Finding and changing the account owner

The owner is named under Billing, not on the account page. Whether you can transfer it yourself depends on the kind of account you have.

The owner is named under Billing rather than on the account page. Whether you can transfer it yourself depends on the kind of account you have, so this article starts with looking and then splits.

Find out who the owner is

1. In Admin Center, click Account in the sidebar.
2. Select Billing > Contacts.
3. Read the Contact type column. The owner carries the blue Account owner badge; everybody else on the page is a contact, not the owner.

That is the whole answer to "who owns our Zendesk", and it is worth writing down somewhere your team can find it. The question always comes up at renewal, and always in a hurry.

Which kind of account do you have?

Open Account > Billing > Subscription and look at the top of the page.

If you buy Zendesk through us, this is the paragraph that applies to you: yours is a managed account, and the billing admin that Zendesk's own instructions revolve around is not part of it. Transferring ownership therefore does not run the way those instructions describe.

Transfer it

The current account owner does this, signed in as themselves, and nobody else can.

1. Sign in as the current account owner.
2. Open Account > Billing > Contacts.
3. Find the person taking over. Their email address has to be validated.
4. Click the options menu beside them and select Make account owner.
5. Click Change owner to confirm.

Who may receive it depends on the account. Where billing admins exist, the new owner has to be one, and an ordinary administrator cannot receive ownership. On a managed account there are no billing admins, and ownership passes to another admin.

If you cannot get into the owner's account

That is the case where you cannot do it yourself, and it is the reason to transfer ownership before somebody leaves rather than after. Once their account is gone, it becomes a recovery process with proof that your organisation controls the account, which is not a same-day matter. Ask us and we take it forward with you.

What the previous owner loses

Access to the subscription pages, such as Invoices and Payment. They keep their admin account; they stop being the person who can see or change the subscription.

Integrations they set up may also need reauthorising. That is the part nobody expects, and it surfaces as an integration failing quietly some days later, so check them deliberately after a transfer.

Then confirm the messages arrive

Billing and account notifications follow ownership. Confirm the new owner is receiving them rather than assuming it, and record who the owner is wherever your team keeps track of who owns which system.

See also

• Who the account owner is and what they may do
• Can I change the account owner if they left the company
• Adding agents and admins