Leaving? Let's make it painless.

Exporting your data is always free, and it always will be. We never charge you to get your own information back. If you're on a managed hosting plan, a flat £50 administrative fee covers the work of packaging up your site files and database, as set out in your hosting agreement, and any outstanding invoices need settling first. There is no exit fee beyond that, and no penalty for leaving.

A website export often contains personal data about your own customers: enquiry records, orders, mailing lists. Releasing that to someone who isn't entitled to it would be a personal data breach, and both you and we would be on the hook. Under UK GDPR we're required to keep that data secure, and where we have reasonable doubt about who is asking we're entitled to request the information we need to confirm identity. It's usually a two minute check.

Usually the lightest thing that settles it: a reply from the email address on your account, or a call back on the number we already hold. For higher risk requests, such as a domain transfer or a request from an address we don't recognise, we may ask for a short video call or documentary evidence such as a Companies House officer check. We never ask for a password, and we delete identity evidence once the check is done.

We acknowledge your request within 2 business days and complete the handover within 30 days of verifying your identity, which is the UK GDPR time limit for a data request. In practice most handovers are done in 5 to 7 business days. If a request is genuinely complex we can extend by up to a further two months, but we'll tell you why before the original deadline.

They can start the conversation, but we release data to you as the account holder rather than to a third party acting on your behalf. We'll need written authority from you, and the export still comes to you. You're then completely free to pass it straight on to them.

Open, portable formats that any competent developer can pick up: source code as a Git repository or zip archive, content and databases as structured JSON or SQL dumps, and media as the original files at full quality. Nothing is locked to a proprietary Arcscribe format, because there isn't one.

Nothing is deleted until you confirm you have everything. After that we retain only what we're legally required to keep, mainly invoices and contract records for six years for HMRC and limitation purposes, and securely delete the rest. If you want confirmation of deletion in writing, just ask.

No. If we hold your domain, we release it to you. Tell us where you're transferring it and we'll provide the auth code, unlock the domain, and coordinate timing so your email and website don't drop during the move.

Then we'd genuinely like to know. You can raise it formally through our complaints procedure, which is separate from this handover and doesn't delay it. Either way, your export happens regardless. We don't hold data hostage over a disagreement.