GD-05 · Guide
Four questions, in writing, before you sign.
Four questions that decide who owns your site, your domain and your customer data — and what the answers should be before you sign anything.
Verified on
What should you check before signing a website contract?
Most disputes about a small business website are about ownership rather than design, and they surface at the worst possible moment: when the business wants to leave. Four questions settle it. Who owns the domain, and whose name is on the registrar account? Who owns the content and the photographs, and can they be exported? What happens to the site if the monthly payment stops — does it keep serving, or does it go dark? And can the customer data, including call recordings and transcripts, be exported in a usable format without asking anyone's permission? Orabeam answers those the same way on every license: the domain and the data belong to the customer, the software is bought once, and if the monthly stops the site, the booking and the CRM keep serving while updates, support and the AI stop. Ask any supplier the same four questions, in writing, before signing.
Who should own the domain?
The business, on an account in the business's own name, at a registrar the owner can log into. An agency holding the domain is the single most common way a small business discovers it cannot leave.
This is worth checking even when the relationship is good, because it costs nothing to fix now and can cost a rebrand later.
What happens if you stop paying?
Ask it plainly and get the answer in writing, because there are two very different models sold with similar language. In one, the site is a service and stopping payment takes it down. In the other, the software was bought and what stops is the work around it.
Orabeam is the second: stop the monthly and the site, the booking and the CRM keep serving. What stops is updates, support and the intelligence. That is a design constraint written into the entitlement system, not a promise made in a sales call.
Can you get your data out?
All of it, in a format something else can read, without a support ticket. Contacts, job history, invoices, and — where they exist — call recordings and transcripts.
The transcripts matter more than people expect. They are the record of what was promised to a customer on the phone, and a supplier who keeps them is keeping the evidence.
What does a per-user price do over three years?
It grows with the business, which sounds fair and is the reason software priced that way punishes hiring. A shop that adds two technicians pays more for the same software doing the same job.
Orabeam gates capability rather than seats: the license is bought once, per business, and adding people to the team does not change the price.