"Who owns the website?" sounds like a simple question and almost never has a simple answer. A pharmacy website is really four separate things — the domain, the content, the data and the code — and each can be owned by a different party. Knowing which is which before you sign is the difference between a clean exit and a hostage negotiation later.
The four things you might own
1. The domain name
Your address on the internet (yourpharmacy.co.uk). This is the one that matters most, because it is where your Google rankings, your printed materials and your patients' bookmarks all point. It should be registered in the pharmacy's name, with the pharmacy's email as the registrant contact, and you should be able to log into the registrar. If the provider registered it "for convenience", ask for it to be transferred into your account now, while the relationship is good. A provider can stay as the technical contact to manage DNS without owning the name.
2. The content
Your service descriptions, your photographs, your about page, your prices. Copyright in text and images usually belongs to whoever created it unless a contract says otherwise. If the provider wrote your service pages, check whether the agreement licenses that copy to you or assigns it. Either way, you should be able to receive a copy of all of it if you leave.
3. The data
Form submissions — patient names, medication lists, booking details — are personal data for which the pharmacy is the controller. The provider processes it on your behalf and must act on your instructions, including deleting it or returning it when you leave. This should be in a written data processing agreement; if there isn't one, that is a problem regardless of the ownership question. Our data protection page is the agreement PharmGrowth clients sign.
4. The code
The platform the site runs on. On a managed subscription (like PharmGrowth), you do not own the code and you would not want to — it is the provider's product, shared across many pharmacies and maintained centrally. On an agency build you may own a copy of a WordPress site or custom code, which is only valuable if you have someone to host and maintain it. Owning code you cannot run is not ownership in any useful sense.
What to ask for in writing
- Domain registered in the pharmacy's name, with login details held by you
- A statement that content created for you is yours to keep and reuse
- A data processing agreement covering form data, retention and return or deletion on exit
- An exit clause: notice period, what is exported, in what format, within what time
- Confirmation that your online shop's payment account (Stripe or similar) is in your name and settles to your bank
Exit terms that cause trouble
- "The website remains the property of the provider." Fine for the code; not fine if it is used to mean the domain or the content.
- Twelve- or twenty-four-month minimum terms with automatic renewal. Legal, but note the renewal date.
- Exit fees or "release fees" to transfer the domain. The domain should never cost you money to get back.
- No export. If the answer to "what do I get if I leave" is "nothing", the price is not the price.
How PharmGrowth handles it
Your domain stays yours (we will register it in your name if you do not have one, or point your existing one at the site). Your content and your form data are yours and exported on request. Billing is monthly with no minimum term; our cancellation policy sets out the notice, the export and the domain handover in plain English. The code is ours, because it is the same platform every client runs on and that is what keeps it maintained.
If you are currently with a provider and unsure what you own, our guide to switching provider starts with how to find out, and the switching page explains how we manage a move.