Whose Name Is on Your Domain
Two questions worth asking before money moves: where does the site live, and whose name is on the domain?
Site Basics
Most contractors have never asked where their website actually lives. It is up, it has their name on it, so it feels like theirs. Then they try to leave.
What leaving looks like
The complaints all read the same way. One owner: refuses to turn over the domain name and website that my business paid for. On one large platform, cancelling means you can no longer access your website at all. Another operator left an agency and lost the ad account, the audiences, and the retargeting data, all of it built under the agency business manager. His words: that is your data, gone.
An HVAC operator put the rule about as plainly as it can be put. The domain should always, always, always stay under the ownership of the company. If it does not, vendors can hold you hostage.
Why it happens
Not malice, mostly. Registering the domain under their own account is faster for the vendor and nobody asks. It only turns into a problem on the day you want to leave, which is exactly the day you have the least room to push back.
The two questions
Ask both before money moves, and ask in writing. Where does the site live and whose name is on that account? Who owns the domain, and can I log into the registrar today?
If either one takes more than a single email to answer clearly, you have your answer.
What you should end up holding
A domain in your name. A site you can move somewhere else without asking permission. Nothing that stops working the month you stop paying. If somebody hosts it for you that should be a convenience you can cancel, not a switch another person is holding.
You can rent a website. Just know that is what you are doing.