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Agency-managed / subscription

Moving your website off Duda

Duda is a capable platform, and most people reading this did not choose it — an agency did, and built your site inside their account. That arrangement is the thing worth understanding, because it determines what happens if you ever want to leave.

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Where you actually stand

Duda is sold heavily through agencies and resellers, usually white-labelled, which means you may not even know your site is a Duda site. The tell is that you log in somewhere branded with your agency’s name rather than Duda’s.

In that arrangement the agency holds the Duda account. Your site is one site inside it. Duda’s own support documentation is explicit that Duda will not transfer a site to an end client — the client has to go to the account owner, which is to say the agency.

Transfers are also blocked outright if there are unpaid invoices, add-on subscriptions, Site-for-Life status, or Client Billing configured. So the leverage in a disagreement with your agency sits on their side of the table, and it sits there by design.

Duda will not hand you the site. Your agency has to.

This is documented by Duda directly, which makes it a fact rather than a suspicion. If you are on a white-labelled Duda site and your relationship with the agency ends badly, the site does not simply become yours.

Duda does offer a site export on Agency plans and above — a zip of the published site as HTML, CSS, JavaScript and media. Two things about it are worth knowing: it exports as three separate folders of HTML and CSS, one each for desktop, tablet and mobile, and the store and the blog are both excluded. Duda also prohibits unminifying the exported JavaScript and CSS. So it is a static snapshot you are not permitted to decompile, not a maintainable codebase.

“Duda support does not transfer sites. If you are a client who needs ownership of a site, you need to reach out to the site’s account owner.”
Duda Support, "Transfer a Site to a Different Account"
“The store will not export into your .zip file… The blog will not export in the HTML.”
Duda Support, "Site Export"

What this costs you day to day

The agency holds the account, not you

On a white-labelled build your site sits inside your agency’s Duda account. Duda documents that it will not transfer the site to you directly.

Unpaid invoices block a transfer

Duda lists unpaid invoices, add-on subscriptions, Site-for-Life status and Client Billing as conditions that prevent a site transfer. A billing dispute becomes a website dispute.

The export is three folders of static HTML

Desktop, tablet and mobile export as separate HTML and CSS trees. That is a published artefact, not a codebase, and no developer will want to maintain it.

You may not unminify what you exported

Duda’s terms prohibit unminifying the exported JavaScript and CSS. So the code you received is code you are not allowed to make readable.

Store and blog are excluded from export

The two most content-heavy parts of a typical business site are precisely the parts that do not come out.

How the rebuild works

Six steps, and your involvement is deliberately minimal. We handle the technical side, bring you recommendations, and come to you when a decision or an approval is genuinely needed. You review the finished site before it goes live.

  1. 1

    We audit your current website

    We review your existing site — pages, content, SEO, functionality and structure. We identify what should be improved, updated or dropped, rather than copying over things that were never working.

  2. 2

    We rebuild the site in Next.js

    Your branding and content carry over, but the site is rebuilt from the ground up in Next.js. That removes the database and plugin dependencies behind most performance, security and maintenance problems.

    For Duda specifically: We work entirely from your live site, so we do not need cooperation from your current agency and you do not need to start an awkward conversation before you know what your options are. Your existing site keeps running throughout.

  3. 3

    We improve it while we rebuild it

    This is the part people underestimate. We are not handing you a newer version of the same website. We look for real gains in navigation, page layout, calls to action, mobile experience, content and SEO.

  4. 4

    We preserve your SEO

    Existing URLs, page titles, metadata and redirects are all accounted for in the transition. The goal is to move platforms without giving up the search visibility you have already built.

  5. 5

    We test everything before it goes live

    Desktop and mobile, every form, every piece of functionality, all content reviewed — checked and working before we touch anything in production.

  6. 6

    We launch

    Once you approve it, we move the new site into production. From your side the transition should be uneventful, and your visitors should never see an interruption.

What comes with you

  • All page content, captured from the live site
  • Blog posts — which the Duda export excludes
  • Images at full resolution, re-optimised
  • A single responsive codebase, not three static device trees
  • Existing URLs, preserved or 301 redirected
  • Your domain and hosting, in accounts you control

You own what we build. In writing.

Every rebuild is delivered with a Certificate of Ownership and IP Assignment: a signed document assigning you the copyright in the site code and the content we produce for you, and recording the transfer of the repository, the domain and the hosting account into your name. You are not licensing your website from us. If you ever leave, you take the whole thing with you — the code, the content, the domain, the repository and the deployment history.

  • Full copyright assignment in the site code and the content we write for you.
  • The Git repository transferred to an account you control, with its full history.
  • The domain in your name, at a registrar of your choosing.
  • Hosting in your own Vercel account if you want it there — we can manage it, but ownership sits with you.
  • No proprietary page builder, no template licence, and nothing that stops working if you stop paying us.
Read what the certificate covers

Questions people ask about leaving Duda

My agency built my site on Duda. Do I own it?
Probably not in the way you would hope. Duda’s support documentation states that Duda support does not transfer sites, and that a client needing ownership must approach the account owner — the agency. Transfers can also be blocked by unpaid invoices or certain subscription states. Check your agency agreement, and ask them directly who holds the Duda account.
Can I export my Duda site myself?
Only if you hold an Agency plan or higher, which on a white-labelled build you usually do not. Even then, the export excludes the store and the blog, ships as three separate device-specific HTML folders, and comes with a prohibition on unminifying the code.
Do I need to tell my agency before talking to you?
No. We build from your live site. Nothing we do requires their cooperation or their permission, and your current site keeps running normally. Plenty of people want to know what their options are before having that conversation.
What will I own at the end?
The code, the content, the repository and the domain, with a signed Certificate of Ownership and IP Assignment recording the transfer. No account holds it hostage, and no invoice dispute can take it away from you.

Sources

Every claim made about Duda on this page comes from Duda’s own published documentation. Read them yourself. We would rather you did.

Also worth reading

Start by finding out where you actually are

The free scan tells you what your site is built on, what is slowing it down, what search engines and AI answer engines can currently read, and roughly what a rebuild would cost.

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