Universally Documentation

Step-by-step guides, multilingual SEO tips, and best practices to help you translate and scale your WordPress website.

Roles and permissions

Every person in a workspace has one of four roles, and that role decides what they can do across every project in it. This page lists exactly what each role can and cannot do, and how per-project roles change the picture.

The four roles

Role Intended for
Owner The person who created the workspace. Full control, including deleting it.
Admin Trusted operators. Everything except deleting the workspace and managing billing.
Editor People who work on translations. Can edit content and settings, cannot add or remove projects.
Member Read-only. Can see everything, change nothing.

Owner is not an assignable role. It belongs to whoever created the workspace. You can invite people as Admin, Editor, or Member, but ownership cannot currently be reassigned. If the owner needs to change, contact support at [email protected].

What each role can do

Owner Admin Editor Member
Workspace
View the workspace yes yes yes yes
Edit workspace settings yes yes no no
Delete the workspace yes no no no
Members
View members yes yes yes yes
Invite and remove members yes yes no no
Change a member's role yes yes no no
View and revoke invitations yes yes no no
Projects
View projects yes yes yes yes
Edit project settings yes yes yes no
Create a project yes yes no no
Delete a project yes yes no no
Languages
View languages yes yes yes yes
Add a language yes yes yes no
Remove a language yes yes no no
Translations
View translations yes yes yes yes
Edit translations yes yes yes no
Mark as verified yes yes no no
Delete a translation yes yes no no
Glossary
View glossary rules yes yes yes yes
Create and edit rules yes yes yes no
Delete rules yes yes no no
Domains
View custom domains yes yes yes yes
Manage custom domains yes yes yes no
API keys
View, create, regenerate, delete yes yes no no
Billing
View billing yes yes no no
Manage the subscription yes no no no
Analytics
View statistics yes yes yes yes

Two boundaries are worth calling out because they surprise people:

Only the owner can manage the subscription. An Admin can see billing but cannot change the plan, update the card, or cancel. If your billing contact is not the workspace owner, the owner has to make the change.

Three permissions have no feature behind them. Importing translations, exporting translations and exporting statistics are all defined internally, and none of them exists in the product, so no role can do them and they are left out of the table above. See Import and export translations.

Editors cannot add or delete projects. They can do almost everything inside a project, including editing its settings and managing its domains, but the project list itself is Admin territory.

Per-project roles

A workspace role applies everywhere. On top of that, a project can carry its own role for a person.

It is set from the project rather than the workspace: open the project, choose Project Members, and either invite someone there with a Project Role, or use Add Project Role on the row of someone already in the workspace. Once set, that row also offers Change Role and Remove Override.

Per-project roles only ever grant more access, never less.

Workspace role Per-project role Result on that project
Member Admin Admin
Member Editor Editor
Member Viewer Member, unchanged
Editor Admin Admin
Editor Viewer Editor, unchanged
Admin anything Admin, unchanged
Owner anything Owner, unchanged

This is the part that catches people out. Setting someone to Viewer on a project does not restrict them. If they are an Admin at workspace level, they remain an Admin on that project, and a Viewer entry changes nothing.

There is no way to reduce a person's access to a single project. If someone should not have access to a project, they should not have the workspace role that grants it. Use a second workspace instead, as described in Workspaces.

Changing someone's role

You need Admin or Owner to change a role. Editors and Members cannot change anyone's role, including their own.

  1. Open Members for the workspace.
  2. Choose Change Role on their row.
  3. Set the new Workspace Role and choose Update Role. It applies on their next request.

Who can change whom, and to what:

You are You can change You can set them to
Owner Admins, Editors, Members Admin, Editor, Member
Admin Editors, Members Editor, Member
Editor nobody
Member nobody

Two limits follow from that table:

Only the Owner can create an Admin. An Admin can promote a Member to Editor, but not to Admin. If you need another Admin, the Owner has to make them one.

Admins cannot touch each other. An Admin cannot demote, promote, or remove another Admin, and nobody can change the Owner's role.

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