# Who owns the Facebook Page: the agency or the client? > The business portfolio that created or claimed a Facebook Page owns it, whoever paid for the work. The client creates; the agency is added as a partner. Source: https://mosaicbrowser.com/blog/who-owns-the-facebook-page ## Who owns a Facebook Page an agency built for a client The business portfolio that created or claimed a Facebook Page owns it, whoever paid for the work. The client creates; the agency is added as a partner. ![Agency portfolio versus Client portfolio, each name in its own tile: Whose portfolio owns the client's Page?](https://mosaicbrowser.com/covers/who-owns-the-facebook-page.webp) On Meta, a Facebook Page is owned by the business portfolio that created it or claimed it, whatever the contract says about who paid for the work. So when an agency builds a client's Page inside the agency's own portfolio, the agency's portfolio owns it. Most agency-client disputes over a Page start there, and the fix is a rule for day one: the client's portfolio creates the asset, and the agency is added to it as a partner. ## Who owns the Facebook Page, agency or client: Meta's answer Meta does not read contracts. A business portfolio, the thing that used to be called Business Manager, owns assets: Pages, Instagram accounts, ad accounts, pixels, catalogues. Each asset has exactly one owner, and any number of other portfolios can be given access to it as partners. Ownership comes from how the asset got into a portfolio. A Page created from inside a portfolio belongs to that portfolio. A Page that existed before any portfolio held it belongs to the portfolio that claimed it. Neither step asks who the client is, and the Page's name, the logo on it and the brand it speaks for do not count. [Business portfolio and Business Manager](https://mosaicbrowser.com/blog/business-portfolio-not-business-manager) covers the rename and the two ways people reach a portfolio. What matters here is that ownership and access look alike in the lists, and only one of them survives the end of a contract. Mosaic is a desktop app Email yourself the link and open it on your computer. How it works: Logins and 2FA codes ## How an agency ends up owning a client's Page Nobody sets out to take a client's Page. It happens in three ordinary ways. 1. The client has no portfolio yet, and the agency, trying to be helpful, creates the Page in its own. 2. The Page exists, and someone at the agency adds it to the agency's portfolio as owned, which is a claim, when the job needed a request for access. 3. A freelancer creates the Page from their own Facebook profile, and when they join the agency, the agency's portfolio claims it. In each case the client sees its Page working, its posts going out and its ads running. Nothing tells it the Page is not its own until it asks for it back. ## Owning a Page and having access to it The difference shows up on the last day. The owning portfolio decides who else reaches the Page, and can remove a partner at any time. A partner works with the access it was given, and can hand that much or less to its own people, never more. So when the client owns the Page and the agency is a partner, ending the work is the client removing a partner, and nothing has to move. When the agency owns it, ending the work means the agency has to give the Page up, and only someone with full control in the agency's portfolio can do that. The client is waiting on somebody else's admin, at the moment the two businesses are least keen on talking. A contract clause saying the client owns the work is worth having in a dispute. It does not change what Meta's settings say. ## The day-one rule The rule that prevents all of this is short: the client creates; the agency is invited. 1. If the client has no business portfolio, the client makes one, with a person at the client holding full control. 2. The client creates the Page, the Instagram account and the ad account inside its own portfolio, or claims the ones it already has. 3. The client adds the agency's portfolio as a partner, using the agency's business portfolio ID, and shares the assets the job needs. 4. The agency assigns its own people to those assets, each signing in with their own Facebook account. Then check it. In the agency's portfolio, every client Page should appear as shared by the client, and none as owned. If one is owned, that is the conversation to have now, while the relationship is good. Facebook asks for one personal account per person, which [Facebook's authentic identity rule](https://mosaicbrowser.com/blog/facebook-authentic-identity-rule) covers, and partner access is how an agency works inside it. Mosaic keeps accounts you are entitled to run apart; it does not change what a platform allows. ## Where Mosaic fits, and where it does not For Meta itself, the right setup needs no extra browser: each person at the agency signs in as themselves, and the client's Page appears because it was shared. Mosaic does not change who owns anything. It helps with what sits outside Meta's partner system. A client's store admin, their newsletter tool and their analytics have no partner role, so the agency often holds a login for each. In Mosaic each of those gets its own profile, with its own cookies, fingerprint and proxy, in a project named after the client, with the login's two-factor setup key kept in that profile's vault. [Client onboarding](https://mosaicbrowser.com/blog/client-onboarding-first-hour) sets that up in the first hour, and [client offboarding](https://mosaicbrowser.com/blog/client-offboarding-browser-profiles) hands it back in the right order. ## Questions ### Who owns a Facebook Page an agency created? On Meta's side, the business portfolio the Page was created in or claimed into. If the agency built it inside its own portfolio, the agency's portfolio owns it, even when the contract says the work belongs to the client. ### How do I check who owns my Facebook Page? Open your business portfolio's settings and find the Page in its list of Pages. A Page your portfolio owns is listed as owned; one shared with you by someone else shows that business as the owner, and you only have access. ### What is the difference between owning a Page and having partner access? The owning portfolio decides who else can reach the Page and can remove them. A partner works on the Page with the access it was given and can pass that much or less to its own people, never more. ### Can an agency refuse to give a Page back? Only someone with full control in the portfolio that owns the Page can give it up, so a client whose Page sits in an agency's portfolio depends on that agency acting. That is why the client should create the Page in its own portfolio from the start. ## Related [Business Manager is now a business portfolio. What changed](https://mosaicbrowser.com/blog/business-portfolio-not-business-manager): Meta renamed Business Manager to business portfolio and moved nothing. An ad account still belongs to the portfolio it was made in, so check whose that is. [The first hour in the browser with a new client](https://mosaicbrowser.com/blog/client-onboarding-first-hour): A social media client onboarding checklist for the browser: ask for partner access, not passwords, then a project, a proxy in their market and their 2FA. [What to do with a client's browser profile when the contract ends](https://mosaicbrowser.com/blog/client-offboarding-browser-profiles): Agency client offboarding goes wrong when access is revoked before the client can sign in. Confirm the handover, export, then trash the profile by id. [Facebook's real name policy, and what it allows instead](https://mosaicbrowser.com/blog/facebook-authentic-identity-rule): Facebook's real name policy asks for one personal account per person, under the name you go by. Pages and business portfolios are how you run more.  [TikTok One for agencies: creator access without logins](https://mosaicbrowser.com/blog/tiktok-creator-marketplace-agencies): TikTok One, the old Creator Marketplace, lets an agency run a creator's post as a Spark Ad from its own ad account. The creator approves; no password. [How TikTok decides your Business Center ad account limit](https://mosaicbrowser.com/blog/tiktok-business-center-ad-account-limit): TikTok's Business Center ad account limit is a default set per Business Center type, raised through TikTok. Spend moves a different limit: ad groups. [Several YouTube channels and one AdSense account](https://mosaicbrowser.com/blog/youtube-channels-one-adsense): YouTube lets one creator run and monetise several channels, but AdSense allows one account per payee, so every monetised channel you own pays into the same one. ## Mosaic, on your own computer The browser this blog is about: its own Chromium, fingerprints from real machines and a proxy exit per profile. Free holds 3 profiles. Pro is $49 a month for any number. Mosaic is a desktop app Email yourself the link and open it on your computer.