What you actually get.
Not "a website". A website, plus everything needed to run it, prove it works, and take it elsewhere if you ever want to. Here is the whole list — there is nothing held back as leverage.
The things you can hold.
Yours at handover
The website
Hand-built pages, written for your business. Fast, because there is no page builder loading in front of it, and readable on a phone because that is where most of your visitors are.
Yours at handover
The code
The actual files, in a version-controlled repository you can hand to any developer. Not an export, not a proprietary format — the site itself.
Yours at handover
The build log
A dated record of every working session: what was done, what was decided and why, and what went wrong. Written as the work happened, not tidied up afterwards.
Yours at handover
The test report
Accessibility, speed, every link, and a real message sent through your contact form to confirm it arrives. Results recorded pass or fail, including anything we had to fix — delivered as the fourth manual, below.
Yours at handover
The hardening report
The security settings your site ships with, checked on the live server rather than assumed from a configuration file.
Yours at handover
Your project portal
A private page showing exactly where your project is, stage by stage, for the whole build. Have a look at one.
Three starting points for your build — a working example of each.
A blank page is a long way from a brief. These are real pages, not pictures of pages: pick the one closest to what you had in mind and tell us what is wrong with it. That conversation takes minutes, where "what would you like?" takes weeks.
Your finished site carries your words, your photographs and your brand — none of these will look like it. They exist so the first version you see is something you can react to.
And four manuals, which is the unusual part.
Most small businesses are handed a website and a login. When the person who built it moves on, everything they knew goes with them. These exist so that cannot happen to you.
Architecture & Design
How the site is put together and why it was built that way. This is the one another developer will want.
User Manual
How to do the things you will actually want to do, written for you rather than for a developer.
Operations Manual
How to run it: where it is hosted, what to check, what to do when something breaks — and how to move it somewhere else.
Health Check & Test Assurance
What the testing actually found, in numbers — and just as importantly what was not tested, and why. Written so your IT person, your insurer or another developer can check the claim rather than take our word for it.
What isn't included.
Worth being straight about, so nothing is a surprise later.
- Writing your business's content from nothing. We draft copy for your approval, but it has to come from what you tell us. We will not invent claims, credentials or reviews.
- Photography of your business. We can license stock images, but pictures of your premises, your team or your work have to come from you.
- Ongoing changes, unless you take monthly care. The build ends at handover. What that costs.
- Hosting and web-address fees themselves. Those are billed at cost as a separate line, never marked up and folded in.
Anything on that list you'd want explained?
Ask. We would rather answer a question now than have you find out what a "hardening report" is at handover.