Thinkific allows you to create custom roles with exactly the permissions each team member needs — giving you full control over who can access and manage what on your site.
Applies to:
- Plan: Plus
- Role: Site Owner, Site Admin
This feature is coming on July 21, 2026. Stay tuned for the release!
What's New with Custom Roles
- Create custom roles with any name and a tailored set of permissions — go beyond the default options to match how your team actually works (for example, create a "Content Manager" role who can edit courses but not view billing, or a "Community Lead" who moderates select communities only)
- Choose from multiple permissions across multiple areas, such as Courses, Users, Communities, Analytics, and Groups.
- Scope course, community, and group permissions to specific resources (i.e. products or groups) — a team member's access is limited to only the courses, communities, or groupd you assign them to.
- View and understand your custom roles alongside your existing default roles (Site Admin, Course Admin, Group Analyst, Community Moderator, Seat Manager).
How Custom Roles Work
Custom roles are created and managed from Team > Roles in your admin dashboard. When you create a role, you give it a name and select its permissions from a picker organized by domain. Permissions in the Courses, Communities, and Groups domains are resource-scoped — the role defines what actions are allowed, and the specific products (e.g. courses, communities) or resources (e.g groups) you assign to the team member determine the exact products the team member can take these actions on. Permissions in the other domains (e.g. Users, Analytics) apply across your entire site.
Once a role is created, you can assign it to any team member from their detail page. A team member can hold more than one role. Learn more: How to Assign a Role to a Team Member.
Getting Started
- Get Started with User Roles
- How to Create and Manage Custom Roles
- How to Assign or Remove a Role to and from a Team Member
Important Considerations
- Custom Roles are available on Plus plans only. Default roles (Site Admin, Course Admin, Group Analyst, Community Moderator, Seat Manager) continue to work as before and are available on corresponding plans. Learn more here: Get Started with User Roles.
- If you are on a Plus plan and do not see the option to create custom roles, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager.
- You can duplicate an existing custom role to use it as a starting point for a new one — useful when multiple roles share a similar permission set. Learn more here: How to Create and Manage Custom Roles.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I edit or delete a custom role after creating it?
What's the difference between a default role and a custom role?
Default roles are Thinkific's built-in roles with fixed permission sets that cannot be changed. Custom roles are roles you create with any combination of permissions you choose.
Related articles:
- Learn more: Get Started with User Roles
- Related: How to Create and Manage Custom Roles
- Related: How to Assign or Remove a Role to and from a Team Member