Your agency closed. The software didn't.
An agency shutting down strands every client at once. The site or application keeps running, because hosting bills are usually paid ahead and nothing needs a human to keep serving traffic. What stops is anyone's ability to change it.
The urgent problem is rarely the code. It is access: domains registered in the agency's account, hosting under their billing, DNS you cannot edit, repositories on a private account nobody has credentials for. Those things expire on a schedule that does not care that the company is gone.
Before you hire anyone, including us.
These are in order, and none of them cost anything. Working through them will also tell you how serious your situation actually is.
- 01
Find out who controls the domain, today.
A public WHOIS lookup shows the registrar. If the registrar account is the agency's, that is your highest-priority recovery — an expired domain is far worse than broken code, and registrars have transfer processes that take days rather than minutes.
- 02
Work out who the hosting bill goes to.
If it is on the agency's card, you have until that card fails. If you can move billing to your own account without moving the site, do that first and separate the two problems.
- 03
Ask for the code in writing, even if nobody replies.
A dated written request matters later, whether the company is winding down formally or simply gone. Send it to every address and person you have.
- 04
Take a copy of everything you can still reach.
Export the database if you have any access, download the files, screenshot the admin panels, save the DNS records as they currently stand. Do this before touching anything, because a restore is only possible from something you kept.
- 05
Do not let anyone 'just rebuild it' yet.
A rebuild quoted before anyone has read the existing system is a guess. It is also the most expensive answer available, and often unnecessary.
Four questions that settle it.
- Do you have the source code, or only the running site? Running-only is recoverable but changes the plan.
- Is the domain in an account you control? If not, that is the clock you are working against.
- Is there a database, and when was it last backed up by someone who still answers email?
- Does anything about the system touch payments, personal data, or records you are required to keep?
Most of these start with a diagnostic because the honest answer to "how bad is it" is unknown until someone reads it. Recovery of access is usually days, not weeks. Whether the code is worth keeping is a separate question, and one you should have an independent answer to before anyone quotes you a rebuild.
If you want someone to read it properly.
A paid diagnostic is from $750, two to five days, scoped on a short call before you pay anything. You get what is actually there, what is wrong, what it costs to fix, and a plan you keep — with us or with anyone else.