Seats and Inventory: The Basics

A seat is a single licence in your account. Every user you manage — whether that’s a colleague, a client, or a member of staff — occupies exactly one seat. The plan of that seat (Domain User, Business, or Business Pro) determines what that user can do and what features they have access to.

Your Inventory is the Control Panel’s record of all the seats you hold. Think of it as a stock list. Your subscription pays for the inventory, but the inventory itself is what the Control Panel works from when you add users, allocate seats to sub-accounts, or make plan changes. The two are linked but separate — and occasionally they need to be realigned. (See Keeping Billing and Seats Aligned.)

The three numbers

For each plan type, your inventory shows three figures. Understanding what each one means will save you a lot of confusion when managing your account.

  • Owned — seats you have purchased. These belong to your account no matter where they end up in your user tree. Buying more seats always increases this number.
  • Allocated — seats you have handed down to a sub-account (or, if you are a sub-account yourself, seats handed to you from above). Allocated seats are held in a sub-account’s inventory and are ready for that sub-account to assign to their own users.
  • Available — seats that are free right now, ready to be assigned to a user. This is the number that matters when you’re about to add someone. If it’s zero, you’ll need to buy more seats or pull an allocation back before you can proceed.

A worked example

Suppose you purchase five Domain User seats. Your inventory immediately shows: Owned: 5 / Allocated: 0 / Available: 5.

You add three users to your account. Those three seats are now in use, so your inventory updates to: Owned: 5 / Allocated: 0 / Available: 2.

You then allocate one seat to a sub-account so they can add a user of their own. That seat moves into the sub-account’s inventory: Owned: 5 / Allocated: 1 / Available: 1. You still own all five — the allocated seat hasn’t left your account, it’s just been lent down the tree.

Good to know

  • Buying a seat always adds to Owned. New seats land as Available immediately.
  • Assigning a seat to a user removes it from Available — it’s now in use and no longer free to reassign.
  • Removing a user returns their seat to Available instantly. The seat is not deleted — it goes back into your pool ready to use again.
  • Pulling back an allocation (as long as the seat isn’t actively in use) returns it to your Available count.
  • The payment provider is invisible here. Your inventory is yours — billing simply keeps it funded.

Tip: If you’re ever unsure why a seat isn’t showing as available, check the Allocated count first — a seat handed to a sub-account won’t appear free until you pull the allocation back.