Who Can Do What: Site Admins vs Site Editors
When you invite people to help run your website, you decide how much each person can do. StoutStack keeps this simple with two roles: Site Admin and Site Editor. This article explains what each one can do so you can give teammates exactly the access they need, and nothing they don't.
The two roles at a glance
Both roles can build and manage the day-to-day content of your site. The difference is control over the account itself: branding, domains, billing, and team management are reserved for Site Admins.
| Task | Site Admin | Site Editor |
|---|---|---|
| Create and edit pages | Yes | Yes |
| Write and manage blog posts | Yes | Yes |
| Upload and manage images and files | Yes | Yes |
| Preview and publish content | Yes | Yes |
| Branding: logo, colors, fonts | Yes | No |
| Site Settings | Yes | No |
| Connect or change your domain | Yes | No |
| Billing and plan | Yes | No |
| Tracking code | Yes | No |
| Manage the team and set roles | Yes | No |
| Delete the account | Yes | No |
Site Admin: full control
A Site Admin can do everything on the site. This is the right role for you as the owner, and for a business partner or manager you fully trust with the account. Alongside all the content abilities, a Site Admin can:
- Change your branding: logo, colors, and fonts that style the whole site.
- Open and change everything in Site Settings.
- Connect, verify, or remove your custom domain.
- Manage billing and your plan.
- Add or edit tracking code (for things like analytics and marketing tags).
- Manage the team: invite people, set whether they're an admin or an editor, and remove access.
- Handle account-level actions, including closing the account.
Site Editor: content only
A Site Editor is your content role. It's perfect for a marketer, an assistant, a copywriter, or an agency helping with your pages and blog, people who should be able to update the site without being able to change the account's setup. A Site Editor can:
- Create, edit, and publish pages.
- Write and manage blog posts and categories.
- Upload and organize images and files.
- Preview changes and publish content.
A Site Editor cannot change Site Settings. That page is hidden from them, so they have no access to branding, your domain, billing, or tracking code, and there's no risk of accidental changes to your brand or your bill. The team area works a little differently: an editor can see the list of teammates and update their own profile and password, but they can't add people or change anyone's role. Those stay Site-Admin-only.
Why the big controls are admin-only
You might notice that several important tasks all sit under Site Settings: connecting a domain, managing billing, editing tracking code, and closing the account. Because these live in Site Settings, and only Site Admins can open Site Settings, all of these are Site-Admin-only tasks. Managing the team is its own separate area, and it's admin-only too. This keeps the powerful, account-level controls in the hands of the people responsible for the account, while still letting editors do great work on your content every day.
Built-in safety guards
A couple of protections are always on, so no one can accidentally lock you out of your own site:
- Nobody can change their own role. Roles are set for you by another Site Admin, not by yourself, so an editor can't quietly promote themselves.
- You can't remove your own account. Just like your role, this never changes, even once there's more than one admin, so you can never accidentally lock yourself out of your own site.
If you ever need to hand off the account, make a trusted teammate a Site Admin, and then they can change your role for you (since you can't change your own).
Good to know
- Start people with the least access they need. You can always upgrade a Site Editor to Site Admin later.
- The number of editors you can add depends on your plan. The Starter plan includes 1 editor, and the Pro plan includes 3. If you need more seats, upgrading your plan adds them.
- Ready to bring someone on? See the related article, "Adding & Managing Team Members," for step-by-step instructions on inviting a teammate and choosing their role.