Before you start
Bring the facts, not more tabs.
- A finished site the client has already approved — the handoff is not the review round.
- Know which line it was built on: a Naratake cloud workspace, or LocalSite Studio on the desktop.
- One hour with the client, screen to screen. Handoff by email thread is how details get lost.
You will learn to
- Choose between the two handoff models — transfer the account, or hand over the code.
- Assemble a package the client actually owns: files, accounts, domain, payments.
- Teach the owner the back office in twenty minutes, not a training week.
- End the project with “done” written down — an aftercare deal if they want one, a hostage never.
Decide what “handoff” means for this client
There are only two honest models. Either the client takes over the account that runs the site, or they take the code and run it anywhere. Everything else is a variation that keeps you in the middle forever.
- If the site lives in a Naratake workspace and will stay hosted: plan to hand over the workspace and move billing onto the client’s card.
- If the client wants the site out of any platform: plan a code handoff. Storefront Pro exports the complete Next.js project; LocalSite Studio exports from the desktop with no per-export limit.
- Write the chosen model into the final invoice. It decides every later step, so it should not live in anyone’s memory.
Done when: Both of you can say, in one sentence, who runs the site on the first of next month.
Assemble the package
A handoff package is what turns “the project is done” into “the project is theirs”. It is mostly files and one honest list.
- Code model: export the project. The download is the whole Next.js app — pages, components, styles, and when the site stores anything, its database schema, REST API and the admin back office.
- Write the one-page README of their site: the domain, where it is hosted, where orders and bookings arrive, who to call for what.
- Include the content sources — the photos as files, the menu or service list as a document. These are the things they will ask you for in a year.
- Hosted model: list the workspace address, the plan it is on, the renewal date, and which card pays for it.
Done when: One folder answers every “where is…?” question without you in the room.
Put the accounts in the client’s name
The commonest handoff failure is invisible: the site works, but the freelancer still owns the domain, the payments or the login. That is not a handoff — that is dependence with better manners.
- Domain: registered in the client’s registrar account, not yours. Transfers take days, and discovering the domain is stuck during a dispute is the worst possible timing.
- Payments: the Stripe account the site charges through must be the client’s own. On Naratake this is structural — the two keys pasted in setup are theirs, and the money settles to them, never through you or us.
- Back office: create the owner login for the client, then delete or downgrade your own once they confirm access.
- Hosted model: move the subscription to the client’s card. A site whose hosting dies with your credit card was never delivered.
Done when: You could lose every password you own tonight, and the client’s site would not notice.
Give the twenty-minute back-office tour
The owner does not need the editor on day one. They need the counter: where orders arrive, where bookings get confirmed, how to change a price and the opening hours.
- Walk one order through together — from the customer’s screen to the back office — and let the owner do the clicks, not watch yours.
- Change one menu price in the back office together and refresh the live page.
- Leave design edits out of the tour. Design changes go through the editor and a new release — a separate conversation. The tour is about running the business, not rebuilding the site.
Done when: The owner has done each task once with their own hands. Watching you do it does not count.
Write down what “done” means — and what comes after
Handoffs sour at the edges: three weeks later a “tiny tweak” arrives, then another. The fix is not generosity and it is not refusal — it is a written edge.
- Send a dated completion note: what was built, what was handed over, and the day support under the project price ends.
- Offer aftercare as a product, not a favour: a monthly retainer for content changes, or an hourly rate with a minimum.
- Leave links to the guides that answer the questions they will actually hit — publishing a change, checking the mobile layout, handling orders.
- Code model: name what you will not support — their hosting, their DNS, changes made by their next developer. The clean line protects both sides.
Done when: The last email of the project is a thank-you, not a scope debate.
Final check
Do not call it done until these are true.
- The client can log into everything the site depends on; nothing critical lives only in your accounts.
- The domain sits in the client’s registrar account.
- Card payments settle to the client’s own Stripe account.
- The owner has processed one order or booking with their own hands.
- A dated completion note says what was delivered and when paid support ends.