WhatsApp Business for multiple users: Setup, limits, and upgrades

WhatsApp Business makes it easy for small teams to talk to customers in real time. But for larger organizations, it’s a struggle to manage all those messages from a single phone. Luckily, WhatsApp now lets you link multiple devices to the same business account. We’ll show you how.

Running a business with just one WhatsApp phone number feels like trying to answer every customer call from a single landline. It’s clunky, slow, and completely unrealistic.

If you’re trying to provide fast, reliable customer support but your team is passing around one phone or locked out of conversations entirely, you’re not alone.

Here’s what you need to know about how to use WhatsApp Business on multiple devices, what the free app can do, and when it’s time to switch to a setup that actually works for a growing team.

The free WhatsApp Business app that many companies start out with is designed for very small businesses with no more than five employees. But once your WhatsApp channel grows, it doesn’t take long before it turns into a bottleneck for the customer experience.

With WhatsApp becoming more popular, this won’t take too long. According to our 2025 Sinch report, The state of customer communications, 15% of Gen Z prefer to use messaging apps like WhatsApp for support conversations. And 40% of consumers of all ages say that they use OTT channels like WhatsApp to interact with businesses.

That’s why being stuck passing a phone around with the same WhatsApp business number will get very cumbersome very fast. All it takes is one person out sick or out of reach, and suddenly no one can respond to a customer inquiry.

Passing around the “WhatsApp phone” between team members becomes a logistical nightmare. Your inbox becomes chaotic, WhatsApp messages pile up, response times suffer, and customers grow frustrated waiting for answers.

That’s why WhatsApp introduced a multi-device feature for the business app. With this setup, you can connect up to four additional devices to the same WhatsApp Business account. Everyone can access the same inbox from their own device, so they no longer have to share phones or chase down replies.

Let’s consider a direct-to-consumer (DTC) brand selling skincare across the U.S. Their support team works across time zones from New York to California, but only the New York team has the WhatsApp phone. By the time their day starts, they’ve missed dozens of messages and customer inquiries that came in later in the evening from the West Coast.

Or, let’s say a local radio station in the UK uses WhatsApp to interact with listeners, run audience competitions, and manage donations. Even with everyone working in the same office, passing one phone around departments to handle all of these messages turns into an organizational disaster.

That’s where many turn to WhatsApp’s multi-device feature for the business app. While multi-device access helps slightly, you can’t solve the real problems of lack of routing, visibility, and automation. Let’s explore why.

The multi-device setup process for the WhatsApp Business app is identical to the standard WhatsApp messenger app you use to talk to your friends and family. Your primary device must be a smartphone, but you can connect laptops, desktops, tablets, and additional phones to access the same business conversations through WhatsApp Web or Desktop.

We’ll walk you through the setup process for Android and iOS.

Open WhatsApp Business and tap the three dots in the top right corner.

Select Linked devices, then Link a device and confirm. Scan the QR code displayed on the device you want to connect.

On your iPhone, go to WhatsApp settings → Linked devices → Link a device. Authenticate with Face ID, Touch ID, or your PIN, then scan the QR code on the target device.

Download WhatsApp Business on the second phone and tap Link as companion device (instead of setting up a new WhatsApp Business account). This creates a QR code that you scan with your primary phone as with the standard linking process.

Your primary phone number needs to come online every 14 days to keep linked devices active in real time. With WhatsApp Business Premium (Meta Verified subscription), you can connect up to ten different devices instead of the standard four, plus assign specific conversations to individual team members and access advanced permissions settings.

Live location and status features don’t work on linked devices or companion phones. Successfully linked companion phones show “This is a linked device” in their settings menu.

The connection stays active even when your primary phone is offline, but all linked devices get disconnected if the main phone remains offline for two weeks straight.

With a Meta Verified subscription, you can connect up to ten devices and keep them active even when the primary phone is offline (as long as it reconnects within 14 days).

But while the extra seats sound appealing, there are still key limitations that make this setup a poor fit for most businesses that want to scale their WhatsApp messaging:

• Chat deletion doesn’t sync properly if the main device is an iOS device.
• Linked devices can neither create nor view broadcast lists or templates.
• You don’t have workflow automation or quick replies for common FAQs.
• There’s no option of linking all devices to a central team inbox.
• Because you use the WhatsApp Business app, all the restrictions of the app remain in place (no newsletters or push notifications, no bots, no CRM integration, no analytics for use cases, etc.).
• There’s no access to WhatsApp Flows or integration with other messaging apps.
• The pricing model isn’t cost-effective to scale for growing teams.

The bottom line: Multi-device access doesn’t solve the fundamental WhatsApp scaling problems that growing businesses face.

Radio Arabella, a leading radio station in Germany, ran into this exact wall.

As message volume grew, even with four team members accessing the same WhatsApp Business account, they couldn’t keep up. Messages piled up, response times suffered, and the team realized they needed professional tools instead of more device connections tied to a specific phone and number.

More seats don’t fix a system that’s missing the infrastructure to scale.

Data compliance is also a concern. Even though the WhatsApp Business app uses end-to-end encryption across connected devices, the setup still relies on a smartphone as the core. That makes it hard to impossible to fully meet regulations like the GDPR or California Consumer Privacy Act, especially when multiple employees access sensitive customer data from personal devices.

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For businesses that need to stay compliant while managing higher volumes of customer conversations, the WhatsApp Business API is a safer bet.

The WhatsApp Business API provides the professional-grade tools that growing businesses need for customer communication and automation. Unlike the basic WhatsApp Business app, setting up an API account gives you access to chatbots, automated workflow tools, SMS integration, and comprehensive analytics across social media channels.

You have two main options for accessing these capabilities, depending on the level of tech support and customization you require:

• A custom API implementation, for those with in-house development teams
• A turnkey solution, offered by official WhatsApp Business Solution Providers, for teams that want to get started quickly without any coding

Both options offer the same main benefits: an unlimited number of agents, automated messages, chatbot tools, CRM integration, and in-depth analytics to see how things are going.

Retailers can use the API to send personalized delivery updates and flash sale alerts. Clinics can use it to automate appointment reminders and intake forms. Logistics companies can use it to trigger proactive delay notifications. And all of this is managed from a central inbox that anybody in the company can access – without any agent limits.

The result? Fewer missed connections, higher customer engagement, and lower support costs.

Whichever option you choose, it’s essential to work with a verified WhatsApp Business Solution Provider (BSP) like Sinch. Only BSPs are authorized to offer WhatsApp business solutions. They’ll also ensure you’re set up correctly, stay compliant with data privacy laws, and have the right tools in place to scale customer conversations without friction.

Want to explore what this could look like for your business? Reach out to a Sinch expert to talk through the options.

Author: Marinela Potor Marinela Potor is a Senior Content Marketing Manager at Sinch. With a background in tech journalism, she specializes in messaging and AI.