After paying for a website, you should own six things: the domain, the hosting account, the code, the content, the analytics, and any advertising accounts. Small businesses routinely discover they own fewer of them than they assumed, and the discovery usually happens at the worst possible moment, which is when they want to leave.
The six, and how each goes wrong
The domain
The most important one, and the one most often held by somebody else. If your web company registered the domain in their name, they control your business address on the internet. Ending the relationship badly can mean losing it.
Check: look up your domain’s public registration record and confirm your business is the registrant, and that the contact email is one you control. If it is not, this is the first thing to fix and it is usually straightforward while relations are good.
The hosting account
Frequently a reseller arrangement where your site sits inside your provider’s account. That is not automatically wrong, and it does mean you cannot move without their cooperation.
Check: can you log in to the host yourself, and is the account in your name?
The code
The part people assume and rarely verify. Some arrangements license the site to you rather than transferring it. Others use a proprietary platform you cannot export from at all.
Even where ownership is clear, portability may not be. A site built on a page builder is technically yours and practically difficult to move, because the content is stored in that builder’s format and does not survive its removal.
Check: ask directly whether you can take the theme files to another developer, and whether the site would function.
The content
Words and photographs are copyrighted by whoever created them unless the contract says otherwise. If a copywriter or photographer was engaged without a transfer of rights, you may have a license to use the work rather than ownership of it.
This matters most for photography, where the original files are frequently never handed over at all.
Analytics
If your agency created the Google Analytics property inside their own account, your historical data belongs to that account. Losing it means losing your ability to compare this year to last year, permanently.
Check: can you access analytics with your own Google account, as an administrator rather than a viewer?
Advertising accounts
The same problem with higher stakes, because ad accounts accumulate conversion history that makes them perform better over time. Starting a new account means starting that learning again.
Check: the Google Ads and Meta accounts should be in your business’s name with the agency granted access. This belongs in the same conversation as how they are paid.
The audit worth doing this afternoon
For each of the six, answer one question: if this relationship ended today with no goodwill on either side, would I still have it?
Where the answer is no, fix it now. Every one of these is easy to transfer while everyone is on good terms and difficult afterward.
What a reasonable arrangement looks like
You own the domain, registered to your business. You own or can access the hosting. You receive the theme files and can hand them to anyone. Content rights transfer on final payment. Every analytics and advertising account is in your name with access granted to whoever is working on it.
None of this is unusual to ask for, and a provider who resists is telling you something useful about how they expect the relationship to end. It should be settled at the start, in writing, rather than negotiated when you want to leave.
Questions
Is it wrong for an agency to hold the domain?
It is common for convenience and it is a risk you are carrying for their convenience. Transfer it. It takes minutes and costs nothing.
What if I did not get a contract?
Then the default legal position applies, which for content is generally that the creator holds copyright. Ask for written confirmation of ownership now, while nobody has a reason to refuse. If you are also weighing a new proposal, the same principle applies to what a good one should say up front.
Can I move a site somebody else built?
Usually, if it is WordPress with a normal theme. Harder with a page builder, harder still on a proprietary platform. The answer to “can I leave” is worth knowing before you need it. If you want someone to look at what you actually have, send it over.
