Best way to control who can create sites and subsites in Sharepoint 2010?

Question

I would like to control who can create sites and subsites within SharePoint 2010.

"New Site" appears on the site actions menu and users can create sub sites within Site Actions - Site Settings - Sites and Workspaces.

I was suspecting there was a permission that would remove those options from the user. Ideas?

thx

Answer 1

If a user has Contribute permission, by default it will not have privileges to create subsites. You can further customize Permission Level for each group via Permission Levels page. Learn more about Managing Permission Levels.

E.g. to customize default Contribute level go to: http://your_site/_layouts/editrole.aspx?role=Contribute

Answer 2

Make your users a member of the default Members group. This group only has Contribute access by default, which will not allow them to create new sites.