 Type II attested
Voicemail detection, IVR tool, recordings, analytics API

Why teams in Moldova choose Cascade

About a quarter of the AI cost per minute on our own calls
Live transfer with your company number, on any carrier
Built and tuned for Romanian and Russian
Your own instance, EU hosting without an enterprise plan
Set up and run for you, not a toolkit

Side by side

	VAPI	Cascade
AI cost per minute	$0.05 hosting + providers at cost; our measured total ≈ 9 ¢ (VAPI's own calculator: ≈ 8–13 ¢)	≈ 2.1–2.6 ¢ measured
Live transfer with your caller ID	Full warm transfer on Twilio only; on Telnyx and Vonage caller ID is ignored	Yes, with your company number, in production since Aug 2026
Romanian	Not stated; depends on the providers you pick	Yes, speech in and out
Russian	Named only for VAPI Voices V1	Yes
Phone numbers	Free numbers are US-only and inbound-only; import others	Any SIP or API carrier, Moldovan numbers included
EU data residency	Premier plan only; data goes primarily to the US otherwise	EU hosting for European clients
Runs on	VAPI's infrastructure only	Your own instance; on-premise with local models in development
Who builds the agent	You, with VAPI's tools	We set it up with you

Vendor facts as published on 10 November 2026; prices change, check the sources. Cascade figures are AI cost only, measured on our own production calls in October 2026; carrier minutes are extra for everyone.

Sources (VAPI): vapi.ai/pricing · Call forwarding · Multilingual · EU region · Free telephony · Data flow

Moving off VAPI?

We did it ourselves in October 2026. Tell us about your calls and we will run a pilot on your own number.

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