How Much Data Does WhatsApp Call Use?

Undoubtedly, WhatsApp has been a game-changer and a major disrupter to the traditional mobile phone market. When it first came onto the scene, it threatened the profitability of mobile network providers who depended heavily on the income from voice calls and SMS services.

As the saying goes, if you can’t beat them, join them. Instead of fighting the platform, most mobile networks now offer special bundles dedicated to WhatsApp. WhatsApp started off offering only text message services within their app at a much lower cost than traditional texts and more efficiently than other popular chat apps at the time like Nimbuzz.

WhatsApp later introduced the call function which must have really put the mobile network companies on alert as this is really what threatened their bottom line. When compared with standard voice calls on mobile phones, WhatsApp calls are definitely cheaper.

How much data does a WhatsApp call use though? According to different sources online, WhatsApp calls use about 500 kb to 740kb per minute. This figure will change based on the strength of your connection and the quality of the service in your area being offered by your mobile network provider.

What this simply means is that if you have a good connection with a strong signal, you will use up slightly more data for a WhatsApp call.

How Much Data Does a WhatsApp Video Call Use?

Video calling has become popular these days with the increase in speeds and cheaper cost of data. How much can you expect to use during a video call though? For WhatsApp video calls, you can expect to use around 2.5MB of data per minute.  This figure also varies based on the strength of the signal of your connection.

How to Reduce Data Usage on WhatsApp Call

Did you know that you can actually reduce the data consumption of WhatsApp voice and video calls? You actually can, if you weren’t aware. To do this, follow these steps:

1.       Open WhatsApp and go to the 3 dots on the upper right corner

2.       Open Settings

3.       Tap on Storage and Data

4.       Go to Network Usage and Toggle the “use less data for calls” option

When you switch this function on, your calls will use less data. Bear in mind that this may affect the quality of your calls. If you use Econet, for example, you are already not able to make calls on a WhatsApp bundle but you are able to do so on a normal bundle.

We suggest that you activate the setting and see whether or not you will be able to make voice and video calls without any glitches.