Workspace ownership

Summary#

Ownership is not a role you assign. Every Metric Vault account permanently owns the workspace created with it, and nobody else can become its owner. The owner holds the subscription, controls the member list, and is the account under which the workspace's configuration is stored. There is no ownership transfer today, so the practical answer to "our owner is leaving" is to plan around the account rather than around the person.

Purpose#

Making ownership intrinsic removes a whole class of accident. There is no way to promote someone to owner by mistake, no privilege-escalation path through the invite form, and no ambiguity about who is responsible for the bill. When you look at a workspace you always know exactly one account is in charge of it: the one it is named after.

The trade-off is that ownership cannot be handed over in the product. That is a real constraint and this page is explicit about it, because the time to discover it is while you are setting a team up, not on the day someone resigns.

Overview#

Every account is simultaneously two things.

The owner of its own workspace. This exists from sign-up. You do not create it and you cannot delete it separately from the account. Everything you configure — monitored competitors, rank alerts, scheduled reports, editorial items, share links, your blog — is stored under it.

Optionally a member of other workspaces. Accepting an invite adds a workspace to your Workspaces You've Joined list. It never changes who owns anything. See Inviting teammates.

The Owner option that appears in the invite dropdown and in the per-member role dropdown is refused by the server. Sending an invite with it returns A member cannot be invited as 'owner'. This is deliberate: owner is a property of the workspace creator, not a level someone can be granted.

What only the owner can do#

Members can do none of these for your workspace. A member who opens their own Team screen manages their own workspace only, with their own seat allowance.

How it works#

Ownership is the account identity. The workspace is addressed by the owner's email address, which is why that address appears at the top of Workspaces You've Joined and on every invite your teammates receive.

Access is checked against acceptance, not against ownership. A member's ability to read your workspace comes from their accepted membership, and it ends the moment you remove them. Ownership itself is never checked against a list because it cannot change.

The email address on an account cannot be changed in the product. There is no email-change control in Account settings. Combined with the absence of transfer, this means an account and its owner's address are effectively one thing.

Planning for a change of owner#

Since ownership cannot be moved, choose one of these before you need it.

Own the account at the organization, not the individual. Create the workspace under an address the organization controls, such as a shared mailbox, and treat the credentials as a company asset. Individuals then join as members and can be removed cleanly when they leave. This is the option that costs nothing later, and it is the one to pick if you are setting up now.

Rebuild under a new owner. The incoming owner creates their own account, subscribes, and reconfigures the monitoring, alerts and schedules there. Everyone else is re-invited to the new workspace. This is workable but it is manual: there is no export or import of workspace configuration.

Ask support. If neither fits — for example the previous owner has left and the mailbox is gone — contact support with proof that you control the account, and they will advise on what can be done for your case. See Contacting support.

What ownership does not give you#

Ownership is authority over the workspace, not visibility into your members.

• You cannot see a member's saved results or activity history. Those belong to their account. See What teammates share.
• You cannot see or change a member's plan, credits or account settings.
• You cannot sign a member out, reset their password, or act as them.
• Removing a member does not delete anything they created; it only ends their access to your workspace.

If you need one of those, the member has to do it from their own account.