Websites end relationships more often than marriages do — freelancers move on, agencies fold, resellers vanish. The businesses that survive own their assets. Here is the checklist.
The five ownership pillars 1. **Domain registrant = you.** WHOIS shows your name/company. If a web guy registered it 'for convenience', transfer it to your own registrar account this month — the 60-day rules mean you should start before you need it 2. **Hosting account = yours.** Your email on the account, your WhatsApp for renewals, your login. Contractor access happens INSIDE your account, not the reverse 3. **Files and database exportable.** You can download a full backup today (files ZIP + .sql) without asking anyone 4. **Logins documented.** A password-manager entry per service: hosting, domain, WordPress admin, email 5. **The exit path tested.** Ask directly: 'if we part ways, what do I get and how fast?' The answer should be: everything, immediately
The audit (do it this week) WHOIS your domain now. Whose name? Log into your hosting — can you? Download one backup. If any of the five fails: fix it while the relationship is good — transfers and handovers are easy when friendly and impossible when not.
The cost of not checking The pattern is always the same: business grows for two years → the web guy disappears or prices jump → domain held hostage, files unavailable, rebuild from zero at 10x the original cost. Every week a support inbox sees one.
How Kairalmas is structured for this Accounts are customer-owned from signup, domains register to you, exports are self-service, and the trial's exit is as real as the entry. Ownership is not a feature — it is the architecture.
Own the domain, own the account, own the exits. The five pillars take one evening to verify — and protect everything else you will build.