Meta Agency Ad Account: What It Is, Who Owns It and How to Get One

Nothing, as a product.

• A choice when the account is created. Meta's form to create a new ad account asks what it's for. You pick My business, or Another business or client if you'll use it on behalf of a partner's business.
• Partners. Meta calls other businesses you work with, such as agencies or clients, partners. A business can give a partner access to its assets, or ask a partner to share theirs.
• The on-behalf-of feature. Agencies and Meta Business Partners can specify which ad accounts they use on behalf of other businesses. Once that's set, the client's name shows in the "Why am I seeing this ad?" option, instead of what may otherwise show, the agency's portfolio name.
• A badge for the company. Meta Business Partners is a program for companies, with a badge for those who qualify. It belongs to a provider, never to an account.

One word has also changed. Meta now calls its business accounts business portfolios, reached through Meta Business Suite or Business Manager. Most buyers still say BM, and we use both here.

The provider does, permanently. Meta says that if you create a new ad account in a business portfolio, it will permanently be part of that portfolio and can't be deleted or transferred. An ad account can only be in one portfolio at a time. Closing it doesn't remove it either, and a closed account still counts toward that portfolio's limit.

What you get is access. Meta has two levels.

Meta's sharing rule cuts both ways. Only the portfolio that owns an asset can share it on. If your Page, pixel and domain sit in your own portfolio and you share them where they're needed, they stay in your hands when the agency account closes. If they're in the provider's portfolio, sharing them is the provider's call.

Meta also says what should happen at the end. Once an ad account has an on-behalf-of relationship, it can't be removed or replaced with another business, "because an ad account should only run ads for a single client". When the relationship ends, Meta says the client should revoke the agency's access to its Page and the agency should stop using the account. The account becomes inactive but stays in the agency's portfolio for its records.

1. Have your own business portfolio. Meta's partner sharing works between portfolios, so the provider needs one and so do you. A portfolio is also what you need to use Meta Business Suite and enroll in monthly invoicing.
2. Turn on two-factor authentication for your portfolio. Meta lists it under before you begin for partner sharing.
3. Find your business portfolio ID. It's in Settings, under Business portfolio info, below the portfolio name. The provider needs it to share the account with you.
4. Tell the provider what you run. Vertical, landing page, countries. A provider can't change Meta's rules for your product, so a no is cheapest before you pay.
5. Find the account in Settings and check your access level. Once the provider shares it, it shows in the Settings of your portfolio. You can also ask for it yourself, in Settings, Ad accounts, Request access to an ad account in another business portfolio, with the ad account ID and the access level you want. Look at whether you got full control or partial access, and which tasks.
6. Connect your own assets. Use the Page and pixel from your own portfolio. If the provider needs access to them, give it from your side as a partner, through Settings, Partners, with the access level you choose.
7. Ask about the on-behalf-of setting. If the provider names your business on the account, Meta applies your business's Audience Manager features to it after someone with full control of your portfolio confirms the request.
8. Fund it and launch. On an agency account you top up the provider, and the provider raises the account's spending limit.

If your own portfolio can't create more ad accounts, that's a separate limit. Meta says new business portfolios can only create one ad account at first. An agency account doesn't count against that limit, because it's created in the provider's portfolio.

The first is the daily spending limit. Meta sets it for most advertisers, and its own page says it typically rises as you build history, follow policy and spend close to it. Then comes a one-line note, "If your ad account uses monthly invoicing, Meta does not set a daily spending limit." Monthly invoicing is a credit line Meta gives to eligible businesses, with one invoice a month and 30 days to pay. If a provider's portfolio pays Meta that way, the account works under a credit limit instead of a daily limit. That credit limit covers every account on the provider's credit line, and Meta says ads may pause once it's used up, even before the invoice is out. Your account can stop because of the provider's total spend, not yours. Ask your provider how the account you're getting is paid, because "agency account" alone doesn't tell you.

The second is the account spending limit. On an agency account that's usually the ceiling the provider manages, and a top up raises it. Watch one detail. When an account hits its spending limit, Meta sends a notification, but the ads still show as active in Ads Manager. If delivery flatlines and every ad says Active, check the spending limit before you touch the campaigns.

Meta's own restrictions can also lower these numbers. It lists limits on daily spend or a lower payment threshold among the restrictions it may apply when it sees unusual or high-risk activity, including high rates of failed or disputed payments.

On one point Meta's help pages contradict each other, and on two others they differ in detail or in wording. None of them shows an update date, so we can't tell you which is newer.

For the creation limit, the three pages agree on the start. You start at one, and a confirmed payment is what moves it. Your actual number is in Settings, Business info, under Ad account creation limit, if you have full control of the portfolio. Accounts Meta disabled after 60 days without use count toward it too.

Everything that touches the ad. Meta says its review system is designed to review all ads before they go live, mostly with automated technology and in some cases by people. An agency account goes through the same review, against the same Advertising Standards. Whoever creates the account accepts Meta's Terms of Service and Advertising Standards for their portfolio, as a step in creating the ad account, and your ads still have to meet them.

Some topics have their own rules on top. Meta's Advertising Standards page lists policies for cryptocurrency products and services, dating, drug and alcohol addiction treatment, online gambling and gaming, alcohol, and social issues, elections or politics, several of them with an application or eligibility step. That approval belongs to the advertiser and the ads, and no provider can sell it with the account. The details are in our guides to dating ads on Meta, crypto ads and iGaming ads.

Restrictions also reach further than the account. Meta's page on advertising restrictions names four levels.

Read the last row with an agency account in mind. A ban on your personal profile follows you into any ad account you work on, the provider's included.

When Meta sees unusual activity it can also take away a portfolio's ability to add admins, partners or users, or to create new ad accounts. On a provider's portfolio, that stops new accounts for every client until it's lifted.

Business verification sits on the same side. It's how Meta confirms a portfolio belongs to a legitimate business or organization. Not every business needs it or can do it, and it isn't Meta Verified, so it gives no badge. Meta says verification can help raise the daily spending limit faster, and that a decision takes anywhere from 10 minutes to 14 business days. False or misleading details can get verification refused or removed, and Meta may take further action on the account.

It stops like any other account. The difference is who can file.

Meta lets you request a review in Business Support Home if you think a portfolio, ad account, Page or profile was restricted by mistake, and you have to be an admin on the account to do it. On an agency account that's usually the provider, so agree who files before anyone clicks. Meta says it typically completes the review in 48 hours, sometimes longer. You get a limited number of review requests, and once a review is done the decision is final. If the restriction comes off, ads that were running don't restart by themselves, so you turn them back on in Ads Manager.

There's a money clause too. If an ad account is disabled for a policy violation and stays ineligible for reinstatement for 6 months, Meta says unused prepaid services may be forfeited where the law allows, and the account can't come back after that. Meta also says it can disable an account permanently before the 6 months, in certain circumstances. On an agency account, whatever Meta holds was paid by the provider, so your balance question goes to them. We go through it in what happens to your balance when an agency account is banned.

When one of ours falls, you hear it from a person, with what the platform told us. We read why it happened, fix what can be fixed and resubmit with you. If the account can't come back, you get a new one at no charge. A new account doesn't carry the old problem away, though. If the same ad goes straight back up, it meets the same review.

If you run one brand with a clean product, your card clears, and your daily spending limit already covers your test, your own account in your own portfolio does the job. Meta raises the limit on its own as you build history, and you can verify your payment method or business to ask for a faster increase when Meta shows you're eligible.

If a client of yours already has monthly invoicing, there's another route. The client can share its credit line with your portfolio, in full, as a fixed amount or with a spend cap. Availability may vary, the client needs full control and finance access in its portfolio, and the credit line's currency has to be one Meta supports for sharing. The client stays liable for everything charged to it, and where both businesses are has to fit Meta's country rules. Businesses in the US, Brazil, France, India or Mexico can only share with a business in the same country, and businesses elsewhere can't share with businesses in those five.

An agency account starts to earn its fee when payment is what's holding you back, when the daily limit on a new portfolio is too small for the test you need, or when you run several offers and want one person handling the money across all of them.

The account is shared into your BM, and you run the campaigns. In the panel, your balance is what you recharged minus what you allocated to accounts. A top down moves unspent budget from a live account back to that balance. The Adtucon Platform is in early access with a first group of clients. It opens to every client in early 2027.

Most of our Meta accounts go live within 48 hours. Read that as what usually happens, and business verification still runs on Meta's clock. Verification Support comes with the account. We go through Meta's business verification with you before you file, and Meta makes the decision.

You pay nothing until your first deposit. The fee comes out of each deposit. Your rate depends on vertical and volume, and comes in chat before your first deposit. Your manager has a name and a Telegram.

Adtucon Certified is our own programme, and no platform issues it. Current offers are on the offers page.

Seven questions for Meta in particular. The general list is in questions to ask an agency ad account provider, and agency vs regular ad account covers the differences across platforms.

1. Which portfolio owns the account, and will I get full control or partial access?
2. Will you set my business as the one the account advertises on behalf of?
3. How is the account paid, by card, prepaid funds or monthly invoicing?
4. Who sets the ad account spending limit, and how fast does it move when I top up?
5. Which time zone and currency will it use?
6. If Meta restricts the account, who files the review, and what happens to the unspent balance?
7. Are you a Meta Business Partner, and in which solution? The badge is real, and Meta requires business verification for it, but it tells you about the company, not about your vertical.

If Meta fits what you run, see how our Meta accounts work or ask for an account.