3 Ways to Add Users to Your OpenAI Account

Managing who can access your OpenAI account matters for collaboration, security, and billing. I know it can feel tricky; this guide lays out three practical ways to add users: invite teammates, have new users register, or grant direct access when needed.

I’ll walk through each method, explain relevant roles and permissions, and give quick tips to avoid common setup problems.

Table of Contents

• Use OpenAI's UI
• Use Torii
• Use OpenAI's API

Use OpenAI’s UI

Here, you’ll use the OpenAI UI to add a user to your organization and set their role.

Open the organization or account settings

• Sign in to your OpenAI account.
• Click your profile or organization name in the top-right corner.
• Choose Manage organization or Organization settings from the menu (label may vary).

Find the members or people page

• In organization settings, open the Members, People, or Team tab.
• This page lists current members, pending invites, and role info.

Invite a new user

• Click the Invite member or Add user button.
• Enter the person’s email address in the field provided.
• Pick a role for them. Common roles are:
  • Owner - full control, billing and admin rights.
  • Admin - manage members and settings, but not necessarily billing.
  • Member - regular access to organization resources.
  • Billing or similar - access to billing only.
• Optionally confirm any workspace or project access if that option appears.
• Click Send invite to send the invitation.

What happens after you invite

• The person receives an email with the invite and must accept it.
• Their status on the Members page will show as Pending until they accept, then Active.
• If they don’t get the email, ask them to check spam or to sign in and look for the pending invite.

Manage invites and user roles

• To change a user’s role, select the user and choose Edit role or similar.
• To remove someone, select Remove or Revoke invite next to their name.
• You can resend an invite from the pending entry if needed.

OpenAI’s documentation on organization and user management outlines these UI steps and lists role permissions, so check that reference in your admin view if you need exact label names or a deeper description of each role.

Use Torii

Rather than handling OpenAI user provisioning directly through OpenAI’s interface, you can manage it via Torii, a SaaS Management Platform. SMPs let organizations centralize control of their SaaS apps and integrations, making it straightforward to programmatically onboard/offboard users, view subscription info, and perform other account tasks.

Instead of performing the change manually in OpenAI each time, Torii lets you automate the flow so the user is added automatically whenever a defined trigger occurs. Triggers might include a new hire, someone leaving the company, a contract renewal, or other HR or IT events - saving time when these operations repeat often.

To add a user in OpenAI directly from Torii, follow these steps:

1. Sign up for Torii

Contact Torii, and ask for your free two-week proof-of-concept.

2. Connect your OpenAI account to Torii

Once your Torii account is active, link your OpenAI account (if you already have one) to Torii. Here are the instructions for the OpenAI integration.

3. Create a Torii workflow for OpenAI

In Torii, build an automated workflow that adds a user in OpenAI. Go to the Workflows section, define the trigger event, then configure the action to add the user in OpenAI. After that, whenever the trigger fires, Torii will carry out the update automatically.

Use OpenAI’s API

Here you’ll use OpenAI’s SCIM (v2) API to provision a new user into your organization. The guide shows the minimal request, required fields, and how to check the result.

Gather an admin API key

• Use an organization-level API key that has provisioning/SCIM permissions.
• Keep this key private and call the API over HTTPS.

Build the SCIM create request

• Endpoint: POST https://api.openai.com/v1/scim/v2/Users

Required headers: - Authorization</b>: Bearer YOUR_ADMIN_API_KEY - Content-Type</b>: application/scim+json

• Minimal JSON body (SCIM v2 core User schema):

{
    "schemas": ["urn:ietf:params:scim:schemas:core:2.0:User"],
    "userName": "[email protected]",
    "name": {
        "givenName": "New",
        "familyName": "User"
    },
    "emails": [
        {
            "value": "[email protected]",
            "type": "work",
            "primary": true
        }
    ],
    "active": true
}

Example curl to create the user

Run a single HTTP request. Replace the token and email values:

curl -X POST "https://api.openai.com/v1/scim/v2/Users" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $OPENAI_ADMIN_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/scim+json" \
-D '{
    "schemas":["urn:ietf:params:scim:schemas:core:2.0:User"],
    "userName":"[email protected]",
    "name":{"givenName":"New","familyName":"User"},
    "emails":[{"value":"[email protected]","type":"work","primary":true}],
    "active":true
}'

Check the response

• Success returns HTTP 201 and the created user object. Expect fields like id, userName, active, and meta with timestamps.
• If you get 409, the user likely already exists. If 400, validate required fields and JSON shape.

Save the returned user id

Extract id from the response for future calls (updates or deactivation). You’ll use that id in other SCIM requests.

Common variations and optional fields

• Add externalId to map to your identity provider.
• Include SCIM enterprise extensions if your setup uses attributes like employeeNumber. Follow SCIM attribute names when adding extras.

Minimal troubleshooting tips

• Ensure Content-Type is application/scim+json.
• Verify the token used is an admin/provisioning key. Regular API keys may not allow SCIM calls.
• Check for rate limits or org policies if requests fail repeatedly.

Security and hygiene

• Use a dedicated admin key for provisioning and rotate it regularly.
• Log only non-sensitive parts of requests and responses; never store raw API keys.

That’s it - create the JSON, POST to the SCIM Users endpoint with an admin key, then confirm the 201 response and save the user id.