Seat types (called user types in the legacy model) determine what each person can do in Smartsheet. This article covers what each seat type means, what it allows, and how Admin roles fit into the picture.
USM Content
Members
Members are paid users with full access to Smartsheet. A Member can:
- Create, edit, and delete sheets, reports, dashboards, and workspaces
- Share items with others
- Build and manage automations
Members count against your plan's paid seat total.
Provisional Members
A Provisional Member gets the same full access as a Member, but at no cost and until the end of the current billing cycle. Smartsheet assigns this seat type automatically when a user takes their first qualifying action on the plan without an assigned paid Member seat. To learn more about qualifying actions, see Smartsheet user model and provisional membership.
What happens at the end of the billing cycle depends on how a System Admin has configured the Provisional Member setting in Admin Center:
- Default behavior — downgrade: Any Provisional Member who hasn't been manually upgraded to a paid Member gets automatically downgraded to a free seat type (Contributor or Guest) and loses access to features that require a higher seat type. If they need their previous access restored, a System Admin has to upgrade them manually.
- Optional behavior — auto-upgrade: System Admins can change the setting to automatically upgrade all Provisional Members to paid Members at the end of the billing cycle. If no Member seats are available, the cost of additional seats is added to the next auto-bill or invoice.
System Admins can also downgrade a Provisional Member before the end of the billing cycle at any time from the Seat types and true-up page. Keep in mind that downgrading an active user can interrupt their work.
Internal users can request a seat upgrade directly within Smartsheet. Pending requests appear in the Seat types and true-up page under the Seat requests filter.
For instructions on reviewing usage and changing seat types, see Manage seat types. To configure what happens to Provisional Members at the end of the billing cycle, see Admin Center: Provisional Member Settings.
Contributors
Contributors are free users who can view content shared with them. With Commenter permissions, Contributors can also comment and add or delete attachments. A Contributor can:
- View sheets, reports, and dashboards shared with them
- Comment on items and add or delete attachments (when shared with Commenter permissions)
- Download attachments on items they can view
- Follow sheet activity (receive notifications if set up by an Editor or Admin)
A Contributor can’t create items, edit content, or share items with others.
Contributors are free on Pro, Business, and Enterprise plans.
Guests
Guests are free external users, people whose email domain doesn't match your organization's domain. A Guest can only access items that have been directly shared to them.
Guests are free on Business and Enterprise plans.
What Guests can actually do on a shared item
The Guest seat type defines who someone is on your plan: external and unpaid. What they can actually do on any given sheet, report, or dashboard depends on the sharing permission level assigned to them when the item is shared.
Here's how that plays out in practice:
- Shared as Viewer: The Guest can open the item and see everything in it, but the sheet is read-only for them. They can download attachments, but they can't edit a cell, leave a comment, or interact with the content beyond viewing it.
- Shared as Commenter: The Guest can view the item and leave comments on rows, useful for feedback loops with external stakeholders who need to weigh in without touching the data.
- Shared as Editor: The Guest can view and edit the item based on the specific Editor permission granted (Editor - can share, or Editor - cannot share). They can make changes to unlocked rows and columns, submit update requests, and interact with automations that target them, but they still can't create new Smartsheet items or own anything on the plan.
A Guest can't create Smartsheet items.
The Guest seat type isn't available on Pro plans. On a Pro plan, external users are treated the same as internal users, so anyone shared to an item on a Pro plan follows Member or Contributor rules. There's no Guest designation.
For a full table of what each permission level allows at the row and column level, see Sharing permissions on sheets, reports, or workspaces.
Internal vs. external users
Whether someone is internal or external determines which seat types are available to them, particularly Guests.
- Internal users have an email address that matches your organization's registered domain(s) in Smartsheet.
- External users have an email address that doesn't match your organization's domain(s).
This distinction matters most for the Guest seat type, which is only available to external users. If an internal user is shared to an item, Smartsheet treats them as a Member, Provisional Member, or Contributor depending on their current seat type, not as a Guest, regardless of what sharing permission they're given.
System Admins can review which users are internal vs. external from the Seat types and true-up page in Admin Center.
Seat type capabilities at a glance
| Capability | Member | Provisional Member | Contributor | Guest |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Create sheets, reports, dashboards | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Edit content | Yes | Yes | No | Depends on item permission |
| Comment | Yes | Yes | With Commenter permissions | Depends on item permission |
| Share items with others | Yes | Yes | With Commenter permissions | Dependes on item permission |
| View shared items | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Download attachments | Yes | Yes | Yes | Depends on item permission |
| Build automations | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Paid seat | Yes | Free (until end of billing cycle) | Free | Free |
Changing seat types
System Admins manage seat type changes from the Seat types and true-up page in Admin Center. Here's what's possible from that page:
- Upgrade a Contributor or Guest to a Member
- Downgrade a Member or Provisional Member to a Contributor or Guest
- Remove access for a user entirely
To deactivate a user, which suspends their access without removing their account, go to the User Roles and Reports page instead.
For step-by-step instructions, see Manage seat types.
To see how seat types are currently distributed across your plan, download the seat type report from Admin Center. It shows each user's seat type, email address, and internal vs. external status.
Not a System Admin?
If you need a Member seat, look for the banner that appears on sheets and other items in Smartsheet. Select the request a Member seat link, fill out the form, and submit it.
From there, your System Admin reviews the request and decides whether to upgrade your seat type. Depending on how your organization has set things up, the request either goes through Smartsheet directly or routes to an external process your System Admin manages.
Admin user roles
Admin roles are separate from seat types. They're additional plan-level responsibilities assigned on top of a user's existing seat type. Not all admin roles have the same seat type requirement.
| Role | What they do |
|---|---|
| System Admin | Manages users, account-level settings, security policies, and seat assignments across the plan |
| Plan Asset Admin | Manages access requests for items that no longer have an active Owner or Admin |
| Group Admin | Creates and manages groups of users in Smartsheet contact lists |
Plan Asset Admin and Group Admin roles require a Member seat, which means Contributors or Guests can't hold either of these roles. Also, the System Admin role has no seat type requirement.
Need more details on Group Admins? See Manage Smartsheet groups for instructions on creating and managing groups.
Additional user roles
Some plans include specialized user roles for advanced features. These aren't seat types; they're roles that layer on top of a user's existing seat type.
Resource Viewers: Track resource allocation across projects in Legacy Resource Management. Requires a license under a Business or Enterprise plan. Learn more about Resource Viewers.
New plans using Resource Management by Smartsheet don't include this role.
Connector users: If your organization uses a Smartsheet Connector (such as Salesforce or Jira), see Connector user types for details on how those roles work.
LCM Content
In the legacy model, what a person can do in Smartsheet depends on two things working together: whether they have a license, and what sharing permissions they've been given on individual items. Their user type (licensed or unlicensed) is simply whether they have a license.
User types
| User type | Description |
|---|---|
| Licensed user | A paid user (internal or external) with full access to create, edit, and manage Smartsheet items. |
| Unlicensed user | A user without a license who can collaborate on items they're shared to, but can't create new Smartsheet items. Depending on the sharing permission they've been given, an unlicensed user falls into one of the following:
An unlicensed user can also be an internal user shared to an item as Admin or Editor, or an external user shared to an item as Admin. In that case, they can perform actions within that item according to their sharing permission, but they still can't create new Smartsheet items or hold Owner permissions on anything on the plan. |
User types and user roles are two separate (but related) concepts. A user's type tells you whether they have a license. Their role tells you what plan-level responsibilities they have. Someone can be an unlicensed and still have item-level Admin sharing permissions, but that sharing permission is a role on that item, not a change to their user type.
How licensing and sharing permissions work together
Because the legacy model uses both licensing and sharing permissions to define what someone can do, it helps to think of them as two separate layers:
- License → Determines whether someone is a paid user and can create Smartsheet items
- Sharing permission → Determines what they can do on a specific shared item (Owner, Admin, Editor, Commenter, or Viewer)
- User type → The outcome of whether they have a license
An unlicensed user with Admin sharing permission on a sheet can manage sharing on that item, but they still can't create new sheets or own Smartsheet items. The sharing permission is item-scoped; the user type is plan-scoped.
For a full breakdown of what each sharing permission level allows, see Sharing permissions on sheets, reports, or workspaces.
Internal vs. external users
Whether someone is internal or external depends on their email domain:
- Internal users have email addresses that match your organization's registered domain(s).
- External users have an email address that doesn't match your organization's domain(s).
This distinction matters because some user types (like Guest) apply only to external users.
Admin roles
Admin roles are plan-level responsibilities separate from user types. A user can hold an Admin role regardless of whether they're licensed, though System Admin requires a license.
| Admin role | What they do |
|---|---|
| System Admin | Manages users, account-level settings, security policies, and licenses across the plan. Requires a license. |
| Plan Asset Admin | Manages access requests for items that no longer have an active Owner or Admin |
| Group Admin | Creates and manages groups of users using Smartsheet contact lists |
System Admins manage licenses from the User Roles and Reports page in Admin Center.
Free user types
Free users are unlicensed users. They can collaborate on items they're shared on without consuming a paid license. The two free user types are:
Contributors: Users with view-only access. With Commenter permissions, Contributors can also comment and add or delete attachments.
- Guests: External users with Editor or Commenter access.
Depending on their sharing permission on a given item, an unlicensed user might appear to function like a Viewer, Editor, or even an item-level Admin, but their user type remains unlicensed user throughout.
User type capabilities at a glance
| Capability | Licensed user | Unlicensed user |
|---|---|---|
| Create sheets, reports, dashboards | Yes | No |
| Edit content on shared items | Yes | Depends on sharing permission |
| Comment on shared items | Yes | Depends on sharing permission |
| Share items with others | Yes | Depends on sharing permission |
| View shared items | Yes | Depends on sharing permission |
| Paid access | Yes | Free |
What an unlicensed user can do on any given item is entirely determined by their sharing permission level on that item, not their user type. See Sharing permission levels and tasks for the full breakdown.
Advanced Capabilities and Premium App roles
Some plans include access to Advanced Capabilities and Premium Apps, such as features like Pivot, DataMesh, Calendar App, and Data Shuttle. Access to these is controlled by a separate user role, not by user type or license alone.
If your plan includes these features, a System Admin assigns the relevant role to specific users in Admin Center. Having a license doesn't automatically grant access to Premium Apps.
For more information on specific Premium Apps, see the Premium features section of the Help Center.