How to add a user to Klaviyo (and which role to give your agency)

Which Klaviyo user role should you give an agency?

Klaviyo has one Owner per account and a set of standard roles under it. Here's what each one can do, from Klaviyo's own reference.

For an agency doing done-for-you email, I ask for Admin. It's what I ask every brand for. Klaviyo's reference says Admins can build flows and campaigns, add and delete users and edit domain authentication.

Why Admin? To work properly as a growth and retention marketer, I need complete access to the tools I use. With a lower role, every time I want to add someone from my team or change a setting, I'd have to ask you first. With Admin I can just do the work, the same way I would in any other software we share.

Here's what you keep. You're still the Owner, and Klaviyo allows only one. Admins can change plans and cancel a paid subscription, but only the Owner can fully close the account, and the Owner can't be deleted. You can remove any user, me included, from Settings, then Users, anytime.

Give a copywriter or designer Content Creator. Give someone who only needs to read numbers Analyst.

What's the most common access mistake when hiring an agency?

The one I run into most: I ask for Admin, and the brand gives me Manager instead. Usually that's because they don't want to hand over full access. I get the instinct. But it costs you time.

Klaviyo says Managers can create campaigns and flows and set up SMS, but they can't add or delete users, cancel the account or export list and segment addresses. That first limit is the one that bites. An agency is rarely one person.

Here's what that looked like with one brand. They added me as a Manager. I needed to add a team member to help deploy the strategy, and I couldn't. We deploy our automations within the first seven days, and that takes both access and people who are free to do the work. Because the access wasn't right, their onboarding got delayed. Content access and Slack had the same kind of gaps, which pushed it back further.

So if you've hired someone to build, give them the access to build. If you're not ready to trust them with Admin, that's worth sorting out before you sign, not in week one.

How to add a user to Klaviyo, step by step

You need to be the Owner or an Admin. Here are Klaviyo's steps:

1. Click your account name in the bottom left corner.
2. Go to Settings, then Users.
3. Click Add new user.
4. Enter the new user's email address.
5. Choose a language.
6. Choose one role.
7. Click Add User.

The person gets an email from Klaviyo with the subject "New account invitation." Klaviyo recommends they log out of any other Klaviyo accounts before clicking the button in it, or it may not work.

If the invite gets lost, go to Settings, then Users, open the Inactive users tab, click the 3 dots next to their name and choose Resend Invites.

Two habits worth keeping:

• One login per person. Don't share your Owner login with anyone. If the agency has three people working on your account, that's three users.
• Use their work email. Then you know whose access you're looking at a year from now.

Do you need to add someone to Klaviyo before a free audit?

Not always. For a lot of things, I just work over screen share, because it's simple. My free strategy session works that way: we go through your account live together, so have your Klaviyo login ready.

When I need a thorough audit I can rely on, I ask to be added to the account.

If someone wants access for an audit, ask what they'll look at and who will see it. A look-only audit doesn't need a role that can edit flows or send campaigns. Analyst lets someone view analytics, lists and segments and preview flow messages, but not edit flows or send campaigns. Klaviyo's reference says Analysts can still export flow analytics, so only give it to someone you'd trust with that data.

Before the session, it helps to know:

• Your rough monthly revenue and what share comes from email
• The one thing bugging you, like a flow you don't trust or revenue that's gone flat
• What a past agency or freelancer changed, if you've had one

More on how to tell a real free Klaviyo audit from a sales pitch. If you'd rather check your account yourself first, here's the Klaviyo audit checklist I use.

Do you need to give your agency Shopify access too?

Often, yes. An email agency might need to check discount codes, products or how your store is sending data to Klaviyo. Shopify handles this with collaborator accounts.

Here's how it works, from Shopify's help center:

• Go to Settings, then Users (or Users and permissions), then Security, and copy your 4-digit collaborator request code. Send it to the agency.
• When the request comes in, go to Settings, then Users and open it. Shopify creates a role for it automatically, and you can edit that role before you click Accept request.
• Collaborators don't count toward your store's user limit.
• You can't transfer store ownership to a collaborator.
• Access expires if a collaborator hasn't logged in for 90 days.

Give only the permissions they need for the job. If someone asks for full store access to build emails, ask why.

How to remove a user from Klaviyo when you part ways

When an agency, freelancer or employee is done, take their access the same week. This one surprises me. I've had brands end the relationship and keep me in their Klaviyo account for over a year. I don't know why more brands aren't careful about it, but remove the former agency or person from Klaviyo and from every other platform they were in.

In Klaviyo:

1. Go to Settings, then Users.
2. Click the 3 vertical dots next to the user.
3. Select Delete user.
4. Click Delete user again to confirm.

Only the Owner or an Admin can do this. If you're switching agencies, add the new one before you remove the old one, so nobody gets locked out mid-handover. And don't pause any flows while it happens. Here's the full playbook for switching email marketing agencies without losing revenue.

Do the same in Shopify. Go to Settings, then Users, click the collaborator's name and remove them. Shopify says removal is permanent, so they'd have to send a new request to get back in.

Why the brand should always own the Klaviyo account

Klaviyo allows one Owner per account. The Owner controls billing and is the only role that can close the account. And you can't delete the Owner. To change Owners, the current Owner has to transfer it.

So if your agency set up Klaviyo under its own email, they hold the keys. That's fine until you want to leave.

The fix is simple while everyone's getting along. Ask them to make you the Owner. They add you as a user if you aren't one, then go to Settings, then Users, click your name, choose Owner from the role dropdown and click Update. Their role drops to Admin automatically, and then you can set it to whatever they actually need. If the old Owner has disappeared, Klaviyo says to contact its support team to start a verification process.

That's how I work. You own the account, I get Admin, and everything I build stays in your Klaviyo account if you ever leave. For what agencies charge once you're set up, see what a Klaviyo agency costs in 2026.

FAQ

WRITTEN BY Jack White

Founder of Bardown Digital, a Chicago-based Klaviyo email and retention agency for Shopify brands. He's worked with brands doing $500K to $100M a year, with $100M+ in email-attributed revenue across them.

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