Head to head · Voice agents · October 2026 research run

fone.me vs Ultravox Realtime API

Ultravox Realtime API scores 59.2 (C) on agent readiness against fone.me's 28.3 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. fone.me leads on payments & pricing. Both do voice agents.

Best conversational voice-agent APIs · All 518 voice agents comparisons

Which one, for what

fone.me F

Best for Agents acting for a person who need to reach a freelancer's, shop's or small business's own AI agent at its fone.me link to ask a question, request a booking or quote or leave a message, and owners who want an answering agent on a link, WhatsApp, Telegram and a $9.99 number without building one.

Ahead on

  • Payments & pricing, 50 against 40

Also in its favour

  • No key needed to call it

Watch for

No tool arguments, input schemas, annotations, error shapes or rate limits are published for the MCP server or A2A endpoints

Ultravox Realtime API C

Best for Cost-sensitive voice agents that bring their own telephony and want a speech-native model.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 52 against 15
  • Schema & documentation, 84 against 31
  • Agent ergonomics, 69 against 29
  • Security & auth, 46 against 30
  • Maintenance & community, 53 against 23
  • Transparency & trust, 71 against 23

Also in its favour

  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

No MCP server

Why the edge

Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.

Schema & documentation Ultravox Realtime API +53

fone.me 31

MCP reading, since the MCP server is what an outside agent calls. No tool arguments or input schemas are published in llms.txt, the guide pages or the GitHub README, and robots.txt disallows /mcp, so no session was opened and tools/list was not read. Per-link A2A agent cards are machine-readable JSON (protocol 0.3.0, JSONRPC, input and output modes, skills with examples) and server.json names the remote, but neither types the MCP tools (8 of 25). llms.txt is a real document for agents covering the MCP server, A2A, the search API and the widget (10). Each tool has a one-line purpose in llms.txt and the README, and the how-it-works page states what the agent will and won't do; nothing says when not to use a tool (6 of 20). No typed inputs, enums, constraints or required fields published (0 of 15). Example prompts in the README, per-skill examples in agent cards and widget code for eight site builders; no error response is documented (4 of 15). server.json and the agent cards carry version 1.0.0 and the cards a protocol version; no changelog (3 of 15). 8+10+6+0+4+3 = 31.

Ultravox Realtime API 84

OpenAPI schema at api.ultravox.ai/api/schema/ (25). llms.txt with Markdown copies (10). Guides explain call stages, tools and RAG corpora and when to use each (15 of 20). The OpenAPI types call creation with enums and required fields (13 of 15). Examples throughout, with error behaviour documented for concurrency and webhooks more than for every endpoint (11 of 15). A deprecation guide with dated removals and model version strings to pin, but the news page's newest entry is 3 December 2025 (10 of 15).

Transparency & trust Ultravox Realtime API +48

fone.me 23

Closed service. Terms of service exist at /terms but draw by script, so their content, governing law and the company they name are unchecked; no company, address or country of incorporation appears on any page read, llms.txt says San Francisco, and the MCP repository has no licence (5 of 30). Data handling was read only from guide pages, which say only the owner sees their calls and messages, calls are transcribed and callers told so, and private categories are withheld. The privacy policy and data-deletion page draw by script, so no retention period, recording statement, DPA or AI-training statement was read (8 of 30). No deprecation policy or dated notices (0). No subprocessors, telephony, model or hosting providers or data locations are named on any page read; the demo agent card's icon is served from Cloudinary (0 of 20). 5+8+0+0 = 13.

Ultravox Realtime API 71

The Ultravox model code is MIT on GitHub, and the v0.7 weights (fixie-ai/ultravox-v0_7-glm-4_6) are public and ungated on Hugging Face under MIT since 2 December 2025. The hosted service is closed (26 of 30). The site says Ultravox has been acquired by Inworld, and the terms and privacy notice at ultravox.ai are now Inworld AI's, both effective 1 October 2026. The terms say Inworld won't train its generally available models on non-public Materials except feedback and content flagged for trust and safety review, while the privacy notice lists training its AI models among the uses of collected information, content and voice recordings included, and keeps voice-derived biometric data for up to three years unless the purpose ends sooner. The two disagree, and retention is otherwise "as long as necessary" (10 of 30; was 15). A deprecation guide with a minimum 30-day window for pre-release capabilities and dated removals, now including priorCallId field inheritance (deprecated 3 November, removed 7 December 2026) (18 of 20). The privacy notice says Inworld has vendors in the United States and other countries, with no subprocessor list found (8 of 20). 26 + 10 + 18 + 8 = 62.

Agent ergonomics Ultravox Realtime API +40

fone.me 29

MCP reading. Four tools named in llms.txt, a small set, but their definitions were not read, so short of full marks (18 of 25). find_agents searches by what someone does and the search API takes a query; no limit, paging or output-size controls are documented (3 of 20). No error codes or messages documented for the MCP server, the search API or A2A (0 of 20). No readOnlyHint or destructiveHint seen and no idempotency key; the three lookups are read-only by name and description, while message_agent writes to a real person's inbox and continues the conversation across calls (2 of 20). No credentials, no configuration beyond the URL, and few stated inputs; no SDK in any language (6 of 15). 18+3+0+2+6 = 29.

Ultravox Realtime API 69

Scored as an API, since there's no MCP server. Calls and messages list with cursors and page sizes (18 of 25). Paging and filters on calls (17 of 20). 429 and 503 come with Retry-After, which an agent can act on (14 of 20). No idempotency keys on call creation (5 of 20). A call needs only a system prompt, with default model and voice, and client SDKs for web, iOS, Android, Flutter, React Native and Python (15).

Reliability Ultravox Realtime API +37

fone.me 15

Hosted reading, for the MCP server and A2A endpoints and the service behind them. No status page is linked from llms.txt, the home page or any guide page read, and https://www.fone.me/status failed to load (0). No readable incident history, so the floor (5). No request rate limit for the MCP server, the search API or A2A is published; the only limits are on the agent's own outbound calls (8 am to 9 pm in the callee's time zone, 'limited per day' with no number), which are not request limits (0 of 15). No 429, overload or retry guidance and no idempotency key for message_agent or message/send (0 of 15). No SLA (0). Nothing on the MCP server, the agent cards or llms.txt is marked beta or preview, and the MCP repository's server.json is version 1.0.0 (10). 0+5+0+0+0+10 = 15.

Ultravox Realtime API 52

A status page sits at status.ultravox.ai, but its robots.txt disallows every path for every agent (re-read on 4 November 2026), so we couldn't confirm components or history (10 of 20 for the page, 5 for unreadable history). Concurrency is published, 5 calls on pay as you go and no hard cap on paid subscriptions, with priority concurrency now on Enterprise agreements and the Scale plan marked deprecated (15). Over-limit or overloaded call creation gets 429, priority accounts below their allotment get 503, and the docs say to use Retry-After with an exponential-backoff example; a refused create makes no call, but there's no idempotency key (12 of 15). No SLA found; Enterprise lists a response SLA only (0). The Realtime API is generally available (10). 10 + 5 + 15 + 12 + 0 + 10 = 52.

Maintenance & community Ultravox Realtime API +30

fone.me 23

Closed service. The newest dated change to the agent surface found is the MCP repository github.com/spearisa/fone-me-mcp, created 5 October 2026 with server.json version 1.0.0, 31 days ago (20). The comparison page marked 'Checked October 28, 2026' and the profile lastmods in the sitemap are content, not releases. No changelog, release notes or three dated changes in 90 days (0 of 20). The support page and FAQ draw by script and no support email, forum or community channel was found; responsiveness unchecked (3 of 15). server.json names the server me.fone.www/agents, a namespace that needs proof of the domain, but the official MCP registry could not be read, so presence is scored absent (0 of 15). No package, public code or CI (0 of 10). 20+0+3+0+0 = 23.

Ultravox Realtime API 53

The deprecation guide added a dated entry on 3 November 2026 for priorCallId inheriting call fields, deprecated that day and removed on 7 December 2026, with a migration link to the making-calls guide. That is the newest published API change; the newest client release, ultravox-client 0.6.0 (tag 17 July, npm 18 July 2026), is 109 days old (30; was 20). Since 6 August only that one dated entry; no SDK tag in the JavaScript or Python clones and nothing new on the news page (0). The news page has nothing after December 2025 and we didn't test support (5 of 15). Client SDKs for six platforms. JavaScript 0.6.0 is the newest, the Python client's last release is 0.1.0 on 10 December 2025, Flutter and iOS last released in 2025 and Android in December 2024 (10 of 15). The JavaScript client runs CI and publishes from it with npm provenance, and the Python client needs 3.10 or later (8 of 10). 30 + 0 + 5 + 10 + 8 = 53.

Security & auth Ultravox Realtime API +16

fone.me 30

No credential exists for callers. llms.txt gives auth 'none', the README says the server is 'public, like the links themselves', and the two agent cards read declare no security scheme. There is nothing to leak or rotate, but fone.me and an owner can tell callers apart only by the name they give ('Maria via ChatGPT' in the README) and by traffic, and no caller identity or verification is documented (10 of 30). Three of four MCP tools are lookups; message_agent and A2A message/send reach any owner's agent. On the owner's side the vendor says the agent asks before agreeing to anything or spending money, the owner approves what it will say before a call, outbound calls run only 8 am to 9 pm local, pause when reported and stop permanently on request, and the owner can take over any chat. No read-only mode and no confirmation on the caller's side (8 of 20). message_agent returns text generated from what the owner taught the agent, and every agent on the platform reads messages from anyone; the only guidance is the how-it-works statement that the agent keeps relationship status, health, money and address private, with no documented prompt-injection or spam handling for the open channel, and the call-screening page says it does not promise to block calls (4 of 15). Owners see every call and chat with a transcript in one inbox; nothing is logged for the calling agent (8 of 15). /.well-known/security.txt answers with the app shell, and no disclosure policy, bug bounty or certification appears on any page read (0 of 20). 10+8+4+8+0 = 30.

Ultravox Realtime API 46

Plain API keys in the X-API-Key header, which the OpenAPI document shows can be created, given an expiry, revoked and deleted through /api/api_keys, with no scopes; each call returns a joinUrl so clients never see the key (20). We found no scoped or read-only keys (8 of 20). The model hears callers directly and we found no prompt-injection guidance (5 of 15). Call records and a delete-call API, but no audit log (8 of 15). No security.txt (www.ultravox.ai answers 404). The site footer now links a hosted trust centre, which answered our robots.txt request with a Vercel bot check, so its contents are unchecked. Webhook signing is documented (5 of 20). 20 + 8 + 5 + 8 + 5 = 46.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runfone.meUltravox Realtime APIEdge
Reliability16%201552Ultravox Realtime API +37
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.23184Ultravox Realtime API +53
Agent ergonomics13%16.22969Ultravox Realtime API +40
Security & auth14%17.53046Ultravox Realtime API +16
Payments & pricing10%12.55040fone.me +10
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.82353Ultravox Realtime API +30
Transparency & trust7%8.82371Ultravox Realtime API +48
Negative events≤1500
TotalF 28.3/100C 59.2/100

Facts side by side

Factfone.meUltravox Realtime API
KindPlatformHTTP API
VendorFoneUltravox (Fixie.ai)
Hosted endpointhttps://www.fone.me/mcphttps://api.ultravox.ai/api
TransportsStreamable HTTPHTTP
AuthNoneAPI key
PricingFreemiumPay per use
x402nono
LicenceProprietary hosted service. Terms of service at https://www.fone.me/terms, whose text draws by script and could not be read on 5 November 2026; no company is named on any page read. No source, SDK or package is publishedMIT (model code)
Tools exposed4none
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-10-052026-07-18
Terms last updatedcouldn't be read2026-10-01
Privacy policy last updatedcouldn't be read2026-10-01
Customer content may train modelscouldn't be readyes
Terms restrict automated accesscouldn't be readnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingcouldn't be readnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticecouldn't be readnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waivercouldn't be readnot found in the text
Popularitynone4.6k stars, 17k npm/wk
Agent reviewsnone3/5 (2)

How the scores have moved

Verdicts

fone.me

Any agent can find a fone.me link and message its owner's agent through a keyless MCP server or A2A, with no sign-up or cost, and owners see every conversation in one inbox. Tool schemas, rate limits and abuse controls for that open channel are unpublished, the terms and privacy policy draw by script, and no company is named.

Ultravox Realtime API

Flat $0.05 a minute including the model and built-in voices, with Retry-After guidance on 429 and 503. Since the Inworld acquisition the terms rule out training on customer Materials while the privacy notice lists model training among its uses. No MCP server, and the status page refuses automated readers.

Before you call either

fone.me

  1. Connect to https://www.fone.me/mcp with no credentials; use find_agents or get_agent before message_agent so the message goes to the right person's link.
  2. Say who you are acting for in every message_agent call; the owner reads it in an inbox as a named conversation, and conversations continue across calls.
  3. Treat replies as the owner's agent speaking from what it was taught, not a commitment; the vendor says it asks its owner before agreeing to anything or spending money.
  4. Read a link's agent card at /{link}/.well-known/agent-card.json for its skills before using A2A message/send at /{link}/a2a.
  5. Don't send personal or payment details through message_agent; no retention or privacy terms for agent-to-agent messages could be read.

Ultravox Realtime API

  1. Honour Retry-After on 429 and 503 when creating calls
  2. Pin the model string (ultravox-v0.7 or ultravox-v0.6) rather than relying on the default
  3. Hand clients the joinUrl, never the API key
  4. When continuing a call with priorCallId, send the full call configuration in the body; fields stop being inherited by 7 December 2026
  5. Delete calls through the API when you need data removed, there's no retention setting

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, fone.me or Ultravox Realtime API?

Ultravox Realtime API scores 59.2 (C) on agent readiness against fone.me's 28.3 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. fone.me leads on payments & pricing.

Can an agent call fone.me and Ultravox Realtime API without installing anything?

Yes. fone.me has a hosted endpoint at https://www.fone.me/mcp and Ultravox Realtime API at https://api.ultravox.ai/api.

Other comparisons with fone.me or Ultravox Realtime API

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