Answers · one question, one page
Who owns my website after launch?
You do, if the agency set it up that way. The domain is registered in your name, the hosting or platform account is yours, the code and the design files are handed over, and the licences for fonts and images are bought in your name. At HeadPills this is how every site is delivered, and it is written in the terms.
The questions to ask before signing are on this page. If you leave, you keep everything and the agency is removed from the accounts.
See the stages and the handover on How we work →Domain, hosting, code, design files
Four things make up ownership, and they are separate.
The domain: registered in your name, in a registrar account you control. The hosting or the platform: a Webflow workspace, a Shopify store, a hosting account, in your name, with the agency as a collaborator you can remove. The code: handed over in a repository or as files, with the right to change it. The design files: the source files in your Figma or as an export, with the fonts and images licensed to you.
- Domain in your registrar account
- Hosting or platform account in your name
- Code handed over with the right to change it
- Design source files and licences in your name
What to ask an agency before signing
Five questions, in writing.
- In whose name is the domain registered, and who holds the registrar login?
- In whose name is the hosting or platform account, and who pays for it?
- Do we receive the code and the design source files, and when?
- Who owns the licences for fonts, stock images and plugins, and what happens when they renew?
- If we leave, what exactly do we take, and how long does the handover take?
What happens if you leave
You keep everything: the domain, the account, the code, the files, the content. The agency is removed from the accounts, and the passwords are changed by you. A site on Webflow or Shopify continues to run on your subscription; a site on your own hosting continues to run on your hosting.
What you do not automatically get: the agency’s time. Changes after handover are new work, and any other agency can do them if the files were handed over properly.
How HeadPills does it
Domain, hosting and platform accounts are opened in the client’s name before launch, or transferred if they already exist. Code and design files are handed over at launch. Licences are bought in the client’s name. We stay as a collaborator only while we work, and we are removed at handover unless you keep us on. The terms say this, and the contact page repeats it.
A special case: a site built with AI
A site built in code with AI tools is still code, and it is handed over the same way: a repository in your name and the right to change it. What we add is a short document on how it was built, so the next developer, human or not, can continue.
When this answer does not work
When you do not own it
When the domain was registered by the agency in its own account and never transferred; when the site lives in the agency’s platform workspace and moving it means rebuilding; when the code was never handed over; when the fonts and images were licensed to the agency. All four are common, and all four are fixable before you sign, not after. If you already have a site and are not sure, ask for the registrar login first; that is the one that matters most.
Questions
Related questions
Does the client own the code of a website built by an agency?
At HeadPills, yes: the code and the design files are handed over at launch with the right to change them. Ask any agency the same question in writing before signing.
Who should the domain be registered to?
To you, in a registrar account you control. An agency can manage it as a collaborator, but the login and the renewal should be yours.
What happens to a Webflow or Shopify site if we stop working with the agency?
It keeps running on your own subscription, because the workspace or the store is in your name. The agency is removed as a collaborator and you change the passwords.
Not sure what you own today?
Send us the site address; we tell you what to check first.