A sub-account in digital signage is a separate workspace for one region or store, nested under one parent organization. Content, people and screens stay apart inside each sub-account, so a store manager in Ohio cannot edit a playlist in Texas. Some things still flow down from the top: a head office template, a brand kit, a shared menu board. The parent organization keeps a line of sight into every sub-account below it.
Vendors build this three ways. A flat workspace model gives every site its own isolated account with no parent view (fast to set up, no roll-up reporting). A nested hierarchy lets you build HQ > region > store, with content and permissions inherited down the tree. A billing sub-account is a separate model again: it only splits the invoice, not the content or the people.
Buyers usually need two of these at once: a hierarchy for content and roles, plus separate invoices per site for finance. Few platforms give you both without an upgrade.
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What each vendor calls it, and what it costs
| Vendor | What it calls this | Plan tier required | What is distinctive |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brix | Org structure (Settings → Organization → Structure) | Standard — the only plan | No fixed limit on how many levels deep the tree goes. Any role, including a custom one, can be scoped to one location and it inherits down. Billing groups invoice each site separately inside one workspace. |
| Yodeck | Workspaces | Enterprise | Nested HQ > branch > department hierarchy, with one role per workspace and read-only content shared down. |
| NoviSign | Sub-accounts | Premium | Sub-account storage and license control run through a separate Admin Management Tool. |
| ScreenCloud | Spaces | Core (any plan) | Spaces and per-Space group access ship on the entry plan under one invoice. Splitting that invoice per Space needs Pro. |
| OptiSigns | Team Workspaces | Pro Plus | Workspaces are flat and segregated. There is no HQ > region > store nesting. |
| Kitcast | Team Workspaces | Pro | The Starter plan has one workspace with parent groups and subgroups for structure. Multiple workspaces need Pro, which also carries roles, approvals, single sign-on, audit log and API access. |
Check each vendor's own pricing page for current numbers — plans and prices change.
A pattern holds across most of these: the sub-account or workspace structure itself is the upsell. You see it on a demo call, then find out it needs a higher tier to actually turn on for your account.
What Brix does differently
Every Brix workspace builds the same org tree, on the one plan. Open Settings → Organization → Structure and add a location under any node — a region under HQ, a store under a region, a stockroom screen under a store. The tree has no fixed limit on how many levels deep it goes. Content shares down the tree, and a location-level lock stops a store from touching a locked field in a shared template.
Roles follow the same tree. Go to Settings → Organization → Roles → New role, pick the actions a role can take — view, edit, publish, approve, and so on — across any of the eight built-in roles or a custom one you build yourself, and scope the grant to one location if you want it to stop there. A district manager role scoped to one region only sees that region's screens and content, never the rest of the chain.
Approval workflows and the audit log exist on every workspace. On a workspace with 10 or fewer screens they start off by default, because a one-screen cafe does not need an approval queue. The owner turns either one on any time from Settings → Organization → Feature defaults — no plan change, no upgrade.
For finance, a billing group gives one site its own invoice and its own finance contact, while every location still shares the one media library, the one set of people and the one org tree. A franchise group can bill five sites five ways without running five separate accounts.
FAQ
Does adding a sub-account cost more? On Brix, no. The org structure sits on the one plan, so adding a region or a store never asks for an upgrade. On several other platforms, the sub-account or workspace feature itself is gated to a higher tier — see the table above.
Can head office see what a store does inside its own sub-account? Yes, by default, on a nested hierarchy model. A parent node inherits visibility into everything below it on the tree. A flat workspace model is the opposite: the parent gets no view into an isolated workspace unless the vendor adds a separate reporting layer.
What is the difference between a sub-account and a billing group? A sub-account (or location, in Brix's org tree) is where content, screens and people live. A billing group is who pays the invoice. The two do not have to match one-to-one: a franchise can keep one org tree and still bill five sites separately through five billing groups.
Do templates still update everywhere after I lock them? Yes, within the limits the lock sets. A head-office template can lock position, formatting or the whole layout while leaving one field — a local phone number, a daily special — open for the store to fill in.
See how roles, approvals and locations fit together in Organization, people and roles, how to share content between teams without losing control of it, and how workspace settings carry across your org tree. For the role side of this in more depth, read user permissions by location.
Running more than one site? Book a demo and we will walk through your org structure on the call.