# Build your first phone agent in 5 minutes

Deploy your first phone agent in 5 minutes.

**Retell** is a platform for building, testing, deploying, and monitoring reliable **AI phone agents** that can handle natural conversations over the phone.

1

Create Your Account

1. Visit the [Retell Dashboard](https://dashboard.retellai.com/)
2. Sign up for a new account

2

Create a New Agent

1. Navigate to the “Agents” tab
2. Click “Create an agent”
3. Choose a template
   * If you are not sure which template to choose, we recommend starting with “Lead qualification” in “Multi Prompt” category.

![Agent template selection screen](https://mintlify.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/retellai/images/template.png)3

Test Your Agent

1. Click the “Test” button to test your agent

![Web calling interface](https://mintlify.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/retellai/images/dashboard-web-call.png)4

Add your payment method

1. Before buying a phone number, you need to add a payment method to your account
2. Go to the “Billing” tab and click “Change payment methods”

![Web calling interface](https://mintlify.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/retellai/images/payment_1.png)![Web calling interface](https://mintlify.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/retellai/images/payment_2.png)5

Deploy to a Phone Number

1. Go to the “Phone Numbers” tab
2. Click “Buy New Number”
3. (Optional) Enter the area code you want to buy the number for
4. Purchase your number
5. Assign your agent to the number in the configuration settings

![](https://mintlify.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/retellai/images/dashboard-phone.png)6

Test Your Phone Agent

1. Incoming Calls:
   * Dial your purchased number
2. Outbound Calls:
   * Click “Make an outbound call”
   * Enter the phone number including the country code (e.g., `+12137774445`)

🎉 Congratulations! Your agent is now live and can:

* Receive incoming calls
* Make outbound calls
* Handle natural conversations
* Process requests 24/7
