Team members and roles
How access works in /tools: the owner and member roles, inviting people to a store, transferring ownership, and deleting a store (which also cancels its subscription).
Every store in /tools has one owner and any number of members. Owners can invite members, transfer ownership and delete the store; members have full working access but not those owner-only powers. Roles are set per store, so someone can own one store and be a member of another under the same account. Access is enforced by the app on every action, not left to trust.
The two roles
Access in /tools is organised per store. Each store has:
- One owner: the person with full control of the store, including who else can access it and how it's billed.
- Any number of members: people who can do the day-to-day work but not the owner-only actions.
Roles are scoped to the store, not the account. The same person can be the owner of one store and a member of another, all under one login. See Multi-store setup for how stores sit together.
What each role can do
| Action | Owner | Member |
|---|---|---|
| Run enrichment, review Feed Health Score | Yes | Yes |
| Use the feed URL, resync the catalogue | Yes | Yes |
| Review and approve BidSmart recommendations | Yes | Yes |
| Invite or remove members | Yes | No |
| Transfer ownership | Yes | No |
| Change or cancel the subscription | Yes | No |
| Delete the store | Yes | No |
The owner can do everything a member can: the two rows that matter are the owner-only ones: managing people, billing and deletion.
Inviting a member
From the store's team settings, the owner invites someone by email. They join as a member with full working access (enrichment, feeds and BidSmart's approval queue) but without the owner-only powers above. There's no extra charge: the £89 per store subscription covers the whole team. Billing stays owner-only regardless; see Subscription and billing.
Transferring ownership
A store has exactly one owner at a time. To hand a store over, the current owner transfers ownership to an existing member. After the transfer:
- The new owner gains all owner-only powers, including billing.
- The previous owner becomes a member and keeps their access: they don't lose the store, they just lose the owner-only actions.
Transferring ownership is how you move a store's billing to a different person without cancelling and re-subscribing.
Deep dive How access is actually enforced
Roles in /tools aren't just labels in the interface: the app checks them on the server for every action, so a member can't reach an owner-only action by finding a hidden URL or replaying a request. The check happens at the point the action would execute, not just when a button is drawn.
This matters most for the destructive and financial actions. Cancelling a subscription, deleting a store, transferring ownership and removing a member are all gated to the owner and verified server-side. A member working in the same store sees the collaborative surfaces (enrichment, feeds, the BidSmart approval queue) but the owner-only controls simply aren't available to them, and the server refuses them even if the request is crafted by hand.
The practical upshot: you can safely invite a freelancer or an agency contact as a member to do feed and bidding work without exposing your billing, your ability to delete the store, or control over who else has access.
Deleting a store
Deleting is owner-only and does two things at once:
- Removes the store from /tools for everyone: the owner and all members lose access.
- Cancels that store's subscription. You're not left paying for a store you've deleted.
Deletion is not reversible, and it affects only that store. Your other stores, their subscriptions and their teams carry on untouched. If your goal is only to stop paying for a while, cancel the subscription instead of deleting: a lapsed store keeps its feed and enriched data ready to reactivate, whereas a deleted store is gone. That distinction is covered in Subscription and billing.
Frequently asked questions
What can a member do that an owner can't?
Nothing. The owner can do everything a member can, plus the owner-only actions. Members have full working access to enrichment, feeds and BidSmart, but they can't invite others, transfer ownership, change billing or delete the store.
Can a store have two owners?
A store has exactly one owner at a time. If you need someone else to have owner-level control, transfer ownership to them: the previous owner becomes a member and keeps access.
Does inviting a member cost extra?
No, members are included: the £89 per month is per store regardless of how many people work on it.
What happens to members when I delete a store?
Deleting removes the store for everyone and cancels its subscription. Members lose access to that store, but their access to any other store they belong to is unaffected.