Have you got control of your company's Webflow site? Is your startup dependent on a Designer for any site changes and can you switch to another Designer at all times? In this article I highlight why it is important to stay in control of your Webflow website at all times and give instructions on how to make this happen.
As you might be aware your Webflow site can either sit in your own company Webflow account or in the account of the (freelance) Designer who originally built your site. But what's the difference and which approach should you take for your own startup or business? This is what I'll shine a light on in this article.
Imagine this scenario: You hire a Designer to develop your new site in Webflow. The Designer builds the site within his own Webflow account and upon completion gives you "contributor" rights to your site. This means you are able to change the content of your site e.g. change images or text, as well as add new CMS content (blog posts, news articles, team members etc.). For any structural or layout changes you engage your Designer to execute these for you. But what happens if something unfortunate was to happen to your Designer, or the priorities of his business change and he moves away from Webflow development? The worst case scenario here is that you as the client don't have full access to your own site and can't make any structural or layout changes to it (or hire another Designer to do this for you). In fact, if you want to hire a different Designer to do Webflow maintenance work for you, he will not have access to your site and cannot work on it, as it is based inside your current provider's Webflow account.
Secondly, if your site sits within the Webflow account of your Designer, he usually uses a feature called "Client Billing" within Webflow to invoice you for Webflow's hosting fees. You effectively receive an invoice from your Designer for hosting only. However oftentimes Designers add an additional cost to this invoice, basically another fee for having the site in their account (well, for them it's just a convenient way for obtaining reoccurring revenue). To check if your Designer does this, compare Webflow's pricing with the hosting invoice you receive from your Designer. Be careful to look at the correct Site Plan info (e.g. if you are using CMS Hosting which you pay monthly, look the pricing details up for this on the official Webflow site). All in all by having your site in the Designer's account you might be paying more money than you need to. So how should you proceed to avoid situations like this with your own Webflow site?
When you first hire a Designer to build your Webflow site, make sure the site is being transferred into your very own Webflow account after completion. Oftentimes you will have to pay your Designer in full before the transfer will be executed.
If you have already got a Webflow site which sits inside the Webflow account of your Designer, ask him to transfer the site to your own Webflow account. In both cases your Designer will have to cancel hosting and re-establish hosting on your own Webflow account. During this process your website will not be available online. If you want your Designer to continue doing maintenance work or add new features to your site, you will have to provide him with your Webflow login details or alternatively set up a so called Team Account and make your Designer a member of your Team.
To make things easier for you, here is a step-by-step approach on how to move your site over to your own account. This usually needs to be done by your Designer, but knowing how this works helps you in talking to your Designer about your wishes and requirements. It also makes clear which role you play in this process.
I have written several other articles about related topics which might also be helpful for you:
I always transfer client sites over into their own Webflow account, so they have full control over their site at all times. This helps my clients to be independent form me, while at the same time I am still able to help them with any ongoing maintenance or feature requests by logging into their own account when required. Got any more questions in regards to Webflow's plans and on how to transfer your site over to your very own Webflow account? Get in touch with me!
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