Meta Business Suite vs. Business Manager: What are the Key Differences? 

Are you a business owner unsure whether to use Meta Business Manager (which was renamed to Business Portfolio) or Business Suite? 

Or are you a freelancer/agency with a client confused about the difference between Meta Business Manager and Business Suite? 

• If you’re a business owner, keep reading this post to learn about the key differences between the two and choose the best option. 
• If you’re a freelancer/agency, share this article with your client and skip to the last section which shows you how to access your client’s Business Manager assets in 2 clicks. 

Prefer a video? 

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What is Meta Business Manager (now renamed Business Portfolio)?

Meta Business Manager (Business Portfolio) is Meta’s social media management platform for business owners to manage the settings of their social media profiles on various marketing channels, including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, while keeping their business and personal Facebook profiles separate.  

Here’s what you can do using Meta Business Manager:

• Claim and manage Facebook and Instagram pages, WhatsApp, website domains, and other business assets.
• Review the backend settings of all your Meta assets. 
• Run paid Facebook ads and view insights to analyze the campaign’s performance.
• Add product catalogues to market your products on Facebook.
• Track audience behavior by creating trigger-based events. 

Update 2024: Meta have renamed their Business Manager tool to Business Portfolio and will slowly phase out the Business Manager terminology: 

What does this update mean for you? 

This change is about making Meta's services more accessible. Meta aims for more transparent and straightforward names that help you quickly figure out and use what you need to manage your online business.

Meta Business Manager settings have always been a platform to allow business owners (or agencies) to group their (or their multiple clients’) marketing assets into one entity, which makes managing access internally and externally easier in one place. The rename to Meta Business Portfolio just makes more sense.

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What is Meta Business Suite?

Meta Business Suite is another tool for businesses to manage content and engagement of their Instagram and Facebook accounts in one place. Here’s what you can do using Meta Business Suite:

• Create and share content for Instagram and Facebook.
• Plan content calendar using the Scheduler tool.
• Reply to comments and DMs.

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Meta Business Suite vs. Business Manager: Feature Differences

While Meta Business Suite is the front-end management to handle posts, insights, and messages in one place for both Facebook and Instagram, Business Manager (now Business Portfolio) gives you access to administrative settings like managing ad campaigns, user permissions, and assets like pages, catalogues, datasets, Facebook pixel, and ad accounts so you manage all your assets in one place.

The dashboards may look the same for beginners, but there are a few key differences you should know:

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1. Centralized Facebook Business Management

Meta Business Manager allows you to review the backend settings of all your Meta assets, such as adding partners and team members with employee and admin access, assigning Facebook page tasks, and creating ad accounts.

It’s one central hub to manage multiple business settings and ensure everything runs smoothly. 

Meta Business Suite provides minimum business settings, with most options taking you to Business Manager. 

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2. Social Media Scheduler

Meta Business Suite is the perfect platform to create, share, and schedule content for Instagram and Facebook. You can create posts, go live, post reels, and plan your monthly content calendar.

The Planner tab allows you to create your marketing calendar by scheduling content months in advance. You can set goals and keep track of Facebook and Instagram content in one place.

‍Meta Business Manager doesn’t allow you to create and schedule posts. You can only connect your Instagram and Facebook on Business Manager, but you have to navigate to Meta Business Suite for content management. 

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3. Community Management

Business Suite also notifies you of post activity and allows you to reply to comments or DMs as a Facebook page and admin. 

Business Manager doesn’t have community management options. You can only navigate to Business Suite to reply to comments or messages. 

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4. Create/Manage Facebook Ads

Meta Business Manager allows you to add Facebook datasets to your website for accurate targeting, create a Facebook ads account, and connect to Ads Manager. 

You can create ads, manage Facebook ad creatives, create and manage custom and lookalike audiences, and review ad campaign performance on your Ads Manager account.

Meta Business Suite does provide an option to create ads, but you can only boost a post to increase its reach and can’t review detailed analytics. 

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5. Manage Ad Creative Library

You can organize all your ad creatives in one central place on Meta Business Manager. You can also sort them based on campaigns, events, months, or performance, which is impossible in Business Suite.

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6. Mobile and Desktop Website

Meta Business Portfolio isn’t mobile optimized and is only available as a website and accessible on a browser.

At the same time, you can access Meta Business Suite on a desktop and also download the mobile app from your phone's app store.

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7. Control Billing options

Only with Meta Business Manager (Portfolio), you can navigate to the Billing Payments option to add and remove billing methods. It lets you review payment activity for separate ad accounts. 

Business Manager also has navigation options for Commerce Manager and Events Manager, where you can add your online product catalogue and create trigger-based events to track audience activity. 

As well as that, you can: 

• Add more than one Facebook business page on the “Registrations” tab. 
• Claim your website domain on the “Brand Safety and Suitability” tab.
• Connect your apps on the “Integrations” tab. 

None of these settings are available on Meta Business Suite. 

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When to use Business Manager (Portfolio) and when to use Business Suite?

Many business owners are confused about whether to use Business Manager or Business Suite, but they don’t realize both platforms serve different purposes and offer unique features. 

Ideally, you should use both Business Suite and Business Manager to build a strong online presence on the front end and review business settings on the back end. 

Meta Business Manager (Portfolio)

Use Business Portfolio to set up the marketing assets and manage their settings to ensure they work well:

• Connect all your Meta business assets to one central hub.
• Manage the backend settings of all your business assets.
• Create and manage ads for your business. 
• Add or manage new team members and partners to your business. 
• Add payment options and control billing settings.

Meta Business Suite 

Use Business Suite once your portfolio is set up to create and manage content for Facebook and Instagram accounts:

• Create content and manage Facebook and Instagram business accounts.
• Schedule content for your Facebook and Instagram pages. 
• Respond to messages or comments.
• Track Instagram or Facebook page insights and content performance. 

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How to switch from Meta Business Suite to Business Manager (Portfolio) in Facebook

Now you know the difference between the two applications, you can make your life easier by automatically heading to the tool that has the functions you need.

If you're in Business Suite and for some reason need to switch over to using Business Manager, it's easy to get there.

Here's how:

Step 1. Click Help in the bottom right corner

Step 2. Click Go to Business Manager

And voila! You've switched between the two tools. Easy! 

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How to switch from Meta Business Manager to Business Suite in Facebook

If you want to switch back to Business Suite from Business Maanger, you need to: 

1. Click on the hamburger menu in the top right corner
2. Click Meta Business Suite

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Access client Facebook accounts in 2 clicks 

While Meta Business Manager (Portfolio) and Business Suite are excellent tools for managing Meta Business assets, they’re not so great when giving/requesting access. 

Not only do you have to follow numerous steps, but you also need to know your partner’s Business Manager ID, which adds unnecessary steps and does not provide a seamless client onboarding experience. 

Leadsie simplifies requesting access to Meta Business accounts and can be done in just a few clicks.

Share your Leadsie link with your client; they log in to their Facebook account, and grant you the access you need to get to work. It’s as simple as that!

It eliminates onboarding access request email chains and calls, is more secure for everyone and saves you a ton of time! Give it a try with our 14-day free trial…enter your email in the box below!