WhatsApp Business Web and desktop: how linked devices work and when a team outgrows them

Gurmeet Sandhu sells cycle parts wholesale from a two-floor shop in Ludhiana. One WhatsApp Business number is printed on every invoice, and six people need it: three at the counter taking orders, two in dispatch, and Gurmeet himself. The number lives on a phone that sits beside the billing desk. Last month he searched for WhatsApp Business Web hoping the answer was a login page.

It partly is. WhatsApp Business Web is not a separate product. It is web.whatsapp.com, the same page personal WhatsApp uses, linked to the phone that holds the business number. WhatsApp for Windows and Mac work the same way. This guide covers how the linking works, what a linked device can and can’t do, and the point at which a team needs something other than more browser tabs.

How WhatsApp Business works on web, Windows and Mac

The business number stays registered on one phone, and every computer is a linked device. WhatsApp’s help centre allows up to four linked devices and one phone at a time on a WhatsApp Business account.

Linked devices connect to WhatsApp on their own, so they keep working when the phone is in a drawer or out of battery. Each one gets an end-to-end encrypted copy of your recent chats, sent from the phone when you link it. The help centre’s list of devices that can be linked covers Windows, Mac, the web, Android tablets, iPad, WearOS watches, companion phones and Meta’s glasses. A linked device can never be the primary device, and you still need the phone to register the account and to link anything new.

The Business app’s tools come along. Quick replies work from the slash shortcut on web and desktop, although the help centre notes that media files in quick replies aren’t supported there.

One thing people mix up: if what you want is a second WhatsApp account on one phone, that’s a different feature. Since March 2026 WhatsApp supports two accounts logged in on one iPhone, as it already did on Android. It doesn’t help six people share one number, which is the problem this article is about. (Terms such as linked device, Business app and Platform are in our glossary.)

Linking a computer by QR code or by phone number

You link from the phone, not from the computer. On the business phone, open Linked devices, tap Link a device, confirm with your fingerprint or phone PIN if asked, and point the camera at the QR code showing on web.whatsapp.com or in the desktop app. If WhatsApp detects a device it doesn’t recognise, it asks you to confirm before linking.

There is a second route for the Business app that doesn’t need the camera. On WhatsApp Web, choose Link with phone number, enter the business number, and the page shows an 8-character code. A notification arrives on the business phone; tap it, check the device name shown, and type the code. The help centre’s page on this method, as captured in July 2026, said it was “currently only available on WhatsApp Web”, so for the desktop apps use the QR code.

WhatsApp for Windows comes from WhatsApp’s download page or the Microsoft Store and needs Windows 10 64-bit version 1903 or newer.

Gurmeet’s maths is where the first squeeze appears. The counter PC, the dispatch laptop, his own laptop and one companion phone make four linked devices. The fifth person shares a screen, and the sixth uses the business phone itself.

The 14-day rule and the 30-day rule

Linked devices work with the phone offline, but not forever. Two clocks run.

The first is the phone. If the primary phone goes unused for more than 14 days, every linked device logs out. The help centre’s phrasing is that you need to log in to WhatsApp on the primary phone every 14 days to keep linked devices connected. Opening the app on the phone resets it. A shop that closes for two weeks around Diwali, with the business phone switched off in the safe, comes back to a counter PC that wants a QR code.

The second clock is each device. WhatsApp automatically disconnects a linked device after 30 days of inactivity, so a laptop nobody opened since the last stock audit will need linking again.

After a re-link, the phone sends over recent history, which can take a few minutes. It doesn’t send everything. WhatsApp says the desktop app syncs more message history than WhatsApp Web, and the full history is only on the phone. Both the consumer and Business app pages currently carry a note about a known issue where some linked devices don’t show up to a year of chat history. If a customer disputes what was agreed six months ago, the phone is where you look.

What linked devices can’t do

Most of what a counter team does works on a linked device. These things don’t, according to WhatsApp’s help centre:

On a linked device	Status
Create or view broadcast lists	Not supported
Share or view live location	Not supported
Add or delete status updates	Not supported
Media files in quick replies	Not on web or desktop; text quick replies work
One-time passcodes sent to the number	Shown only on the primary phone; linked devices see a notice instead
Register the account, link a new device	Phone only
Full chat history	Phone only; desktop syncs more than web

The broadcast list gap matters for a wholesaler. Gurmeet’s monthly price list goes to a broadcast list of regular retailers, and that job stays on the phone, whoever holds it. The passcode rule matters for the accounts person: a bank OTP sent to the business number has to be read off the phone, by design.

Calls from WhatsApp Web and the desktop apps

WhatsApp Web can now take calls. On 28 July 2026 Meta announced that you can make and receive voice and video calls, one-to-one and group, directly from WhatsApp Web with no app download, including screen sharing and a Calls tab with history. The same post introduced call transfer, which moves an active group call between devices without hanging up, and said the features are “rolling out gradually”. The Business app’s linked-devices page now also says you can transfer a call to another device during a WhatsApp call. The Windows and Mac apps already supported voice and video calls with up to 32 people, and need permission to use the computer’s microphone and camera.

For a shop this means the counter PC can answer the customer who calls the WhatsApp number instead of messaging. One rule to know before you add devices: accounts with four or fewer linked devices receive calls on all of them, while accounts with more than four, which is only possible on Meta’s paid tier, receive calls on the primary phone alone.

Keeping the account safe on shared computers

A linked device is a full copy of the business’s chats on somebody’s machine, so a few habits are worth writing down.

Check the Linked devices list on the phone every week and log out anything you can’t name. WhatsApp’s help centre is explicit that it can’t tell you who accessed your account or when and where, so the list is your only record. Turn on push notifications on the phone, because WhatsApp uses them to flag a device it doesn’t recognise and let you remove it.

On a computer that other people use, untick “Stay logged in on this browser” before scanning the QR code, so closing the tab ends the session. When someone leaves the business, unlink their device from the phone the same day.

Two-step verification protects the number itself. Meta’s August 2026 security post upgraded it from a six-digit PIN to a full password, and WhatsApp now supports passkeys, which use the phone’s fingerprint or face recognition instead of a code. Set both on the business phone. Never link through an unofficial app or website that promises extra features; the help centre says doing so, now or in the past, can result in a temporary or permanent ban.

Finally, keep the primary phone on a supported system. WhatsApp’s support page says only Android 6 and newer are supported from 8 September 2026, and only iOS 15.5 and newer from 30 November 2026. If the business phone is an old handset kept because “it only runs WhatsApp”, check it before those dates.

Paying Meta for more than four devices

Meta sells a way past four devices inside the Business app, called multi-agent. It comes with a Meta Verified for Business subscription or a Meta One business plan, allows up to 10 devices depending on the plan, lets you name each device after the person using it, assign chats to an agent, and see which device sent a message. Customers can’t see any of that. On Meta Verified for Business the help centre lists four devices on Business Standard, six on Business Plus, eight on Business Premium and 10 on Business Max, so the entry plan adds assignment rather than devices.

Two cautions. If the subscription ends, only the four most recently active devices stay linked. And the feature may not be offered to you: the page says the premium version “may not be available to you yet”, and Meta decides plan availability from your business activity on WhatsApp.

Meta One is newer and less settled. Its help page, read on 15 October 2026, says it is “currently in limited testing and isn’t available everywhere yet”. That page puts “more linked devices” under the Essential plan, while Meta’s September announcement put more linked devices under Advanced, and neither gives a device count per plan. We found no rupee prices on any Meta page. Our WhatsApp for multiple users guide compares these paid tiers with the alternatives in more detail.

Signs a team has outgrown WhatsApp Web

Device count is the obvious limit. The quieter ones show up in the chats.

Two desks reply to the same customer within a minute of each other, with different prices. A chat sits unanswered because everyone assumed someone else had it, and nothing on the screen says otherwise. The person who holds the business phone goes on leave and the 14-day clock becomes a project. The 50 quick replies run out, and people start keeping the real answers in a notes app. A reminder that should go out when a consignment ships never does, because WhatsApp Web only sends what a person types. And the entire history of the business’s customer conversations lives on one handset that could fall off a scooter.

None of these are fixed by a fifth laptop. They are fixed by chats having owners, by notes and tags living with the customer instead of in someone’s head, and by messages that can be sent by your billing or booking software rather than by whoever is near the phone. That is what the WhatsApp Business Platform, reached through a provider, adds: the inbox runs in the browser for the whole team, each person logs in as themselves, and there is no device count. App vs Platform walks through the full set of trade-offs.

The trade-offs are real. Meta charges per delivered message on the Platform, including ordinary replies: since 1 October 2026 the first 1,000 replies per number per month are free and each one after that costs ₹0.115 to Indian numbers, before GST. The provider charges a monthly plan. Our guide to what WhatsApp Business costs sets the free app against those charges line by line. For a team of three who sit within earshot, the free app with linked devices remains the right answer, and we’d say so.

If you move, the setting up is its own job: teams, assignment rules, saved views and handover notes. We wrote that as a step-by-step in the shared WhatsApp inbox setup playbook.

Before you buy anything, open Linked devices on the business phone tonight and write down what’s there. If you can’t put a name to every entry, that is your first job, and it costs nothing.