I often get these confused and wanted a quick how to for a self reminder.  Hopefully, this helps you too.

In order of RANK from full control to minor control is as follows:

Administrator > Editor > Author > Contributor > Follower

Follower is the same as “subscriber”.

Why doesn’t WordPress have these in ranking order for us to choose on the drop down menu?  Answer; That would be too easy 🙂

Definitive guide is found here: https://en.support.wordpress.com/user-roles/

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