WhatsApp poll or scheduling poll? Picking a date in a group chat
For two or three dates in a small group in one time zone, a WhatsApp poll is all you need. Past that it starts to creak: the options are just text, nobody can say maybe without using up an option, and the result never makes it into anyone's calendar.
What a WhatsApp poll can do
A WhatsApp poll has a question and between two and twelve options. You choose whether people can pick one answer or several, and by default everyone can see who voted for what.
WhatsApp's August 2026 update, which reaches phones gradually, adds three things: an end time that closes voting, the option to hide who voted even from the person who made the poll, and a short window to edit a poll after posting it. Letting voters add their own options has so far only appeared in beta.
WhatsApp Events is a separate feature: it fixes one date and time and lets people reply going, maybe or can't go. It is for announcing a date, not for choosing one.
When a WhatsApp poll is enough
Use one when there are two to four dates, everyone is in the same time zone, the group is small enough that a list of names under each option is readable, and you will confirm the result in the chat anyway. Friday or Saturday for a dinner, which of three weekends for a trip: a WhatsApp poll settles that in an afternoon.
Turn on multiple answers. A single-answer poll for dates tells you everyone's favourite, not which date everyone can make, and those are rarely the same.
Settle the time without the thread
Propose a few slots, share one link, and let the group vote. Guests never sign up.
Where it breaks down
The options are free text. '7pm Tuesday' means a different hour to someone in another time zone, and WhatsApp does not convert it. There is no calendar under the options either, so a typo in a date survives until someone turns up on the wrong day.
There is no maybe. Each option is a yes or nothing, so a maybe either uses up one of the twelve slots or never gets said, and the organiser cannot tell 'can't make it' from 'hasn't looked'.
Big groups make the result hard to read: thirty names under eight options is a long scroll. And when the date is settled it stays in the chat. Someone posts 'so it's the 14th', and everyone has to put it into their own calendar, or forget to.
iMessage polls, and mixed groups
Apple added polls to Messages in iOS 26, released in September 2025. Anyone in the conversation can add a choice, which makes them handy for open questions like where to eat.
They only work over iMessage, for people on iOS 26 or the matching Mac, iPad, Watch or Vision Pro versions. Anyone on Android, or texting over SMS or RCS, cannot vote, so in a mixed group an iMessage poll quietly leaves people out.
A poll link that works in any chat
When a chat poll is not enough, keep the chat and swap the poll. Make the poll on Decider, paste the link into WhatsApp, iMessage or anywhere else, and everyone votes Yes, Maybe or No on real dates and times, shown in their own time zone, on any phone and without an account. When you lock the date, everyone adds it to their calendar in one tap.
Let's pick a date for [event]! Tap Yes, Maybe or No for each one, no app or account needed: [poll link] I'll lock it on [day] so we can all put it in our calendars.