Do You Actually Own Your Website? What to Check Before You Hire a Designer

Here's a call we get more often than any other. A business owner wants to switch web companies. Maybe the old one got slow, maybe they vanished, maybe the site just looks tired. Simple enough, right?

Then we start digging. The domain is registered under the old company's account. The hosting is theirs too. The site was built inside a proprietary platform that can't be exported, and the photos live on a hard drive belonging to a designer who stopped answering email in 2024. The owner has been paying for that website for six years and owns none of it.

If you can't leave, you don't own it.

The four pieces of ownership

Website ownership isn't one thing. It's four separate things, and losing any of them can hold your whole business hostage.

1. Your domain. This is the big one. The domain is your address on the internet, and whoever controls the registrar account controls it. Your Google rankings, your email, the link on your business cards: all of it hangs off that domain. It should be registered in an account you own, with your name and your credit card. A designer can manage it for you, fine — but management is not ownership, and the account login belongs in your password manager.

2. Your hosting. Less critical, because a site can move hosts, but you should always know where the site lives and either hold the login or have a written right to a full copy on request.

3. The site itself. Meaning the actual files, or an export you could hand to a new developer. This is where platform lock-in bites, and it deserves its own section. Keep reading.

4. Your content. Photos, copy, your logo. A decent contract says all of it transfers to you at final payment. A sketchy one says nothing, which in practice means it walks away when the relationship does.

The lock-in problem

Some platforms are designed so sites can't leave. Build on Wix or Squarespace and there's no meaningful export; leaving means rebuilding from scratch. That can still be a reasonable trade if you chose it knowingly and the monthly price is right for where you are.

The trouble starts when nobody told you.

The worst version is the designer who builds your "custom website" inside their own multi-site builder account. You're not their client at that point so much as their subscriber. If the relationship sours, or they close up shop, the site evaporates with it. We've watched businesses lose years of Google history this way, and rebuilding the site is the easy part — rebuilding the rankings takes months.

Six questions to ask before you sign

1. Whose name will be on the domain registration, and do I get the registrar login?
2. If we part ways, what exactly do I receive, and in what format?
3. Can I log in and edit the content myself?
4. Is this built on something portable, or on your platform?
5. Who owns the design, the copy, and the photos after final payment?
6. If you got hit by a bus tomorrow, how would I get my site back?

That last one sounds morbid. Ask it anyway. Solo designers and small shops disappear constantly, usually without malice; someone gets a full-time job, moves on, stops renewing servers. A professional will have a real answer about backups and handover. An amateur will laugh nervously.

And notice something: none of these questions are rude. Anyone who gets defensive about them just answered a seventh question you didn't have to ask.

What good looks like

The domain sits in your registrar account. You can get a complete copy of your site whenever you ask. The contract states plainly that content and design belong to you once you've paid. The monthly plan, if there is one, is month-to-month, and the provider explains what happens at offboarding before you ever sign on.

For what it's worth, this is our policy at Hearth & Code: your domain, your content, your site, full stop. If you ever leave, we hand everything over cleanly and wish you well. We'd rather keep clients because the work is good than because the exit is painful.

Owning your website costs nothing extra. You just have to ask for it before you sign, instead of after something goes wrong.