WhatsApp Business Labels: How to Use Them, and Their Limits

WhatsApp Business labels are coloured tags you attach to chats in the WhatsApp Business app so you can sort and find them later, and you can create up to 20. WhatsApp is now turning labels into lists, rolling out gradually, which is why many people can’t find their labels where they used to be.

This guide shows how to create and assign labels today, the limits WhatsApp states, what to check when labels aren’t showing, a starter set of labels for a small business, and how a team does the same job on the WhatsApp Business Platform (API) with tags, statuses and groups.

What labels are, and the move to lists

A label is a short name and a colour, such as “New order” in green, that you attach to a whole chat. Then, instead of scrolling, you open the label and see only those chats. WhatsApp’s Help Center also says you can send marketing messages to all the customers in a label at once.

WhatsApp’s labels article now opens with a change: labels are becoming lists. WhatsApp says it’s rolling lists out gradually and labels might not be available to you. The steps below use the new wording, because that’s what the Help Center shows today.

How to create and assign labels

Create a label

1. Open Tools, then Lists.
2. Choose Add new list.
3. Type a name and choose Create list.

Add a label to a chat

1. Open Chats.
2. Open the chat’s menu and choose Add to list.
3. Tick the labels you want, then Done.

A chat with several labels shows them stacked. You can also tap the customer’s profile photo on the Chats screen to see which labels a chat has.

Find, edit or delete a label

• Find labelled chats: Tools › Lists, then tap the label.
• Rename: Tools › Lists, select the label, change it and save.
• Change the colour: select the label, tap the colour and pick a new one.
• Delete: select the label, open More (three dots), then Delete list.

Label limits in the Business app

WhatsApp’s newer business broadcasts let you pick contacts from lists drawn from your address book, or audiences you imported on WhatsApp Business web. They’re available only in some countries, Meta reviews each one before it goes out, and once your free messages run out you pay for each one delivered.

The bigger limit is the app itself. Labels live on one business account and help the people using that phone find chats. They don’t say who owns a chat, when to follow up or what stage a lead is at. Those gaps, and the app’s other limits, are covered in WhatsApp Business app limitations.

Labels disappeared or not showing? What to check

Most “my labels are gone” moments come from the switch to lists. Work through these:

1. Look under Tools › Lists. WhatsApp says labels are now lists, so your labels may simply have a new home and name.
2. Update the app. Lists are rolling out gradually, so phones on different versions can look different.
3. Check you’re in the Business app. Labels for customer chats are a WhatsApp Business app tool, so check you haven’t opened a personal WhatsApp account by mistake.
4. Count your labels. If you can’t add a new one, you may already have 20. Delete or merge one you don’t use.
5. Still missing? Contact WhatsApp support from the app. We can’t see or restore your labels, and WhatsApp’s Help Center gives no other reason than the rollout.

A starter set of labels for a small business

Twenty labels go further when each one answers a single question. Here’s a sample set to adapt, split by what it tells you:

Keep stage labels moving: when a chat goes from “Quote sent” to “Order placed”, remove the old label. And treat “Offers OK” carefully. A label isn’t consent by itself. WhatsApp’s policy says you may only message people who gave you their number and opted in, and Meta says opt-in must name your business. Only add the label when the customer has actually agreed. More on that in WhatsApp opt-in.

Labels on the API: what a team uses instead

The WhatsApp Business Platform has no labels; your software provides them. In Automate AI the job is split across a few tools, each shared by everyone in your team inbox:

In Chats you can combine these: filter by status, agent (for owners and managers), group, tag and date. That answers questions a label can’t, such as “open chats with a VIP tag assigned to Ankit this week”. See the shared team inbox for assignment and notes.

Contact tags in Automate AI

Tags are the closest thing to Business app labels, with up to 500 per organisation instead of 20. How they work:

• Master tags are your team’s official list, kept in Settings › Contact Tags. Only the owner or a manager can add, rename, recolour or delete them.
• Custom tags are made by anyone in the team while tagging a contact from a chat. An owner or manager can promote one to a master tag.
• Limits: up to 500 tags per organisation and 20 tags per contact, with names up to 60 characters. Each tag has a colour.
• Filters: filter Chats and Contacts by tags. Picking several tags shows contacts with any of them.
• Campaigns: choose By tags as the audience to send an approved template to everyone with the tags you pick, worked out when the campaign runs.
• Deleting a tag removes it from every contact.

Labels automation: what can be automatic

“Labels automation” usually means a chat gets sorted without anyone clicking. Here’s what Automate AI can do, and what it can’t:

• Chatbots add contacts to groups. In the chatbot builder (Series 2, 3 and 4), an Add to Group or Remove from Group step records a button choice, such as “Wholesale enquiry”. Chatbots don’t set tags.
• Statuses can trigger follow-ups. A status can schedule an automatic follow-up, and can stop chatbot, keyword and AI replies for contacts in it, such as “Lead converted”.
• Re-inquiry marks returning leads. Once someone on your team changes a lead’s status, a new message from that lead marks the chat Re-inquiry, so it shows in its own tab, unless that status has Re-inquiry turned off.
• AI can suggest or set a status from the conversation, with rules you choose. That’s covered in AI chat summaries and auto-status.

What it doesn’t do: AI doesn’t fill in contact fields from free text, and tags are set by people, from a chat or the contact. For pipelines and lead scoring, see WhatsApp CRM.