Hiring a Designer
Launch Day: What a Real Handoff Includes
A website project has two endings. In the good one, the site goes live, and the designer hands you everything: the keys, the files, the training, the map. In the bad one, the site goes live, everyone celebrates, and the designer's next message is an invoice. Somewhere between those two endings, the client discovers whether they bought a website or a subscription to being dependent on someone.
The difference between the two endings is a list. This is the list.
The credentials
Every account that touches your site, in your name, with logins that work. The full inventory:
- Domain registrar — your account, your billing, your recovery email
- Hosting — control panel access, or documented managed-hosting terms
- The site's admin — the login you use to edit content
- Google Analytics — in your Google account, not the designer's
- Google Search Console — verified to your account; this is how Google talks to you
- Email and any connected services — order notifications, form destinations, CRM or calendar integrations
The pattern to insist on: these are your accounts, created under your email, with the designer holding access rather than the reverse. We cover why in full in who really owns your website — the short version is that credentials in the designer's name are a hostage arrangement that only becomes visible when you try to leave.
A real handoff includes a credentials sheet — a simple document listing every account, where it lives, and who has access. If your launch ends without one, ask for it before the final payment. It's a twenty-minute document, and designers who resist producing it are telling you something.
The files and the backup
A complete, working copy of the site, in your possession:
- The full codebase — every file
- The design files (Figma, PSD, or whatever the design was built in)
- The database, if there is one
- A copy of all images and documents in their original, full-resolution versions
- Your logo and brand assets — including vector versions, not just the PNGs
The purpose of this archive is simple: with it, any competent developer on earth can rebuild or move your site. Without it, you're dependent on your designer's continued existence and continued goodwill. Ask for it delivered as an actual transfer — a download, a drive, a repository you have access to — not as "we keep it safe for you."
The backup deserves a sentence of its own: a copy that lives on the designer's computer is a copy that dies with the designer's computer. Client-accessible from day one is the standard — it's one of the structural protections against the whole class of mid-project disappearances.
The training
This is the part that gets cut when budgets get tight, and it's the worst possible place to save money. A real handoff includes walking you through the things you'll actually do:
- How to edit text on a page — the operation you'll perform most
- How to update hours, prices, and services
- How to add a photo or swap an image
- How to check that the contact form is working — forms silently failing is one of the most common small-business site mistakes, and checking them is a monthly habit, not a one-time setup
- What not to touch, and how to tell the difference
Thirty minutes of screen-share with a recording you keep is enough for most small-business sites. The test of whether training happened isn't that you watched it — it's that you can perform the basics yourself a week later. If the offer is "just email us when you need changes," that's a support relationship, not a handoff; fine if that's what you're buying, but know which one you're in.
The answers to "now what?"
The questions that arrive in the first two weeks after launch, all of which should be answered before day one ends:
- What happens if something breaks? Who do you contact, on what channel, and what's the response window? What counts as an emergency versus a normal request?
- What's covered and what bills? The post-launch support period — how long, and what it includes — should be in the proposal, not discovered when you send the first request.
- What about the old site's visitors? If there was a previous site, the redirects should be tested — old pages pointing to their new homes, so you don't lose the traffic you had.
- What's the maintenance plan? Sites are not appliances; they need updates, backups, and the occasional checkup. What great post-launch support looks like covers the options.
The handoff meeting
The best launches end with a scheduled call, not just an email saying "it's live." Thirty minutes, screen-shared, covering the training above, with the credentials sheet open and every login tested while you're both on the line. Testing the logins live sounds paranoid and isn't: a surprising number of "we lost access" stories are just credentials that were created, written down wrong, and never opened until the day they were needed.
Before the call ends, confirm the support terms one last time: what's included, for how long, and what happens after. Then take the recording and the credentials sheet and file them somewhere you'll find them in two years — because two years from now, "where is the hosting login" is the most expensive question in the building.
The checklist, condensed
For the folder in your desk and the notes app on your phone:
- Credentials sheet — every account, your name, tested logins
- Complete site archive — code, design files, database, images
- Training — the four or five operations you'll actually perform, recorded
- Redirects tested — old traffic lands somewhere useful
- Analytics and Search Console — your accounts, receiving data
- Support terms in writing — what's covered, how long, what channel
- Backup habit established — where the backup lives and how it's restored
Seven items. A launch that delivers all seven is a project that ended the way it should. A launch that delivers three of them isn't finished — it's just paused at the moment of maximum leverage, which is precisely why the last payment should be tied to this list and not to the site going live.
Questions about a launch you're approaching? We build the handoff into every project — it's the last milestone on the timeline, and we answer every enquiry personally, within one business day.
ZONA Web Design
Questions about your own site's visibility or speed? We answer every enquiry personally, within one business day.
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