Good question… I feel like I’m in a very similar situation.  

I think the answer kind of depends on what experience with Miro do you hope your clients have and what level of account/plan/features you expect them to be using.

I have to say … the collab organization paradigm in Miro is still evolving and has a ways to go to match the intuition of say Google Docs.  While I and others in the Miro user community have wishlists of improvements to this area, its reassuring to see that Miro is taking them seriously and making great strides to this part of the UX. 

Here’s how I currently think about it. Keep in mind… just my opinion and also... I have a Consultant plan. 

Consider your collaborators’ use case(s)...

1. Are they only just watching you present from / create in the board?
2. Are they collaborating with you on the boards in work sessions but that’s the extent of their use?
   1. If so, are there enough people that you want to make sure that their comments are labeled by their name? And that their updates will be seen when you return (with their name attributed to the update?)
3. Are they regularly returning (async) to work on the boards to comment on or edit them without you? 
4. Are they creating their own boards and sharing them with you? 
5. Are they like you in their usage, sub-contractor/collaborating ‘consultants’ that work with you on projects delivering work through Miro to your clients?

Consider the following account/plan levels: 

This visual was shared by Miro at Distributed 2020, I think its useful, but its missing a column to the left of free for the anonymous guest editor who: receives a board link ( of a board owned by your paid account and set to share>anyone with link...can edit), opens it, makes edits with you 

• no account: anonymous guest editor, comments left on boards are anonymous. Tools are restricted. Miro plug-ins are restricted.  
• a free account: they create acct w email/oauth login. 3 boards max that they can create. They can’t make teams. They are 1 team and you (paid account) can be added to their 1 free team and see their 3 boards — which by the way is weird behavior that I hope MIro fixes).   Comments on boards they create and share with you, or on boards you create and share with them are attributed to their name/account, when they are logged into their account. 
• a paid account: All features available. One feature, related to everything discussed here, sorely missing from Miro, and common to other collab platforms like drop box and Google drive, is a location for “boards shared with me”.  Or teams built of Miro paid users across accounts ( e.g. your paid account and mine) … (I might be missing something already working / doing it wrong … so PLEASE let me know if you’ve discovered this to work -- as its a daily struggle. )

Matching the Collaborators’ Use Case(s) to Miro Acct Level and Work Flow

How I tend to match the collaborators use-case with an account level and associated workflow: From the number list above, if they are in...

• Category #1:  They only just watching you present from / create in the board?   →   ‘no account’ is sufficient. If they return to the board regularly they can do so with the link of the board that you’ve set available to anonymous guest (commenters / editors) they’ll need to manage storage of the link to go back to (search email, put in notes, or doc). Your view:

  

  Their view: 

  

  

  

   

• Category 2: ‘they collaborate with you on the boards in work sessions’: And you do not care about their contributions or comments being attributed to them, i.e. you don’t care that they are anonymous editors. And neither you nor they care about them having a full featured Miro experience: ‘no account’ is sufficient (see above). Otherwise having them create a ‘free account’ by clicking the blue button and creating an account h context : what they see after they click the link you sent them after you ‘Share > Anyone with link can edit/comment/view’ ]. 

  

   

• Category 3:  ‘regularly returning (async) to work on the boards to comment on or edit them without you’:  Consider this answer essentially the same as Cat 2 just above.  
• Category 4:  ‘they create their own boards’:  They will need a free or paid account to create their own boards. 3 boards or limitless, respectively. 
• Category 5: ‘they are consultants who you collab with to deliver services to a third party’:    Here they can be their own ‘paid’ account and teams on Miro - ensuring they have full features available.  But you may want to consider adding them as paid members of your team(s) / account -- for the added features of shared board, team and project folders, easier sharing work flow… etc.  This means you are paying for their account and this can be sorted out in your professional financial arrangement. Also consider “day passes”. This is one of the few areas where I’ve been able to make sense of using day passes. Even here… I’m iffy…  maybe someone can help me figure out the perfect use case for a day pass. For all other collaborating circumstances I feel like the “anyone with link can edit (optional Add password)” is sufficient. 

Thoughts on ‘Teams’

For the most part, I would recommend thinking about “Teams” as an internal distinction…meaning=> only you and your company’s account/plan paid-for members will find functionality out of teams. I haven’t found it to be functional for external collaborators. I also have used teams to segment away business and personal - whereby my business team is shared with my collaborating consultant - I pay for his Miro account under our arrangement. 

Thoughts on ‘Projects’

Projects is an organizing feature that I feel follows similar logic to teams above. Use it to organize your internal company space (e.g. ‘each project is a client’ (how I do it)-- remember you can always “search/view all boards” across the projects if you can’t find something).  Then for collaborating consultants (cat 5 above), they will only benefit from that project structure if they are a paid part of your team … (and I also think for the day if you use day pass). 

For all collaborators in categories 1-4, I don’t believe they’ll ever even see your project structure (except when they see how organized you are on a screen share moment when you go into your dashboard   ). 

This really should be communicated as a decision tree flow chart. I should make and embed… 

I prepare this scheme for better understanding the best practices how to share boards with clients for consultants / coaches etc.

Please look and comment - is it correct?

Here is a link to a Miro board with scheme: https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_khMU9h0=/?moveToWidget=3074457351009838352&cot=12

@Max Harper - Nice article! I did note that matrix shared at Distributed 2020, but didn’t capture it, so thanks for sharing it here.

@Alex Tsyglin

I bought a consultant plan - and now have a question - how to orginize work with my clients? Do I need to open new teams or I should make new project at the my main team and invite consultants there?

a. I don’t want to pay extra money for additional licenses

b. I want that boards created for each client see only this client.

Are (a) and (b) your acceptance criteria? If so,

1. You’re only option is public link access if you don’t want to incur a cost, but need them to view, comment, or edit the board. If they need to edit, they will be a Guest Editor and will be slightly limited as to what they can do, e.g., they cannot lock/unlock objects. Some of these restrictions may be of a benefit, others may not - it depends on how you want to work with them.
2. This will be handled by using Guest Editor access as you will explicitly need to share that board link with them.

Do I need to open new teams or I should make new project at the my main team and invite consultants there?

I’ll assume you mean “clients” and not “consultants”. If you are going to use projects as mini-teams and potentially invite clients to your main/primary team where all of your other clients boards exist, then I would suggest this to be too risky. You would be better off to create a team for each client. Yes, you can set board’s sharing access to Anyone at aTEAM NAME] team → No access and the project’s share settings to Anyone in your team can view this project → DISABLED, but that is all open to human error.

Thanks Robert,

Yes I see this 2 variants only for working with clients and don’t spend lot of money for extra license:
1) Buy a Consultant pland and invite clients like a Guest editors for boards made for them (so they are not a team memebers) (1 client = 1 board = 1 guest editing link per client)
2) To create teams using free plan and invite clients to this team - with limitations of free plan (3 editable boards, no timer, no voting etc.)

I came here to find this info, I have to say it is super complicated! I get that Miro is trying to be flexible and fair with pricing, supporting smaller consultancies.

We use a Team account and want an external consultant. Can she create her own Free account, use our invitation link, and then will her comments be attributed to her (because she has an account) or not attributed to her (because she is a Free user and not part of our Team).

Thanks!

@RobOK - As long as your consultant has a Miro account and is signed in, their Miro account profile name will show up on your boards in her activity (created objects, commented, etc.). This assumes that you have put the board in public Comment or Edit mode.

If you want to see this in action, feel free to create a test board, turn on Anyone with the line → Can comment or edit, and PM me the link. I will comment on something using my Free Plan account.

Sent PM, thank you!

Confirmed - non-team members who are accessing a board while signed into any Miro account profile (free or paid) will not only show their name beside their cursor, but Miro will also show their name as who commented or created/modified objects on the board.