How Apex accounts work
Apex's account model has four first-class concepts. Every single thing you do in the product lives at exactly one of them — which makes it obvious who can see what, who can change what, and how data composes across a growing company.
The four scopes
You
The single human signed in. Your profile, your password, your MCP keys, your own notification channels. Nothing about "you" leaks across organizations — even if you belong to many orgs, your preferences travel with your account, not your workspaces.
Organization
The company (or portfolio, or agency) that owns one or more workspaces. Everything that finance or legal cares about once: primary Stripe payout identity, verified email sending domains, brand defaults, billing, the admin roster, org-level API keys. Shared across every workspace under the org.
Workspace
A brand, product, or property. Each workspace has its own experiments, communications, leads, attribution rules, partner programs, and mobile apps. Workspaces inherit sensible defaults from the organization (brand, Stripe, verified domains) and override any field when the brand needs to diverge.
The word "workspace" only appears in the UI for organizations with 2+ workspaces. Single-workspace orgs see their company name everywhere and never encounter "workspace" as a concept.
Account
User-level utilities: sign out, demo data, appearance preferences. Not scoped to any org or workspace — touches only your browser session.
Tree diagram
Organization
├── Organization defaults (brand, verified domains, Stripe, admins)
├── Workspace A (e.g. "Platform")
│ ├── Experiments, communications, leads, programs
│ └── Workspace overrides (brand, sender identity, optional Stripe)
├── Workspace B (e.g. "Partner Network")
│ └── ...
├── OrgPerson index (cross-workspace identity — one row per human)
├── OrgCohort (cross-workspace segments)
└── Audit log (append-only mutation record)
Special axes
Not everything sits in the tree. Two concepts cross-cut:
Apex Partner Network
The cross-merchant affiliate network is its own axis. Partners who sign up get a handle (@sarah) that follows them across every merchant program they join — on your org and every other org on Apex. See Partner Network for the full model.
Portfolio view
Investors, holding companies, and operators who observe multiple organizations use the Portfolio view. Portfolio members don't administer your org's data — they see a federated summary your org explicitly shares. See Portfolio for the sharing model.
How this composes as you grow
| Shape | Org | Workspaces | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single product | 1 org | 1 workspace | The 80% case — "workspace" never appears in UI. |
| SaaS with a partner marketplace | 1 org | 2 workspaces | Platform + Partner Network. This is how Apex runs Apex. |
| Multi-brand holding company | 1 org | N workspaces | Each brand its own workspace, org-level Stripe/domains. |
| Agency managing clients | 1 org | N workspaces | Workspace-per-client; shape tag keeps isolation intact. |
| Investor + Portfolio | 1 portfolio org | 0 workspaces | Federated view into other orgs' metrics. |
Related
- Permissions and roles — who can do what.
- Archive, never delete — how data is preserved.
- Shape templates — let the onboarding stamp out the right setup.