Phone Calling

Overview

You can create and configure phone numbers with Vapi to place and receive calls. Vapi provides free phone numbers for national (US) use only—international numbers are not free. For international or custom use, you can import your own numbers from Twilio.

Setting up a phone number

You can set up a phone number to place and receive calls in two ways:

• Create a free US phone number:

  • Use the Vapi dashboard or the /phone-numbers endpoint.
  • Free numbers are only available for US national use.

• Import your own number (for international or custom use):

  • Use the dashboard or the /phone-numbers/import endpoint.
  • This uses your Twilio credentials to verify and configure the number with Vapi services.

Outbound calls

You can place an outbound call from one of your phone numbers using the /call endpoint.

• If the system message will be different with every call, specify a temporary assistant in the assistant field.
• To reuse an assistant, specify its ID in the assistantId field.
• Read more about outbound calls

Inbound calls

You can provide an assistantId to a phone number, and it will use that assistant for inbound calls.

• To specify the assistant based on the caller’s phone number, leave the assistantId blank. Vapi will attempt to retrieve the assistant from your server using your Server URL.

Video tutorial: Importing numbers from Twilio for international calls