User roles control what your team members and other users can access and do within your Thinkific site. Each role comes with a defined set of permissions — assigning the right role to the right person ensures they have exactly the access they need, nothing more.
Applies to:
- Plan: Basic, Start, Grow, Expand, Pro, Pro + Growth, Premier, Plus
- Role: Site Owner, Site Admin
What are User Roles?
User roles control what your team members and other users can access and do within your Thinkific site. Each role comes with a defined set of permissions - assigning the right role to the right person ensures they have exactly the access they need, nothing more.
Thinkific has two types of roles:
- Default Roles: system-defined roles created by Thinkific (Site Admin, Course Admin, Group Analyst, Affiliate, Revenue Partner, Community Moderator, Seat Manager). Their permissions are fixed and cannot be modified.
- Custom Roles: let you create roles with any name and a tailored set of permissions to ensure that your team members get the right access. Custom roles can be scoped to specific courses, communities, or groups. See: Custom Roles: Build the Right Access for Every Team Member.
How Many Team Members Can I Assign Roles to?
Unlimited Affiliates, Revenue Partners, and Community Moderators are available on paid plans. Unlimited Seat Managers are available on Grow plan and above.
As of July 17th, 2026, the number of team members that can be assigned other roles (Site Admins, Course Admins, Group Analysts, and custom roles) is determined by the number of available licences. The limits below apply to new accounts created on July 17th, 2026:
- Basic: 1
- Start: 3
- Grow: 10
- Expand: 15
- Plus: contact your CSM
If your account was created before July 17th, 2026, and your current team exceeds your plan's limit, review how your account is handled here: Team Member Licenses: A More Flexible Way to Manage Admin Access.
Where to Manage Roles and Team Members
To easily find all available roles and team members (users that are assigned to these roles), select the Team option in the Admin Dashboard. This opens two pages for managing team access:
- Team Members: view all users with an assigned role. You can see how many licences are consumed. You can search by name or email, filter by role, view each user's assigned roles, and perform additional actions, such as managing access restrictions.
- Roles: view and manage default and custom roles. Each role's detail page shows its full permission set and the team members currently assigned to it.
How to Manage User Roles
The Site Owner and Site Admins can assign user roles. Learn how to do it here: How to Assign or Remove a Role to and from a Team Member.
Site Owner
The Site Owner has the highest level of permissions within your Thinkific account. They will have access to all functionality available on the account and have the ability to transfer account ownership if needed. There is only one Site Owner per Thinkific account. The Site Owner user account is also always assigned as a Site Admin. In order to maintain access to your account, make sure that you have access to the email address associated with the Site Owner.
Roles That Consume Licences
Site Admins, Course Admins, Group Analysts, and Custom roles all count towards the licence count and consume licences when assigned to a user.
Site Admin
A Site Admin has all the same level of permissions as a Site Owner with some exceptions:
- They cannot transfer account ownership. This means they cannot edit the Site Owner's email address or password details.
- They cannot update your Thinkific site subscription.
- They cannot set up payment integrations
- You have the option to hide the financial information from them.
Learn more here: Site Admins.
Course Admin
Course Admins have limited access to your Thinkific account. They can:
- Create new courses
- Create new instructors
- Edit existing courses to which they are assigned as Course Admin
- View student progress for courses to which they are assigned as Course Admin
- and more!
Learn more about the role here: Course Admin.
Group Analyst
Group Analysts have read-only access scoped to groups they are assigned to. They can:
- View and export student progress for assigned groups
- View student names and emails for assigned groups
Learn more about the role here: Group Analyst.
Roles that Do Not Consume Licenses
Community Moderator, Affiliates, Revenue Partners, and Seat Managers do not consume any licenses.
Community Moderator
The Community Moderator role can be assigned to users in a specific community to allow them to help moderate that community and the spaces within it. Along with the permissions assigned to their existing user role, moderators are granted additional permissions within the community, including:
- Pin posts to the Community Homepage
- Create, edit, and delete their posts
- Delete posts of other members
- Create and edit live events created within the Community
Moderators are easily identified within the community by a Moderator badge (visible beside their name in both their profile and on their posts and comments within the community).
Note that the Community Moderator role for all communities is automatically assigned to:
- the Site Owner
- Site Admins
- Any External Partners you may be working with on your site.
Learn more about the Community Moderator.
Seat Manager
The Seat Manager role is automatically assigned to any user who makes a Group Order purchase. Once the group order purchase is successfully completed, the user will have access to the Admin Dashboard, customized for Seat Managers.
A Seat Manager can do the following when accessing their Admin Dashboard:
- View the number of seats purchased, claimed, and still available, self-enroll in a seat and buy more seats as needed.
- Generate, retrieve, and share sign-up links. These links must be used by learners to enroll in the product purchased for them.
- View details of students who have enrolled/claimed a seat. This includes the students':
- Name
- Email address
- Date created/enrolled
- Date last signed in
- User role type
- Enrollment status
Learn more about the role and its permissions here: Seat Managers.
Affiliate
An Affiliate can earn percentage or dollar commissions for promoting your courses! They will have access to basic account settings like a Student as well as an Affiliate Dashboard which includes:
- General Affiliate Information (includes commission rate)
- Affiliates links
- Financial Reports (commission breakdown)
- Settings (Payout email address)
You can see more details on Affiliates here:
- How to Use Affiliates
- An Introduction the Affiliate Menu (For Affiliates)
- Managing Affiliate Payouts
Revenue Partner
Revenue Partners also known as Product Payees allow you to share a percentage of your earnings with a third party. Revenue Partners do not have any custom details available in their account and have access to basic account settings like Student accounts.
Note that starting July 17th, 2026, you have access to unlimited number of Revenue Partners
Learn more about Revenue Partners.
Other Types of Users
Student and External Partners will not appear in the Roles table.
Student
Student is not considered a role. By default, all new user accounts are created as student accounts.
Students have access to student-facing pages only (e.g. Learner Hub or Course Player). Learn more about The Thinkific Student Experience.
External Partners
If you have hired an external agency, freelancer, or developer to help build out your Thinkific site, we want to ensure that you have control over their access.
Using our Partner Portal, Partners can request access to your Thinkific site, allowing you to approve or deny external requests. Once a Partner is approved, they will be assigned a Partner role. This provides a safe and efficient way to work with external partners, without needing to share your login credentials.
The External Partner user role has the following permissions:
- Can access everything on your Thinkific website
- Can assign user roles
- Can not transfer account ownership
- Can not set up or edit payment integrations
- You have the option to hide the financial information from them
Learn more about External Partners.
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the difference between a Site Owner and a Site Admin?
A Site Owner has all the same access as a Site Admin, plus the ability to transfer account ownership, update the subscription plan, and set up payment integrations. There can only be one Site Owner, but there can be multiple Site Admins. Site Owner accounts cannot be deleted.
Can a user have more than one role?
You can assign multiple default roles to a team member, but Site Admin can't be combined with Course Admin, Group Analyst, or Community Moderator. Only one custom role can be assigned to a user. If the same user has two roles that consume licenses, they will use up one license only.