Oct 30, 2026
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What’s the difference between an Owner and a Manager?
Google gives a profile two kinds of users, and the difference sounds small until the day it isn’t.
An Owner has complete control. Owners add and remove people, change everyone else’s role, edit every detail of the business, and can delete the whole profile. A profile can have several owners, but only one Primary owner, and the Primary owner can’t walk away until that role has been handed to someone else.
A Manager does almost all the daily work. Managers edit the hours, the phone number and the categories, add photos and posts, reply to reviews and download the numbers. What they can’t do: add or remove users, change anyone’s role, or delete the profile.
Why should an agency only ever be a Manager?
Because everything an agency needs to get you into the top 3 on Google Maps fits inside the Manager role. Categories, services, hours, photos, posts, review replies: all of it.
So when an agency asks to be the Owner, or worse, creates your profile inside its own Google account, ask one question: why? There is no good answer. An agency that wants to be your Owner wants a leash. A business that can’t take its profile with it keeps paying, month after month, and the agency knows it. A smart owner doesn’t sign that deal.
Our rule is simple. You stay the Owner, we get the Manager role. When we start, you accept one invite from us. If you ever decide to leave, you remove us with one click, and every review and photo stays exactly where it is.
What happens when someone else is the Owner?
Usually nothing, for years. That’s the trap.
The profile was set up by whoever was around: the web designer who built your first site, a freelancer, a former employee, the nephew who “knows computers”. They made themselves Owner because it was the quickest way, and nobody looked at it again.
Then one day you need something. New opening hours for December. A new phone number after you switch providers. A reply to an unfair review that’s sitting at the top of your profile. And you find out you can’t do it yourself.
The Owner can also do things you’d never agree to: remove you, change the business name, or delete the profile with all its reviews. You trust them not to? So did Olena. Your profile shouldn’t depend on the mood of someone you haven’t spoken to since 2021.
Google does have a process to request access to a profile someone else controls. The current owner gets 3 days to answer, and if they stay silent, you may get the option to claim the profile yourself. Sometimes that option never shows up, and that’s where it gets messy.
How do you check who owns your profile?
This is the two-minute check. Do it on a laptop, signed in to the Google account you use for the business.
Open the profile. Go to business.google.com, or search your business name on Google while you’re signed in.
Find the people. Choose More, then Business Profile settings, then People and access.
Look at the roles. Your own email should be listed as Primary owner.
Clean the list. Anyone you don’t recognize, or anyone who no longer works with you, gets removed. Only an owner can do this.
If you are the Primary owner and the list only shows people you know: well done. Close the tab and get back to work.
What if you’re not the Owner?
Then fix it this week, while the person who holds the role still answers the phone.
Ask them to add your Google account as an Owner and then hand you primary ownership. Google has two conditions here: the profile needs at least one other owner or manager before primary ownership can move, and someone who was added in the last 7 days can’t receive it yet. So the order is: get added first, wait a week, then take over the primary role.
After that, the person who set it up drops to Manager, or out. Your call. Your profile and every review on it stay with you.
If the old owner doesn’t answer at all, don’t create a new profile. A second profile for the same business splits your reviews and confuses Google, and that can cost you rankings you worked years for. Send us the details first and we’ll go through the options with you.