ProofHub User Management Guide

• Model type: hybrid
• Description: ProofHub uses a combination of fixed account-level roles (Administrator, Manager, Member) and, on the Ultimate Control plan, custom roles with granular permission configuration. Permissions are enforced at both the account level and the project level.
• Custom roles: Yes
• Custom roles plan: Ultimate Control
• Granularity: Project-level and account-level; custom roles allow per-feature permission toggling (e.g., access to timesheets, reports, specific project tools).

1. Log in as an Administrator.
2. Click the account menu (top-right avatar) and navigate to 'Settings'.
3. Select 'People' from the settings sidebar.
4. Click 'Add People' or 'Invite People'.
5. Enter the invitee's email address.
6. Assign a role (Administrator, Manager, Member, or a custom role if on Ultimate Control).
7. Optionally add the user directly to one or more projects during invitation.
8. Click 'Send Invite'. The invitee receives an email to accept and set up their account.

Required fields: Email address, Role assignment

Watch out for:

• Invited users must accept the email invitation before they appear as active members.
• Users who have not accepted their invitation count as 'pending' and may still occupy a visible slot in the People list.
• There is no per-seat cost, but the account must be on an active paid plan to invite users beyond any trial limits.
• Guests or external collaborators invited to specific projects may have more restricted access than internal members.

• Can delete users: Yes
• Delete/deactivate behavior: ProofHub allows administrators to remove (deactivate/archive) a user from the account. Removed users lose access immediately. Their past contributions (tasks, comments, files) remain in the account and are not deleted. ProofHub's help documentation refers to this action as 'removing' a person; the account retains historical data attributed to that user.

1. Log in as an Administrator.
2. Navigate to 'Settings' > 'People'.
3. Locate the user to be removed.
4. Click the options menu (three dots or gear icon) next to the user's name.
5. Select 'Remove' or 'Archive'.
6. Confirm the action in the dialog prompt.

Watch out for:

• Removed users immediately lose all access; there is no grace period or scheduled removal.
• Admins should reassign open tasks from the removed user before or after removal to avoid unowned work items.
• If the removed user was the sole manager of a project, an admin should assign a new manager to that project.
• ProofHub does not offer a 'suspend' or 'deactivate without data impact' state distinct from full removal based on available documentation.

• Where to check usage: Settings > People - lists all active and pending users with their roles.
• How to identify unused seats: Administrators can review the 'People' list in Settings and check last-activity indicators or sort by login recency if available. ProofHub does not prominently advertise an automated 'inactive user' report in its help documentation.
• Billing notes: ProofHub's flat-rate model means adding or removing users has no direct impact on the monthly invoice. The plan cost is fixed regardless of user count. Storage limits (15 GB on Essential, 100 GB on Ultimate Control) and project limits (40 on Essential, unlimited on Ultimate Control) are the primary plan constraints, not seat count.

Because ProofHub charges a flat monthly or annual fee rather than per seat, the operational cost of manual provisioning is measured in admin time, not license spend.

Every app in your stack that lacks automated provisioning creates a recurring manual task: invite on day one, reassign open work on departure, and periodically audit the People list for stale accounts.

ProofHub does not surface an automated inactive-user report, so identifying unused accounts requires a manual review of Settings > People and cross-referencing login recency by hand.

On the Essential plan, the absence of custom roles further limits how precisely you can scope access without upgrading, meaning some teams over-provision permissions rather than manage the friction of an upgrade.

Reviewers on G2 and Capterra consistently flag two friction points: the permission model feels coarse on the Essential plan, and there is no automated way to surface inactive users.

Teams with external stakeholders also note that guest access is less flexible than dedicated client-portal tools, making scoped read-only access harder to configure.

A recurring offboarding complaint involves task reassignment - ProofHub retains historical data from removed users, but open tasks can become unowned if admins do not reassign them before or after removal.

Common complaints:

• Users report that the permission system can feel coarse-grained on the Essential plan, with limited ability to restrict specific features without upgrading to Ultimate Control for custom roles.
• Some reviewers note that guest/external collaborator access is not as flexible as dedicated client-portal tools, making it harder to give clients scoped read-only access.
• Users have noted that there is no automated inactive-user report, requiring manual review of the People list to identify unused accounts.
• Reviewers on G2 and Capterra mention that the lack of per-project permission granularity for standard roles (without custom roles) can be limiting for teams with complex access requirements.
• Some users report confusion about the difference between removing a user and the data that remains, particularly around task reassignment workflows.

Manual management in ProofHub is straightforward for small, stable teams on flat-rate pricing. The workflow is: invite via Settings > People, assign a role, optionally add to projects at invite time, and remove via the three-dot menu when someone leaves.

The process becomes harder to sustain as headcount grows or turnover increases, because every app requires the same sequence of manual steps with no automation layer. Teams that need granular, per-feature permission control should confirm they are on the Ultimate Control plan before designing their access model, since custom roles are not available on Essential.

Bottom line

ProofHub's flat-rate model removes per-seat cost pressure, but it does not remove the operational burden of manual provisioning. Inviting, scoping, and removing users across every app in your environment is a repeatable manual process that scales poorly without tooling.

For teams with straightforward role needs and low turnover, the built-in People settings are sufficient. For teams managing frequent onboarding and offboarding cycles, the lack of SCIM, inactive-user reporting, and cross-app automation is the real constraint to plan around.