The Breakup Guide – How to End a Contract with Your Web Designer
November 12, 2020
CONSUME CREATIVELY
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Updated 10/26/2023
Breaking up with your web designer… sounds better than breaking up with your boyfriend, right? Which I’m not encouraging you to do — I’ll let that be your own decision.
Regardless, lucky for us, ending a contract with your web designer can be broken down into just a few simple steps… as opposed to breaking up with a significant other, which might break down into 23 legally-enforced steps that can span over months or even years or possibly even a lifetime and may not ever end… 4th grade was a tough year.
Anyway, onto the good stuff!
How do you transition from a web designer? Start with your contract.
The Breakup Guide Overview
1. Understanding your current contract.
To successfully transition from your web designer, it’s crucial to understand the terms of your current contract. Take the time to review the contract you signed with your web designer. It will specify the ownership of various components, such as:
- your hosting space
- rights to your files
- rights to your code
- stock photography used in your website
- original photographs taken for your website (both the ones you used and those you didn’t)
Using the images from your current site in a new website, especially if they’re stock photos, might cause you some trouble if the images weren’t included with your contract.
Photographers often grant varying degrees of ownership and usage rights to clients’ photos. If this design company came out and took for you — make sure that you have all of those, and the rights to use them, from the photographer who took them.
The contract should also let you know how much notice you’re required to provide that company before you can end your services. A lot of cancellation stipulations required a 30-day notice before the date you’d like your services to end, but not always, so look at that.
2. Identify Necessary Assets
You’ll certainly want photos, images and videos but what else do you need your soon-to-be former design company to deliver to you before you part ways?
Think through any items you procured from or through this company throughout your relationship. Make a list so you can ask for them. Because, after you end the relationship, they’re probably not going to be super enthused about organizing and sending you your assets…aaand you’re not going to find them anywhere else.
Again, list what you find and then get those assets from your design company so you can use them in your future marketing.
3. Prep for the Transition
Hosting Space
As you transition from your web designer, it’s important to understand the technical aspects of your website. Your website is like an apartment, and your hosting space is where it resides. To access your “apartment,” you’ll need:
- A code to enter the building (your website URL)
- Keys to your apartment (username and password for your FTP – File Transfer Protocol)
- A port number (an extra security code for your alarm system)
If you have a content management system like WordPress, Drupal or Joomla, etc., those are all hosted on a database — so the second set of usernames and passwords that you need is your database username and password.
Domain Name
A domain name is a vital component of your online presence. It’s that little thing you type into your browser’s top bar to access a website, like mayecreate.com — commonly referred to as a URL. Your domain name not only directs users to your website but also plays a role in your email setup. If you’re considering ending a contract with your web designer, a big part of preparing for the transition is redirecting your domain name.
Unfortunately, if you do not have access to your domain name, it’s not easy to get access to it once you’ve cut ties with your design company. So it’s super important to know who owns it and where it lives before breaking up. We host a lot of domain names for our clients, but they’ve paid us for them and we’re really cordial about giving them back. Not everybody is so kind.
How do I get user information for my domain?
Your domain name registrar is where you bought your domain name. I didn’t just make up that word. It’s actually a real word, registrar — places like GoDaddy and Network Solutions, Bluehost, Tucows, FastDomain.com, etc.
To figure out your registrar run a report at Whois.net.
You need the username and password to the company you registered your domain name with. If you don’t know who registered your domain you can run a “who is” report on it by going to whois.net and enter the domain name into the search field (there are several companies out there you can run “who is” reports through). Unless you’ve paid for a domain name privacy policy your registrar should show right up.
You can do this for any website. But if you’re not feeling up to the scavenger hunt just ask your new web developer to help you figure it out.
Story time!
Right now, Stacy is in the throes of helping an organization her dad is a part of. Keep in mind, this is a group of 70-something-year-old men. Well, their webmaster sadly passed away, and unfortunately, nobody has the username and password to their organization’s domain name. Nobody knows whose email is on it, and Stacy can’t even run that “who is” report because the organization paid for domain privacy. And of course, the registrar is not helping because their duty is to protect their client.
We’ve submitted the Secretary of State paperwork — all kinds of paperwork actually — and we still don’t have access to it. Fortunately, her dad’s group isn’t an online business so it won’t be the end of the world for their organization to go without a website for a hot minute. So they decided they’re just going to have to let the domain expire and figure out how to buy it back when it goes out on the market. No fun.
Administrative User Account in Your Content Management System
Transitioning from a web designer also involves ensuring you have an administrative user account to your content management system. An administrative account grants full access to your website’s content and settings. And you’re going to need it. Without admin access, you won’t be able to make the necessary changes to relocate your website.
Sometimes clients tell us they have a username and password, but when we log in, they can only publish blog posts. Limited access is fine on the daily. It’s even advisable if you have lots of users and you’re afraid of them breaking your site. But as the site owner, you should have more capabilities. For instance, with administrative access, you can install plugins and export data from your site.
You’ll need a higher level of access when redesigning your website. It enables your new designer to access the database and other files, simplifying the site transfer. Saving you time and money. Especially if your site includes a blog or a shopping cart with lots of products.
The takeaway: make sure you get a user in your current content management system at an administrative level.
Not sure if you have an administrator account?
If you have an administrative user account, you’ll see a ton of options to choose from down the left-hand side of the screen, and you’ll likely not have a clue what most of them are. If you have a WordPress site, it’s easy to check your user level. Once you’ve logged into the admin section click on Users on the left navigation. If you don’t see Users on the left, you’re not an admin. On the Users screen look for your user ID. Look for your Role a few columns to the right. If your role says ‘Administrator’ you’re golden. If it says subscriber, author, editor or anything else. You know what to do.
Email Hosting
It’s important to understand where your email is hosted if you have a professional email account associated with your domain name. If the transfer isn’t handled correctly you’ll break your email. And unfortunately, once the emails are gone you can’t get them back.
So get clear on all that email stuff before you move on from our old company.
4. Communicate your desire to end the contract with your web designer.
Be clear and do it in writing.
Be sure in your communication you’re clear on when you want your contract with your web designer and all services associated to end. If you email saying you want to cancel your service that request could be interpreted in many ways.
I might think you mean you want to end your service when your contract is up. But you might mean you want to cancel in 6 months or cancel today.
Your web designer doesn’t know what if want if you don’t tell them. Incorrect assumptions can result in you receiving a bill for a service you don’t need or premature service cancellation.
Make sure you include a cancellation date. If you have multiple services through the company, also include a list of the specific services you want to cancel.
Be considerate when ending the contract with your web designer.
Be sure to follow up on any charges you might see after you end the contract with your web designer.
It’s common to find recurring auto-pay charges still running even after your site’s moved over. They still have hard costs tied into the development and hosting of your website. So, if you just up and move your website to a new place and don’t ever tell them, they’ll still send you a bill for your website hosting costs.
Bring in your IT professional if you have one.
I love when companies bring in their IT professionals at the very beginning of conversations. IT professionals are magical unicorns who know how everything is set up. Given they’ll be the ones dealing with this exchange, it’s great to have them on board from the beginning.
For clients who need a transitional guide…
We draft a “break up” email for new clients to help retrieve website details and assets from their past designer. This way we can all feel secure knowing expectations and needed items are outlined as clearly as possible.
When a client ends a contract with a previous web designer we usually don’t reach out directly to the previous company. Occasionally we will if something really strange is going on and we have no other options. Most of the time, we draft an email for our client and they send the email to their previous designer. Then our clients get what they need quickly without having to learn a bunch of web lingo.
5. Send the email.
When is a good time to send the cancellation notice?
It all depends on your current relationship with your previous developer, but typically there are two schools of thought:
1. For the amicable developer, give 4-6 weeks notice.
With a nice and cooperative developer, you might give them 4-6 weeks notice for you to each start getting the necessary details in order. Plus, you still give them the respect of that 30-day cancellation policy, or whatever the amount of time is required in your contract. If it’s your friend or someone you know who designed your site, or maybe it’s a developer who took you on as a side gig and is ready to cut ties, they’re most likely going to be cordial with you and will kindly hand over these details.
2. For the less-than-cordial developer, pull the plug ASAP.
If it’s a company who is less than eager to relinquish your website, they definitely have the power to turn it off whenever they want. So if you don’t think your current web developer is going to be cooperative about the split and you’re afraid they might do something like that, then rip off the band-aid now by trying to end service as soon as possible.
3. The “drip” method. (Not awesome but a method no less.)
There is a third method we don’t necessarily recommend, but it’s not necessarily awful. We have had people who’ve transitions from their web designer using a sort of a “drip” method — they email and ask for their FTP username and password.
Just a heads up, if you do for this “sneaky”-ish drip approach, it’s not really sneaky. Your developer will know what you’re doing — and that’s okay. They should cooperate if they’re functional people, because it’s your website, and you have the choice to do what you want to do with it. If you think your web developer could be vindictive you’ll want to pull the plug all at once.
We’ve worked with many of our clients for years. And we can be fairly certain many of them don’t know what the acronym FTP is or how to use it. And let me be clear: this is not to say our clients are unintelligent people, but their specialty isn’t web development. So when they ask me for information I’m pretty sure they don’t even know how to use, that to me is a red flag that they’re probably on their way out.
On the receiving end of that, we use it as an opportunity to re-engage and see how we can improve, even if it’s just in feedback and not in continued service. Communication: it’s one of our values.
Your website access is like insurance.
Don’t let it lapse.
Transitioning from a web designer requires attention to detail, ensuring a seamless shift of control and access to your domain and website. By understanding these essential elements, you can make the process of ending a contract with a web designer much smoother and less stressful.
Some of the things I mentioned in this article are a bit technical but they’re all necessary components of your website. By taking the precautions now and doing your homework to ensure you have the necessary information you’ll need to move your site, you’ll save you oodles and oodles of time and heartbreak once the ball gets rolling and starts picking up speed.
The good news is, that ball is in your court. So it’s up to you to bite the bullet to get it rolling. But the smooth transition from your current company to your new designer will be well worth it.
Maybe you’re not in a good place to split from your current company, or maybe you really like them (in which case, I’m not sure what made you want to read this, but I’m not complaining!), you can let them know you’re not going anywhere, but you’d still like to gather all these details just on the off chance you may need them in the future.
Who Manifested This Madness?
This fabulous human, that's who.
Monica Maye Pitts
Monica is the creative force and founder of MayeCreate. She has a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture with an emphasis in Economics, Education and Plant Science from the University of Missouri. Monica possesses a rare combination of design savvy and technological know-how. Her clients know this quite well. Her passion for making friends and helping businesses grow gives her the skills she needs to make sure that each client, or friend, gets the attention and service he or she deserves.
