What leaving a contractor costs
The domain, the code, the data, the mail and the integrations usually sit in five different places. The bill for the separation is issued by whichever one nobody thought about.
Parting with a contractor rarely starts with an argument. It starts with the sentence "we need access to the server", and with the answer arriving a week later.
The rest depends on where exactly your things are kept. And they are usually kept in five different places.
Five things you have to hold
The domain. Check the WHOIS registry for whose name it is in. If it is the contractor's, this is the one item on the list that cannot be rebuilt. Everything else can, in the worst case, be built again.
The code. A repository, not a zipped folder from the server. The difference is practical: without a change history, the new contractor does not know what was done or why, so the first weeks go on reading rather than on work.
The data. A database in a format that can be imported, not a screenshot of a panel. For a store that also means orders and customers — that is, personal data, so the handover has a formal side to it.
The mail. Addresses on the company domain often sit with the same provider as the website. Moving the site without moving the mail can take the mailboxes down for a day.
The integrations. Keys to the payment gateway, to the warehouse system, to accounting. Usually entered once and never looked at again.
What costs the most
Not the migration. Migration is countable: data has a size, integrations have a number.
The expensive part is what is missing. A site with no documentation and no readable architecture forces the new contractor to reconstruct decisions nobody wrote down. That work adds nothing visible, and it takes time.
If a quote has no "handover" line, it does not mean handover is free. It means it was not planned.
When it is not worth changing
If the site works, is kept updated, and the only problem is the price of the subscription — first count what migration costs together with a month of disruption. Sometimes it turns out that negotiating is cheaper.
Changing makes sense when the cost of staying is rising: each further fix gets more expensive, deadlines drift, and simple copy changes require a support ticket.
What you can check today, without anyone's help
The domain registrar. The expiry date. Whether you have your own account with the hosting provider, or only a login to the contractor's panel.
Three things, fifteen minutes of work. If any of the answers is "I don't know", that is exactly the item that will issue the bill.
Do you have the same problem?
Start with the free scan — it will show whether what is described above applies to your site. Or book a call and we will go through it together.