Roles and permissions

Roles and permissions · Help

"Can an editor change the billing details?", "Can an agent export contacts?" — these questions want answering before you send the invitation. This article lists the permissions of all five roles screen by screen and action by action, so you can look one up and have the answer in a second. It is a reference list, not an introduction; if you are reading about the roles for the first time, start with Roles.

Remember there are three separate gates

Whether someone can do a thing is the intersection of three settings:

Role — What they can do. The subject of this article. A role is portfolio-wide: the person holds the same role in every account they reach.
Access policy — What they see. The portfolio owner can additionally narrow the sections and conversation scope of a role. See When a screen is missing.
Account access — Where they work. A person reaches either all of the portfolio's accounts or the selected ones. See Limiting access per account.

The lists below show the widest form of each role. The access policy can narrow what you read here; it can never widen it.

Section	Roles that can see it	Note
Home	Owner, Admin, Editor, Agent, Viewer	No permission required
Conversations	Owner, Admin, Editor, Agent, Viewer	Cannot be closed by policy
Automations	Owner, Admin, Editor, Agent, Viewer	Can be closed by policy
Contacts	Owner, Admin, Editor, Agent, Viewer	Can be closed by policy
Media	Owner, Admin, Editor, Agent, Viewer	Can be closed by policy
Reports	Owner, Admin, Editor, Viewer	Agents have no report permission
Insights	Owner, Admin, Editor, Viewer	Instagram accounts only
My profile and Posts	Owner, Admin, Editor, Agent, Viewer	Instagram accounts only

⚠️ Note: The Agent role has no report permission at all. Even if you tick Reports and Insights in the access policy, those sections do not open for an agent. If a colleague needs to see the numbers, make them an Editor or a Viewer.

Permissions action by action

Seeing a section in the side menu does not mean being able to press every button inside it. The lists below say, section by section, which action belongs to which role.

The inbox

Read conversations — Owner, Admin, Editor, Agent, Viewer.
Write replies, send files and templates — Owner, Admin, Editor, Agent. Viewers cannot write.
Assign a conversation to an agent or clear the assignment — Owner, Admin. Other roles see the assignment badge in the conversation header but cannot change it.
See saved replies — All five roles.

Contacts

Open the contact list and a contact card — All five roles.
Edit a contact, add tags and notes — Owner, Admin, Editor, Agent.
Export contacts as CSV — Owner, Admin.
Delete a contact — Owner, Admin.

Automations

See flows and rules — All five roles.
Build and edit a flow — Owner, Admin, Editor.
Publish — Owner, Admin, Editor.
Publish a post and schedule it — Owner, Admin, Editor. (Seeing the Posts screen is not enough; publishing needs the publish permission as well.)

Media

See the library — All five roles.
Upload a file — Owner, Admin, Editor, Agent.
Delete a file — Owner, Admin, Editor. An agent cannot delete even their own upload.

Who sees what in account settings

Settings section	Roles that can see it	Roles that can save
Connection (channel)	Owner, Admin	Owner, Admin
General	Owner, Admin, Editor, Viewer	Owner, Admin
Business hours	Owner, Admin, Editor, Viewer	Owner, Admin
Messaging	Owner, Admin, Editor, Viewer	Owner, Admin
Saved replies	Owner, Admin, Editor, Agent, Viewer	Owner, Admin
Move to another portfolio	Owner	Owner
Delete account	Owner	Owner

The agent role has no settings-view permission: the Settings menu shows only Saved replies for them. The channel connection screen holds the access token and webhook status, so even seeing it requires permission — which is why editors and viewers never see that section.

Who sees what in portfolio settings

Only the Owner and Admins can open the portfolio settings area (the gear in the account switcher). Editors, agents and viewers never see the gear.

Portfolio setting	Owner	Admin
General (portfolio name)	Sees and changes	Sees, cannot change
Accounts	Yes	Yes
Team	Yes	Yes
Chat assignment rules	Yes	Yes
AI keys	Yes	Yes
Connections	Yes	Yes
Usage	Yes	Yes
Logs	Yes	Yes
Delete portfolio	Yes	No

Team management

See the team list — Owner, Admin.
Send and cancel invitations — Owner, Admin.
Change a role — Owner, Admin.
Change account access — Owner, Admin.
Remove a member — Owner only.

What only the owner can do

An admin does nearly everything; these five are the exceptions:

Change the portfolio's name.
Delete the portfolio (and call the deletion off).
Remove a member from the team.
Move an account to another portfolio.
Delete an account.

Managing the plan is the owner's job too: the team limit and the account limit come from the portfolio owner's plan. See Team limit and seats.

Three limits that apply to every role

The following three rules apply to everyone, whatever their permissions:

Nobody can change their own role or account access. Even the owner does not see those controls on their own row.
Ownership is not a role. It is not granted by invitation, cannot be picked from the role dropdown, and the owner's role cannot be changed.
In a portfolio scheduled for deletion, the team and the settings freeze. Only the path for moving accounts to another portfolio stays open.

A concrete example

A textile workshop has three people:

The business owner owns the portfolio. They manage the plan, connect accounts and build the team.
The social media person is an editor. They build automations, publish posts and read reports; they cannot connect a new Instagram account and cannot invite anyone to the team.
The weekend agent is an agent. They answer conversations, leave notes on contacts and upload media; they never see reports or settings.

When the bookkeeper wants to look at the numbers once a month, the right role is Viewer: they open the reports and can touch nothing.

Common mistakes

Expecting reports from an agent. That role has no report permission at all, and the policy setting cannot open it.
Asking an editor to save a setting. Editors see account settings but cannot save them. If they need to save, they must be an admin.
Asking an admin to remove a member. That single action belongs to the owner alone.
Treating the role as the whole story. A role grants permission, but if the section is closed in the policy the screen still does not open.
Making everyone an admin. Admins connect and disconnect accounts and delete contacts; do not hand those out to someone who does not need them.

Use this list as a checklist when picking a role; starting low and raising it when needed is always safer than handing out the wrong one.