Handover / 7 minute read
What should you own after a website project?
A healthy handover leaves the business able to operate, recover, maintain, and move its website. Support can remain valuable without becoming dependency by design.
Published 27 August 2026
The handover set
Control lives in the details.
01
Domain
The registrant account should belong to the business, use a durable business email, and retain recovery access and renewal visibility.
02
Hosting and deployment
Know which account runs the live site, who can deploy it, what it costs, and how the service can be transferred or replaced.
03
Source and content
Keep the agreed source repository or export, final copy, original supplied assets, database or CMS access, and a usable backup path.
04
Business profiles
Search, maps, analytics, merchant, social, email, and advertising accounts should use business-controlled ownership—not a supplier’s personal login.
05
Licences
Fonts, themes, plugins, stock media, and software may be owned, subscribed to, or licensed under conditions. Record which is which.
06
Documentation
A concise handover should identify accounts, renewal dates, ordinary editing steps, dependencies, known limitations, and support boundaries.
Ownership is not the same as access
An invitation can disappear.
Administrator access is useful, but the primary owner controls recovery, billing, permissions, and transfer. Wherever a platform supports separate owner and collaborator roles, the business should normally hold ownership and invite its suppliers.
A good working relationship is strengthened by choice, not held together by locked accounts.
Before accepting a proposal
Ask while change is still easy.
The exact answer will vary by platform and licence. What matters is that it is written down before the project depends on it.
- Which account owns the domain, and can the business recover it without the supplier?
- Can another capable developer access, run, and update the website if needed?
- Which assets transfer to the business, and which remain third-party licensed?
- What renews monthly or annually, at what current price, and who receives the notice?
- Where are backups held, how recent are they, and has restoration ever been tested?
- What support is included after launch, and what happens when that period ends?
A clean finish
Verify the handover before goodbye.
Sign in using business-controlled accounts, confirm billing and recovery details, download the agreed materials, and test a normal content change. A checklist is only complete when the access actually works.
Read the website cost guide