Shared inbox
A shared inbox is one place where messages from several channels arrive and several people can answer them, instead of each channel living on a different phone or login.
The problem it solves
Most small businesses don’t have a support system. They have WhatsApp on the owner’s phone, an Instagram account the marketing person checks, a Facebook page nobody checks, an info@ address that goes to two people, and a chat widget on the website. Nobody knows the total volume. Some messages get answered twice and some not at all. When someone is on leave, their channel goes quiet.
A shared inbox turns that into one queue. Each message has an owner and a status, so you can see what is waiting and who is on it.
Why the volume keeps growing
- 73.3% of consumers prefer messaging when contacting a business, and 66.8% get frustrated when messaging isn’t offered (Kantar survey of 11,056 adults in 22 markets, commissioned by Meta, fieldwork April to September 2025).
- People have more than 1 billion active threads with business accounts every day across Meta’s messaging apps (Meta, Q3 2025 earnings call).
Sources: Meta, State of Business Messaging. Meta Q3 2025 earnings call transcript. Both are Meta’s own figures about its own products.
What changes on day one
- You see how many messages you actually get, which is usually more than you thought.
- Two people stop answering the same customer in two different ways.
- A customer who messaged on Instagram in March and on WhatsApp in October shows up as one contact.
- Someone else can cover a channel without borrowing a phone.
What it doesn’t fix
A shared inbox makes the work visible and lets you assign it. It doesn’t make the work smaller. If 400 messages arrive a month and 250 are order-status questions, you get a tidy list of 250 questions to answer by hand.
Tools often sell tidying the queue and shrinking it together. Shrinking it needs the inbox connected to the systems that hold the answers, such as your orders, bookings or stock. See ticket deflection and WISMO.
Three things to check
- Does it work properly on a phone? For an owner-run business the messages arrive at 10pm, away from any desk.
- Can you export your conversations? Some tools can’t, which makes leaving expensive. Ask before you load two years of history in.
- Does the automation sit in the same inbox? If the AI runs in one product and your team answers in another, the handover is where things break. See live chat handover.
Channels and platforms
A channel is where a customer messages you: WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, Telegram, email, web chat or TikTok. A platform is where your store or site runs: Shopify, WordPress, Wix. A shared inbox collects channels. Your platform stays where it is.
On cost, seats are usually what grows. In AeroChat, Starter includes three team seats and Growth includes ten.
Related terms
Read next
Put every channel in one inbox
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