You own everything: what to demand in writing before you pay for a website
The eight things that should be in your name from the first day, why agencies rarely offer them, and the exact wording to ask for so you are never held hostage by your own website.
Every agency's business model is some form of lock-in, and it works because nobody asks for the alternative in writing. Here is the list. Ask for each one before you pay a deposit, and treat a refusal as information.
The eight things
Your hosting account, opened in your name and paid by your card, with the agency added as a collaborator you can remove in one click.
Your domain, at your registrar, in your name. Never let anyone register a domain for you; it is the one thing that cannot be rebuilt.
Your repository: the code in a repository you own from the first commit, so every change is visible, dated and reversible.
A standard stack: widely used, well documented tools that thousands of developers can work with, and nothing proprietary that only the agency understands.
A written manual: how to change the words, add a product, read the analytics, restore a backup, and who to ring for what, written for the person who will actually do it.
A handover period: months, not a phone call, in which a named person on your side learns the routine jobs with the builder behind them.
Your data in your name: enquiries, customers and orders in infrastructure you own, under a written data-processing agreement, so leaving needs no export.
Monitoring you can see: the checks that watch the site report to you as well as to the agency, so “we monitor your site” is a fact rather than a line.
What it costs
More up front and less over five years. A firm that builds it in your name cannot earn from holding you, so it has to charge properly for the build. A firm that charges less for the build is earning somewhere else, and that somewhere is usually the retainer and the exit fee. The pricing page shows the two models side by side over five years.
The one-line version
Put this in the email: “Please confirm in the quote that the domain, hosting account, repository and all data will be in our company's name from the start, that we receive a written manual and a data-processing agreement, and what your defect warranty and post-launch support terms are.” If the answer is vague, you have learned what you needed to for free.
Our answers are on the ownership page, and they are the same before and after you hire us.
Check your own site
Free, on screen in seconds, no call.
Free, on screen in about ten seconds, no call. We fetch your homepage once, the way a visitor's browser does, and nothing else.