---
id: accounts-and-signup
title: Accounts and signup
sidebar_label: Accounts and signup
---

[Vantage HQ](https://vantage-hq.hostxtra.co.uk) is where you manage the **account**, your team, your instances, their licences and billing.

## An account is a team, not a person

One account holds many people and many instances. Everyone in it has an account
role:

| Role     | Can                                                    |
| -------- | ------------------------------------------------------ |
| `owner`  | Everything, including billing                          |
| `admin`  | Invite people, create instances, grant instance access |
| `member` | Read what the account holds                            |

Reading is open to any signed-in member. Every mutation except changing your own
password requires `owner` or `admin`. Billing is owner-only.

These are the same three words your instances use, but they are separate things.
Your account role controls what you can do in the portal. Your role inside an
instance controls what you can do there.

## Signing up

Signup is **account-first**. Creating an account creates the account and you;
it does not create a Vantage instance. Nothing exists in any control plane until
you later create or link one.

1. Go to the [signup form](https://vantage.hostxtra.co.uk/start).
2. Enter your name, email and a password.
3. Check your email and click the verification link.

Verification links are valid for **24 hours**.

## Signing in

Sign in at [Vantage HQ](https://vantage-hq.hostxtra.co.uk) with the email and
password from the signup form.

HQ and your Vantage instances have separate sessions: signing in to HQ does not
sign you in to an instance, and signing in to an instance does not sign you in
to HQ.

## What comes next

| You want                       | Go to                                                         |
| ------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------- |
| A Vantage instance we run      | [Cloud instances](./cloud-instances.md)                       |
| To licence an install you run  | [Self-hosted instances](./self-hosted-instances.md)           |
| To add colleagues              | [People and roles](./people-and-roles.md)                     |
| To understand tiers and limits | [Licensing and entitlements](./licensing-and-entitlements.md) |

## The portal layout

Three destinations: **Overview**, **People**, **Billing**.

- Overview lists your instances.
- People shows all the account members and their roles.
- Billing shows your current subscriptions and lets you manage them.