How to leave a website platform or agency without losing your content, domains or search traffic: the contract clauses to ask for before you sign, an exit test to run each year, and a step-by-step migration plan.
The cheapest moment to plan your exit from a website vendor is before you sign. Once your content, domains, forms and years of search history sit inside someone else's system, every missing contract term becomes a negotiation you are likely to lose. This guide gives you the clauses to ask for, a yearly test that proves you could actually leave, and the order to do things in when you do.
Lock-in is rarely a single trap. It is usually several small things that together make leaving too expensive:
Write down everything that would have to move if you left, and attach the list to the contract. A typical list:
The wording below is sample language to discuss with your lawyer and your vendor, not legal advice. Adjust names, periods and formats to your situation. If a vendor refuses one of these, ask why: sometimes there is a good reason, and sometimes the refusal is the answer you needed.
"As between the parties, the Customer owns all content, data, files and materials that the Customer or its users upload to, create in, or collect through the Services ('Customer Data'). The Vendor receives only the licence needed to host and display Customer Data in order to provide the Services, and that licence ends when the Agreement ends, subject to the transition period below."
Watch for language that gives the vendor a broad, permanent licence to your content, or treats anything created "using the platform" as theirs.
"Deliverables created specifically for the Customer, including page templates, styles and custom code, are assigned to the Customer on payment. Where a deliverable includes the Vendor's pre-existing components, the Vendor grants the Customer a perpetual, royalty-free licence to use, copy and modify those components as part of the Customer's websites, including on another platform."
Platforms that run your site on shared software will not hand over their whole product, and that is reasonable. What you want is the right to keep using what was built for you.
"At any time during the term, at no additional charge, the Customer may export Customer Data in the following formats: page content and metadata as [HTML or Markdown] plus [JSON or CSV]; uploaded files in their original format and resolution; form submissions as CSV; user lists as CSV; and the list of live URLs and redirects as CSV. Where the Services generate site code, the Customer may download that code."
Naming the formats is the whole point. "Customer may export its data" with no formats lets the vendor decide what an export is.
"On expiry or termination for any reason, the Vendor will keep the Services and the Customer's sites running on the existing terms for a transition period of [90] days if the Customer requests it, and will provide reasonable cooperation with the Customer's new provider, including a complete export under clause 3 within [10] business days of request. Transition assistance beyond the export is charged at the rates in Schedule [X]."
Agreeing the price of help now, while you still have leverage, is cheaper than discovering it later.
"All domain names used for the Customer's websites are registered in the Customer's name, with the Customer as registrant. Where the Vendor manages DNS on the Customer's behalf, it will provide the full zone records on request and will make any change the Customer asks for to move hosting within [2] business days."
Check this yourself with a WHOIS or registry lookup on every domain. It takes minutes and it is the single most important item on this page.
"After the transition period and after the Customer confirms it has received the final export, the Vendor will delete Customer Data from the Services within [30] days, and from backups in line with its normal backup cycle, and will confirm deletion in writing on request."
Order matters: deletion comes after you have confirmed the export works, not on the contract end date.
"Where the Services record activity such as publishing, changes to user access or configuration changes, the Vendor will include those records in the export, or provide them separately in [CSV/JSON], so that the Customer can meet its own record-keeping obligations."
Public bodies and regulated organisations often have retention duties that outlast a vendor contract. Find out what you must keep before you need it.
"The Vendor will give at least [90] days' written notice of any price increase, removal of a feature the Customer relies on, or end of life of the Services. If the change is material, the Customer may terminate without penalty and the transition terms above apply."
"If the Vendor is acquired, or transfers the Services to another party, the obligations in clauses 1 to 8 continue to bind the successor."
Vendors get bought. The new owner should inherit your exit rights, not renegotiate them.
A clause you have never tested is a hope. Once a year, on a calendar reminder, do this with one real site:
Our website governance policy template includes a vendor section you can paste into your own policy so these questions get asked every time.
Sites built with We.Inc are real code. The site's code can be downloaded from the builder or synced to a GitHub repository, so you can host it elsewhere if you leave. Custom domains are connected to your own domain, so the address stays yours. On the white-label platform, the brand owner decides per client whether that client can see the code and connect their own domain. We do not publish region or data-residency guarantees, so if that is a requirement, raise it with us directly. To walk through an export with your own site, book a demo. The white-label overview covers the rest of the platform.
The sample clauses in this guide are general information, not legal advice. Have a qualified lawyer review contract language for your jurisdiction and situation.
It depends on your contract. Ask for a clause that says the customer owns all content and data it uploads or creates, that work made specifically for you is assigned to you on payment, and that any vendor components inside it come with a perpetual licence for you to keep using them.
Page content and metadata in a readable format such as HTML or Markdown, uploaded files in original quality, form submissions and user lists as CSV, the list of live URLs and redirects, and the site code where you paid for it or the platform generates it. Name the formats in the contract.
Crawl the old site first and save every URL, map each one to its new address with a permanent redirect, switch DNS only when the new site is ready, then watch Search Console for 404s and coverage changes for several weeks.
Long enough to export, rebuild and switch. Ninety days is a common ask, with the old sites kept running on existing terms during that time and the full export delivered within a short, fixed number of business days of request.
We.Inc is an AI-powered website builder you can resell under your own brand. Launch a branded client dashboard, bill on Stripe Connect, and deliver AI-generated websites in minutes. White-label pricing is tailored to your volume and setup: book a 30-minute demo for a quote.