WhatsApp Business Calling API.
Pricing, limits and setup.

The WhatsApp Business Calling API is the part of Meta’s WhatsApp Business Platform that lets a business take and make WhatsApp voice calls through its own software, rather than on a phone. A customer taps the call button in your chat, and the call rings in your contact-centre app, a browser softphone, or an AI voice agent. Your business can also call customers who have agreed to it.

It’s plumbing, not a product you talk through. The API connects the call and tells your app what’s happening through webhooks; the audio runs over WebRTC or, once Meta enables it for you, SIP. Who or what speaks to the customer, a person or an AI, is up to the software you connect.

Two things rule many businesses out from the start: the number must be on Meta’s Cloud API, not the WhatsApp Business app, and the business needs a messaging limit of at least 2,000 unique customers a day. The WhatsApp Business app vs API post explains that split.

Meta prices calls by who starts them:

Four rules decide the bill for the calls you make:

• 6-second pulses, rounded up. A 56-second call is 9.33 pulses, billed as 10, so you pay for 60 seconds.
• The callee’s country sets the rate, by the country code of the number you call. Meta publishes rate cards in several currencies, including USD, INR, GBP, and MXN; the current ones took effect on 1 April 2026.
• Volume tiers lower the rate as your calling minutes to a country add up within a calendar month. A call that crosses into a cheaper tier is billed entirely at the cheaper rate.
• A payment method is required before your number can place calls.

Then add the software. Providers that resell the API usually charge a monthly plan or their own per-minute fee, and if an AI answers, you also pay for speech-to-text, the language model, and text-to-speech. Messages around the calls, such as permission requests and follow-ups, follow Meta’s per-message pricing, explained in WhatsApp Business API pricing.

Meta changes rates and pricing rules each quarter. Check the rate card for your customers’ country before you budget.

Customers can call you whenever your number has calling switched on. Calling them is tightly controlled:

• Permission first. You can only call a customer who has granted call permission, usually by accepting a permission request you send in the chat.
• Few requests. A production account can send each customer 1 permission request a day and 2 a week. Sandbox and test numbers get 25 a day and 100 a week.
• Missed calls cost you the permission. After 2 unanswered calls in a row, Meta sends you a system message asking you to reconsider. After 4, the customer’s permission is revoked automatically.
• Some business numbers can’t call out. Business-initiated calls work wherever the Cloud API works, except for business numbers from the United States, Canada, Egypt, Vietnam, and Nigeria. The customer’s number can be from any supported country.

The rules exist to stop WhatsApp turning into a robocall channel, and they shape what the API is good for: answering customers who call you, and calling back people who asked for it.

A typical setup, whether you work with Meta directly or through a provider:

1. Get a Cloud API number with a verified business and a messaging limit of at least 2,000 unique customers a day.
2. Switch calling on in the phone number’s call settings, and choose when the call button shows.
3. Subscribe your app to the calls webhook, so it hears about incoming calls, and give it the whatsapp_business_messaging permission.
4. Connect the audio. Your app accepts calls and exchanges media over WebRTC, or Meta enables SIP so a phone system or voice AI platform can take the call.
5. Add a payment method if you’ll call customers, and build the permission request into your chat flow.

Steps 3 and 4 are developer work. Most small businesses use a provider that has already built them, and pay that provider’s plan on top of Meta’s rates.

An AI that answers WhatsApp calls needs three pieces: a way into the call, a voice agent (speech-to-text, a language model, and text-to-speech), and your business information. There are two ways in:

The Calling API is the official route and the right one for contact centres, large teams, and anyone who needs Meta’s platform. Linking your number as a device is the quick route: Wapzen connects the number you already use, by QR code, and its AI voice agent answers incoming WhatsApp calls and makes outbound ones, with your instructions and knowledge base. It’s currently free, with the AI models and voices included.

Wapzen is an independent product, not made by Meta or WhatsApp. It links your number as a device, not through the Calling API. Call only people who expect your call: WhatsApp restricts numbers that make unwanted calls.