Transferring project with hosting to another account

Design help General
1

We have an ecommerce site with hosting and the client would like us to transfer the account to their own account so they have full Designer control, etc.

I’ve found the videos on this process slightly lacking.

What’s the best way to minimise downtime, and will the CNAME records need adding to their DNS host again after the transfer, or do they stay the same?

2

Here’s my understanding:

  1. The client sets up a Webflow account.
  2. We duplicate the project our end, then transfer it to the email address that the client created their Webflow account with.
  3. The site is now offline? As the client has yet to add the Site Plan/Billing/Custom Domain?
3

Yes. The site is offline + Also all Form Submissions history (Download CSV) + Version history not transfer.

https://university.webflow.com/lesson/duplicate-transfer-or-delete-a-project#transfer-a-hosted-project-with-an-active-site-plan

In general, there is some “risky” time (When you want to connect the domain) - It is best to do this while the site with the least traffic + Do not disable “old” domain until you got access for everything required on a part to connect a domain.

4

Thanks. It seems like the best method is to duplicate it and then transfer the original rather than the duplicate.

5

Advisable path in my opinion.

6

Just to clarify, this is the button I need to click before I transfer it (the original project) to the new owner, yes?

7

See this university topic. Transfer hosting between projects | Webflow University

1 Like
8

Note to others: form submission settings don’t get transferred across when you transfer a project to a new owner, even if it’s the original project you’ve transferred. Haven’t seen this mentioned in any of the documentation. Client had a broken form for two days due to the reCaptcha keys not being transferred over.

9

This article is about transferring of hosting of one project in your account to another project in your account. So both projects should be on the same account. What if I transfer hosting from a website in my account to a website in my client account?

10

You can’t transfer hosting yourself. Support may be able to help you however.

11

Hi guys! I also have a client site hosted under my account.

I plan to transfer it to the client’s account so they can handle the payments themselves.

Since there will be unavoidable downtime during the transfer… do the clients need to update their DNS records in the process?

Does anyone have experience with this?

Alternatively, if I decide to duplicate the site and then transfer it to the client’s account to minimize downtime, will the DNS records still need to be updated in that case?

Thanks.

12

DNS records do not need to change except they likely need to create a different TXT verification record to prove they own the domain.

To minimize downtime I generally;

  • Clone
  • Transfer the clone
  • Setup a new hosting plan on the clone
  • Test and verify everything
  • Do the TXT record verification step

Then do the final “unpublish the old, publish the new”.
You can cancel the original plan after.

Sometime early 2025 I believe Webflow will release “seamless transfers” which make this much cleaner.

Yay Webflow! :clap:

1 Like
13

Thanks for the info and advice.