Whoever the agreement says, and most agreements do not say. Four things need to be yours in writing: the domain (registered in your name, at your registrar), the code and design of the site, the words and photos on it, and the accounts around it (Google Business Profile, analytics, hosting). On a site builder you own the words and nothing else; the page cannot leave the builder.
Our terms say you own the custom code and content; our cluster, tooling and playbooks stay ours.1
The four things, and how they go wrong
- The domain. The most common disaster: the web person registered it under his account in 2014 and has stopped answering. Check at any WHOIS lookup whose name is on it. If it is not yours, fix that before anything else.
- The code. On WordPress you can export it; on a builder you cannot. With an agency, ask the question in the words "if we part ways, do we get a copy of the site that runs somewhere else?". Ours: yes, the files are yours and they run on any static host.
- The content. Words and photos you supplied are yours by default; words the agency wrote may not be. Have the agreement say they are.
- The accounts. Google Business Profile should have you as the primary owner and the agency as a manager, never the other way round. Same for analytics and ad accounts.
What our terms say
You own the custom code and content we produce for you. The hosting cluster, the standby, the tooling and the playbooks are ours, which is what you are renting month to month. If you leave, you take the site files and the domain was always yours. The 12-month agreement covers the build we carried up front; the $700 breakdown lists what the fee covers, and the cost guide compares the models.
Can I host the site myself after the agreement?
Yes. The pages are plain files; any static host runs them. You lose the standby copy, the updates and the weekly work, which is what the fee was.
My current agency says the site is "licensed" to me. What does that mean?
That they own it and you may use it while you pay. Ask what happens to the files when you stop. If the answer is "the site comes down", you have been renting without knowing it.
Sources
- Easy Design Agency Terms of Service, "Agreements and fees".
- ICANN: registration data lookup, to check who a domain is registered to.
See this on your own site.
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