Before you sign
Who owns your website? 8 questions to ask any web designer
The most common web design horror story isn’t a bad design. It’s discovering, months later, that the domain, the hosting, or the site itself belongs to someone else. These eight questions take ten minutes and settle it up front.
Updated · By AltaSmith, Calgary
Free guideDo you actually own your business online? A 10-minute check, with worksheets and templates.Get it freeWhy this matters more than the design
A website is several separate things, and each can end up in someone else’s hands:
- The domain name (yourbusiness.ca). If it’s registered to your designer, you can be held hostage later over a name customers already know you by.
- The hosting — the server the site runs on. If the account is theirs, so is the off switch.
- The site itself — built on a platform you can export from, or one you can only rent.
- The content — your text, photos, and design, and whether you keep the rights to them.
The eight questions
| Ask | A good answer | A red flag |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Whose name is the domain registered in? | Yours. You’re the registrant and you have your own login. | “We manage it for you,” with no registrant details. |
| 2. Who holds the hosting account? | An account you can access, or a clear written way to transfer it. | A proprietary host you can’t move away from. |
| 3. What’s it built on, and can I take it with me? | A standard platform or files you can export and hand to another developer. | A closed builder with no export. |
| 4. Who owns the text, photos, and design? | You, in writing. | A licence that lasts only while you keep paying. |
| 5. What do I pay every month, for what, and can I cancel? | A named fee, a list of what it covers, cancel on notice. | “It depends,” or a long auto-renewing term. |
| 6. What happens if you disappear, or I want to leave? | A written handover: domain, files, logins. | No clear answer. |
| 7. Who do I call when it breaks, and how fast do they reply? | A named person and a stated response time. | A ticket system and no promises. |
| 8. Can I see live sites you’ve built and speak to an owner? | Live links and a client who’ll take a call. | Screenshots only. |
Our answers
Held to the same questions, here is what we commit to:
- Domain and site: the website, its content, and your domain name are yours, not ours. If you leave, they go with you.
- Monthly fee: the Core care plan is $99/month and covers hosting, SSL, domain renewal, a safe rebuildable copy of your site, security updates, email support, and up to 30 minutes of small content edits a month. No long contract; you can change plans any time or leave with 30 days’ notice.
- Response time: we reply within 1 business day.
- Proof: Live client sites you can open right now, listed on the homepage.
For the hosting and platform questions (2 and 3), we’ll spell out the specifics in your quote before you commit, so you can judge them against anyone else’s.
Ownership and cost go together
Hidden fees and ownership problems usually show up together: a low upfront price, then charges to change anything or move away. The website cost guide lists the recurring costs to ask about on every quote.
Common questions
Search your domain on the ICANN lookup (lookup.icann.org). The registrant is the legal owner and the registrar is the company that holds the registration. If the registrant shows your designer’s business, or is hidden and you don’t have a login to the registrar account, ask your designer for that access in writing. Owning the domain means being the registrant with your own login.
It’s common and convenient, and fine as long as it’s registered in your name with you as the account holder. The risk is a domain registered under the designer’s own account: if they disappear or you fall out, you can’t move it without their cooperation.
That depends entirely on the contract, which is why it’s worth asking. Some subscription services give you a licence to use the site only while you keep paying. Ask whether the site, its content, and the domain are yours if you stop.
Start with what you can reach directly: the domain registrar and the hosting provider. Find out whose name the registration is in, gather proof that the business is yours (incorporation documents, invoices, payment records), and contact the registrar’s support. It can be slow, but registrars have processes for this. Keep copies of your content and photos from now on, wherever the site lives.
Want a straight price for your business?
Tell us what you do and we’ll reply within 1 business day with a clear number — no sales call required.