If you’ve decided to wrap up our Website Management service — for whatever reason — I want to make sure the transition goes smoothly for you. The hardest part of leaving any service is usually figuring out what you didn’t realize was being handled in the background. So consider this your checklist.
I’ve written it the way I’d explain it to a friend over coffee: practical, in plain English, no agenda.
Before you cancel: line up the replacements
Here’s the thing most people don’t realize: my Website Management service isn’t one thing. It’s a stack of separate functions that all need to keep running for your site to stay healthy. Before you cancel, you’ll want to have a plan for each of these.
Hosting. Your website lives on a server I manage. You’ll need to choose a new host and migrate the site there.
What to look for in a host: solid performance (don’t go for the cheapest you can find — your site will feel it), good support, automatic backups as a bonus, and a setup designed for WordPress specifically. Avoid the budget shared hosts you see advertised everywhere; they’re cheap because they pack thousands of sites onto one server, and your site’s speed and uptime will suffer.
DNS management. DNS is what tells the internet where to find your website and any services connected to your domain. I currently manage your DNS, so when anything changes — a new host, a new email service — I’m the one updating it. You’ll need DNS managed somewhere else, either through your domain registrar (usually free) or a dedicated DNS provider.
Plugin and theme licenses. Many of the plugins and the theme on your site run on licenses tied to my agency accounts. Once the service ends, those licenses come off your site. The plugins keep working, but they stop receiving updates — which becomes a security problem over time.
You’ll need to either purchase your own licenses for everything, or have your next provider do it. I’m happy to give you the full list of what’s running on your site so you know what you’re dealing with. Just ask.
Backups. Once you leave my system, nothing is automatically backing up your site. You’ll want a backup solution running on a regular schedule, with files stored somewhere off the server (so you can still get to them if something happens to the site itself).
Good backup hygiene means daily backups, multiple recent copies kept, and at least one of those copies stored in a different location than the website.
Software updates. WordPress core, your theme, and every plugin will keep releasing updates. Someone needs to apply them — carefully, with a backup taken first, in a way that won’t break the site if an update goes sideways. Skipping updates is the most common reason WordPress sites get hacked. Don’t skip them.
A transactional email service. Your website sends automated emails — contact form submissions, password resets, order confirmations — through a service I have set up. When the service ends, that connection ends with it. Without a replacement, your forms will appear to submit but the emails won’t actually reach you.
Security. Your site needs active security in place: a firewall, malware scanning, login protection, and a way to monitor for suspicious activity. WordPress sites are constantly hit with automated attacks. A site without security is a target.
Uptime monitoring. If your site goes down at 2am, who finds out first? Without monitoring, the answer is usually “your customers, the next morning.” There are plenty of services (some free, some paid) that will check your site every few minutes and alert you when something’s wrong.
A person to call when something breaks. Eventually something will. A plugin update will conflict with another plugin. Your contact form will silently stop sending. Something will look weird on a particular browser. Knowing who you’re going to call before that happens is way better than figuring it out in a crisis.
See my OGAL stack for recommendations on replacements.
When you’re ready, here’s the cancellation process
Once you have your replacements lined up, here’s how to actually wrap things up with me:
1. Submit the cancellation request. Cancellations go through a form on my website (I’ll send you the link if you ask, or you can find it in the confirmation email from when you signed up). The service is on a 30-day notice, so plan accordingly.
2. Choose how you want the site handed off. You have three options:
- I can give your new provider administrator access so they can pull a backup and migrate the site themselves. (This is usually the smoothest option if your next provider knows what they’re doing.)
- I can provide a complete backup file of the site for a flat fee, which you or your new provider can use to restore the site on the new host.
- I can perform the migration to your new host myself, billed at my hourly rate. This is the most hands-off option for you, but it requires that your new host is set up and ready to receive the site.
Just let me know which you want and we’ll go from there.
3. Update domain settings. Once your site is live on its new hosting, your domain needs to point at the new host. I can walk you (or your new provider) through the DNS changes you’ll need to make. This is the step that actually moves your site to its new home — until DNS is updated, visitors are still hitting the old hosting.
4. Confirm everything is working on the new host. Before cancelling, make sure the migrated site looks right, your forms work, your images load, and you can log in. It’s much easier to fix migration issues while everything is still in one piece on my end.
5. Cancel licenses on your end (if applicable). If you’re using any third-party services that I set up on your behalf — anything where you have your own account — make sure billing and contact info is up to date so you don’t lose access to anything you need.
A few things worth knowing
A handful of practical notes that don’t fit cleanly into the steps above:
- Your domain is yours. Assuming you registered your own domain (which I always recommend), it stays with you regardless of what happens with the website. Nothing about leaving my service affects your domain registration.
- Your content is yours. Every page, every blog post, every image you provided — all yours, no caveats.
- There’s no “lock-in” code on your site. I don’t build sites with anything custom that prevents another developer from working on them. Any competent WordPress developer should be able to pick things up cleanly.
- Email isn’t part of this. I don’t manage email accounts, so nothing about your business email changes when you leave the website management service.
- Don’t cancel before you’ve migrated. Once the service ends, your site stops being hosted by me. If you cancel before lining up new hosting, your site goes offline. Plan the timing carefully.
If you’re not sure where to start
If you’ve decided to leave but you’re not sure how to line all this up, I’m happy to help you think through it. You can ask me for:
- The full list of what’s running on your site (plugins, theme, services)
- Recommendations on what to look for in a new host or provider
- An estimate for handling the migration myself if you’d rather not coordinate it
I’d rather you have a clean, smooth transition than a stressful, broken one. Even on the way out the door.
