Agency-managed / subscription
Moving your website off Townsquare Interactive
Of all the agreements we read while researching these pages, this one is the most explicit about what happens when you leave. It is worth reading in full, and we have quoted the relevant section verbatim below.
Where you actually stand
Townsquare Interactive provides managed websites and digital marketing to small businesses on a monthly subscription. They build it, they host it, they maintain it, and their team makes changes on request.
Section 4.4(i) of their Terms of Service, headed "Effect of Termination," removes any ambiguity about what you have been paying for. We have quoted it below without editing.
The same section states that the website and all related systems cease on cancellation, and that Townsquare will permanently deactivate and terminate the client properties and permanently delete the client account and all client-furnished material. Their intellectual property provisions extend to source code, HTML files, templates, user interface designs, themes, page layouts and look and feel — with content you supplied remaining yours.
Their agreement is unusually clear, and it is not ambiguous
We are going to let the document speak. This is current, published, and section-numbered.
Read alongside the deletion language in the same section, the position is that cancellation does not leave you with a website to take elsewhere. It leaves you with whatever content you supplied, and a business with no website until you build one. That is worth knowing well in advance of the day you decide to leave.
One thing we will not claim: Townsquare’s terms state that their hosting services, including domain name registration and management, are governed by a separate agreement. So we are not going to tell you what happens to your domain. Check your own domain’s WHOIS registrant record and read the hosting terms.
“For avoidance of doubt, please note that upon termination, Client will no longer have access to or ownership rights in the Website, the template of the Website, or any other design or look and feel contained within the Website.”
“The Website and all related systems will cease upon the cancellation of the Services.”
What this costs you day to day
No ownership rights on termination
Their own words: on termination you no longer have access to or ownership rights in the website, its template, or any design or look and feel in it.
The site ceases when the service does
The terms state the website and all related systems cease on cancellation, and that client properties are permanently deactivated and terminated.
Client-furnished material is deleted too
The same section refers to permanently deleting the client account and all client-furnished material. Keep your own copies of everything, independently, starting now.
Month-to-month, indefinitely
After the initial term the agreement auto-renews monthly. Convenient — but the payments never accumulate into an asset.
Every change is a ticket
You do not edit the site. You request an edit and wait for someone else to make it.
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
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
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 Townsquare Interactive specifically: Given the deletion language, the order of operations matters more here than anywhere else on this list. We capture everything from your live site first, you confirm the new site is right, we go live — and only then do you cancel. Do not cancel first.
- 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
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
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
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 your live site before anything changes
- Images at full resolution, re-optimised
- Your branding and business information
- Existing URLs, preserved or 301 redirected
- Google Business Profile linkage, updated cleanly
- Complete ownership, documented and signed
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.
Questions people ask about leaving Townsquare Interactive
- What exactly happens if I cancel Townsquare Interactive?
- Their Terms of Service, Section 4.4(i), state that "upon termination, Client will no longer have access to or ownership rights in the Website, the template of the Website, or any other design or look and feel contained within the Website." The same section says the website and all related systems cease on cancellation. Read it yourself before you make any decision — we have linked it below.
- Can I get a copy of my website first?
- That is exactly what we do, and it is why the sequence matters. We capture your entire live site — content, images, structure — while your service is still active. Nothing gets cancelled until your new site is live and you have confirmed it is right.
- What about my domain?
- We are not going to guess. Townsquare’s Terms of Service state that their hosting services, including domain name registration and management, fall under a separate agreement we have not reviewed. Look up your domain’s WHOIS registrant record — if your business is not the registrant, raise it with them before you do anything else.
- Will I lose my search rankings?
- Not if the transition is handled properly. We map every existing URL to the new site with 301 redirects, carry your metadata across, and update your Google Business Profile. Rankings typically hold and improve as the site gets faster.
Sources
Every claim made about Townsquare Interactive on this page comes from Townsquare Interactive’s own published documentation. Read them yourself. We would rather you did.
Also worth reading
Hibu
Hibu’s Smart Sites terms state the domain they provide for your website is registered to Hibu.
Read the Hibu pageThryv
Thryv’s terms state the composition and design of the website they build is their sole and exclusive property.
Read the Thryv pageDuda
If an agency built your Duda site, the agency holds the account — and Duda will not hand it to you.
Read the Duda page
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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