You should own all of it: the accounts, the logins, the rules and the system itself. If the answer to “what happens if you disappear” is anything other than “it keeps running”, the arrangement is wrong, whoever built it. Here is the test to apply to anyone you are considering, including us.
Who owns the automation when the agency leaves?
You do, in every arrangement worth signing. Ownership here means four specific things. Check all four. A general reassurance is not enough.
The accounts are in your name. Not the agency’s, with you as a guest. If the subscription the system runs on is billed to them, they own the system and you are renting it.
You hold the logins. From day one, not on request at the end.
The rules are written down. In plain language, not only in code. The list of what makes a job complete, the pricing rules, the document templates and what triggers what. That document is worth more than the build, because with it any competent developer can pick the work up.
Nothing is hosted by the agency. If their server going down stops your quotes going out, you have a dependency nobody mentioned.
What you own when we build it
Most of what we build runs as scheduled tasks on a Claude Team plan, on a seat that belongs to you. Claude is the AI model made by Anthropic. It is one step inside the system, not the system itself, and a person still checks anything that matters.
You buy the plan. Your name, your card, your account. We build on a seat inside it and we hand over a written pack describing every system, every rule and every trigger.
Keep paying for the seat and the systems keep running, with or without us. Take the seat away and they stop, exactly as they would if you cancelled any other software. There is nothing clever about it and nothing hidden in it, and that plainness is the point. The Services page says the same thing.
The monthly running fee we charge is for monitoring, fixes and small changes. It is not what keeps the lights on. Stop paying it and you lose us, not the system.
The questions to ask any supplier
Ask them straight. Listen for hesitation as well as for the answer:
- Whose name is on the subscription the system runs on?
- If I stopped working with you tomorrow, what stops working?
- Where are the rules written down, and can I have a copy now rather than at the end?
- Who else could maintain this, and what would they need?
- What happens to my data when we part company?
A supplier who owns your accounts is not necessarily acting badly. It can simply be easier to set up that way. But it means that leaving is expensive, and you should know that before you sign rather than in your second year.
What you still depend on
You are not free of dependencies. You have swapped one dependency for a smaller one.
You depend on the platform the system runs on, the same way you already depend on your accounts package and your email. You depend on the rules being right, which is why they are written in plain language and why they get reviewed. And if the person who knew the process leaves, you depend on that written pack, which is the best argument for insisting on it.
What you do not depend on is us being contactable on a Tuesday afternoon. That was the whole design goal.
Before you sign anything
Ask for the handover pack to be named in the quote as a deliverable, not described as a nice-to-have. Ask what state the accounts are in on day one. And ask what the supplier would do if you asked to end it after a few months.
We put those answers in writing before the deposit. The About page explains who owns what. On the 10-minute call, you describe the document that eats the most time. We say whether it fits and give a rough estimate, a range for the first route.