How to Create Business Manager on Facebook - Agency Guide

Go to business.facebook.com and select Create account. Enter your business name, your name and a business email address, then confirm the verification email Meta sends. That is the whole creation step. What Facebook used to call Business Manager is now a business portfolio inside Meta Business Suite, and the name change is the reason half the guides you find look wrong.

The hard part is not creating it. The hard part is what you do next, and if you are an agency reading this mid-onboarding, the next decision determines whether you can hand the account back cleanly in two years.

The one rule that decides everything

The client creates their own portfolio. You create your own. Then they add you as a partner.

On Meta, whichever business portfolio creates or claims an asset owns it, and only one business can own a Page. If you create the client's ad account or claim their Page inside your portfolio because it is faster on day one, you have taken ownership of something that belongs to them. Meta publishes self-serve ownership transfer for catalogues and for apps. It publishes no equivalent for Pages or ad accounts. At the end of the relationship the client either abandons their own ad history or you stay tied to an asset you no longer want.

Partner access avoids all of that. Meta's own wording on the partner dialog puts it better than we can: the assets "will remain in your portfolio, and partners will only be able to work on tasks you assign to them."

The only thing that changes hands is your business portfolio ID. A number, not a credential. If anyone in this process is being asked for a Facebook password, something has gone wrong. If the vocabulary here is still fuzzy, our breakdown of what a Meta business portfolio actually is and how it relates to Business Suite covers the structure before you start clicking.

Step 1: create the portfolio (client and agency both)

1. Go to business.facebook.com and select Create account.
2. Enter the business name, your name and a business email address.
3. Confirm the verification email.
4. Inside the new portfolio, open Settings.

A note that catches people out: creating the portfolio does not automatically give you access to the Page, ad account or tracking tools you add to it. Meta expects you to assign those assets to yourself explicitly. The path is Settings, People, select yourself, then Assign assets, or from the other direction, Settings, the asset type, then Assign people. If you have just built a portfolio and can see nothing in it, that is why.

Meta also asks some businesses to complete business verification before certain advertising, billing and developer features unlock. Not every business is asked, and not every business has the option. If you hit a wall on a feature, check whether verification is what is gating it before assuming something is broken.

Step 2: share the assets

There are three flows. Pick by who is willing to do the clicking.

Flow A: the client shares assets with you

Use this when the client is comfortable in Business settings. Two prerequisites, and both are gates rather than suggestions: your agency must already have its own business portfolio, so that you have a portfolio ID to hand over, and the client must have full control of theirs.

1. Client opens Meta Business Suite, then Settings.
2. Under Users, click Partners.
3. Click Add.
4. Choose Give a partner access to your assets.
5. Enter your agency's business portfolio ID, then Next.
6. Select the assets to share: Pages, ad accounts, catalogues, datasets. Set the access level on each.
7. Click Assign assets.

They can confirm it worked by clicking your agency in the Partners list and checking the Assets you shared tab.

Flow B: you request the assets

Use this when the client will not navigate Business settings themselves. You do the setup and they only approve.

1. In your own portfolio: Settings, then Partners, then Add.
2. Choose Ask a partner to assign you their assets.
3. Review the information and click Get started.
4. Enter the client's email address and their business portfolio ID. Both are required, which surprises people, because Flow A needs only the ID.
5. Select the roles for both businesses, then Next.
6. Choose the asset types and permission levels, then Next.
7. Review and click Send request.

An admin on the client side must approve. Nothing is granted unilaterally.

Flow C: one Page, no portfolio worth wiring up

There is a prerequisite Meta does not advertise: you must already have a primary Page in your own business portfolio before you can request access to another Page. An agency with an empty portfolio cannot use this route at all.

1. Meta Business Suite, Settings, then under Accounts click Pages.
2. Click Add, then Request shared access to a Facebook Page.
3. Enter the Page name or URL, then Next.
4. Choose the access level, then Confirm.

The request goes to an admin of the Page's owning portfolio.

Note what the Add dropdown offers here: Add an existing Facebook Page, Create a new Facebook Page, and Request shared access to a Facebook Page. Only the third is an access request. The first two put ownership in your portfolio. This single dropdown is where most agencies accidentally take a client's Page.

If the Instagram account is part of the engagement, add one more precondition to your checklist: Instagram has to be a professional account, business or creator, before it can be linked to the portfolio and shared. A personal account will be prompted to convert during linking, which is a conversation to have with the client in advance rather than mid-flow.

Which permission level to ask for

The maximum is the wrong default, every time. Asking for full control makes the client nervous, and it gives you rights you will never use but will be blamed for if something goes wrong.

Portfolio roles are Full control (formerly the admin role), Partial access with basic access (formerly employee, and the default when someone is added), and Partial access for apps and integrations (formerly developer). Nobody from your agency needs full control of the client's portfolio.

Asset-level access has two settings: Full control, which includes the ability to delete the asset, and Partial access, where you assign specific tasks. Default to partial.

Page access has three levels. Partial access for business tools only works through Business Suite and Ads Manager but cannot switch into the Page on Facebook. Partial access for business tools and Facebook can switch into the Page. Full control additionally manages Page access for other people, which is exactly why it should stay with the client.

Ad account roles are admin, advertiser and analyst. Advertiser is right for most media buyers: see and edit ads, run them on the account's existing payment method, no ability to change billing or permissions. The ad account has enough of its own quirks, from currency and time zone through to account limits, that it is worth reading our dedicated walkthrough of getting agency access to a client's Facebook ad account before you scope a media buying retainer.

What goes wrong

Access is not live until the invitation is accepted, and the client has to type their own password. Granting Facebook access requires the person granting it to enter their own Facebook password, and the recipient to accept an emailed invitation. Access is not live until that invitation is accepted, which is the single most common reason an agency sees nothing after a client swears they granted access. Warn the client about the password prompt before the call, because it looks like a phishing screen when it appears unannounced, and check your own inbox and spam folder the same day.

The client's ads run from a personal ad account. A personal Meta ad account that sits outside any business portfolio has no partner-sharing mechanism at all. The client has to create a portfolio and move to a proper structure, and you should not solve this with shared credentials. Find out which account the spend has been running through on the first onboarding call, not the week you were supposed to launch.

Adding staff as people inside the client's portfolio. Access is then tied to individual personal Facebook profiles. When that person leaves your agency, access leaves with them, or worse, stays with them, and the client is suddenly managing your staffing. Add your team to the shared assets from inside your own portfolio instead.

Two-factor enforcement locks out your own team overnight. The requirement sits at Settings, Business portfolio info, Business options, in the dropdown next to Two-factor authentication. Only full control can change it, and it takes effect immediately. Get 2FA on for every agency account before the client turns it on, and before you connect any integration, or your API calls start failing with two-factor errors and nobody will connect the two events.

Adding someone directly to an ad account requires a Facebook friendship. Meta requires an active Facebook account and that you are friends with the person. An agency seat that is not friends with the client cannot be added this way. Partner access has no such requirement.

Old Page access survives the portfolio. People who had access to a Page before it was added to a business portfolio keep it. After onboarding, audit Page, Manage, Page Access and clear out the former employee and the cousin who set the Page up in 2014.

Gray accounts cannot be granted Page access. If the client is still on an old Page-only account, this route will not work.

Temporary access exists and almost nobody uses it. Business Suite can grant basic access for a minimum of 3 days and a maximum of 75 days, after which access is revoked automatically and the person is removed. For audits, pitches and freelancers this is the correct tool.

The trap at the end

The day partner access is revoked, you lose the Page, the ad account and its entire campaign history, pixel and dataset access, catalogues, the Instagram inbox, and every shared audience. All at once. Partner access is permission, not ownership, and you keep nothing.

That is the correct arrangement. It just means your reporting cannot live in Ads Manager. Export performance data on a schedule into your own storage, and keep creative, copy and conversation history in systems you control. An agency CRM like Inflowave holds each client in a separate workspace with its own pipeline, role-based permissions and a unified inbox spanning Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, SMS, email and voice, so an offboarding removes an integration rather than erasing your record of the work.

Meta is one platform of many, and every one of them has its own version of these traps. If you are building an onboarding pack rather than solving a single Meta problem, our full access guide covering all 13 platforms an agency typically touches is the place to start.

FAQ

Is Facebook Business Manager the same as Meta Business Suite?
Not quite. Business Manager is now called a business portfolio, and it lives inside Meta Business Suite. Business Suite is the interface; the portfolio is the container that owns your Pages, ad accounts and datasets.

Do I need a Facebook Page before I create a Business Manager?
Not to create the portfolio. You do need a Page to run ads, and you need a primary Page already in your own portfolio before you can request shared access to someone else's Page.

Is Business Manager free?
There is no fee to create or run a business portfolio. You pay only for advertising.

How do I give an agency access to my Facebook Page?
Add their business portfolio ID as a partner and assign the Page with partial access. Do not add their staff as individual people, and do not share a login.

Why can't I add an admin to my Facebook Page?
Usually one of four reasons: you do not have full control of the Page yourself, the recipient is on a gray account, they have not accepted the emailed invitation yet, or the Page sits in a business portfolio and access has to be managed there.

Can I move a Page from my portfolio to the client's?
Meta publishes self-serve ownership transfer for catalogues and apps, not for Pages or ad accounts. This is why you should never claim a client's Page into your own portfolio in the first place.

Should the agency or the client own the ad account?
The client, in almost every case. Their ad history, audiences and learning phase data belong to their business, and a client-owned account you access as a partner is the only version of this that ends cleanly.