Value	Description
Unified Communication	One Number. Message and call. Worldwide.
Branding and Trust	Branding that is built-in, trusted, and global.
Customer Relationship	Increase Stickiness. Deepen Personal Touch.
Sales and Support	Unify Marketing and Support. Unlock Upsell.
Rich Features	Video, Screen Share, and Full Call Customization.
Call Deflection	Call in WhatsApp. Improve deflection rates.
Customer Convenience	Free, Universal Access for your customers.
Record Keeping	One Thread. Centralized, Long-Term Record.

Benefits for end-users

Value	Description
Universal Access	Simple, free, and familiar global connection.
Enhanced Safety	Safer due to built-in platform trust/verification.
Centralized History	One unified thread for all voice and text history.
Voicemail Integrated	A voicemail* playable within the chat context.

Disclaimer: * Feature planned or in development. Reach out to your Meta or partner for more details

Value proposition (detailed)

The WhatsApp Business Calling API allows businesses to integrate voice and video* calling directly into their customer engagement strategy, offering a trusted, unified, and feature-rich communication channel.

Feature	Benefit for Your Business
Unified Communication	One Number. All Communication. Multi-modal. Use a single, verified WhatsApp number for all messaging and calling (inbound and outbound), enabling a seamless flow between chat and call, and even chatting while on a call.
Branding and Trust	Branding that is built-in, trusted, and global. WhatsApp has native support for brand identity with security and verification, which provides instant trust globally, eliminating the need for region-specific third-party trust providers.
Customer Relationship	Increase Stickiness. Deepen Personal Touch. A single point of contact for both inbound and outbound communication enhances personal touch, increases customer stickiness, and ensures lasting customer loyalty.
Sales and Support	Unify Marketing and Support. Unlock Upsell. Centralize lead management by unifying support and marketing channels, which streamlines operations and unlocks opportunities for product upsell and cross-sell.
Rich Features	More Than a Call. Get Video, Screen Sharing, and Advanced Control. Beyond voice, businesses can engage customers with video calls and screen sharing for richer, more detailed support and service. Businesses also control the calling experience by configuring calling hours, managing call icon visibility, sending call buttons with expiry, using call deeplinks.
Call Deflection	Call in WhatsApp. Improve deflection rates. By moving calls to WhatsApp, businesses can seamlessly guide customers to a richer chat experience, leveraging interactive messaging templates to improve deflection and reduce voice-only support costs.
Customer Convenience	Always Free, Always Universal Access. Offer your customers a convenient and globally accessible communication method that is free for them to use.
Record Keeping	One Thread. Centralized, Long-Term Record. Maintain a single, persistent thread of all text and voice communications with the customer, serving as a centralized, long-term record for reference.

Disclaimer: * Feature planned or in development. Reach out to your Meta or partner for more details

Architecture

(Right click image and choose “Open in new tab” for enlarged image)

Signaling and media possible configurations

	Default configuration after enabling calling	SIP with WebRTC	SIP with SDES media
Signaling protocol	Graph APIs + Webhooks	SIP (needs explicit enablement)	SIP (needs explicit enablement)
Signaling transport	HTTPS	TLS	TLS
Media protocol	WebRTC (ICE + DTLS¹ + SRTP)	WebRTC (ICE + DTLS + SRTP)	SDES⁠ SRTP (needs explicit enablement)
Audio codec²	OPUS	OPUS	OPUS

Notes

You can use SDES instead of ICE+DTLS with Graph API + Webhook signaling

Additional audio codecs supported: PCMA, PCMU

Get started

Step 1: Prerequisites

Before you get started with the Calling API, ensure that:

Your business number is in use with Cloud API (not the WhatsApp Business app)

Subscribe your app to the calls webhook field (unless you plan to use SIP)

The same app should also be subscribed to the WhatsApp Business Account of your business phone number.

This app should have messaging permissions (whatsapp_business_messaging) for the business number

The business must have a daily messaging limit of at least 2,000 unique recipients. More details on scaling your account capabilities⁠.

Enable Calling features on your business phone number

Step 2: Configure optional calling features

The WhatsApp Business Calling API offers a number of features that affect when and how calling features appear to users on your WhatsApp profile

Inbound call control allows you to prevent users from placing calls from your business profile

Business call hours allows you to avoid missed calls and direct users to message when your call center is closed

Callback requests offer users the option to request a callback when you don’t pick up a call or if your call center is closed

Learn more about call control settings

Step 3: Make and receive calls

You can test your WhatsApp Calling integration using public test numbers and Sandbox WhatsApp Business Account.

Learn more about testing your WhatsApp Calling API integration

Cloud API Calling offers two call initiation paths:

User-initiated calls: Calls that are made from a WhatsApp user to your business

Business-initiated calls: Calls that are made from your business to a WhatsApp user

Testing and Sandbox accounts

Sandbox accounts are only available to Tech Partners.

Sandbox accounts and public test numbers enable you to test you WhatsApp Calling API integration with relaxed calling limitations. Specifically business initiated calling limits are relaxed for Sandbox accounts and public test numbers to help integration and testing efforts.

Limits (Per business + WhatsApp user pair)

Sandbox accounts can send 25 call permissions per day and 100 per week (compared to 1 per day and 2 per week for production accounts)

When business-initiated calls go unanswered or are rejected

5 consecutive unanswered calls result in system message to reconsider an approved permission (compared to 2 consecutive unanswered calls for production accounts)

10 consecutive unanswered calls result in an approved permission being automatically revoked. (compared to 4 consecutive unanswered calls for production accounts)

You obtain a public test number after completing the Get Started flow.

Your business is not required to have a daily messaging limit of 2,000 unique recipients to test Calling API features when using public test numbers and Sandbox accounts.

Calling is disabled by default on test numbers. You must configure calling features in phone number call settings before using the Calling API on a test number.

Learn more about Sandbox Accounts for Calling

Availability

User-initiated calling

User-initiated calling is available in every location Cloud API is available.

Business-initiated calling

Business-initiated calling is currently available in every location Cloud API is available, except the following countries:

USA

Canada

Egypt

Vietnam

Nigeria

Note: The business phone number’s country code must be in this supported list. The consumer phone number can be from any country where Cloud API is available.

Next steps

Use the guides below to integrate calling features in your application:

Learn how to receive user-initiated calls

Learn how to place business-initiated calls

Learn how to drive consumer awareness of calling availability in your business

Changelog

Use this table as a centralized place to keep track of feature updates related to WhatsApp Business Calling APIs

Date	Title	Description
March 23, 2026	Support for G.711 (PCMA, PCMU) audio codec	New section for G.711 (PCMA/PCMU) audio codec configuration in call settings, including guidelines on transcoding, audio quality, and bandwidth considerations. Learn more about audio codec settings.
January 27, 2026	Calling restrictions based on user feedback are now in effect	Learn more about calling restrictions based on user feedback.
December 19, 2025	Update in business initiated call limit	The number of business-initiated calls per user has been increased to 100 per day from 10 per day. Learn more about business-initiated call limits
December 10, 2025	Introduced `restrict_to_user_countries` for call icon settings	Now you can control in which countries the call icon should be visible. Learn more about call icon country settings.
October 13, 2025	Update in business initiated call limit Added “Testing and Sandbox” section to documentation	The number of business-initiated calls per user has been increased to 10 per day from 5 per day. Learn more about business-initiated call limits A Testing and Sandbox accounts has been added to the documentation
September 29, 2025	Asterisk integration guide	New guide to integrate with Asterisk
September 24, 2025	Context propagation from call buttons and deep links	Specify an opaque string in call buttons or call deep links to help with tracking the origin of user-initiated calls. Learn more
September 8, 2025	Health status API calling update	Health Status API is now extended to include a new `can_receive_call_sip` field to help you self-diagnose issues related to SIP setup
September 5, 2025	Introduced new low call pickup calling restrictions	Low call pickup rate restrictions are now in effect. Learn more at Calling Restriction for Low Call Pickup Rates
July 21, 2025	Account settings update webhooks	Get webhooks when settings are updated. Learn more.

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