Click-to-Call and WhatsApp Buttons on Mobile: Floating Button or Bottom Bar?

For a local business or a store that sells by chat, the most valuable mobile button is often "Call" or "WhatsApp". You can show it as a floating chat bubble — Joinchat or Click to Chat — or as one button in an app-style bottom bar next to Shop, Search and Book, as MenuVerse Pro does. Use a floating button when chat is the main action; use a bottom bar when it's one of several.

Two patterns

Floating WhatsApp buttons

From each plugin's WordPress.org readme as of October 27, 2026.

Joinchat (700,000+ active installs) is the most-installed WhatsApp plugin. Its floating button opens the WhatsApp app on phones and WhatsApp Desktop, WhatsApp Web or a QR code on computers. It adds call-to-action greetings, dynamic start messages that include the page or product, a WooCommerce contact button next to Add to cart, a click counter and events for Google Analytics 4, Tag Manager and Facebook Pixel. You can customise it site-wide or per page, product or category.

Click to Chat by HoliThemes (600,000+) offers eight customisable styles, your own image or GIF, shortcodes for inline buttons, and different styles and positions for mobile and desktop. You can turn any element — a menu item, a button — into a WhatsApp link by giving it the class ctc_chat.

Float Menu (30,000+) is a floating side menu with several buttons — WhatsApp, Telegram, Messenger, a phone number, "Book now" — in a vertical or horizontal stack, with Font Awesome icons and options to hide it on small or large screens.

Pick a floating button if: most visitors come to ask questions — a service business, a shop that takes orders by chat — and you want greetings and analytics.

Buttons in a bottom bar: MenuVerse

MenuVerse's Bottom Menu is an app-style navigation bar pinned to the bottom of the screen on phones. The free version gives you four buttons (plus a More drawer) linking to pages, URLs or a search sheet.

MenuVerse Pro adds dedicated WhatsApp and phone buttons, so a bar for a restaurant might read:

Or for a store: Shop · Search · Cart (with a live count) · WhatsApp.

Pro also adds per-button visibility by role or sign-in state, page rules for where the bar appears, custom colours per button so the WhatsApp button can be green, and a dark-mode palette.

On the free version: a URL button can link to tel:+15551234567 or https://wa.me/15551234567 — it works, without the dedicated button styles and options.

Pick a bottom bar if: calling or messaging is important but so are other actions, and you'd rather have one tidy bar than a bubble on top of your content.

Don't stack floating things

The most common mobile mistake: a WhatsApp bubble, a back-to-top button, a cookie notice and a chat widget all in the bottom-right corner. They cover each other and the content.

• Choose one floating button, or a bottom bar — not both in the same spot.
• If you use a bottom bar, put any back-to-top button above it or turn it off on phones.
• Keep the cookie notice's buttons uncovered.

Get the links right

• Phone: tel: followed by the full international number, no spaces: tel:+441234567890.
• WhatsApp: https://wa.me/ followed by the number in international format without +, spaces or dashes: https://wa.me/441234567890. Add ?text= with a URL-encoded message to pre-fill it.
• Test on a real phone — and on a computer, where tel: links may open a calling app or do nothing.

Respect opening hours

A "Call now" button at 2 AM sets the wrong expectation. If you can't answer around the clock, say so near the button or on the contact page, and offer WhatsApp or a form for out-of-hours messages.

Which should you choose?

For setting up the bar itself, see how to add a mobile bottom navigation bar. ExtenderX Pro also includes a Sticky WhatsApp Button if you already use ExtenderX.