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Editor seats

MatStream is licensed by editor seat. A seat is what allows someone to create and change things in your workspace. Viewers are free and unlimited on every paid plan, so you only pay for the people who actually produce work.

This page explains who holds a seat, how seats are handed out, and how to move one from one person to another.

For how many seats cost and how to buy more, see Upgrading your plan.

Viewer or Editor

Every member of a workspace holds exactly one of two seat types.

Seat Cost What they can do
Viewer Free, unlimited See anything their groups allow — browse, search, open entities, read properties and files
Editor Consumes one purchased seat Everything a Viewer can do, plus create, change and delete

The workspace owner starts with an editor seat when the workspace is created.

A seat is not a permission

A seat decides whether someone can change anything at all. Group grants decide what they can see and change. Someone with an editor seat but no group memberships still sees an empty workspace. The two work together — see Users & groups.

Seats are assigned automatically when you add a user

When you add someone to the workspace, MatStream gives them an editor seat if your plan still has one free. If every seat is taken, they are added as a Viewer instead.

This applies to both Add user and Add users by email. In a bulk add, addresses are processed one at a time, so a batch larger than the number of free seats fills the remaining seats and adds the rest as Viewers.

Tip

Check the Editor seats counter after a bulk add. It turns amber when every seat is taken, which tells you at a glance that some of the people you just added came in as Viewers.

Changing someone's seat

Seats are managed from MatStream Manage, not from inside the workspace.

  1. Open MatStream Manage
  2. Select the workspace in the left-hand list
  3. Open the User Licenses tab
  4. In the Seat assigned column, choose Viewer or Editor

The change is saved immediately. The counter above the list — Editor seats 3 / 4 — updates as you go, and turns amber when all seats are in use.

Allow up to 5 minutes

A seat change is saved instantly, but each workspace keeps its own short-lived copy of who holds a seat. It can take up to five minutes before the change takes effect inside MatStream itself.

This matters most when you take a seat away: for those few minutes the person can still edit, even though Manage already shows them as a Viewer.

When all seats are taken

If you try to make someone an Editor with no seats free, MatStream refuses the change and shows:

No editor seats are free. Change another member to Viewer, or add seats to your plan.

You have two options:

  • Move a seat — set someone who no longer needs to edit to Viewer, then set the new person to Editor. Seats are freed immediately, so you can reassign straight away.
  • Buy more seats — use Change plan on the workspace card. Added seats are prorated from today to your next billing date. See Upgrading your plan.

Freeing a seat when someone leaves

A seat follows workspace access, so you do not have to manage it separately:

  • Removing a user frees their seat.
  • Disabling a user frees their seat. This includes the case where MatStream disables a user automatically because they have activity in the workspace and cannot be deleted without breaking the audit trail.
  • Re-enabling a user gives them an editor seat again — but only if one is free. If their old seat was given to someone else while they were disabled, they come back as a Viewer and you can assign a seat from the User Licenses tab.

Note

A disabled user keeps their place in User Licenses and, if they had one, their manage role. Only the seat is released. This matters for the workspace owner: disabling their account frees their seat but never removes their ownership.

Testing another user's permissions

Because the owner's seat can be given up like anyone else's, you can use seats to check what another group actually sees:

  1. In User Licenses, set your own seat to Viewer
  2. Set the test account you want to check to Editor
  3. Wait up to five minutes, then sign in to the workspace as that account and confirm what they can and cannot do
  4. Return to Manage, set the test account back to Viewer, and set yourself back to Editor

Note

Giving up your editor seat never costs you access to MatStream Manage. You remain the owner, keep full control of members and billing, and can always take your seat back from the same dropdown. The only thing you lose in the meantime is the ability to create and edit inside the workspace itself.

Who can change seats

Changing a seat requires the Admin or Owner manage role in MatStream Manage. This is separate from the groups and permissions inside the workspace — a workspace administrator is not automatically able to change seats, and someone who manages seats does not automatically have rights inside the workspace.

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