Here’s a question we get in most discovery calls, and it’s worth addressing head-on:
“After you build it, do we own it?”
Yes. Entirely.
But the reason it’s worth writing about isn’t the answer. It’s the pattern of why it gets asked.
Small business owners get burned by ownership issues all the time. A previous web person registered their domain on a personal account and then ghosted. A hosting company holds the login. The “web designer” set up everything on a free trial that expired, taking the site with it. The WordPress site runs on a theme they don’t have the license for.
None of this is theoretical. We’ve met business owners who couldn’t access their own website, their own email, their own domain — and didn’t realize it until something broke. At that point, the options narrow to paying ransom money or starting over.
Our rules — written down, not buzzwords
- Your domain is registered in your name, on your account, with your credit card. Not ours. Not ever. If we do the registration as a favor, it’s on an account you control from day one.
- Hosting is in your name. We get access as a collaborator. When we’re done, we leave. The account doesn’t follow us.
- The code is yours. Final files delivered. You can host them anywhere, hand them to any developer, put them on a flash drive and bury them in the yard.
- The content is yours. Copy, photos, whatever you brought. You walk away with everything.
We own nothing about your website. The only thing we own is the relationship — and that’s the only thing you should be renting. (The services page spells this out in the scope of work.)
This feels unusual only because the industry trained everyone to accept the opposite. Platforms lock you in. Agencies hold logins. Designers assume long-term retainers. None of that is the norm we want. We’d rather do great work and have you come back because you want to, not because you’re stuck.
You should never be stuck with us. That’s the promise, and it’s also the point.