Who owns your website?

Many companies pay for a website for years without owning it. The question is not who built it, nor who hosts it: it is what remains yours on the day you change supplier.

The three ways of not owning your website

• Renting. A purchased theme, plugins on annual licence, features leased. You are paying to use, not to own. The day you stop paying, the feature stops.
• Captive hosting. The site runs on an account in the supplier’s name. Leaving means a migration you have to negotiate, usually at the worst possible moment.
• Unreadable code. The quietest of the three. The code is yours on paper, but nobody else can pick it up. The dependency is no longer contractual; it is technical.

What “bespoke” means, and what it does not mean

“Bespoke” does not mean expensive, or slow, or complicated. It means there is no intermediate layer between what you want and what the site does — and so nothing to update in a hurry because some third-party vendor has changed its mind.

It also means that code written cleanly can be read, taken over and put to work by somebody else — including by software agents you direct yourself.

The questions to ask before signing

• Will the code repository be in my name, from the first day?
• Who holds the domain name, the hosting account, the certificates?
• What must I keep paying every year for the site to remain in working order?
• If I leave tomorrow, what leaves with me — and what stays with you?

An awkward answer to the last question is worth any audit.

What builds up in the repository

Every delivery leaves something in the repository: the code, the history of decisions, the documentation, the checks. None of it has to be bought again, or worked out again. What is written once no longer has to be written. A subscription renews. A repository grows.

Why we work this way

We deliver into your repository, in your name, from the outset. You are free to leave: which is exactly why we have to earn the right to stay. A supplier who holds you by the technology no longer needs to convince you by the work.