Who owns your website

Most businesses ask this after they sign, and sometimes after they have decided to move to another supplier. That is the worst possible moment to ask it.

The answer splits into three different things, and confusing them is most of the story.

Your data and your content

Your business data, your customers' data, your content, your brand and everything you supplied are yours. There is no question here and no interpretation. A supplier holding your customer list as leverage is a supplier to replace.

The code

This part is more interesting. With us, the code and technical know-how created in a project stay owned by WebLift, and after full payment you receive a perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free licence to use the system, operate it, back it up, modify it and maintain it.

In practice that means the system is yours for good and nobody can switch it off. What it does not mean is that the code can be resold onward as a product, or used to build a competing one.

The accounts

This is the part that gets forgotten and the part that actually traps businesses. The domain should be registered to your business. The payment account is opened in your legal identity, so your revenue never runs through anyone else and your customers' receipts belong to you. The same goes for hosting and infrastructure services: owned by you, paid by you, and administered by us on your behalf.

A business whose domain is registered to whoever built its website does not really hold its own website, even if it held the code.

The one question to get in writing

Before you sign, ask for an explicit answer to this: if we want to move the system to another supplier, what exactly are we allowed to take, and what is the process? That covers the code, the data, access to the accounts, and whether there is a difference between moving while the agreement is live and moving after it ends.

We recommend asking that even when it points at us. It is precisely the question that is easy to skip while everything is fine, and becomes expensive when something is not. An answer in writing is worth more than any assurance in a conversation.

One note: this is an explanation of how we work, not legal advice. A specific agreement overrides any guide, so it is worth reading yours.

Talk about a project with clear ownership terms from the start