Google Ads Manager Account (MCC) for Agency Clients: Linking, Access, Billing, and Unlinking

What a Google Ads manager account is

A Google Ads manager account, still widely called an MCC from its old My Client Center name, lets an agency link and manage multiple separate Google Ads accounts from one place. Google describes the structure as a tree: a top-level manager can branch out to individual accounts or to other managers.

Structural limits Google documents:

• An individual account can't be directly managed by more than 5 manager accounts.
• A manager account can't be directly managed by more than 1 other manager account.
• The account structure can be no greater than 6 levels deep.
• How many active non-manager accounts a manager can link depends on their monthly spend over the last 12 months.

Linking is not a transfer. When an agency links your existing account, the original account stays unchanged, its history stays intact, and your sign-in and permissions stay the same.

Four things are easy to confuse, and each is controlled separately:

• User access: the people invited to your account or to the agency's manager account, each with their own access level.
• Account linking: the relationship between your account and the manager account.
• Ownership: a separate setting that determines which manager can administer users on your account.
• Billing: the billing setup and paying manager that decide who is financially responsible for spend.

Check each layer before accepting a link request.

Linking and the invitation flow

The link starts with the agency and ends with your approval. Google's documented flow:

1. The agency signs in to its manager account, opens Accounts > Sub-account settings, selects the plus button, chooses Link existing account, and enters your Customer ID.
2. You receive an email invitation, and the request appears inside your account.
3. A user with administrative access to your account (or to a linked manager with administrative ownership of it) goes to Access and security > Managers and selects Accept or Decline under Link request, or accepts from the email.
4. After acceptance you receive a confirmation email and the account appears in the agency's manager account.

Linking does not:

• change your sign-in, existing users, or campaign history;
• change your billing. Original users keep billing access, and invoicing and payment methods stay the same unless consolidated billing is set up;
• grant administrative ownership. Ownership must be turned on separately by an administrative user on your account, under Access and security > Managers, by setting the Owner column to Yes.

If you decline, nothing changes on your account. Click paths can change, so confirm them in the live interface.

Access levels and what each one can do

Google documents 5 access levels for users of a manager account:

• Administrative: view, edit, and manage any part of the manager account, including linking and unlinking accounts, inviting and removing users, and changing access levels.
• Standard: the same, except those administrative tasks.
• Read only: browse the manager account and linked client accounts and run reports, but make no changes.
• Email only: receive notification emails and emailed reports.
• Billing: view and edit billing information. For accounts on monthly invoicing, billing information is stored at the manager level and cannot be managed at the client level.

What an agency user can do in your account depends on two things: their access level on the manager account, and whether the manager is an administrative owner of your account. Without ownership, even an agency admin has limited administrative reach, for example inviting users with Standard, Read only, or Email only access. With ownership, agency admins can invite and remove administrative users, accept and decline link requests from other managers, unlink other managers, transfer ownership, and turn remarketing list sharing on or off.

Google's guidance is to make a manager an owner only if the manager account requires those privileges. Ownership is also transitive: if the agency's manager owns your account, every manager above it in the hierarchy has ownership too.

Your own account's access levels still govern the people you invite directly. Only admins on your account can accept or reject manager link requests and unlink manager accounts, so agency access does not replace keeping your own admin in place.

Who pays: consolidated versus direct billing

Who pays is set by the billing setup, not by the link. Google defines a paying manager as the manager account that controls the monthly invoicing billing setups used by the accounts beneath it. A single account can have only one active billing setup, and so one paying manager, even if it is linked to several managers.

• Direct billing (your responsibility): your account keeps its own automatic or manual payments or its own invoicing setup. Linking does not change this by default.
• Consolidated billing (agency responsibility): the agency places your account on a billing setup under its paying manager. One setup can serve several client accounts and produce one consolidated invoice per month. The payments profile attached to the setup determines who is financially responsible.

Check who pays. In your Google Ads account, select the Billing icon, then Settings. If the account uses a paying manager, its name and account ID appear at the top. For a move to another sub-manager within the same MCC hierarchy, Google says changing managers does not affect accounts using prepay or postpay. This within-hierarchy rule does not describe unlinking from an agency or an external billing transfer; check the documented steps and live billing setup for that separate move.

Moving to a new agency (Change Who Pays). The current paying manager starts the move, not the client:

1. An Admin of the current paying manager selects the client account, opens Billing > Billing transfers, clicks the pencil icon, and selects Change who pays. (A greyed-out icon means you are not signed in to the paying manager.)
2. They choose External Billing Transfer and enter the new agency's 10-digit manager account ID and a future payer name. They also choose a transfer date or As soon as possible. A past date may make open invoices eligible for an automatic rebill.
3. The new agency has 7 days to approve or deny. If no one acts, the request is canceled automatically and must be started again.
4. On the receiving side, Google says any admin in the new manager's hierarchy can act on the request, and that the feature is in beta, so some options are unavailable. If there are no issues, Google says the transfer is approved within 48 hours. It also says the client account must be linked to the new manager within 7 days of the transfer or ads stop running, and that automatic unlinking is not currently available.

The 7-day approval window and the 7-day linking deadline are two different clocks.

Unlinking and what survives it

A user with administrative access to either the manager account or the client account can unlink the two. From your side, the path is Admin > Access and security > Managers, then Remove access next to the manager; Google shows a preview of the effects before you confirm.

What survives:

• Your account, its campaign history, and feature access. Google states an unlinked individual account keeps its own history and Google Ads features and can be linked to a new manager afterward.
• Your data. Even where the agency had ownership, the client account still owns its data.

What does not survive:

• Shared remarketing assets. If your account used the manager's remarketing tag or shared lists, those lists stop populating, you lose access to the manager's shared lists, and ad groups targeting them or campaigns excluding them stop running.
• Cross-account conversion tracking. The manager's tag stops recording conversions for clicks after unlinking. Earlier clicks keep recording for the conversion window (typically 30 days), and your own tag, if previously installed, resumes tracking.
• Monthly invoicing under the agency as paying manager. If the unlinked manager was your paying manager, the account stops serving after unlinking. Breaking the paying-manager connection by changing the manager structure above also deactivates billing and stops monthly-invoicing ads immediately, even without directly unlinking the client account. To keep ads serving, change the billing setup beforehand so it sits under a manager the account will be linked to.

A manager can end the relationship at any time only while the client account has at least one user with access, or is linked to a manager with administrative ownership of it. Keep an active admin of your own so you do not depend on the agency to act.

Checklist before unlinking or handing off

1. Record the billing model. Is the account on monthly invoicing under a paying manager, or on its own payment method? The immediate-stop rule is documented for monthly invoicing.
2. Record the paying manager and payments profile, and who holds Admin access on that paying manager. External billing transfers require it.
3. Check the entire paying-manager connection. On monthly invoicing, changing the manager structure above can break that connection and stop ads immediately, even without directly unlinking the client account. Put a replacement billing setup in place before unlinking a paying manager or making a change that breaks the connection.
4. List dependencies on the manager's tag and lists: shared remarketing lists, cross-account conversion tracking, and any campaigns that target or exclude those lists.
5. Confirm your own admin is on the account.

After the change, check four things separately in the live account rather than inferring one from another: the assets still exist (campaigns, conversion actions, audiences); the right people have access; billing is active and the account is in good standing; and campaigns are actually delivering. If you cannot observe one of them, record it as unknown.

Questions to ask before accepting a link request

Get written answers to these:

1. Will you request administrative ownership, and why? Linking alone doesn't grant it. Ask which specific actions need it.
2. Who will be the paying manager? If the agency is, your ads depend on that relationship, and unlinking without a new billing setup stops serving on monthly invoicing.
3. Consolidated invoicing or my own payment method? Ask which applies and how invoices reach you.
4. Whose conversion tag and remarketing lists will my account use? If you adopt the agency's, know what you would rebuild after unlinking.
5. Which of my own admins stay on the account? Unlinking requires admin access on one side of the relationship.
6. What is the exit path? If the agency is your paying manager, Change Who Pays must be started by its Admin, and the account must be linked to the new manager within 7 days of the transfer. Agree on the sequence before you need it. If your Google account was supplied by AdsInfra, the account and its history can move to your own MCC on exit.
7. Where does my account sit in the hierarchy? Ownership is transitive upward, so ask whether any manager above the agency would gain ownership.