What I Wish I Had Known Before I Hired a Web Designer

A few years ago, I hired a company to build my therapy practice website and run my social media. They were marketed as therapy-specific; they understood the industry and handled it all. I didn't have to think about hosting, plugins, posting schedules, any of it. That sounded like a dream.

I want to tell you what actually happened, because I think a lot of you are in this position right now and don't know it yet.

About a year in, I started noticing something on social media. Posts I had been told were created for my practice were showing up on other therapists' pages. Same captions, same graphics, same hooks. My name and headshot in some, someone else's name and headshot in others. The "content strategy" I was paying for was a content library being recycled across every client they had.

I felt violated. That is the right word for it. Therapists are taught to lead with authenticity and presence, and I was paying a company to push generic content into the world under my name while telling potential clients it was mine.

So I asked for full control. Not just of my social, but of my website too. They reminded me that there was a fee to take ownership of the site they had built. To get full access to the thing I had been paying for the entire time, I had to pay again.

I pushed back, hard. I made it clear I was prepared to escalate. They eventually gave me access without the fee. I was lucky. Plenty of therapists are not.

But here is the second half of this story. When they handed over the site, it was on WordPress. I had never wanted WordPress. I had told them that. WordPress requires technical familiarity that most clinicians lack, and I am one of them. I now owned a website I could not manage. I ended up paying another company to migrate the whole thing to Squarespace, which is where it lives today.

So I paid for content that was not really mine. I paid to push for the access I should have had from day one. I paid again to move my own site to a platform I could actually use.

That is the part that does not get talked about enough.

What this practice actually looks like

Predatory agency work in our field usually shows up in some combination of these patterns.

The same social media content gets reused across multiple clients. You think you are paying for a custom content strategy. You are paying for a shared library that gets rotated under different names and headshots.

The domain gets registered in the company's name, not yours. The hosting account is in their name. The admin login is theirs. You do not actually own the front door to your own business.

A transfer fee, release fee, or "buyout" gets baked into the contract, sometimes buried in fine print. Leaving costs money. Sometimes a lot of money.

The site gets built on a platform you cannot edit yourself, or on a platform you can edit in theory but were never trained to use. Either way, you are dependent on them indefinitely.

Monthly retainers keep stacking up not because the work requires them, but because you cannot leave without losing access to your accounts, your content, or your audience.

The result is a practice owner who feels stuck, drained, and quietly embarrassed that they did not see it coming. I want to name this clearly. This is not about you being naive. These models are designed to look like care while functioning as a lock.

Questions to ask before you sign anything

If you are about to hire someone to build your site or run your marketing, slow down and ask these out loud. Get the answers in writing.

Whose name will the domain be registered under? Will I have my own login to the domain registrar from day one?

Where will my site be hosted, and will the hosting account be in my name with my login?

Will I have full administrator access to the website itself the entire time you are building and after?

What platform will you build on? Is it a platform I could realistically manage or migrate, or one that requires technical skills I do not have?

If I decide to leave, what does that process look like? Is there a fee? A waiting period? Will you export my site and hand me everything, or will I have to chase you for credentials?

Will the website copy, design, and structure be unique to me? Will my social media content be created for my practice specifically, or are you pulling from a content library used across multiple clients? Can I see examples of two or three other clients' recent posts so I can compare?

Who owns the content you create for me? If we part ways, do I keep it?

Will you train me to update basic things on my own, like adding a blog post or changing my rates, or will I have to come back to you for every change?

If the answer to any of these is vague, defensive, or makes you feel difficult for asking, that is your answer. A good designer or marketer welcomes those questions. They have already built their business around the assumption that you will eventually want to run things yourself.

If you are already stuck

First, take a breath. You are not the only one. I talk to therapists in this exact situation regularly.

Write down what they actually control. Domain registrar. Hosting account. CMS login. Social media account passwords. Email accounts attached to your domain. Analytics. Anything connected to your business identity online. You cannot make a plan until you can see what is being held.

The domain is yours regardless of who registered it for you. ICANN rules protect that. If they are dragging their feet on transferring it, you have options that include a formal domain dispute. You do not have to negotiate from a place of helplessness.

Get any contract you signed in front of a lawyer who works with small business owners. One hour of legal time is worth a lot here. Many release fees are not as enforceable as the company implies, and a short letter from a lawyer changes the conversation fast.

Before you migrate, pick the next platform based on what you can actually manage. Not what is trendy. Not what someone told you was best. Squarespace, Wix, and Showit are easier to manage solo than WordPress for most clinicians. If you go with WordPress, build the cost of an ongoing manager into your budget from day one.

For social media, if you discover you have been getting recycled content, save examples. Take screenshots of the duplicate posts across other client accounts. That documentation matters if you decide to dispute charges, leave a review, or simply protect yourself in future contracts.

The bigger picture

Your website and your social presence are not just marketing assets. They are part of the infrastructure of your practice. The same way you would not let a billing company keep your client records hostage, you cannot let an agency keep your front door, your voice, or your audience hostage either.

You are allowed to ask hard questions. You are allowed to walk away from a quote that does not include clear ownership. You are allowed to take back what is yours.

I lost time and money learning this. I am telling you because I do not want that to be your story too.

If you have already been through some version of this, I would love to hear it. The more we talk about this out loud, the less power these practices have over the next therapist who does not know what to ask.

DJ Burr, LMHC, LPC

Founder, Private Pay Practitioners www.privatepaypractitioners.com