Guide
Replacing an agency mid-project
The current supplier has stalled, gone quiet, or cannot finish. You still need the site. The next step is an honest picture of what you actually have — code, access, content and contracts — before anyone starts again.
The project is not going to land like this.
Deadlines have slipped. Staging is incomplete. Nobody can explain what is left. You may not even have the repository, the hosting account or the CMS in your own name. Replacing the agency without a diagnosis is how you pay twice for the same work.
What is usually behind it
Access was never yours
The agency holds Git, hosting, CMS and DNS. Without a written handover you cannot continue the work, let alone finish it.
Scope was never written down
What “done” means lived in Slack. There is no inventory of pages, integrations or redirects, so a new team cannot price the remainder.
The build cannot be maintained
The stack is proprietary, undocumented, or depends on people who are no longer on the account. Finishing it as-is would leave you locked in again.
What a takeover involves
First, recover what is yours. Then decide what is worth keeping. Then price the remainder as a migration or a finish-out, not as a vague rescue.
- Inventory of repositories, hosting, CMS, domains and third-party accounts
- A written picture of what is built, what is missing, and what is unsafe to keep
- A decision: finish on the current stack, or migrate what is worth saving
- A costed route that does not depend on the outgoing supplier staying involved
What it costs to find out
The Headless Assessment is the takeover document: architecture, risks, access gaps and a costed route to finish. £1,500, fixed. No obligation to build with us — and no need to keep the previous agency in the loop once access is recovered.
How we do this work
Modernise the presentation layer and core functionalities without ripping out commerce, CRM, or content systems that still work.
Platform migrationsRelated guides
- WordPress to Next.js migrationMove off a slow, plugin-heavy WordPress site without losing the content, rankings and integrations you already paid for.
- Website rebuild after a rebrandA rebrand is the moment the current site becomes indefensible. The mistake is treating the new site as a design job and leaving the platform, URLs and integrations as an afterthought.
Common questions
Do we need the previous agency’s permission?
You need the assets you paid for: code, content, credentials and domains. Contracts vary. The assessment lists what is missing so you can request it in writing rather than negotiating in the dark.
Can you finish their build as-is?
Sometimes, if the stack is standard and the work is actually close. If it is proprietary or undocumented, finishing it would recreate the lock-in. We will say which case you are in.
How fast can this start?
As soon as you can grant read access to what you have — even if that is only the live site and a staging URL. The assessment does not wait for a perfect handover that may never arrive.
Find out what you are actually dealing with.
The Headless Assessment is the takeover document: architecture, risks, access gaps and a costed route to finish. £1,500, fixed. No obligation to build with us — and no need to keep the previous agency in the loop once access is recovered.
No lock-in. No obligation.