Who owns the code?
Here’s the straight answer.
Ask an automation agency what happens to the code if you part ways, and plenty go quiet. Here’s what’s yours from day one, what’s licensed, and how to get the code if you ever want it.
Short answer
DigitalStaff keeps ownership of the code it builds and gives clients a licence to run it. Clients’ data, logins and documentation are theirs from day one. A code buyout and code escrow are available, agreed per client.
In Oscar’s words: “Your data, your logins, your documentation: all yours, written down, not in my head. You get a licence to run it, and the code itself is an option if you ever want it.”
The three ways businesses lose the automation they paid for
Nobody reads the IP clause until the relationship is already sour
Trap #1: You leave, and everything stays behind
The data, the logins and every note about how it works live in the agency's accounts. Stop paying and you start from zero, with nothing written down.
Trap #2: The platform rents it back to you
The workflow is built inside a per-seat platform you can't take it out of. You "own" it the way you own a lease, and the fee climbs every renewal.
Trap #3: The black box
The person who built it is gone, nothing is documented, and nobody left can safely touch it. Whoever owns it on paper, nobody owns it in practice.
How ownership works with DigitalStaff
Three parts, all of them written into your agreement
Yours from day one
Your data, your logins and your documentation. Accounts sit in your name wherever we can set them up that way, and the documentation is written so a developer who has never met us could pick it up.
Licensed while we run it
The automations we build run under a licence, hosted and maintained by us by default. That's what lets us monitor them, fix them fast and keep improving them, without a ticket queue or a new hire on your side.
The code, if you want it
Want the source code? A code buyout is available. Need assurance in case something happens to us? We can set up code escrow. Both are agreed per client, in writing, before you need them.
What’s yours, whatever happens
The things you need to keep running your business, with or without us
Your data
Yours from day one, full stop. Getting it out never depends on settling anything about the code.
Your logins
Accounts and credentials in your name wherever possible, so you're never locked out of your own systems.
Your documentation
What each automation does, what it connects to and how to run it, kept up to date as things change.
A way out
A transition plan if you leave, and a code buyout if you want to run it yourself or hand it to another team.
Why a licence, and not a handover?
Because the hard part of automation isn’t building it. It’s keeping it working when a vendor changes something overnight. We run what we build, so we’re the ones who get that call, and the licence is what pays for it. What we won’t do is hold your data or your documentation hostage. If we stop earning the work, you should be able to leave cleanly.
Code ownership FAQ
The questions to ask any automation vendor, and our answers
Who owns the code you build? +
Why not hand over the code by default? +
What is code escrow, and do you offer it? +
What happens to my automations if I cancel? +
Can we take the automation in-house later? +
What do you build on? +
Related: pricing · Managed Automation (who fixes it when it breaks) · Fractional Chief Automation Officer · custom integrations for software without APIs
Ask the awkward questions before you sign
Bring your ownership questions. We’ll walk you through the licence, the buyout and escrow options, and exactly what happens if you ever want to leave.