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How to Add a User to a Facebook Page and Ad Account (Meta Business Suite)
On This Page
Facebook keeps access in two layers, and this is the thing that catches everybody out. First you add a person or an agency to your business portfolio, which is the container that owns your Page and your ad account. Then you assign them the specific assets inside it. Doing only the first step adds somebody who can see nothing, which is the usual reason “I already gave you access” and “we still cannot see it” are both true at the same time.
You never give anyone your password. Everything here works by invitation, tied to that person’s own Facebook login. You choose which Page or ad account they can touch, you can see exactly who has access at any time, and you can withdraw it in about fifteen seconds without affecting anything else.
Before you start
You need Full control of the business portfolio yourself. If you only have partial access you will not see the buttons below, and no amount of clicking will produce them. If you are not sure which you have, open business.facebook.com/settings and find your own name under Users → People; your access level is listed beside it.
If nobody at your company has Full control, stop here and email us. This happens more often than you would think, usually when the person who originally set the account up has left. It is fixable, but it goes through Meta’s recovery process rather than through any of these screens, and it takes a while.
Giving VM access
- Go to business.facebook.com/settings. If you land in the main Business Suite view instead, open All tools from the left, then Settings.
- In the left sidebar, under Users, click People.
- Click Invite people at the top right.
- Enter [email protected] and continue. Facebook will confirm the address is attached to a real profile.
- Choose the access level. For us, Full control is usually right; the next section explains why.
- Assign the assets. Do not skip this. This is the second layer, and it is covered in its own section below.
- Send the invitation. We will accept it, and the row will change from Pending to active.
Which access level to choose
| Level | What it allows, and when to use it |
|---|---|
| Full control | Everything: settings, other people’s access, ad accounts, Pages, and billing. Right for the agency running your advertising, because ad accounts and payment methods are otherwise unreachable. Also right for a business partner or director. |
| Partial access | Only the specific tasks you switch on, asset by asset. Right for a staff member who posts but should not see billing, and for a freelancer working on one campaign. |
You can change somebody’s level later without removing and re-inviting them, so starting narrow and widening it is a perfectly reasonable way to work.
Assigning the Page or ad account
This is the second layer, and the step people miss. Being in the business portfolio is like having a key to the building; assigning assets is what opens the individual doors.
- Still in Settings, click the person’s name under Users → People.
- Choose Assign assets, then pick the type: Pages, Ad accounts, Instagram accounts, and so on.
- Tick the specific Page or account, then switch on the tasks they need, or switch on full control of that asset to grant all of them.
- Save, and repeat for each asset. A Page and an ad account are two separate grants, which is why social posting can work while advertising still fails.
An easier route for agencies. Instead of adding us as a person, you can add us under Users → Partners using our business ID, then assign assets to the partner. It means we manage our own team’s access at our end, so you never have to add or remove individual staff as our people change. If you would rather do it that way, ask and we will send you our ID.
If we sent you a request instead
Sometimes it is quicker for us to request access than for you to grant it, in which case you will have a request waiting rather than an invitation to send.
- Open Business settings.
- Click Requests in the left sidebar, then the Received tab.
- Check the business name shown is Vigilante Marketing, and that the assets listed are the ones you expect.
- Click Approve.
Read what a request actually asks for. There is a real difference between granting partner access to your Page and transferring ownership of it. Access can be withdrawn whenever you like. Ownership means the Page belongs to somebody else, and getting it back is a formal dispute with Meta rather than a setting. We will only ever ask for access. If a request mentions transferring ownership, do not approve it, and send it to us so we can look at it.
Removing someone who has left
Worth doing the same week somebody leaves, since Facebook access is easy to forget about and outlives most other accounts.
- Go to Settings → Users → People.
- Find the person. The Last active column is a good way to spot accounts nobody is using.
- Open the menu at the end of their row and remove them from the business portfolio. This withdraws every asset they had in one go.
Two things that will stop you. A business portfolio must always keep at least one person with Full control, so add the replacement before removing the last one. And if you were made an admin within the last seven days, Facebook will not let you remove or demote another admin until that week is up. Both are deliberate, and neither is something you have done wrong.
When to email us instead
Send us the business portfolio name and what you were trying to do, and we will take it from there. Worth a message rather than an hour of clicking:
- Nobody at your company has Full control any more.
- Your Page is owned by a business portfolio you do not recognise, often a previous agency’s.
- You have granted access and we still cannot see the account. This is nearly always the second layer, and we can check it from our end in a minute.
- A request is asking to transfer ownership of anything.
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