Things We Think About You Don’t Have To

Unless you go it alone.

There’s a moment that happens with almost every client who decides to take their website in-house. It usually comes a few weeks after the handoff, when something needs updating, or a form stops working, or Google Analytics suddenly looks empty. And the question arrives: who handles this now?

The answer, of course, is you.

That’s not a bad thing. Plenty of organizations successfully manage their own websites. But it’s worth going in with clear eyes about what “managing your website” actually means — because it’s a lot more than logging into WordPress and publishing a new post.

We recently put together a full internal offboarding checklist for when clients transition to self-management. Reading through it, we thought: this is actually a pretty good picture of what an agency relationship quietly handles. So we’re sharing it here, translated into plain English, as a guide for anyone weighing the decision.

The stuff you see vs. the stuff you don’t

When you hire a web agency, you’re aware of the visible work: design, development, new pages, campaign landing pages. What’s less visible is the ongoing infrastructure layer — the accounts, licenses, monitoring tools, and services that keep the site running, secure, and connected.

When you go independent, both layers become yours to manage.

Here’s what that looks like in practice.

Hosting and the technical foundation

Your site lives somewhere. That “somewhere” is a hosting environment, and someone has to own the relationship with it.

With managed hosting through an agency, things like server-level backups, PHP version updates, SFTP access management, and environment configurations are handled for you. On WP Engine (our preferred host for most clients), there are also technical contacts, staging environments, and user permissions that need to be actively maintained.

Going independent means you become the account owner — the person who gets the renewal notices, and sits on chat with support when something goes wrong. That’s manageable, but it’s a real responsibility shift.

The same goes for your DNS, which may be with Cloudflare or may be elsewhere. DNS changes are some of the riskiest edits to make on a live site, so knowing where to find your settings matters. [DNS for MIGHTYminnow Clients]

And don’t forget your domain registrar. Domain renewals are easy to miss, and we monitor your site domain to make sure you do not lose it. There’s also a whole category of scam emails designed to trick site owners into paying fake invoices. [Domain Registration Renewal Scam] Once you’re independent, that vigilance is on you.

WordPress itself

WordPress admin access sounds simple, but it has layers. There are user roles, content ownership, SFTP credentials, and database access — all of which need to be audited when an agency exits.

A responsible handoff means the agency removes their own users (or reassigns any content those accounts “owned” first, so it doesn’t disappear), closes out their SFTP access, and leaves you with clean credentials that only you control.

On the plugin side, most professional WordPress sites run several premium plugins under agency licenses. These are plugins that require an active license key to receive security updates. Common ones include Elementor Pro (page layouts), Gravity Forms (contact and payment forms), Toolset, ACF — but there can be more. When the agency relationship ends, those license keys need to transfer, or you need to purchase your own. Without updates, plugins become a security liability over time.

This is one of the most overlooked parts of going independent. The plugins keep working for a while after the license lapses — they just quietly stop receiving security patches.

Analytics and tracking

Do you know where your Google Analytics data lives?

For many clients, the answer is “in my agency’s Google account,” which means that if the relationship ends without a proper transfer, you could lose access to historical data. A proper handoff moves the GA4 property into your own Google account, gives you ownership of Google Search Console (where you monitor search performance and indexing), and removes the agency from both.

The same applies to Google Tag Manager, which controls what tracking scripts run on your site. If tags are managed in an agency container, those need to be migrated — otherwise you might lose conversion tracking, retargeting pixels, or other integrations without realizing it.

If you’ve wondered whether Google Analytics is worth continuing to use now that it’s fully yours, we’ve written about that. [Should You Use Google Analytics?]

Email marketing

Mailchimp, Constant Contact, ConvertKit, Flodesk — whichever platform holds your subscriber list is one of your most valuable assets. If your agency has admin access (or worse, owns the account), that needs to transfer cleanly.

This is worth prioritizing. Your email list is not backed up by your website host. If access to your email platform is ever lost, those subscribers are gone.

The systems that run quietly in the background

This is the category most people don’t think about until something breaks.

Transactional email — the automated emails your site sends for form submissions, donation receipts, WooCommerce orders, or password resets — usually routes through a service like SendGrid, Mailgun, or WP Mail SMTP. If those credentials belong to the agency, your site may stop sending email after the handoff without any obvious error.

Automations — if your agency set up Zapier or Make workflows to connect your website to other tools (your CRM, your spreadsheets, your notification systems), those live in accounts that need to transfer.

Payments — Stripe and PayPal accounts should be in your name, and agency team members should be removed when the relationship ends. Same with any donation plugins.

Live chat and scheduling tools — if Calendly, Acuity, Intercom, or similar tools are embedded on your site, confirm they’re connected to accounts you own.

Backups, security, and uptime

Three things your agency was probably watching that you’ll now need to handle:

Backups. WP Engine provides server-level backups, but those are point-in-time snapshots within the same system. For true redundancy, you want an offsite backup solution — something separate from your host that stores copies elsewhere. BlogVault was a common choice; there are good alternatives. [Is Your Website Backed Up?]

Security monitoring. Someone should be watching for unusual activity, failed logins, and signs of compromise. Without an active solution, you may not know you’ve been hacked until it’s visible. [Is Your Website Hacked?]

Uptime monitoring. This is a simple but easy-to-miss one: knowing when your site goes down. A tool like UptimeRobot pings your site regularly and alerts you if it goes offline. Your agency almost certainly had something like this configured. [Is Your Website Up? A Guide to Uptime Monitoring]

None of these are expensive or complicated to set up yourself — but they do need to be set up.

Payments, compliance, and the fine print

A few more items that belong on any honest accounting of what managed relationships cover:

Privacy compliance. Depending on your audience and location, your site may have obligations around cookie consent, privacy policies, and data handling. If your agency managed a compliance tool like Termageddon or CookieYes, that needs to transfer. Your privacy policy should also reflect your contact information, not theirs. [Solutions for Privacy Compliance]

API keys. Google Maps embeds, reCAPTCHA on forms, and other integrations use API keys that should be registered to your own Google account. If they’re under the agency’s account, you’ll want new ones.

Social accounts. Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Business Profile — it’s worth auditing who has manager or admin access to each, and removing agency access when appropriate.

So — should you go it alone?

For some organizations, yes, absolutely. If you have someone on staff who’s comfortable managing these systems, or if your site is relatively simple, self-management is a reasonable path.

For others, the list above makes a pretty strong case for keeping an expert in your corner — not necessarily to build things, but to watch the infrastructure, keep things updated, and catch problems before they become crises.

The honest answer is that the right choice depends on your organization’s capacity and risk tolerance, not on any one vendor’s pitch. We’d rather you go independent and succeed than stay with us out of fear.

But we’d also rather you go in knowing exactly what you’re taking on.

If you’re in the middle of a transition and have questions, our blog is a good place to start — or reach out. We’re always happy to talk through what makes sense for your situation.

MIGHTYminnow builds and supports WordPress websites for mission-driven organizations.