Before you cancel your marketing agency or platform

Why does the order matter?

Cancelling ends your access, and sometimes your data goes with it. The terms we read in October 2026 show how short the window can be. HighLevel's terms of service give a 90-day retention period, after which HighLevel may delete all of your data for good. WebFX's hosting terms say WebFX acts at once on a cancellation notice, and that when an unpaid account is queued for cancellation, all of its files are permanently removed from the servers after 7 days. Marketing 360's terms let you export a CSV of your CRM data only while your access is not suspended or terminated. Townsquare Interactive's terms of service say any request for your material has to be in writing and made at termination, and that the account and your material are then permanently deleted.

None of that is hidden. Each of those rules sits on a public terms page or help article. The trouble is the order owners do things in: cancel first, ask for the data second. Reverse it. Do every step below while the account is paid up and working, and give notice only when each item has a date next to it. Our printable exit checklist puts the same steps on paper you can tick off.

The safe order, step by step

1. Read the terms and your order form, then calendar the notice date. Notice rules vary a lot. Birdeye's terms ask for written notice of non-renewal at least 90 days before the renewal date. Podium's and Thryv's ask for 30 days. Under its Hibu One terms, Hibu needs to hear from you 15 or more days before the six-month minimum term is up. The channel varies too: Townsquare takes cancellations by phone at its support desk, Thryv through the message form on its contact page, and Marketing 360 by mail or email. Your order form can set its own term, so read it next to the public terms. Put a reminder on the calendar 30 days before the deadline, and don't give notice yet.
2. Export your customers and their history. Pull every list the vendor holds: contacts, appointments, payments, form submissions and anything in a dashboard you rely on. Open each file on your own computer to make sure it worked. Then save what the export leaves out. HighLevel's help article on exporting contacts says the CSV holds only the columns visible in the contacts table, only the latest note up to 255 characters, and nothing from automations, so old email and text threads stay behind. Podium's terms let you export with the platform's standard tools during the term if you are current on fees; after the agreement ends, an export requested within 30 days may be a paid professional services job. For what to check inside each file, see our CRM switching guide.
3. Get the domain into your company's name. Look up which registrar holds the domain and whose name is on it. If the vendor bought it, it may be in the vendor's name. In Hibu's Smart Sites terms, the domain Hibu supplies "will be registered to us"; if you ask, Hibu says it will help put the name in yours. HighLevel's terms say that on a domain bought through its platform, HighLevel is named as registrant and admin contact. Ask for a change of registrant to your company, or for the authorization code to move the name into a registrar account you log into. ICANN's FAQ for domain name holders gives your registrar five calendar days from your request to supply that code. It also says a registrar can turn down a move in the 60 days after the first registration or after an earlier transfer, and that after a change of registrant the name can be locked against transfer for 60 days, unless your registrar lets you opt out. Those 60-day rules are why the domain goes early. See putting a domain in your own name.
4. Become primary owner of your Google Business Profile. Google's page on owners and managers says a profile may list many owners yet just one primary owner, and that managers can't add or remove users. Its page on transferring primary ownership says only the primary owner can make the change, the person receiving it must already be an owner or manager, and doing it properly keeps your business info, reviews included. New owners and managers also wait 7 days before they can remove other users. So ask the agency to add you as an owner, have it make you primary owner, and leave it as a manager until the switch is done. If nobody answers, Google's request ownership process gives the current owner 3 days to answer; if they stay silent, a claim option may appear. Our Business Profile guide covers the rest of the setup.
5. Take admin roles on Analytics, Search Console and ad accounts. Google's Analytics help on managing users says adding or changing users needs the Administrator role, and deleting users needs it at the account level, so ask for Administrator on the account. In Search Console, Google's permissions page says a verified owner is added or removed by adding or removing a token on the site, such as a DNS record or an HTML tag. Verify yourself as an owner now and remove the agency's token later. Check Google Ads before anything else on this step. Google's help on ownership of client accounts says a manager account that creates an ad account becomes its owner automatically, a client account can have only one owner, and the client account can remove that ownership by unlinking. That only helps if you have a login on the account. Marketing 360's terms say it will not transfer advertising accounts at the end of the term, and that Marketing 360 owns your Local Services Ads account, which can't be transferred. Scorpion's FAQ, by contrast, says that customers who leave after fulfilling their contract get full ownership of key accounts such as GA4, Local Services Ads and social media. Setup help: Search Console and Google Analytics.
6. Move the phone number before anything is cancelled. Sort your numbers into two piles: numbers you own, and tracking numbers the vendor lends you. A number you own can be ported. The FCC's porting guide warns against ending your current service until service with the new company has begun. The new provider starts the port, and once you have asked it for service, the old company can't refuse to port the number because you owe a balance or a termination fee, though you may still owe the money. Tracking numbers are another matter. Hibu's Social terms say the call-forwarding number belongs to Hibu and stays with it. Thryv's terms say you can't take ownership of its SMS number, and that when your subscription ends it is cut off or handed to another business. HighLevel's terms say numbers bought through the platform are released within 14 days of cancellation, while a number a customer ported in belongs to the sub-account owner. Marketing 360's terms let you keep a tracking number after you cancel, for a monthly fee. If customers know you by a number you can't take, put your own number on the website, Business Profile, listings, invoices and trucks now. Texting also needs a fresh carrier registration with the new provider, because HighLevel's help center says A2P registrations are deleted 14 days after cancellation, so start the 10DLC registration early. Our porting guide walks through the move.
7. Save the website. Ask which files you get, in which format, and which parts go dark. Footbridge Media's FAQ says it hands over HTML files, and that its forms, CMS, hosting, dashboard and review tool all stop once the subscription ends. Scorpion's FAQ says departing clients get the design assets, the content and static files, and that a different vendor has to rebuild the site on a CMS the client picks. Marketing 360's cancellation help article warns that cancelling hosting takes the site offline, that there is no FTP or cPanel access for its own site builders, and tells owners to save content and images before cancelling. Whatever the answer, copy every page's text, every photo and every form submission yourself. For site builders such as Wix and Squarespace, see our builder-by-builder exit guide.
8. Switch over, then give notice the way the contract says. Put the new site live, point the domain at it, test that the forms send and the calls ring through, and only then give notice in the channel the terms name. Write down when you gave notice, how, who took it and any confirmation number, and keep that note with the contract. Where the terms say requests must be made at termination, as Townsquare's do, send your written list of what you want the same day you give notice.

What eleven vendors' terms say about leaving

Each row paraphrases the vendor's own terms, help center or FAQ as we read them in October 2026. The sources at the bottom link each page. A cell reading "not stated" means the page we read was silent on it. Your signed order form can set different terms, and vendors change these pages, so read the live version before you act. LocaliQ's US terms did not display their text for us that day, so its row is based on a browser reading of its Online Marketing Services Terms and Website Product Terms on November 3, 2026.

Three patterns stand out. Data tends to disappear on a schedule (7 days at WebFX for the files of an unpaid hosting account, 14 days for HighLevel numbers, 90 days for HighLevel account data, a 30-day export period at Podium, 30 days of transition help at LocaliQ). Tracking and texting numbers usually stay with the vendor. And website ownership language ranges from a full handover of files (Footbridge) to no ownership rights at all after cancelling (Townsquare). If you are still choosing an agency rather than leaving one, our agency contracts comparison covers term lengths and ownership promises before you sign.

What no export brings back

Some things don't come out in any file, so plan for them before the account closes.

• Conversation history. HighLevel's contact export leaves out past emails and texts. If your team relies on old threads, save the ones that matter (quotes, disputes, warranty promises) as PDFs or screenshots while you can still log in.
• Reviews shown on a vendor's pages. Birdeye's terms class review data posted to a Birdeye microsite as Birdeye Data, with your license limited to internal use. Reviews on your own Google Business Profile stay with the profile, which is why becoming primary owner comes before notice.
• Ad history in an account you can't log into. Google says the client account owns its data and can remove an owner manager by unlinking. That only helps if someone at your company has a login with admin access on the account. If the agency built your campaigns in an account it controls, ask for that access in writing well before the end date.
• The design. Thryv's website terms keep the composition and design of what it builds as its property, and release your content and the URL if the domain was yours first. Screenshots of every page give the next designer a record of what worked.
• Call recordings and reports. Download the recordings, call logs and monthly reports you may want later. They live in the vendor's dashboard, and the dashboard closes with the account.

What if the vendor won't hand something over?

Ask in writing, name the item, and quote the line in their own terms that covers it. Several of these vendors put something in your favor in writing: Townsquare lists exports you can request, Hibu says it will help move a domain to your name, Scorpion lists accounts it transfers, and WebFX says the domain registration and files stay yours even if you change providers. Send it by email, so the request and the clause you pointed to carry a date.

For the Business Profile, use Google's request ownership process if the agency stops answering. For the domain, the registrar has to give the registered holder the transfer code, so the first job is making sure the registered holder is your company. For the phone number, the port runs through your new provider, not the old one. If a large balance or an early termination fee is in dispute, have a lawyer read the agreement before you act. Nothing here is legal advice, and your order form may differ from the public terms quoted above.

For the field software side of the business, such as Jobber or Housecall Pro, the same idea applies with different details; see how to cancel Jobber for one worked example. The vendor names in the table above link to step-by-step cancellation guides where we have one, including how to cancel LocaliQ.

Where we fit

If you are leaving because you are tired of renting, the replacement should be something you can't lose the same way. That's the whole point of how we build. Every piece is set up in your company's name: the domain, site files sitting in a hosting account you control, the phone number ported over to you, the CRM's code and database, the email list, and a Business Profile where you hold the primary owner role. Our pricing page explains what a quote covers and what you keep paying for, and we publish no price list.

If you are planning an exit now, start with a free system quote. Tell us what you pay for today and when your notice date is, and you get a written quote that lists each piece of work and what you own at the end, so you can plan the new system around your notice date. Print the exit checklist first and bring the dates.

Frequently asked questions