GoHighLevel Settings Explained: Agency vs. Sub-Account

GHL Prime TeamOctober 8, 20263 min readGoHighLevel

Open GoHighLevel settings for the first time and the obvious question is which menu you're even supposed to be in.

The product splits configuration across two layers: Company settings that apply to your whole agency, and a separate Business Profile that lives inside every sub-account.

Change something at the agency level and it reaches every client account you manage. Mix the two up, and a time zone set once at the agency can get quietly overridden inside a client's workflow logs.

Why GoHighLevel Settings Live in Two Different Places

Every workspace inside GoHighLevel is a sub-account, and sub-accounts come in two flavors.

An agency sub-account is reserved for your own internal operations, your SaaS product, or your rebilling setup, and it carries a blue badge marking it non-transferable to another agency. Client sub-accounts, by contrast, run a specific customer's business and can move between agencies when eligible.

That split matters for settings because client sub-accounts read their rebilling configuration from the agency sub-account rather than storing it themselves. Getting a sub-account's structure right from the start saves you from untangling which settings belong where months later.

What Agency Company Settings Control

Open Settings, then Company, inside the agency dashboard, and three tabs control everything downstream.

Basic Details holds your company identity: name, email, phone, website and niche, plus the time zone that affects automation timing, workflow logs, and campaign accuracy across every sub-account underneath it. Toggles for AI Employee, Workflow AI and LC Premium Triggers & Actions live on that same tab.

Whitelabel handles the branding layer: logo and favicon uploads, a custom login domain, custom JavaScript and CSS, and the privacy policy and terms links clients see.

Getting that layer right the first time is usually worth handing to a white-label support specialist rather than fixing it after a client notices a broken login page.

Advanced Settings covers security: enhanced account security that disables legacy API key auto-generation, and a session timeout you can set anywhere from 15 minutes to never.

What the Business Profile Covers Inside Each Sub-Account

Inside a sub-account, Settings opens straight to Business Profile, split into several sections.

General Information holds the location ID, business name, email, phone and API key, and those fields back the custom fields you reference later in messaging and workflows.

Alongside the address itself, Business Physical Address also sets its own time zone and platform language, controlling how dates and times display to recipients.

Business Information and Authorized Representative capture the legal side: entity type, industry, registration number, and who's accountable for the account.

Whether duplicate opportunities are allowed, or contacts get merged by name when they arrive through Facebook, comes down to toggles in a General section. Call & Voicemail Settings and Missed Call Text Back round it out, alongside toggles for features GoHighLevel has since deprecated.

Who Actually Gets to Change Any of This

GoHighLevel controls access through five layers: user type, role, which sub-accounts a user can see, which modules are switched on for them, and granular permissions inside those modules.

Within whatever scope they're assigned, an Admin gets full administrative capability. A User only gets what's explicitly turned on for them.

Agency owners manage all of this from Settings, then Users, then a specific user's Roles & Permissions tab. Give a new hire agency-wide admin access because setup feels easier, and sub-account creation, billing controls and transfer permissions end up in more hands than anyone intended.

Reading how admin and user roles actually differ before assigning either one avoids that.

The settings that cause the most support tickets aren't exotic.

They're a time zone set at the agency level that a client's sub-account never overrode, or a session timeout left on never because nobody meant to change the default. Walking through what loads first in the GoHighLevel dashboard catches those faster than waiting for a client to notice first.

Cover photo by Magda Ehlers on Pexels

Sources (4)

Need help implementing this in GoHighLevel?

Our team builds, automates, and scales GoHighLevel systems for agencies every day. Book a free call and we'll map out exactly what to ship next.

Book a free call