---
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.

The three words are the same as the control plane's roles, on purpose but they
are separate things. Your account role governs the portal; your role _inside_ an
instance governs that instance.

## 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

Use the Email and password used in the signup form to login to the HQ, signing in to HQ does not sign you in to an instance, and vice versa.

## What comes next

| You want                       | Go to                                                         |
| ------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------- |
| A Vantage instance we run      | [Cloud instances](./cloud-instances.md)                       |
| To license 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 show the current subscriptions and subscription management.
