Adding & managing staff accounts

Learn how to add staff members to your Shopify store, understand the difference between staff and collaborator accounts, and control who can see and do what.

Your Shopify store can be accessed by more than just you. Staff accounts let you give team members access to your admin, and collaborator accounts let agencies and developers like Chykalophia work on your store without using one of your staff slots.

Quick summary

Staff accounts are for your employees and team. Collaborator accounts are for agencies and developers (like Chykalophia). On a single store, only the store owner, or someone with the Administrator role, can approve collaborators. Staff account limits depend on your plan: Basic doesn't include staff accounts, Grow allows 5, Advanced 15, and Shopify Plus is unlimited. To give us access, use the collaborator invite — see the separate guide linked below.

The three types of Shopify accounts

Store owner

The store owner is usually the person who created the store. They have complete access to everything, including billing and plan management. Some tasks are owner-only, such as managing Shopify Payments and pausing or closing the store. Only the owner can change who the owner is (by transferring ownership).

Staff accounts

Staff accounts are for employees and team members. You control what each staff member can see and do by giving them roles. A role is a set of permissions.

Staff accounts count toward your plan's limit: none on Basic, 5 on Grow, 15 on Advanced, and unlimited on Shopify Plus. If you need more staff access than your plan allows, you may need to upgrade.

Collaborator accounts

Collaborator accounts are for external agencies and developers who are Shopify Partners. They are specifically designed so that a third party can access your store without consuming one of your staff account slots.

Collaborators can be given granular permissions too. The key differences from staff accounts:

	Staff account	Collaborator account
Counts toward your staff limit	Yes	No
Can access billing	Only if you grant billing permissions	Only if you grant billing permissions (they don't get billing emails)
Who can add them	Store owner or users with the Administrator role	Store owner or users with the Administrator role approve their access request
Used by	Your employees	External agencies / developers

This is how it works on a single store. On Shopify Plus, and on stores that are part of an organization, other administrator roles can manage users too.

To give Chykalophia access to your Shopify store, see Give us Shopify collaborator access.

Adding a staff account

You can't add staff accounts on the Basic plan.

Go to Settings → Users. From your Shopify admin, click Settings, then Users.

Click Add users. Make sure the Admin and Point of Sale tab is selected, then click Add users in the Users section.

Enter their email address, then click Add Users. Their invitation and any store email notifications go to this address.

Assign a role. In the Roles section, click Assign and pick a role, or create a new one. The Permissions summary shows what the role allows (see below).

Choose the two-step authentication setting and click Save. The staff member receives an email inviting them to set up their account. Invitations expire after seven days.

Setting staff permissions

Permissions are grouped by area of the admin, and you give them to people through roles. You can use a ready-made role or create your own. Areas include:

Orders — view and manage orders
Products — add, edit, delete products
Customers — view and edit customer data
Analytics — reports and dashboards
Discounts — create and manage discounts
Marketing — marketing campaigns and automations
Apps — install and manage apps and sales channels
Store settings — access to Settings pages (use carefully)
Online store — edit and publish themes, and manage blog posts and pages

On a single store that isn't on Shopify Plus, you can also give a trusted manager the Administrator role, which grants almost everything, including managing other users. Be selective — it is best practice to give each person only what they need to do their job.

Be careful with Settings access

Settings access is split into separate permissions. Billing, payment providers, shipping, and taxes each have their own, and Shopify marks some billing and payment permissions as sensitive. Only grant these to people who genuinely need them.

Editing or removing a staff account

Go to Settings → Users.

Click the staff member's name.

Change their access. Assign or remove roles in the Roles (or Roles and groups) section. To stop them logging in, click Suspend access. To remove them for good, click Actions → Remove.

Save or confirm. Click Save after changing roles, or confirm the suspension or removal.

When you suspend a staff member, they can no longer log in to your store, and you can Reactivate them later. Removing a staff member is permanent and can't be undone.

What happens when someone leaves your team

When a staff member leaves, remove their account promptly. As a good security habit:

Suspend or remove their staff account in Shopify
Change any shared passwords they may have known
Review whether they were the recipient of any forwarded email notifications

See Security steps when someone leaves for a complete checklist.

Transferring store ownership

If you want to transfer the full store owner role to someone else — for example, if you are selling the business — only the current store owner can do it:

To someone who already has a staff account on your store: go to Settings → Users, click your own name (the store owner), and use Change ownership.
To someone outside your store: go to Settings → General, and in the Transfer store section click Manage. The new owner gets an email and accepts the transfer by logging in to their Shopify account.

Shopify Plus stores handle this differently, and stores using Shopify Capital or Shopify Credit can't be transferred.

Ownership transfer cannot be undone easily

Transferring ownership gives the new owner full control, including billing. Only do this intentionally. If you are selling your business, make sure the transfer happens as part of a formal handoff process.

Common questions

Can a staff member change the store's plan or billing?

Only if their role includes the billing permissions, such as Manage Shopify plan or Edit billing payment methods and pay invoices. General Settings access isn't enough on its own. Even then, only the store owner can pause or close the store. We recommend not granting billing permissions unless the person genuinely manages your finances.

Never share your own login with employees. Individual staff accounts let each person have their own login and password. You can track what each person did in the activity log. And if someone leaves, you can remove their access without changing your own password.

I have hit my staff account limit — what can I do?

You have two options: upgrade to a plan with more staff slots, or use collaborator accounts for external people (collaborators don't count toward the limit). If the people needing access are employees, upgrading the plan is the right choice.

Can staff members see customer payment details?

Staff members with Orders access can see order details, such as the customer's shipping address. Card payments are identified by the card's last four digits (you can even filter orders by them). Be thoughtful about who you grant Orders access to.

Need a hand?

If you're stuck, email support@chykalophia.com and we'll help. Include your website address and a screenshot if you can.