Your domain, in your name

1. Whose name it is in

Yours. When we register a domain for you, you are the registrant. Your name and your business go on the record, not ours.

We act as your agent, which means we do the paperwork with the registrar and handle the technical settings. It does not mean we own it. This is the single most common thing agencies get wrong, usually on purpose, and it is why people end up unable to leave.

2. What it costs, and when that can change

£13 a year for a standard .co.uk or .uk domain. That is close to what it costs us, and it is not where we make our money.

Two honest caveats, because you asked or will:

• Registry prices can rise. Nominet sets the wholesale price for .uk domains. If it goes up, ours goes up by the same amount, and we tell you before the renewal rather than after. We do not add a margin when that happens.
• Some domains are not standard. Premium names, and endings other than .uk and .co.uk, cost what the registry charges for them. We tell you the price before buying anything, always. There is no situation where a domain appears on an invoice at a price you have not already agreed.

What will not happen is the trick the big registrars run: a cheap first year followed by a renewal at three times the price. £13 is the price in year one and the price in year five.

3. Renewals and what happens if one is missed

We remind you before a domain is due, and we renew it if you are on a care plan or you tell us to. If you are not on a care plan and we cannot reach you, we will still try, because a lapsed domain is a disaster and a £13 invoice is not.

When	What happens
30 days before expiry	We email you. If you are on a care plan it renews automatically and you are told, not asked.
On expiry	The site stops resolving. The name is not gone and nobody else can take it yet.
Up to 30 days after	It can still be renewed at the normal price. This is the window to act.
After that	It enters the registry's redemption period, where recovery is possible but costs a great deal more, set by the registry rather than by us.
Eventually	It is released and anyone can register it. At that point it is genuinely gone.

4. Taking it elsewhere

Ask, and we release it. Free, within one working day, without asking why.

You will need somewhere for it to go, which means an account with another registrar. We will send you the authorisation code and the settings, and if you are stuck we will talk whoever is taking it over through the move. We do not charge for this and there is no notice period.

Two things worth knowing: a domain cannot be transferred within sixty days of being registered or of a previous transfer, which is a registry rule rather than ours. And moving the domain does not move the website, so if you want both, say so and we will export the site at the same time.

5. The registry's rules, which we cannot change

Domains are governed by the registry that runs the ending. For .uk that is Nominet, and their terms and policies apply to your registration alongside these. Other endings have their own registries and their own rules.

That means a few things are out of our hands and out of yours: the registry can suspend a domain being used for fraud, disputes over a name go through the registry's dispute process rather than through us, and your details must be accurate and kept up to date. Tell us when something changes and we will update the record.

6. If you already own a domain

Keep it. We point it at your new site for nothing, and we do not ask you to transfer it to us first. That offer stands whether you bought it from GoDaddy, from another agency, or from someone who has since disappeared.

If you have lost access to it, tell us and we will work out who holds it and what it takes to recover it. Sometimes the answer is bad news, and we would rather give you that early than let you find out the week you go live.