Instagram account permissions explained
Instagram has no in-app roles. For a professional account, permissions are granted through a connected Facebook Page and Meta Business Portfolio. Here is the whole model in plain terms.
If you go looking for a "permissions" or "roles" screen inside Instagram, you will not find one — it does not exist. Permissions live entirely in the Facebook/Meta system. When a professional Instagram account is connected to a Facebook Page inside a Meta Business Portfolio, the Instagram account becomes an asset you can assign people to, with task-based permissions managed in Meta Business Suite. That borrowed system is the only formal permission model Instagram has.
How Instagram permissions actually work
There are two tiers. The portfolio tier decides who is in your business at all — admins who can manage everything and grant access, and employees who only reach the specific assets they are assigned. The asset tier decides what each person can do on a given Instagram account — create content, manage messages, handle community activity, run ads, or view insights only.
Page admins of the connected Facebook Page also inherit certain Instagram permissions automatically through the connection. So in practice, who can do what on your Instagram is the sum of portfolio membership, asset assignment, and the connected Page's admins.
All of this is managed in Business settings / Meta Business Suite, never in the Instagram app. The Instagram app only controls the credentials and the account's own security settings.
The Instagram access levels
These are the access levels you can assign once an Instagram account is an asset in a Meta Business Portfolio. Portfolio-level roles decide who is in the business; asset-level permissions decide what they can do on the account itself.
| Role | Where it lives | Can do | Cannot do |
|---|---|---|---|
Business Portfolio — Admin access Can delegate to others | business.facebook.com → Settings → PeopleEntire Business Portfolio |
| — ⚠ Portfolio Admin is the highest privilege — protect this role tightly. |
Business Portfolio — Employee access | business.facebook.com → Settings → PeopleOnly assigned assets |
|
|
Instagram asset — Full control Can delegate to others | business.facebook.com → Accounts → Instagram accounts → Assign peopleSpecific Instagram account |
| — |
Instagram — Create content | Asset-level Instagram permissionsPosting and content |
|
|
Instagram — Messages & community activity | Asset-level Instagram permissionsInbox and community |
| — |
Instagram — Community activity | Asset-level Instagram permissionsComments and mentions only |
|
|
Instagram — Ads | Asset-level + Ad Account permissionsBoosted posts and ad campaigns |
| — ⚠ Ad permission typically also requires Ad Account access — a common point of mis-grants. |
Instagram — Insights | Asset-level Instagram permissionsRead-only |
| — |
Frequently asked questions
Delvia
Access issues are easier to prevent when roles, owners, and responsibilities are recorded clearly
Most access problems trace back to the same gap — no clear record of who has access, what role they hold, and what should happen when that changes. Delvia helps you keep that record so problems are visible before they become incidents.