Research brief

How to Start a White Label AI Agency: Costs, Margins and What the Data Says

The short version

The business is simple to describe. You rent a platform, brand it as yours, build agents for local businesses and bill them a monthly retainer. You carry the client relationship and the platform carries the software.
The buyer problem is real but old. A 2016 study of 300 micro businesses found that 69% of callers who reached voicemail hung up without leaving a message ¹. In 2025 a survey of more than 12,000 consumers found 48% never answer calls from numbers they do not recognise ².
Most small businesses have not adopted AI. Only 18% of US firms used it in a business function in late 2025 and early 2026, and under 20% of firms with four or fewer employees did ^3,4. That is room to sell into, and also a reason to expect education before every sale.
Running costs are small and mostly fixed. The platform is $199 a month for 20 clients ⁹. A US local number costs $1.15 a month and inbound calls $0.0085 a minute ⁵. Card fees on the client's invoice are 2.9% plus 30 cents ⁶.
In our worked example, 20 clients paying $500 a month bring in $10,000, and costs come to about $966 to $1,266, a gross margin of roughly 87.3% to 90.3% before your own time, ads and tax. It is arithmetic on stated assumptions, not a forecast.
We found no survey of what AI agencies charge or earn. The only sourced price points are for AI development firms, which is a different business ⁷.
The regulator has already acted against firms that overstated what their AI could do ⁸. Promise small, measurable results.

A white label AI agency sells chat and voice agents to local businesses under its own brand, on a platform it rents and does not build. This page covers who buys, what the platform and phone costs really are, a worked margin example with every input shown, what to charge, and how to avoid overpromising. Convocore sells one of these platforms, so we label our own figures and show where the evidence runs out.

Sources checked October 25, 2026 · 10 sources · Published by Convocore, which sells white label AI agents. See method and limits.

69%

of callers who reached voicemail hung up without leaving a message, in a 2016 study of 300 micro businesses commissioned by an answering service¹

48%

of consumers said they never answer unidentified calls, in a 2025 survey of more than 12,000 people commissioned by a call-security vendor²

18%

of US firms used AI in a business function, November 2025 to January 2026 (Census Bureau)³

$1.15

a month for a US local phone number on Twilio, with inbound calls at $0.0085 a minute⁵

2.9% + 30¢

Stripe's standard fee per successful domestic card payment⁶

$199

a month for Convocore White Label (20 client sub-accounts, unlimited agents). Elite is $349.⁹

What a white label AI agency actually is

Strip away the jargon and it is a reseller. A local business needs an AI agent that answers its website chat or its phone, books appointments or captures leads. You build that agent on a platform you pay for, put your logo and domain on the client's dashboard, and charge a monthly fee. The client never needs to know whose software it is.

That is different from a development shop that writes custom code, and different from a marketing agency that happens to use AI. The platform does the heavy engineering. What you sell is the part software cannot: working out what a plumber or a dentist's front desk really needs, getting the answers right, and picking up the phone when something breaks.

There is no official count of how many people do this. The US has 36.2 million small businesses by the Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy count, which gives a sense of the pool of possible clients, not of competing agencies ¹⁰.

Why local businesses buy: missed calls and unanswered chats

The oldest pitch is still the best one: a call that nobody answers is a customer who goes elsewhere. The best-known number comes from Moneypenny, a telephone answering company. In a 2016 report built on a survey of 300 micro businesses and call data from 10,000 businesses, it found that 69% of callers who got voicemail hung up without leaving a message ¹. It is a vendor's study, ten years old, from the UK, so use it as a direction and not as a measurement of today's customers.

The consumer side points the same way. Hiya, which sells call-screening software, commissioned a survey of more than 12,000 consumers in six countries in 2025. 48% said they never answer a call from a number they do not recognise and another 32% only sometimes do ². For a small business that rings customers back, that matters: an AI agent that calls from a number people do not know will often go unanswered, which is a reason to answer inbound calls first and to tell clients to text ahead.

You will also see far more dramatic figures online, such as that 85% of callers never call back. When we looked, we could not trace those to a primary source, so they are not on this page. The honest pitch is smaller: most people who hit voicemail do not leave a message, and an agent that answers every time catches some of them.

What the two surveys we could open actually say^1,2

69%

of callers sent to voicemail hung up without a message

Moneypenny, 2016, 300 micro businesses plus call data from 10,000

48%

of consumers never answer unidentified calls

Hiya, 2025, more than 12,000 consumers in six countries

32%

only sometimes answer them

Same survey. Together, 80% of unidentified calls are unlikely to be answered

Both were commissioned by companies that sell call-related products. Neither measures how many callers an AI agent would recover.

How many businesses are ready for it

The US Census Bureau asked a representative sample of firms between November 2025 and January 2026 and found 18% used AI in a business function, or 32% when weighted by employment because larger firms use it more ³. A separate Census release found that fewer than 20% of firms with four or fewer employees used AI in early 2026 ⁴.

For an agency that is useful in two ways. The market is mostly untouched, so a plain demonstration often lands. But it also means the typical owner has no mental model of what an AI agent does, so the first meeting is a demo on their own website and their own opening hours, not a slide deck.

Share of US firms using AI in a business function^3,4

All firms (late 2025 to early 2026)18%

All firms, weighted by employment32%

Firms with four or fewer employees (early 2026, upper bound)under 20%

Census Bureau, Business Trends and Outlook Survey. The micro-firm figure is reported as less than 20%, so the bar shows the ceiling.

What it costs to run: the platform, the phone and the card fees

Three costs matter, and only the first is a subscription. On Convocore, White Label is $199 a month, or $133 a month billed annually, and includes 20 client sub-accounts, unlimited agents, voice and every chat channel, with no revenue share. White Label Elite is $349 a month with unlimited clients and client self-signup ⁹.

Phone numbers and calls come from a telephony provider. Twilio's page, current as of August 2026, lists a US local number at $1.15 a month and $0.0085 a minute to receive calls, a toll-free number at $2.15 a month and $0.0220 a minute inbound, and $0.0140 a minute for outbound calls to the US ⁵. You can connect your own Twilio account, so these are the real rates and not a markup.

Voice also costs the speech and language models behind the call. Convocore's published estimate is $0.05 to $0.10 a minute for that stack, plus a platform fee of 20 credits, or $0.02, a minute ⁹. Chat is cheaper and is billed in credits at $1 for 1,000. Finally, when the client pays you by card, Stripe takes 2.9% plus 30 cents on each domestic payment, with 1.5% extra for international cards and a $15 fee for each dispute ⁶.

What a white label AI agency pays for, with the source of each price^5,6,9

Cost	Price	Who sets it
Convocore White Label	$199 a month, 20 client sub-accounts	Convocore ⁹
Convocore White Label Elite	$349 a month, unlimited clients	Convocore ⁹
Voice platform fee	$0.02 a minute	Convocore ⁹
Speech and language models	$0.05 to $0.10 a minute (vendor estimate)	Convocore estimate ⁹
US local number	$1.15 a month	Twilio ⁵
Inbound call, local number	$0.0085 a minute	Twilio ⁵
Outbound call to the US	$0.0140 a minute	Twilio ⁵
Card payment from a client	2.9% + 30 cents	Stripe ⁶
Card dispute	$15 each	Stripe ⁶

A worked example: 20 clients at $500 a month

This is our arithmetic, built on assumptions you can change. Say you run 20 clients, each paying a $500 monthly retainer, and each client's agent handles 300 minutes of voice calls a month. We use the low and high ends of the voice cost above, and Twilio's inbound rate.

Revenue is $10,000. The platform is $199. Voice costs $471 to $771, which is 6,000 minutes at $0.0785 to $0.1285 a minute all in. Card fees are $296, which is $14.80 on each of 20 invoices. Total cost is $966 to $1,266, which leaves a gross margin of about 87.3% to 90.3%.

Two things this leaves out are important. It excludes your own time, which is the real cost of the business, and anything you spend finding clients. And it assumes the client's chat usage fits inside the credits the plan includes. A client with heavy chat or long calls will cost more, so price retainers with a usage allowance, not as unlimited.

One more result is useful when deciding whether to start. The fixed cost is $199, and each client at a $500 retainer contributes roughly $447 after card and voice costs, even at the high end. One client covers the platform. At 21 clients you would need Elite at $349, or a second workspace.

Monthly cost against revenue, 20 clients at $500 (our arithmetic)^5,6,9

Revenue$10,000

Total cost, high voice estimate$1,266

Total cost, low voice estimate$966

Platform fee alone$199

Our arithmetic from the published prices in the table above. Assumes 300 voice minutes per client per month and excludes your time, marketing and tax.

What to charge

This is the weakest part of the evidence. We searched for a survey of what AI chatbot and voice agencies charge their clients and found none: the pricing guides that exist are written by software vendors and mix subscription prices with custom-build quotes. We have not put a retainer range on this page because we cannot source one.

What we can source is the nearest comparison. Clutch's AI pricing guide, updated September 2026, puts the average hourly rate of AI development companies at $25 to $49 worldwide and $50 to $99 in the US, with projects typically costing $10,000 to $49,999 ⁷. That describes custom development for larger buyers, which is a different product from a hosted agent on a retainer. It does show that a $500 monthly retainer is small next to what the same buyers pay for custom work.

The practical approach is to price against the problem, not the software. If a clinic misses ten calls a month and a new patient is worth a few hundred dollars, a few hundred dollars a month is an easy decision. Say what the retainer covers, what usage is included and what happens above it.

A one-off setup fee for the first build, separate from the retainer.
A monthly retainer that names the number of agents, channels and included voice minutes.
A usage rule for anything above that allowance, so a busy month does not eat your margin.
A review each month with the client's own conversation numbers.

How to avoid overpromising

Regulators have started to act on exaggerated AI claims. In September 2024 the US Federal Trade Commission announced Operation AI Comply, cases against companies it said used AI hype to deceive. One, DoNotPay, had marketed itself as the world's first robot lawyer and agreed to pay $193,000 ⁸.

For a reseller the lesson is practical. Do not promise an agent that replaces a receptionist. Promise that it answers every call and message, books what it can and hands the rest to a person, and show the transcripts. Tell clients what the agent cannot do, such as take payments or give medical or legal advice, and set the handoff to a human before you go live.

Your first 90 days

None of this needs a large budget, and the platform has a free plan for building and testing before you pay. A sensible order is below. It is our suggestion, not a measured playbook.

Weeks 1 and 2: pick one kind of business you can describe in a sentence, such as dental practices or HVAC contractors. Build a demo agent on a real local business's public website and hours.
Weeks 3 to 4: take the demo to ten owners and offer a free two-week trial on their own number or site. Do not price in the first meeting.
Weeks 5 to 8: convert the trials, set the retainer and the usage allowance in writing, and connect Stripe so clients pay you directly.
Weeks 9 to 12: review every client's transcripts, fix wrong answers, and write down one number you improved for each, such as calls answered after hours.

Start free See white label plans

Where this page is weak

Convocore sells the platform this page prices, so the cost model uses our own plan figures and our own estimate for model costs. The other inputs are third-party published prices that we opened. Compare platforms before you commit; our sourced comparison is on the best white label AI platforms page.

Compare white label platforms

What the evidence does not show

We found no survey of what AI agencies charge their clients or earn, so there is no retainer range here.
The 69% voicemail figure is from a 2016 study of UK-based micro businesses commissioned by an answering service. It is old and not a measure of how many callers an AI agent recovers ¹.
The Hiya survey measures whether people answer calls they do not recognise, not whether they leave voicemail or call back, so it supports a point about outbound calls only ².
We could not open the Small Business Administration's own FAQ page. The 36.2 million figure comes from a search summary of the Advocacy release ¹⁰.
Well-known statistics such as '85% of callers never call back' have no primary source that we could find, so we left them out.
The margin example assumes call volumes and model costs. Real clients vary a lot, and heavy chat or long calls cost more than the example allows for.

Is this a good business to start?

The costs are low and mostly fixed, and the problem you solve is real and long-standing. The evidence for how much you can charge is thin, so test the price on your first two or three clients and keep the usage allowance tight.

If you want to try it, Convocore's free plan lets you build and test agents before you pay. White Label is $199 a month for 20 clients with no revenue share, and Elite is $349 for unlimited clients and client self-signup.

White label AI platform →Pricing →

Method and limits

Every number comes from a source we opened and read on 25 October 2026, except where a note says otherwise. Sources are labelled primary, commissioned, secondary or forecast.
Prices for Twilio and Stripe were read from their own pricing pages. Convocore's plan figures are read from its plan catalog, the same one that drives its pricing page.
The margin example is our own arithmetic. Its inputs are listed under the example and can be changed.
Convocore sells a white label AI agent platform to agencies and has a commercial interest here. If you find an error, write to support@convocore.ai and we will correct it.

Sources

Findings of small business call report revealedCommissioned research
Moneypenny. 21 November 2016.
A telephone answering company's report. A survey of 300 micro businesses (0 to 9 employees) it commissioned, plus call data from 10,000 businesses. The 69% figure is callers who reached voicemail and hung up. Dated.
Survey: Voice calls are critical for businesses and consumers (State of the Call 2025)Commissioned research
Hiya. 21 October 2025.
Commissioned by a call-security vendor: more than 12,000 consumers, 1,800 workers and 600 IT and security executives across the UK, US, Canada, France, Germany and Spain. We read the blog summary, not the full report.
The Microstructure of AI Diffusion: Evidence from Firms, Business Functions, and Worker Tasks (CES-26-25)Primary source
US Census Bureau, Center for Economic Studies (Bonney, Breaux, Dinlersoz, Foster, Haltiwanger, Pande). April 2026; reference period November 2025 to January 2026.
We read the paper's abstract page. A working paper based on the 2026 AI supplement to the Business Trends and Outlook Survey. Function shares are among firms that use AI.
Large Firms With at Least 20 Employees Biggest AI UsersPrimary source
US Census Bureau, Business Trends and Outlook Survey. Published 26 May 2026; data 14 December 2025 to 3 May 2026.
Read on 9 October 2026.
Programmable Voice pricing, United StatesPrimary source
Twilio. Pricing current as of August 2026; read 25 October 2026.
List prices for local and toll-free numbers and call minutes. Volume discounts and other fees may apply.
Stripe pricingPrimary source
Stripe. Read 25 October 2026.
Standard US online card rate, international card and currency conversion add-ons, and dispute fees. Rates differ by country and plan.
AI Pricing GuidePrimary source
Clutch. Updated 21 September 2026.
Figures come from projects reviewed on Clutch. The page does not state a sample size.
FTC Announces Crackdown on Deceptive AI Claims and Schemes (Operation AI Comply)Primary source
US Federal Trade Commission. 25 September 2024.
A press release announcing five cases. Allegations in a complaint are not findings, and some cases settled. We did not check the later history of each case.
White label AI platform and pricingPrimary source
Convocore. Plan catalog as of 25 October 2026.
First party. Convocore is the publisher of this page and sells the plans described, so it has a commercial interest. The model-cost estimate is Convocore's own.
Frequently Asked Questions About Small Businesses 2026Secondary report
US Small Business Administration, Office of Advocacy. 3 February 2026.
We could not open this page (access refused) and read a search summary of it. It reports 36.2 million small businesses in the United States.

Questions

What is a white label AI agency?

A reseller. It rents an AI agent platform, puts its own brand and domain on it, builds chat and voice agents for local businesses and bills a monthly fee. The platform provides the software and the agency provides the client relationship and the setup.

How much does it cost to start a white label AI agency?

The main fixed cost is the platform. Convocore's White Label plan is $199 a month for 20 client sub-accounts, with a free plan to build and test first. Phone numbers cost $1.15 a month on Twilio and card payments cost 2.9% plus 30 cents.

How much can a white label AI agency make?

We found no survey of agency earnings. In our worked example, 20 clients paying $500 a month leave a gross margin of roughly 87.3% to 90.3% before your own time, marketing and tax. That depends entirely on the assumed call volumes.

What should I charge clients?

We could not source a retainer range, because no survey of agency pricing exists. Price against the problem the client has, state what usage is included and set a rule for anything above it.

Do local businesses actually want AI agents?

Few have one yet. The Census Bureau found 18% of US firms used AI in a business function in late 2025 and early 2026, and under 20% of firms with four or fewer employees. The clearest need is calls and messages that go unanswered.

Does Convocore take a share of what I charge clients?

No. Convocore charges a flat platform fee plus usage on both white label plans, and you keep everything you bill your clients.

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