WordPress Website Handover Checklist: Changing Providers

If your web designer is retiring, your provider has been sold, or you are tired of maintaining WordPress yourself, you may need a new team. You do not necessarily need a new website.

A useful handover puts your accounts, website knowledge, and responsibilities in the right hands. This checklist helps you prepare for that conversation and compare providers. The work your site needs should be reviewed and quoted separately from any ongoing care plan.

First, decide what is actually changing

• A new support team: someone else takes responsibility for agreed website tasks.
• A hosting move: the website moves to a different server or hosting account.
• A redesign: the site's appearance, content, or functionality changes.

These can happen together, but one does not automatically require the others. Ask the incoming provider what can stay, what needs attention, and why. WordPress documents moving an existing site as a separate process; rebuilding is not a prerequisite for changing hosts.

1. Identify who controls the essential accounts

Start with a list of providers, account owners, renewal dates, and the person who can grant access. You do not need to gather every password before making an inquiry.

• Domain registration: where your domain is registered, who receives renewal notices, and who can recover the account.
• DNS: where the settings that direct your domain to the website and email are managed. This may be different from your registrar.
• Hosting: the account running the website, its billing owner, and any cancellation deadline.
• WordPress: who has administrator access and whether your business has its own account.
• Email: where staff mailboxes and website-generated emails are handled.
• Connected services: payment processing, booking tools, forms, analytics, Search Console, and other services the site relies on.

Make sure business-controlled recovery details are available for accounts your business owns. Where a provider owns a shared account or license, ask what can be transferred and what must be replaced. A website move should not accidentally cancel business email.

2. Request the website's working notes

Ask the outgoing provider for a short written summary of how the site works, including:

• The theme, page builder, paid plugins, license owners, renewal costs, and transfer restrictions.
• Custom features or code, where they are stored, and any developer documentation.
• Known faults, outstanding work, and updates that have caused problems before.
• Forms, online payments, bookings, memberships, or scheduled tasks that need special testing.
• Existing redirects and any separate files or applications outside WordPress.

A missing license does not automatically mean a rebuild. It does mean the incoming team needs to understand the replacement cost and effect on future updates before agreeing to care for the site.

3. Confirm the backup and recovery plan

Ask when the latest complete backup was taken, who can retrieve it, and how the incoming team will check that it can be restored. WordPress explains that a typical full recovery needs both the site's files and its database, ideally as a consistent backup set.

For a store, membership site, or booking system, also ask how new orders and other changes made during a move will be preserved. An older copy that looks right can still be missing recent activity. Keep backup files in an agreed secure location; they may contain customer information and configuration secrets.

4. Agree on scope, access, and approval in writing

A clear handover brief should name the person responsible for each task and explain:

• What the initial review, migration, or repair includes, with its price and dependencies.
• What ongoing care covers, what uses a support allowance, and what requires a separate quote.
• Who approves additional work and how requests will be recorded.
• The planned transfer window, any expected interruption, and the recovery approach if checks fail.
• The support channel and staffed hours after the handover.

Use individual user invitations or an agreed secure credential-sharing method. Do not paste passwords, recovery codes, or payment credentials into an initial website inquiry. Remove access that is no longer needed after the transfer is accepted.

For help comparing ongoing service scope, use our website maintenance buyer's guide.

5. Test the parts customers actually use

Agree on a short acceptance checklist before the move. Include key pages on mobile, menus, downloads, form delivery, search, and any checkout or booking journey. Use an agreed test method for payments and notifications so checks do not create unwanted charges or messages to customers.

Keep the existing page addresses where possible. Google's guidance for changing hosting calls for preparing and testing the new setup, moving traffic, and monitoring it before shutting down the old infrastructure. If page addresses must change, its URL-change guidance covers mapping old pages to their replacements and using redirects. Neither process guarantees unchanged search rankings.

Do not cancel old hosting simply because the new homepage loads. Confirm the agreed checks, email arrangements, data transfer, and backup access with the people responsible first.

6. Finish with clear ongoing responsibilities

The handover is easier to maintain when there is a written record of who handles renewals, updates, backups, monitoring, content changes, and support requests. Confirm how work is reported and how an urgent problem should be raised. Automated uptime monitoring and staffed support are different services; ask about both.

A portal or written request keeps the page address, recommendation, approval, and completed work together. That gives your team and your provider a shared reference without relying on someone remembering a meeting.

What if the previous provider is unavailable?

Start with what you control: account invitations, invoices, renewal emails, and existing documentation. Tell the incoming team which access is missing. Account recovery or rebuilding missing components may require extra work, and a provider should assess that before promising a transfer date or price.

Ready to hand over your WordPress site?

Stoute Web Solutions works with businesses across the US and Canada, with roots in Portland. Our WordPress care offering is for businesses that want ongoing help looking after their website. For specific changes or problems, explore WordPress support.

Tell us your website address, why you are considering a change, and any deadline from your current provider. We can review the site's fit and explain the recommended next step in writing. You do not need a technical brief to start.