Voice and phone calls

On Starter, Growth and Scale, visitors can talk to your AI agent instead of typing. Voice is built into the widget: a voice call reaches the same agent that answers in chat, with the same knowledge base, custom actions, appointment booking and human handoff. You can also connect your own phone number, and the agent answers calls to it. Every call's transcript lands in your team inbox.

Turn on voice

1. Open Voice & phone

   Click Voice & phone in the sidebar. The Status card shows Off until you switch voice on. On Free, the page shows only the paid-plans card; click See plans to upgrade first.

2. Switch on voice calls

   Turn on Voice calls in the widget, pick a voice and a language, and click Save voice settings. The badge shows Setting up… for a few seconds and then Ready. If it shows Needs attention, the card explains why and offers Try again.

3. Make a test call

   Click Test the agent in the page header and tap Start a voice call in the drawer. Test calls from the dashboard are free and do not use your monthly allowance.

Voice settings

All of these live on the Voice & phone page. After you save, the agent picks up the change within a few seconds.

• Voice: 20 ElevenLabs voices with American, British, Australian and Swedish accents, each with a preview. Every voice speaks every supported language.
• Main language and Also understand: the language the agent listens for and speaks by default, from 32 languages, plus up to 5 more; the agent switches when a caller uses one of them.
• Spoken greeting: the first thing a caller hears, up to 500 characters. Leave it empty to use the chat greeting. If you tell visitors they are talking to an AI, say it here too.
• Typing during calls: lets visitors type a message during a call and hear the reply. Off by default.
• Longest call: 5, 10, 15, 30 or 60 minutes; 15 by default. The widget shows "This call ends in about a minute." near the end.
• Hang up after silence: 1, 2, 5 or 10 minutes without speech; 5 by default.
• Calls at the same time and Calls per day: your own limits, up to your plan's. Calls per day counts widget and phone calls together.
• Phone number to show: adds a Call us card to the widget home. It opens a Contact Us screen with the number, Copy Number and Call Now. It can be any number, not only one you connect below.
• Transfer phone calls to: where the agent sends a caller on a connected number who asks for a person. Leave it empty and the agent takes a message instead.

What visitors see

• Start a voice call appears on the widget's home screen, and as a microphone button in the chat, once voice is on and ready. It opens the Voice Chat screen; the first time, the browser asks for microphone permission, and the visitor taps Start call.
• During the call the screen shows Listening..., Thinking… or Assistant Speaking... while the transcript builds up. The visitor can Mute, type if you allow it, or tap Continue in chat to end the call and carry on in the same conversation, with the call transcript above. End call stops the call, and so does closing the widget.
• When every line is busy or the daily limit is reached, the visitor sees a short message asking them to send a message instead, and chat keeps working.

The same screens appear on your hosted chat page.

Connect a phone number

Phone numbers are included on Starter, Growth and Scale. Switch voice on and wait for Ready first; the agent then answers your number with the same knowledge, actions and inbox as the widget. Your carrier bills the line itself; call minutes count on your PepoChat plan like widget calls. PepoChat doesn't sell numbers: if you don't have one yet, Get a phone number walks through buying one from Twilio, finding the credentials and keeping the number your customers already call.

A Twilio number

1. Buy the number in Twilio

   Any Twilio voice number works. For the credentials, a Twilio API key (SK…) is safer than your account SID and auth token. See Get a phone number for where to find each one.

2. Connect it in PepoChat

   On Voice & phone, click Connect a Twilio number and enter the number in international format (for example +14155552671), an optional label, the Account SID or API key SID and the Auth token or API key secret. PepoChat configures the number to route calls to your agent; the credentials are passed on and never stored.

3. Call it

   The page confirms "Number connected. Calls to it now reach your agent." Call the number from your phone to hear the greeting.

A SIP trunk

1. Add the number

   On Voice & phone, click Connect a SIP trunk and enter the number in international format and an optional label. If you want them, add Allowed source addresses (IPs or CIDR blocks your carrier sends from, one per line; empty allows any) and a Digest username and Digest password.

2. Point your carrier at the agent

   Set your carrier or PBX to send calls for the number to sip.rtc.elevenlabs.io, on TLS port 5061 (recommended) or TCP port 5060, with the number, including the +, before the @. For example: sip:[email protected]:5061;transport=tls. The numbers list on Voice & phone shows the exact address for each number.

Removing a number from the list stops calls to it reaching your agent. The number itself stays in your Twilio account or with your carrier.

While voice is switched off, still setting up, or your plan no longer includes phone numbers, connected numbers show as Paused: calls to them don't reach your agent. They reconnect on their own once voice is on and Ready again, with no need to enter your Twilio or carrier details again. After a move to Free, the list stays on Voice & phone so you can remove the numbers.

How calls are billed

There are no separate voice credits. One started minute of a call, in the widget or on the phone, counts as 6 AI replies on your plan's monthly allowance.

• A call of 3 minutes 20 seconds counts as 4 minutes, so 24 replies. Calls shorter than 5 seconds are free.
• Minutes past the allowance are billed like any other replies, at $39 per 1,000, which is about $0.23 a minute.
• Test calls from the dashboard are free.
• Only minutes are counted. The limits on calls at the same time and calls per day cost nothing; they protect your allowance.
• Phone calls also carry your carrier's own charge for the line, billed by Twilio or your SIP provider.

The Status card on Voice & phone shows this month's call minutes and roughly how many replies they used, today's calls against your daily limit, and how many lines are in use right now. See Plans, billing and usage for the allowances and a worked example.

Calls in the inbox

Every call becomes a conversation in the team inbox, tagged Voice for a widget call or Phone for a call to your number. A card at the top shows the call's status, when it started, how long it lasted and how it ended; a phone caller appears as "Caller ending" and the last four digits, never the full number. While a call is live the transcript updates as the visitor talks, and the visitor cannot read typed replies until the call ends. After the call the conversation works like any other: assign it, tag it, add notes and resolve it. A widget caller who asks for a person is handed off to your team as in chat; a phone caller goes to your transfer number, or the agent takes a message.

Privacy

Speech is turned into text and back into speech by ElevenLabs, a sub-processor for voice. ElevenLabs keeps call transcripts for 30 days, and no audio is recorded. PepoChat keeps the transcript with the conversation under your data retention setting. See the Security overview.

Troubleshooting

• No voice button: the workspace is on Free, voice is off, or setup has not finished. On a paid plan, the Status badge must read Ready.
• "Voice isn't set up for this organization yet." Switch on Voice calls in the widget and save.
• "The voice call couldn't be started. Please try again." Usually a denied microphone permission. Ask the visitor to allow the microphone for your site and try again.
• "All our lines are busy right now." Every simultaneous call your settings allow is in use. Raise Calls at the same time if your plan allows more.
• "The daily call limit has been reached." Raise Calls per day, up to your plan's limit, or wait for the next day (UTC).
• "Voice calls are available on the paid plans." The workspace is on Free. The Voice & phone page shows this card with a See plans button instead of the settings, and the widget never shows a call button. Upgrade to Starter, Growth or Scale to switch voice on; a workspace that drops back to Free loses the call button.
• A phone call does not reach the agent: check that the number is in international format with the +. For a SIP trunk, check that your carrier sends to the address shown in the numbers list and, if you set them, from an allowed source address with the right credentials.