Do I actually own my website? What to check before you hire someone

Most people don't think about who owns their website until they try to leave someone. Then it turns out the domain's in the designer's name, the hosting's on their account, and nobody's quite sure where the code is. Usually nobody did anything wrong. It was just set up that way because it was quicker at the time.

It's much easier to sort out before you pay than after, so this is what I'd check.

What owning your website actually means

A website is really a few separate things, and each one can belong to a different person:

• Your domain, the address people type in, like yourbusiness.com.
• Your hosting, the service that keeps the site online.
• The code, the thing that's actually been built.
• The licensed bits, like fonts and stock photos, which nobody can sell you outright.

When people say "I own my website", they usually mean the first three are in their name or their account. That's the bit worth checking.

Your domain, in your name

A domain is registered through a registrar, a company that sells and manages domain names. Whoever's named as the registrant is the one who holds it. If your web designer registered it for you in their own name, it's technically theirs, even if you've been paying for it.

So you want two things. The domain registered in your name or your business's name, and in an account at the registrar that you can log into yourself. A designer can sit with you and help you set it up, and that's fine, but it should be your account.

The easiest way to check is to log into the registrar account and look at the registrant details. Public lookups often hide the owner's name these days for privacy, so the account is the more reliable place to look.

Domains also need renewing, usually every year. If the renewal's tied to someone else's card or someone else's email, it's easy for it to lapse without you knowing, so make sure the renewal reminders come to you.

Hosting in your own account

Hosting is where the site actually lives. If it's on your designer's account, your site is only online for as long as that arrangement carries on. If you stop paying them, or they stop doing it, the site can go with it.

Having the hosting in your own account means you pay the host directly and the site carries on whatever happens between you and whoever built it. It also means you can add a developer to your account when you need help and remove them when you don't.

For the sites I build, I'd recommend Vercel, set up in your account. These are the running costs:

Hosting on Vercel

$20 a month

Paid to Vercel, in your account. $40 a month if you add me to your team.

Your domain

Varies

Paid to whoever you register it with, in your name.

Care plan

$99 a month

Optional. Up to an hour of small edits a month, plus updates and monitoring. Cancel any time.

Small changes

$45 each

Not on the care plan? For anything up to about half an hour. Bigger jobs I'll quote first.

Access to the code

The code is the bit that's actually been built. You don't need to read it, but you should have it, or at least have access to it, so another developer could pick the site up without starting from scratch.

It's worth knowing that paying for something to be built doesn't automatically settle who owns it. That depends on what you agreed, which is why it should be in writing. My own terms put it plainly. Some things, like transferring copyright, need a signed document, and a quick message isn't enough.

What's licensed, not owned

Even when you own the site, some of what's in it isn't anyone's to hand over. That's normal, and a good designer will tell you what those things are.

• Fonts. Some are free to use, others are paid for, and either way they come with a licence.
• Stock photos. You're licensed to use them, under the photo library's terms, but you don't own them.
• Tools and components the designer reuses. Most designers have things they've built once and use on every project. Those usually stay theirs, and you get the right to use them as part of your site. That's how mine work too.
• Open-source code, which stays under its own licence.

None of that is a catch, as long as it's written down. What you want to avoid is finding out later that something on your site came with conditions nobody mentioned. I list these in every agreement, and if any of the licences have their own conditions, I'll tell you.

Renting a site isn't a scam

Plenty of good setups don't give you full ownership, and that's fine if you know what you're agreeing to.

Website builders charge a monthly fee and your site lives on their platform. You can usually take your domain and your content with you if you leave, but the design often stays behind.

Rented or subscription sites are where a designer or company builds the site and charges you monthly for it, often with hosting and updates included. It can be good value, and it means someone else looks after it. The trade-off is that the site is often theirs, so if you stop paying, it may stop too.

I don't think either of those is wrong. I just think you should know which one you're signing up for before you start, not when you try to leave.

What to ask before you pay

Whoever you're thinking of hiring, these are the questions I'd ask:

1. Whose name will the domain be registered in, and whose account will it be in?
2. Whose account is the hosting in, and who pays the host?
3. Do I get the code, and when?
4. What's licensed and not owned, and do any of those licences come with conditions?
5. Is there a monthly fee, and what happens to the site if I stop paying it?
6. If we stop working together, what do you hand over?

A good designer will answer all of these in a couple of minutes, and they won't mind you asking. If the answers are vague, ask for them in writing.

If you part ways

People move on for all sorts of reasons, and none of them should mean losing the site. If your domain and hosting are already in your accounts, parting ways is mostly a matter of taking someone's access away. If they're not, it means asking the other person to move them to you, and that's a lot easier while you're still on good terms.

Moving a domain to your own account usually starts with the person who holds it. Most domains move with a transfer code from the current registrar. Some, like .uk domains, use a different process, but the person who holds it still has to start it.

How I do it

Your hosting, your domain and the services the site uses are all set up in your own accounts from the start. I put the site live and hand everything over. Once it's paid in full, you own the finished site and the code I wrote for it, with the licensed bits listed in your agreement.

If we stop working together, nothing needs moving. You remove me from your accounts, and you've got the code and the notes another developer would need. The care plan is optional, and the site keeps running whether you're on it or not.

If you want to see what's included and what it costs, it's all on Pricing.