The WhatsApp Business Calling API, explained for teams
Customers can call your business on WhatsApp, and you can call them back — with permission. How user-initiated and business-initiated calls work, and the rules to follow.
Meta launched voice calling on the WhatsApp Business Platform in 2025. It brings the most natural channel there is — a phone call — into the app your customers already use, without a phone number they have to dial.
Two kinds of calls
| User-initiated | Business-initiated | |
|---|---|---|
| Who starts it | The customer taps call in your chat or profile | Your team calls the customer |
| Permission | Not needed | Customer must grant call permission first |
| Cost | No charge to the business | Billed per minute by Meta, by destination |
| Availability | Where Cloud API calling is enabled | Not available in every country |
Call permissions
Before you can call a customer, you ask — with a call permission request in the chat. Meta limits how often you can ask, gives you a limited window to use a permission, and revokes it automatically after repeated unanswered calls. The exact limits change, so check Meta’s current documentation.
Ask in context: “Shall I call you to walk through the fitting options?” converts far better than a cold permission request.
Running calls as a team
- Ring everyone who’s available; the first to answer takes the call.
- Set call hours and pause calling on holidays so customers aren’t left ringing.
- Log every call — answered, missed, declined — in the customer’s thread with who handled it.
- Add recording and transcription where it helps, with a clear purpose.
ThreadWave handles all of this on the desktop, alongside Messenger calls and regular phone numbers from Twilio or Telnyx.