Meta business portfolio: do you need one, and how to start

A Meta business portfolio is the free account that owns your business's Facebook Page, Instagram account and ad account, and decides who may work on them. It used to be called Business Manager. You need one as soon as someone other than you helps with your accounts, or you want to run ads properly. You create it yourself at business.facebook.com. Below is how to tell whether you need one now, and how to set it up so it does not cause trouble later.

What a business portfolio actually is

Think of it as a locked filing cabinet with your business's name on the front. Inside are your Page, your Instagram account, your ad account and, later, things like a Meta Pixel. On the outside is a list of who holds which key.

Without a portfolio, your Page simply hangs off the personal Facebook profiles of whoever manages it. That works for a one-person shop. It gets messy once there are employees, a freelancer, an agency or a card paying for ads. Meta's own description is that a portfolio lets a business bring its Pages, Instagram accounts, ad accounts and other assets together and manage them, and the people who access them, from one place.

If the names Business Suite, Business Manager and portfolio still blur together, our earlier explainer, What is Meta Business Suite, sorts them out in two minutes.

Do you need one? Three questions

Answer these honestly:

1. Does anyone besides you post, reply or run ads for the business, or will they this year? A portfolio lets you give each person only the access they need and take it back in a click.
2. Do you run ads, or plan to? The ad account, the card and the reports all sit more safely in a portfolio than on one person's profile.
3. Would the business be stuck if your personal Facebook account were locked or hacked? In a portfolio you can have a second person with full control, so one lost login does not lock everyone out. If you have lived through a hacked Page, you know why that matters. If not, our first-hour plan for a hacked Page shows what it looks like.

Three "no" answers? You can wait. A solo owner who posts from the Facebook and Instagram apps and never runs ads does not have to create a portfolio today. One "yes" is enough reason to set it up now. Meta also lists things you may need a portfolio for, among them using Meta Business Suite, monthly invoicing for ads, and verifying your website's domain.

Before you click: a five-minute checklist

Most portfolio headaches start in the first ten minutes. Check these first:

• Use the owner's own Facebook profile. Whoever creates the portfolio gets full control of it. If an employee or an agency creates it on their profile, they hold the master key.
• Have a business e-mail ready. Meta asks for your name and a business e-mail address and sends a confirmation message to it. Customers do not see it.
• Use your public business name. Meta says the portfolio name should match the public name of your business, because it is visible across Meta, and it cannot contain special characters.
• Know the limit. One person can create up to two business portfolios. There is no limit on how many you can belong to. So do not create a test one.
• Find out who owns your Page now. A Page or an Instagram account can belong to only one portfolio. If a former agency or employee once added your Page to their portfolio, you will need them to release it first.
• Switch Instagram to a professional account. Meta only lets you add an Instagram professional account to a portfolio.

Create the portfolio, step by step

These are Meta's own steps for a computer:

1. Go to business.facebook.com and log in with your Facebook profile.
2. Click the dropdown menu below Home in the top left.
3. Click Create a business portfolio.
4. Enter the name of your business.
5. Enter your first and last name and your business e-mail.
6. Click Create, then confirm your e-mail address from the message Meta sends you.

You now have full control of the portfolio. Do not worry if some advertising features are missing at first: Meta says a new portfolio or ad account may not have access to every advertising feature right away, and you can check what is open to you in Business Support Home.

Add your Page and your Instagram account

Your Facebook Page. In Meta Business Suite open Settings, click Pages under Accounts, click Add and choose Add an existing Facebook Page. Type the Page name or address, accept the terms and click Add Page. From then on your business owns the Page. Everyone who had access to the Page before still has it, so this is a good moment to look through the list.

Your Instagram account. In Settings choose Instagram accounts under Accounts, click Add, accept the terms and log in with your Instagram username and password in the window that opens. Meta notes that adding Instagram to the portfolio does not by itself link it to your Facebook Page; that is a separate step.

Your ad account. If you plan to run ads, Settings also has an Ad accounts tab, where you can create a new ad account or claim one your business already has. Once it is in the portfolio, you decide there who may use it.

Who gets which key

Meta gives people two levels of access, full control and partial access. Other businesses get a third kind, partner access:

Meta's security advice for portfolios adds a few rules worth following from day one:

• Keep two active people with full control. Meta recommends it, so a second person can approve sensitive changes and nobody is locked out if one account has a problem.
• Keep full control to as few people as possible. Meta's ceiling is ideally 10 or fewer; for a small business, two is plenty.
• Remove people who have not logged in for 90 days, and anyone whose e-mail address has nothing to do with your business.
• Ask everyone in the portfolio to turn on two-factor authentication.

When you would rather not do it alone

The steps are simple; the history behind them often is not. A Page created years ago by a former employee, an Instagram account stuck in an old agency's portfolio, an ad account with nobody's card on it. That is where people get stuck.

Our Business Manager Setup is a one-time job for $99: one video call where you click and we guide. You end up with a portfolio in your own name, your Page and Instagram account connected, an ad account ready for your card, and us added as a partner so posting can start. We never ask for a password. If you already have a portfolio that works, you do not need it. You will find it among the one-time jobs on our pricing page.