Logistics of handing over a site to a client

Publishing help Hosting
1

Please share your expertise. The more details the better, much appreciated!

What is the standard practice when building a site for a client?

  1. Do I ask the client to make their own account, buy a site plan + domain, create a site and invite me into their workspace to edit the site? (Do they also need a workspace plan in this case?)
  2. Or do I buy the plan + domain from my account for them, and then manage everything from my end, then continue to bill them for the plan?

I have a workspace plan and a site plan (for my own site) on my account, where I can

  1. create an unhosted site for the client and edit it, and transfer it to the client when finished. In this case, will they only be prompted to buy a site plan when I send the transfer? Will they additionally need to buy a workspace plan?

If the client doesn’t want me to continue to maintain and update the site, and just wants it to be handed over one-off, what would be the best option?

In short I need to know exactly what the cost is for the client on top of my work that I charge them for, so I can tell them up front and not let any cost become a surprise at some point.

Also is it better for the site to be in my workspace or the client’s? If I transfer a site with a plan on it to a client does the plan go with it?

Thanks in advance!

2

Depends entirely on your desired setup, billing approach, type of clients & their capabilities, etc.

Both 1 and 2 are viable approaches with different pros & cons.

Most smaller clients would prefer you to do all the tech, including the domain purchase and setup for them if they don’t already have one. Larger ones lean towards control.

The site plan would only be bought after the site is built and transferred into their account.

No they don’t need a workspace plan for a single hosted site.

Just as viable. This is better for clients who are non-technical, and who do not need access to ( or should not have access to ) the designer as they’ll likely break their site expensively.

Exception is that for localization, clients cannot currently localize new content ( blogs, etc. ) unless they have access to the designer, so #1 becomes the only viable option currently, which is somewhat dangerous.

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3

Hi thank you for the help!

So, when I’m building the site in my Workspace, do I already need to have a plan bought for the site, or can it just have no plan? Are there limitations for functionality if I don’t buy a plan immediately as I start building?

Do I have to buy a plan to build it, then cancel the plan and transfer the site to the client, and then the client buys their own plan for it again?

4

Up to you. You can buy a workspace plan to build it ( check out the Freelancer plan ) or a site plan. If you’re going to transfer the site, the workspace plan probably makes more sense.

Or else build it in the client’s workspace, and have a site plan attached while you’re in the build phase.

Yes you’d be quite limited if you try to avoid paying for anything. Read the pricing docs to learn more.

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5

Thank you. I actually meant to ask about the Site Plan.

If I build it without a Site Plan, I assume some features can’t be built into it?

But if I buy a plan for it in order to build it, later when I transfer the site, does the plan get transferred alongside it?

6

Workspace plans give you all the basic dev capabilities, like custom code, 150 pages, etc.

There are a few features that require a site plan, like redirects, site search, ecom, some parts of localization…

Plans do not transfer across workspaces, so if you move the site later, you’ll establish a new plan after the transfer.

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7

Thank you so much!

One more thing, how do you usually handle registering a domain for the client if they don’t already have one? Is it the standard to make an account for the client, register the domain using their contact details but make the payment yourself, then bill the payment to the client?

I do see a risk in paying the hosting and domain costs upfront and then bill the client afterwards, because if the client defaults on their payment then we’re out of our pocket. How do I make this less risky? Because those plans are typically annually renewable and there will be a time that it renews and charges me

8

Yep that’s a risk. If you are doing this large-scale, you can protect yourself by adding a bit of a service charge on top.

Otherwise, you can educate the client on how to setup the account and purchase their domain. Up to you how you approach it.

9

On this last point on Localisation:

I may have understand wrong, but when playing around with Localisation in an in-house project of ours, I think that using the Editor view, the client could work on the Localised content clicking on the language switcher on the site. This is, if they were on the main language, the posts etc on CMS collections will appear only in that language. But if they would click on the language switcher of the site itself, the content on the Editors CMS would also change and they could edit the second language version.
Hope I have understand your point and that this helps, I saw no info about it from webflow so far.

10

The content editor doesn’t support localization, but the Editor mode of the designer does.
Your client needs access to the designer ( e.g. move the site into a workspace they manage, invite yourself as a freelancer… ).

And they need to be taught how to use it.

At the moment I think that’s the only setup that allows a client to manage content on their localized site.

11

You are right, somehow it did work a time we tested through the Editor but then the team started to find errors and not be able to access other languages.