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PROBLEM · SOLVED BY PROGRAMMATIC WEB DEVELOPMENT · STRATEGY & CONSULTANCY · AUTOMATION & CRM

Locked in by your agency? Most lock-ins are paper, not steel.

Custom CMS, withheld credentials, undocumented workflows — agency lock-in feels permanent and rarely is. Here's how we extract you cleanly.

Get the diagnosis → Book a 30-min diagnostic
Symptoms

If any of these sound familiar, this is your problem.

01

Custom CMS only the current agency understands

02

Domain, hosting and analytics owned in their accounts

03

No documentation; everything tribal knowledge

04

Contract auto-renewed and you never noticed

Why it happens

The root cause — in plain English.

Lock-in comes in two forms: contractual (long notice periods, auto-renewals, tied IP) and operational (custom systems, no documentation, owned credentials). Most clients only notice when they try to leave. The good news: 95% of operational lock-in is fixable in 30-60 days, and contractual exit is almost always negotiable when the agency knows the relationship is ending. You're rarely as stuck as it feels.
How we diagnose it

The first three things we check.

Three-stage extraction. One: a credentials and ownership audit — what does the agency actually hold (domain, hosting, GA4, ad accounts, brand assets, source files, analytics, CRM)? Two: a migration plan for each — usually painless if approached cooperatively, escalation paths if not. Three: a parallel-build of any custom CMS or workflow on standard, portable systems (WordPress + ACF, GA4, GTM, your-own-cloud). 60-90 days from start to clean handover.
The solution

The pillars that fix this.

Each pillar is productised — fixed scope, fixed weekly delivery, walk-away rights at every 90-day cycle.

PILLAR

Programmatic Web Development

Open the full pillar to see the productised stack, deliverables, pricing and 90-day roadmap.

Open the pillar → PILLAR

Strategy & Consultancy

Open the full pillar to see the productised stack, deliverables, pricing and 90-day roadmap.

Open the pillar → PILLAR

Automation & CRM

Open the full pillar to see the productised stack, deliverables, pricing and 90-day roadmap.

Open the pillar →
The cost of waiting

Every month under lock-in is a month of paying retainer for output you can't move, fix or improve — and the migration cost only grows with every new asset added to the trapped stack.

First action this week: Make a list of every digital asset and ask "if we ended the relationship Monday, do we hold the keys?" The empty rows are your extraction list.

Book the 30-min diagnostic →
Free 2-page diagnostic

Send your domain. We’ll send back a 2-page diagnosis.

Specific to your stack, scoped to this problem. Three quick wins. A tailored band for the work it would take. No call required.

No card required · Your data stays private · One reply, then nothing unless you ask

Where this hits hardest

The industries that feel this most.

INDUSTRY

Professional Services & B2B

Open the industry hub to see how we run this work for professional services & b2b operators.

Open the hub → INDUSTRY

Real Estate & Property

Open the industry hub to see how we run this work for real estate & property operators.

Open the hub → INDUSTRY

Recruitment & Careers

Open the industry hub to see how we run this work for recruitment & careers operators.

Open the hub →
Adjacent problems

Operators with this problem usually have these too.

PROBLEM

We can't update our own site without the agency

When every change needs the agency, marketing slows to a quarterly drip. We rebuild WordPress so your team owns content but the design stays consistent.

Open the diagnosis → PROBLEM

Our agency doesn't understand our industry

Generic agencies produce generic work — and your buyers know within five seconds. Here's how we vertical-specialise without losing breadth.

Open the diagnosis → PROBLEM

We just react — we never plan

Reactive marketing burns budget, drains the team and never compounds. Here's the operating system we install — quarterly themes, monthly sprints, weekly review.

Open the diagnosis → PROBLEM

Every page and post looks different

When every channel looks like a different company, you're not a brand — you're a logo. Here's the design system we build to fix it.

Open the diagnosis →

Browse all 30 problems →

Three ways to fix this

Read the playbook, get coached, or have us ship the fix.

You can solve this yourself with the playbook below, get a senior practitioner reviewing your work each week, or hand the whole pillar over on a productised retainer. Whichever you pick, the canon is identical.

DIY · Self-serve

Read the playbook

If you have an in-house team with the bandwidth to run an audit and ship the fix yourselves, the playbook is free.

From £0

144 free playbooks · templates £49+

The full diagnosis, the audit checklist, the deliverable templates, and the 90-day roadmap. Same canon we use on retainer.

  • 50+ page playbook for the pillar that fixes this
  • Audit checklist — the 8–10 things to check first
  • Deliverable templates — GA4 spec, briefs, schemas
  • Quarterly office hours — bring your work, get reviewed
Open the playbook →
DWY · Done with you

Coach us through it

For teams that have hands but want a senior practitioner reviewing the work each week and unblocking quickly.

From £750 / mo

Coaching · cohort · sprint

Weekly 1:1 or team coaching, a custom course built around this exact problem, plus optional embedded sprints.

  • Weekly 90-minute coaching with a named practitioner
  • Custom course built around fixing this exact problem
  • Embedded sprints — we sit in your tools 1–2 weeks
  • Audit pack with named owners and dated steps
See coaching plans →
Most chosen
DFY · Done for you

Ship the fix on retainer

We run the pillar that fixes this, end-to-end. Fixed scope, weekly delivery, server-side tracking from form-fill to closed-won.

£1,500 – £6,000+ / mo

Foundation · Compound · Architect

The bands above. We diagnose in week one, ship the first fix in week two, and run the cycle on rolling 90-day terms with walk-away rights.

  • Productised pillar with named owner and dated 90-day roadmap
  • Server-side tracking from form-fill to closed-won
  • Weekly delivery — no scope creep, no surprise invoices
  • You own everything — tools, data, accounts, content
Book a discovery call →
Ready to fix it

Book the 30-min diagnostic.

Bring one number you want moved and one constraint you cannot break. We’ll spend the first five minutes on those, the next twenty on the playbook that fits, and the last five on whether we’re the right studio for you.

Book the call → Browse all 30 problems
Operating across the Weir family network — Josh Weir·Mark Weir·Weir Digital Media·CMW Consultants