Can I move my website to another company later?

Yes. Buy the build out for £995 and you get the source code — a standard Astro site any competent developer can host — and the included domain transfers into your name, so you change the IPS tag yourself and point it anywhere. On the monthly plan the keyword domain I include stays with me until that buyout; a domain you brought yourself you can move any time. The only thing that never travels is me doing the ongoing work — which was what the monthly fee bought.

Do You Have to Pay Monthly for a Website?

“Pay monthly forever.” That word at the end is the one that keeps people up at night. It’s the word you typed into Google, and it’s a fair thing to be wary of. The honest answer isn’t a reassuring promise from me — it’s a few questions you can ask any provider, mine included, before you hand over a penny.

I’ve sold websites both ways. Big lump sum upfront — the way I did it from 1998 until I switched in 2020 — and pay monthly, the way I do it now. And the single question I get asked more than any other isn’t about design, or speed, or Google. It’s a version of this: if I start paying you every month, am I stuck paying you every month for the rest of my life?

It’s a good question. You should ask it. Anyone who waves it away and tells you not to worry is the exact person you should worry about.

So I’m not going to wave it away. I’m going to show you what actually decides whether “forever” can trap you — and how to check it yourself, on me or on anyone else, before you sign.

”Pay monthly forever” is only a trap if there’s no written way out.

What you’re actually afraid of when you fear “forever”

The fear behind “forever” is real and it’s specific. It goes like this: you sign up because £49 a month is easy to say yes to. The site gets built, it goes live, it starts bringing in calls. Good. But now you depend on it. And the person who controls it knows you depend on it. So what stops them putting the price up, going quiet, or holding the whole thing over your head because you can’t afford to lose it?

That’s the worry in plain terms. It’s not paranoid. People have been burned — by developers who vanished, by “free website” deals that locked everything behind a login only the provider held, by outfits that held a domain and offered no way on earth to get it back.

But notice the common thread in those horror stories. It isn’t that someone else held the address. Plenty of honest arrangements involve the provider holding a domain for a while — especially when a premium keyword name is part of the deal, which I’ll come to. The trap is holding it with no way out: no buyout, no transfer clause, no straight answer when you ask “how do I take this with me?” The monthly fee was never the cage. A missing exit is.

So the real question isn’t “do I have to pay monthly?” It’s “if I ever want out, is there a clear, written way to leave with my address?” That you can check — before you sign, and any time after.

Check one: who holds the domain, and what’s the way out?

The first thing to ask any web provider, monthly or not: whose name is the domain registered in, and if it isn’t mine, how do I get it there?

The simplest case is that it’s yours outright from day one. Lovely — nothing to untangle. But if a provider includes a premium, keyword-matched .co.uk in the deal, there’s a good chance they hold it at first, because that name cost real money to acquire and they’re not going to hand it over before you’ve bought it. That isn’t automatically dodgy. What makes it safe or not is the answer to the follow-up: what is the written, priced, guaranteed route to getting that domain into my name?

A real buyout figure is a good answer. A clause that transfers the domain to you for nothing if the provider stops trading is a good answer. “We manage all that for you” — with no figure, no clause, and a shrug when you push — is the answer that should worry you.

How to check it yourself, free, before you pay

Ask in writing: “Will the domain be registered in my name? If not, what’s the exact, priced way I take it with me, and what happens to it if you cease trading?” The answers should be specific and unembarrassed.

Then look it up. Once a domain exists you can check it. Nominet runs a public lookup and most registrars have a WHOIS search. For a personal registrant the name and address are often kept private by default — that’s a privacy feature, not a red flag — but the record always shows the registration date, the status, the nameservers and the registrar. What you want is a provider who can show you, in writing, the route from “held for you” to “yours”.

A provider who answers all that cleanly has nothing to hide. One who gets vague — “it’s easier if it’s under our account”, “don’t worry about that bit” — has just shown you where the leash is.

Check two: once it’s yours, can it actually move?

Ownership on paper is half of it. The other half is whether, once the domain is in your name, you can move it without anyone’s help. On a .co.uk that comes down to one piece of plumbing most people have never heard of: the IPS tag.

The IPS tag is a short code Nominet attaches to every .co.uk to mark which registrar controls it. Whoever can change that tag can move the domain to a new registrar. That’s the whole mechanism. So once a domain is registered to you, the question is simply: can I change the IPS tag from my own login? If yes, you hold the only lever that matters — you can point the domain at a new site, hand it to a different developer, or take it to another provider entirely, and nobody can stop you.

While a domain is held for you under a provider’s account, that tag is theirs — which is exactly why check one matters first. The written transfer terms are what turn “held for you” into “yours, with the tag in your hand.”

The trap was never that someone else holds the address. It’s holding it with no way out. A keyword domain held under a written, priced exit isn’t a cage — it’s a deal.

How my own plan answers those checks

I’ve just handed you a test you can use on anyone, including me. So here’s me sitting it, plainly — including the part that isn’t all in my favour.

Who holds the domain? While you’re on the monthly plan: me. The keyword-matched .co.uk that comes with your template — something like midlandsplumbing.co.uk or electricalman.co.uk — is one I researched, caught off the Nominet drop lists, and paid for before you came along. Holding it is how I can hand you a premium trade address for £49 a month instead of the four figures it would cost you to prise one off whoever owns it on the open market. So I’ll be straight: on the monthly plan, the included address is not yet in your name.

What’s the way out, in writing? Two routes. One — buy the build out for £995 and the domain transfers into your name along with the full source code; from there you hold the deeds, change the IPS tag yourself, and move it wherever you like. Two — if I ever cease trading, the domain transfers to you at no cost. That one’s in the contract, not a promise over a handshake.

So here’s the honest shape of it: on the monthly plan you’re trusting a written exit, not holding the deeds. If that isn’t enough for you — if you want the address in your own name from the start — the buyout is how you get there, and I’ll set it up without trying to talk you out of it. What I won’t do is tell you the address is yours when it isn’t yet. Telling you that is the exact move this whole piece is warning you about.

Leaving my plan, in plain terms

You give 30 days notice. An email. No form, no retention call, no contract to break.
Your content is yours. Photos, copy, the lot — you take it.
The included keyword domain stays with me unless you buy out. It was a name I bought; that’s how the £49 maths works. A domain you brought is always yours.
Keep the exact address and build by buying out for £995. The domain transfers into your name, the source code is yours.
If I ever cease trading, the domain comes to you free. It’s in the contract.

There’s no clever clause and no exit penalty. The worst-case version of leaving is: you send an email, you wait 30 days, you keep your content, and if you want to walk away with that exact keyword address you pay £995 once. That’s the whole machine.

The harder truth: what you’re really choosing

Everything above answers “can I leave?” Yes — cleanly, with a written route to the address, on my plan or any provider that passes those checks. But I said I’d be honest, so here’s the part that isn’t all in my favour.

Paying me monthly means two things you’re trusting rather than holding. You’re depending on one person — my availability, my judgement, my staying in business. And you’re renting the address until you buy it out, not owning it outright. Both are real, and both are perfectly good reasons some people would rather pay the £995, take the source code and the domain, and run the lot themselves. If you want maximum independence, that’s the honest route, and I’ll set it up for you without a sales pitch.

What I can tell you is what I’ve watched on my own plan since 2020, and I’ll keep it to what I can actually stand behind: once people can see the exit clearly — the buyout figure, the transfer clause, the 30 days — most of the trades I’ve built for have chosen to stay. Not because they couldn’t leave. Because once the fear of being trapped is gone, the monthly question turns into a plain matter of value. When your number changes, or you add a service, or a price goes up, you email me and I handle it — no logging in, no wrestling a page builder at 9pm. When Google shifts something, the site shifts with it. For a real business with real customers, that trade often earns its keep. But it’s a genuine trade, and only you can call it.

”Forever” stops sounding like a trap the moment you can see the way out — the buyout, the transfer clause — and choose to stay anyway.

So — do you have to pay monthly for a website?

No. You never have to. You can buy outright for £995 and own the build and the address — the pricing page lays both options out side by side. Or you can pay £49 a month, keep me on the hook for the upkeep, and stop whenever you decide it’s not worth it.

What you’re really choosing between isn’t “trapped” versus “free.” It’s “I’ll own and run this myself” versus “I’ll rent the result, on an address I hold for you, with a written way to make it yours whenever you want.” Both are honest. Both keep your content yours. The difference is who holds the deeds to the address while you’re with me — and now you know exactly which questions to ask to find out, here or anywhere.

“Forever” was only ever scary because of what you couldn’t see. Once you can see the exit — the name on the domain, the priced route to owning it, the tag you’ll control once it’s yours — the word loses its teeth. It stops describing a cage and starts describing a working relationship you’re free to end. That working relationship — few clients, each one known properly — is the whole way I’ve chosen to work.

Common questions

Do you have to pay monthly for a website forever?

No — there’s no version of this where you’re stuck. On a rolling monthly plan you leave with 30 days notice, no contract and no minimum term to break. The thing to settle before you sign isn’t the fee, it’s the exit: if you ever want out, is there a clear, written, priced way to take the web address with you? With me that’s the £995 buyout, plus a clause that hands you the domain free if I ever cease trading. Get the exit in writing and “forever” stops being a trap, whoever you buy from.

How do I check whether a web provider can trap me?

Three questions, all free, all before you pay. One: who will the domain be registered to? Two: if it’s the provider’s name — common when a premium keyword domain is included — what’s the written, priced way to get it into yours, like a buyout? Three: what happens to the domain if they go under? A provider who can answer all three in writing can’t trap you. One who gets vague about any of them is telling you something.

What is an IPS tag and why does it matter?

An IPS tag is a short code Nominet uses to mark which registrar controls a .co.uk domain. Whoever can change that tag can move the domain. It matters most once the domain is actually in your name — after a buyout, or if you brought your own domain — because then you can move it to any registrar yourself, without anyone’s permission. If a domain is held for you under the provider’s account, the tag is theirs until it transfers; the thing to nail down is the written terms of that transfer.

If I stop paying monthly, do I lose the domain?

It depends whose domain it is. If you brought your own, it’s always yours — cancel and it’s untouched. If you’re on the keyword domain I included with the template, that one’s mine until you buy out: it’s a researched .co.uk I bought to get you a premium address for £49, so if you cancel without buying out you keep all your content and I’ll help you move to a name you own, but the keyword domain stays with me. Want to keep that exact address? Buy the build out for £995 and it transfers into your name. Either way you’re never billed past your 30 days notice.

What’s the difference between paying £49 a month and buying outright for £995?

£49 a month keeps me on the hook for the work — hosting, updates, fixes, changes — and includes a keyword domain I hold for you; you stop with 30 days notice. £995 buys the build outright: the full source code, and the included keyword domain transfers into your name. The buyout is roughly twenty months of the fee, so it’s the right move when you want to hold the address and the code yourself rather than rent the result.

Read this next

If you want the full picture of how the model works — the tiers, what’s included, what to watch out for — that’s the long-form guide.