Manage multiple WhatsApp numbers in one dashboard

WhatsApp on a phone is built for a single number. WhatsApp Web follows that number into a browser, and a business that has outgrown one line usually ends up with one tab per phone, or a row of handsets on a desk. Chato replaces that pile with one login and a list of sessions.

A session is one connected WhatsApp number. You name it for the job it does: support, sales, the shop on the high street, the night line, a client, a building. The sidebar lists every session on the account. Open one and you see that number's chats. Open another and you see a different number. The customer still writes to the number they already have. Nothing about their WhatsApp app changes.

The connection is the same family as Linked devices. The phone that owns the number scans the QR code Chato shows, and that phone needs to stay online the way it does for WhatsApp Web. Chato does not issue a new phone number and it does not move the chat history off WhatsApp. It gives you one place to read and reply.

People who live in several WhatsApp Web tabs usually want three things: to see which line a message belongs to, to reply without logging out, and to stop mixing a client conversation with the shop's conversation. Separate sessions do that. A message that arrives on the support number stays on the support session. A message that arrives on a client's number stays on that client's session.

You add a session when you have another number to connect. The 7-day trial includes one WhatsApp session and does not ask for a card. After you subscribe, each extra number is €5 per month, or €48 per year. Billing follows the numbers you connect, not the number of people who later open the dashboard.

Teams often say department when they mean a different phone for a different job. Chato does not have a department directory, a routing rule, or a queue that sends a chat to a named role. What it has is a session per number, and you decide what each number is for.

A multi-location shop might connect one WhatsApp number per store. A clinic might connect the reception desk and keep a second number for a branch. An agency or a property manager might connect one number per client or per building, because those chats should never share a thread. A sales team might keep one number per rep when leads should not land in a shared pot.

Those are separate WhatsApp accounts in the ordinary sense: separate phone numbers, separate chat lists, separate profile names. In the dashboard they are rows in one sidebar. You do not install a second copy of the product, and you do not keep a spreadsheet of which laptop is logged into which WhatsApp Web.

Local numbers stay local. The customer in one city still messages the number printed on that shop's door. You, or a colleague you have shared that session with, answer it from the same Chato account that also holds the other shops. If a line should stay private to one store, you simply do not share that session.

This shape is a poor fit if you need the official WhatsApp Business Platform: approved template campaigns, a single Cloud API number, or Meta's conversation pricing. Those products start from a business account registered with Meta. Chato starts from the WhatsApp app you already use. If that is the constraint you are working under, the page about an inbox without the Business API walks through what you gain and what you give up.

One inbox here means one workspace, not one blended chat list. Each session keeps its own conversations. You do not dump every customer from every number into a single thread. You do stop switching products to reach them.

From a session you read incoming chats, reply, and send images, video, and PDFs up to 16MB. Search stays inside that session's history. If you also use the External API, messages from a CRM, a website form, or an internal tool arrive as their own thread, kept apart from WhatsApp chats. That API does not send a WhatsApp message. It is a way to see an outside event beside the inbox, not a gateway into WhatsApp.

The practical change is the workday. Someone covering three numbers no longer keeps three browsers signed in, and no longer asks a colleague to unlock a phone. They pick the session, answer, and move to the next session. A quiet line is still visible in the sidebar, so it does not disappear just because another line is busy.

Contacts that message any linked number are collected into one contact list. You can search by name, phone, or tag. Chato creates a contact from an incoming message, so the list grows from real conversations rather than from a file you have to import first. A person who messages two of your numbers can show up from both lines. The chats themselves stay on the session where they were written.

A shared phone is how most small teams use WhatsApp: one handset, and whoever is holding it can reply. Chato's version of that is a share on a session. The owner invites a person by the email on their Google account. That person signs in to Chato with Google. Until they have an account, the share sits pending. After they sign in, the session appears for them.

Permission is per session, and there are two levels. View means they can read chats and messages. Send means they can read and also send. You can change that level later, or revoke the share. Revoking removes their access immediately. You can share one session and keep another session to yourself. A clinic can share the desk number with two receptionists and leave another line unshared. A shop can share the store number with the people on the floor and keep a manager's number private.

This is not per-chat assignment. There is no control that hands one conversation to one agent and hides it from the others. Everyone with send access on that session can see and reply to that session's chats. There is also no roles matrix: no admin versus supervisor versus agent, no department permission, and no setting that hides the phone number from a teammate. If a buying checklist requires those controls, this product will not match it.

Billing does not grow when you add a person. The Standard plan is priced per connected WhatsApp number, not per teammate. Two people on one number are still one WhatsApp account at €5 per month. Ten numbers are ten accounts, whoever opens them.

The customer still messages one WhatsApp number. They do not see who inside Chato typed the reply. If your team wants a signature with a person's name, you type it. Chato does not add one for you.

When several numbers live in one place, the useful question is which line is busy and which line is slow. Reports are built per session. You can see which linked numbers are online, how many messages they have handled, and when they last had activity. Totals sit next to today's traffic, so a quiet morning is visible against that number's usual volume. Average reply time is measured per session. A slow support line does not disappear behind a fast sales number, because they are not folded into one figure and forgotten.

That is the whole of the reporting story. There is no hourly team leaderboard, no ranking of each person's handle time, and no campaign dashboard. The reports answer how this number is doing, which is the question you have when each number is a store, a desk, or a client.

The contact list is the other view that crosses numbers. People who write to any connected number show up in one searchable list, with tags when you want to mark someone. The list is not a pipeline of deals, stages, and owners. If a contact should also exist in another system, the External API is the path for events coming in. It is not a two-way sync of your whole address book.

Use the reports when you are deciding whether a location needs another person on the shared session, or whether a number has gone quiet because the phone behind it dropped offline. A session that stops receiving usually means the phone needs attention, the same way WhatsApp Web goes quiet when the phone is off.

The Standard plan includes an AI chatbot on each WhatsApp account. You turn it on per session. A support number can answer common questions from documents you upload, while a sales number stays fully manual. There is no separate AI fee on top of the €5.

The bot is a layer on that session. It is not a reason to connect a number, and it does not merge your numbers into one automated line. A clinic can let the desk number answer opening hours and which documents to bring, and still have a person reply when the question is about a specific visit. A shop can answer whether it is open on the store number without putting a bot on a private client line.

Chato is not a campaign tool. Sending one approved template to a large list is a WhatsApp Business Platform job. The chatbot replies inside conversations on numbers you have connected. It does not cold-message a purchased list. If the bot is the part you came for, the chatbot page describes knowledge upload and file replies. The price of the inbox does not change when you enable it.

Three situations come up often enough to have their own pages. They are not different products. They are different ways of using sessions and shares.

Shops with more than one location usually want one WhatsApp number per store, plus a way for whoever is on the floor to cover that store's line. That page is about hours, busy periods, and a shared store number. Clinics usually have one desk number and more than one person who must answer it, including after the desk looks closed. That page is about reception overflow and questions that arrive at night. Agencies and property managers usually have a number per client, building, or agent, and one person who has to watch all of them. That page is about keeping those lines separate while working them from one login.

The pages below go into the working detail. The rest of this page stays on the dashboard itself: many numbers, one sidebar, a share when someone else must reply, and reports that stay attached to each number.

You connect a number from the dashboard. Chato shows a QR code for a new session. On the phone that owns that WhatsApp account, open WhatsApp, go to Linked devices, and scan, the same flow as WhatsApp Web. If a code expires, refresh it on that same session rather than creating a second unused number. The phone remains part of the live session. Disconnect the session in Chato when you want that number to leave the dashboard.

There is no desktop installer. A current browser is enough. Sign-in for the Chato account is Google. People you share a session with also use Google, with the email you invited. The steps from the first scan to a live inbox are on the how-it-works page, including what happens during the trial.

Chato is not the official WhatsApp Business API, also called the Meta Cloud API. It will not register a WhatsApp Business Account for you, it will not submit message templates for approval, and it does not replace the WhatsApp app. Messages are still WhatsApp messages on the numbers you linked. If a supplier, a bank, or a marketplace requires the official API, Chato is the wrong tool. If you need many numbers in one browser and you can keep each phone online, it is built for that.

Traffic uses HTTPS. Session data is stored so the numbers you linked are still there when you sign in again. Chato does not sell WhatsApp messages for advertising. The inbox, reports, and billing sit behind login and are not in the public sitemap. You can disconnect a number whenever you want it out of the dashboard.

The trial is seven days, one session, no card. Subscribe to keep that number and to add more at €5 each per month, or €48 per number per year. Cancel from the account and you keep access until the end of the period you already paid.