Website Handover Checklist: What to Get From Your Web Developer

What should you get from your web developer at handover? Admin access to every account in your business’s name: domain, DNS, hosting, WordPress, email and analytics. Plus a full backup, premium plugin and theme licences, and a short document explaining how the site is set up.

Whether a project just finished, or you’re changing developers, the handover is the moment to make sure you actually own your website. It’s much harder to sort out later, when someone has stopped answering emails.

Use this checklist.

1. Domain and DNS

• Login for the domain registrar, with the account in your business’s name.
• Domain set to auto-renew, with your payment method.
• Two-factor authentication turned on, linked to a business phone or authenticator.
• Note of where DNS is managed, if it’s not at the registrar.
• A list or screenshot of current DNS records.

If you’re unsure how these fit together, read domain, hosting and DNS explained.

2. Hosting

• Hosting account in your business’s name, or written confirmation of how you can get a full copy.
• Hosting control panel login.
• SFTP or SSH details.
• Database access details.
• Renewal date and plan details.

3. WordPress

• An Administrator account in your name, with your email address.
• Separate accounts for anyone else who needs access. No shared logins.
• Admin email in Settings > General set to an address your business reads.
• Former team members’ and contractors’ accounts removed or downgraded.

4. Licences

Premium plugins and themes need active licences for updates and security fixes.

• A list of every premium plugin and theme.
• Licence keys, and whose account each licence is under.
• Renewal dates and costs.
• Licences transferred to your business, or a clear agreement on who renews them.

If a licence sits in the agency’s account and they stop renewing it, your site stops getting updates.

5. Backups

• A full, recent backup (files and database) that you’ve downloaded and stored yourself.
• Details of the automatic backup setup and where backups are stored.
• Confirmation that a restore has been tested. My WordPress backup guide explains what good backups look like.

6. Email and forms

• Business email admin login (Google Workspace, Microsoft 365 or other).
• Details of how the website sends email, such as an SMTP plugin and the account it uses.
• A list of every form on the site and who receives each one.
• A test submission from every form, received successfully. See contact form not sending emails.

7. Analytics and marketing tools

• Google Analytics, with your business account as an administrator.
• Google Search Console, with your business account as owner. See how to set up Search Console.
• Google Business Profile ownership.
• Google Tag Manager, Meta Pixel or other tracking tools.
• Any third-party services: chat, booking, payments, CDN, email marketing.

8. Design and content files

• Logo files in vector (SVG or AI) and PNG formats.
• Brand colours and fonts.
• Design files, if separate designs were made.
• Original photos and any licences for stock images.
• Confirmation that you own the rights to the content and design.

9. Documentation

Ask for a short document, even a single page, that covers:

• The theme and page builder used, and whether there’s a child theme.
• Any custom code, and where it lives.
• Plugins that are essential versus nice-to-have.
• Anything unusual, such as cron jobs, integrations or redirects.
• How to do the common tasks you’ll need, like adding a team member or a blog post.

10. After the handover

1. Log in to every account yourself to confirm the details work.
2. Change passwords on the accounts the previous developer no longer needs.
3. Remove their access where appropriate, after any warranty period.
4. Store everything in a password manager, not a spreadsheet.

Make it part of the contract

The easiest handover is one agreed before the project starts. Ask any developer, including me, to confirm in writing that you’ll own the domain, hosting, content and licences, and get everything above at the end.

Every site I build through WordPress development ends with this handover. If you’re taking over a site from someone else and need help untangling it, that’s part of my webmaster services.

Frequently asked questions

Featured photo by Radission US on Unsplash.