Yes. Code, content, accounts, and infrastructure are yours — and they're yours from day one, not handed over at the end as a reward for finishing.
This matters more than it sounds like it does. A large share of agency horror stories come down to one thing: the client didn't actually own what they paid for, and only discovered it when they tried to leave.
What "yours from day one" means in practice
- Accounts are registered in your name, with your email as the owner — domain, hosting, analytics, payment processor, everything
- The code lives in a repository you own, and you have admin access to it during the build, not after
- Content is yours outright — copy, images, and anything else produced for the build
- Credentials are handed over as they're created, not collected into a final handover packet
If you fired us in week three, you'd walk away with everything built up to that point and the keys to all of it.
What we don't do
Some things are common in this industry that we don't do, and it's worth naming them so you can ask any other agency the same questions:
- We don't register your domain under our own account. It's the single most common form of lock-in, and it turns a routine departure into a negotiation.
- We don't build on a proprietary platform you can only host with us. Your build runs on standard, portable technology. Any competent developer can pick it up.
- We don't hold source code as leverage. There's no version of a disagreement where we still have the code and you don't.
- We don't charge an exit or "release" fee. There's nothing to release. You already have it.
Can another developer take over?
Yes, and this is a fair thing to plan for.
Builds use standard, widely-adopted technology rather than anything custom or exotic, specifically so that the pool of people who can maintain it is large. You aren't dependent on us being available, still in business, or still interested.
When a build wraps, you get the repository, the deployment setup, and documentation for anything non-obvious. That's enough for a new developer to get oriented without a conversation with us — though we'll take that call anyway if it helps.
What about work we license rather than own?
Occasionally a build uses something neither of us owns outright — a stock photo, a licensed font, a third-party service with its own terms.
These are listed explicitly during scoping, with their licenses and any recurring costs. You'll never discover a surprise license obligation after launch, and we won't build a dependency on something with terms you haven't seen.
Does ownership change if we keep working together?
No. Ongoing work doesn't create any claim on what was already built, and it doesn't create one on new work either — new work is yours on the same terms, as it's made.
A maintenance or growth engagement is a service you're buying, not access you're renting. If it ends, nothing about your ownership changes.
Want this in writing before you start? It is — ownership terms are part of every scope document. Book a strategy call and read them before you commit to anything.