Creating Your First Project

Create a project

A project is the top-level container in Chatonio. It represents a product, brand, or team that you want to provide support for.

Log in to your Chatonio dashboard
Open Projects in the sidebar
Click New project
Enter a Name. The Project address fills itself in from it — that address becomes your help centre’s first web address (your-address.chatonio.com) and cannot be changed afterwards, so adjust it now if you want something different.
Pick the Content & fallback language — the language your knowledge base and FAQ are written in, and the one used until we detect what a customer speaks. It does not force replies: the AI answers each customer in their own language.
Click Create

The Create project form, showing the project address filled in from the name

You'll be automatically added as an admin of the project.

Add a channel

Channels are how customers reach you. Each project can have multiple channels. Go to your project's Channels page and create one:

The project settings page, with the Channels card highlighted

Web Chat — an embeddable widget for your website
Telegram — connect a Telegram bot for 1:1 direct-message support
Telegram Groups — one bot serving many group chats; each group's conversations are automatically organized into per-topic threads
Email — receive and respond to email conversations
Helpdesk — a full helpdesk portal on a subdomain

Available channel types and the number of channels per project depend on your plan — the Free plan includes two channels per project — the web chat widget and a Telegram bot for one-to-one chats; WhatsApp, Viber and Email channels are available on paid plans, and Telegram group chats and the Helpdesk portal on Pro and above. See the pricing page for current limits.

Configure AI

Each project has default AI settings (model, system prompt, escalation rules) that all channels inherit. You can override these per channel if needed.

Once your channel is set up and your project's AI balance is funded, the AI will start responding to incoming messages. AI usage is pay-per-use: top up your project's balance from your wallet at Billing → Top-up. If the balance is empty, customers receive a fallback notice instead of an AI reply.