You should own your code, your domain, and your accounts

Here's an uncomfortable question worth asking about your own website: if you and your developer fell out tomorrow, what could you actually take with you? For a surprising number of small businesses, the answer is "almost nothing," and most owners don't discover this until the worst possible moment.

It happens quietly. A developer registers the domain in their own account "to make things easier." The site lives on hosting only they can log into. The code sits on a machine you've never seen. None of it is malicious, but the result is the same: you're renting your own business's front door.

What ownership actually means

Owning your setup isn't about understanding every technical detail. It's about holding the keys:

• The domain. Your web address should be registered to you, in an account with your name and card on it. This is the single most important one.
• The code. The work you paid for should be handed to you in a form you can give to someone else. You bought it; it's yours.
• The accounts. Hosting, email, analytics, and any third-party services should be under your login, with the developer added as a guest, not the other way round.

If you can't move your website to a new developer without asking the old one for permission, you don't own your website. You're borrowing it.

Why this matters more than it seems

Most working relationships end eventually, amicably or otherwise. When yours does, ownership decides whether that's a minor admin task or a small catastrophe. I've seen businesses effectively held hostage over a domain, forced to rebuild from scratch because the original files were simply gone. None of it was necessary.

There's also a trust signal here. A developer who insists on keeping everything under their own control is telling you something, whether they mean to or not. The ones worth working with want you to own your assets, because they're not planning to rely on lock-in to keep your business.

How to fix it

If you're not sure where things stand, ask three plain questions: whose name is the domain registered in, can I get a copy of the code, and are the accounts in my name? A good developer will answer happily and help you sort it out. Getting this right costs nothing and protects everything, and it's how I set up every project from day one.

None of this makes for an awkward conversation, either, unless the answers are bad, in which case awkward now is far better than stranded later. Ownership isn't about distrusting the person you're working with; it's about making sure that whatever happens between you, your business keeps control of the things it can't operate without. Set it up correctly at the start and you never have to think about it again.