Understanding Roles and Permissions

Every WordPress install creates a site with a default set of Roles, and every role has a default set of Permissions. While there’s nothing wrong with this initial setup, many site owners would like to adjust and fine-tune these settings.

As a result, we generally setup our clients’ sites with their very own custom set of Roles and Permissions.

These settings will often vary slightly, but here’s a general overview:

Subscriber – can only view the dashboard, nothing else.
Contributor – can draft new posts and submit them for review, cannot publish directly.
Author – can draft new posts and publish them directly without submitting for review.
Editor – can draft/publish posts and can edit any other user’s posts including those submitted for review.
Owner – can draft/publish and edit/delete any other user’s posts and pages. They can also moderate comments, manage categories, manage links, and create/edit/delete users.
Administrator – can do everything, including install/edit/update theme templates, plugins, etc.

Typical Usage:

Subscriber [not typically used]
Contributor [users who are new, temporary, need heavy editing, untrusted, etc.]
Author [most common role, used for all trusted writers]
Editor [very trusted user, moderate web experience needed, moderate editorial skill needed]
Owner [owner of the site, usually just a single person who is responsible for the WordPress install]
Administrator [site admin account, usually someone with WordPress/PHP/MySQL/Server admin experience]