Agency Client Handoff Checklist

1. The client owns the domain. Registrar account in their name, DNS access documented, and your access removed or explicitly retained in writing.
2. Hosting bills the client's card. Billing transferred before launch, and your role downgraded deliberately — owner only if contracted, collaborator otherwise.
3. The repository is transferred, not shared. Moved to the client's organization, and the client has confirmed access — an unaccepted invite is not a handoff.
4. Secrets are documented and delivered securely. Env vars and keys handed over outside email, and anything that lived in your password manager rotated after transfer.
5. Third-party accounts are in the client's name. Payments, transactional email, analytics, error tracking — client-owned, with you invited back only if support continues.
6. The client holds owner-level admin in the app itself. And your personal admin accounts are removed or converted to a named support identity.
7. Payment flows re-tested under the client's live keys. The classic post-handoff break: everything worked on your account, then the keys changed. Run a real transaction after transfer.
8. Transactional email re-verified under the client's domain. SPF and DKIM confirmed after the account transfer, with a real email received at the end of it.
9. Content and licenses transferred. Source files, imagery, fonts, and stock licenses in the client's name — license terms often do not transfer automatically.
10. A one-page "how to do the common things" doc exists. Update copy, add a product, issue a refund, check errors — the four calls you would otherwise get.
11. One recorded walkthrough delivered. Thirty minutes of screen recording outlives any live meeting.
12. The support window is in writing. Scope, duration, response time, and how to request help — agreed before launch, not during the first incident.
13. Warranty scope is defined. What counts as a defect you fix free versus new billable work — in the contract, restated in the handoff doc.
14. Backups run under the client's account. Automated, verified once by actually restoring, and documented so the client knows they exist.
15. Rollback is possible on the client's side. Whoever holds the support window can restore the previous version and knows how.
16. Trust pages approved by the client. Refund, contact, privacy — the client owns those promises, so they sign off on the text.
17. Final invoice and IP transfer align with the contract. Ownership language executed, with nothing ambiguous left for later.
18. A launch-week plan names names. Who watches errors, who watches payments, on which side of the handoff, and for how long.

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