When you hire a web designer, you should own the website.

When you hire a web designer, you should own the website: the domain, the hosting account, the code and the email addresses, all registered in your name. If any of those live in your designer's account, you are renting your own site — and a designer who holds your domain can charge you to hand it back. Here is how to check in ten minutes, and how to make sure it never happens.

Reviewed October 5, 2026. Prices are quoted per project; nothing on this page is a published price list.

The short answer

If it isn't in your name, you don't own it.

Ownership is not a feeling, it is four registrations: the domain, the hosting account, the source code and the email addresses. When all four sit in accounts registered to you, the site is yours — you can move it, change it, or hand it to anyone. When any of them sits in your designer's account, you are renting your own website, and leaving means asking permission.

The four things you must own

The domain — registered to you, with your registrar, renewed from your card.
The hosting — the account that serves the site is in your name.
The code — you hold the full source files, not just the live pages.
The email — your @business addresses live in an account you control.

How to check right now

WHOIS the domain. A free lookup (who.is, ICANN Lookup) shows the registrant. If it names your designer or their company, that is the problem.
Log in to hosting. If you have no hosting login, or the login belongs to your designer, the site lives in their pocket.
Ask for the source files. A legitimate handover includes every HTML, CSS and image file — not a ZIP of screenshots.
Check the email admin. Can you add and remove your own addresses without asking anyone?

What “domain hostage” looks like

The common pattern: the designer registered the domain in their own account, the renewal runs through their card, and the site only stays up while the relationship does. When it sours, the “handover” comes with a fee, or the domain quietly lapses and a competitor registers it. The threads where businesses describe this are full of the same story — and all of them were preventable with one registration in the right name.

If your designer already holds your domain

Ask in writing for the transfer, including the domain's authorisation (EPP) code.
If they refuse or stall, your registrar can mediate a transfer dispute — start that conversation early, not after the site is down.
Check the WHOIS record for the expiry date and set a reminder; a lapsed domain is the worst outcome.
For a site you already paid for, the contract (and in some jurisdictions consumer law) may back you — worth an hour with the agreement before paying any “release fee”.

How we do it

Everything is registered in your name from day one: the domain, the hosting account, the email addresses, and the full source code handed over in a document that lists every account and password. If we disappeared tomorrow, your website would not notice — that is the test, and it is the one our handover is built to pass.

Questions

How do I check if I own my domain?

Run a free WHOIS lookup (who.is or ICANN Lookup) and read the registrant field. If it names you or your company, you own it. If it names your designer, their agency or a privacy service you never signed up for, ask them to transfer it to your own registrar account — the authorisation code comes from the current registrar.

What if my web designer won't give me my domain?

Put the request in writing with a deadline, then contact your registrar about a transfer dispute — registrars mediate these, and the process is documented. Check the expiry date immediately and set a reminder so the domain cannot silently lapse. If you paid for the site, the contract may entitle you to the handover; an hour with the agreement is worth it before paying any release fee.

Tell us what you need. Send a few rough lines and we will come back with a scope, a fixed price and a delivery date in writing.

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