Who can update my website for me?

Who can update my website for me?

Five kinds of help, and they differ in what each change costs you. You can do it yourself in your builder’s editor. You can ask the person or agency who built it. You can hire a freelancer, or put an agency on a monthly retainer. Or you can text Humfrid, and the change is made.

Your website only helps you while it’s right. A customer who drives over on a holiday you closed, or calls about a service you stopped, trusts you a little less. So the real question isn’t who can update it once. It’s who makes every small change, quickly, for as long as you’re in business. For how often things change, see how often to update your business website. Here’s how Humfrid does it, and then how the other four compare.

How Humfrid does this for you

Humfrid builds you a new website and then makes every change you text. You text your business name and answer a few quick questions. Your website is live within a day, and nothing goes live without your OK. Already have a web address? You can keep it: Humfrid texts you three records to add where it’s managed. Starting fresh? Your own .com is included, in your name.

After that, changes are unlimited and by text:

• “Closed December 24 to 26, back on the 27th.”
• “Raise the price of a deep clean to match the new list. Photo attached.”
• “Take the summer menu off and put the fall one up.”

Photos and voice notes work. There’s no app, no computer, no login and no password to lose. Every plan also comes with online booking you manage by text, online payments and deposits, a blog made from the photos you text, a weekly report with your visitors and bookings, and a site set up to be found on Google, Google Maps, ChatGPT and other AI answers.

You can see your website free for 14 days and pay only when you want it live on your own .com. There’s no contract and no setup fee. If you leave, you text to cancel, with no fee. Your address stays yours, and Humfrid emails you how to take it over. Your site goes offline when your plan ends, and its files are kept for 90 days and sent to you at no charge. Humfrid’s plans are below.

Can I update my website myself?

You can, if you have the login and the evenings. Doing it yourself means finding the password, learning where things live in the editor, fixing the layout when a photo throws it off, and checking it on your phone. The first change takes longest. By the next one, months later, you’ve forgotten where everything was.

Your own hours cost you, too. Every hour in an editor is an hour not spent on paying work. Two hours a month comes to 24 hours a year, three full working days spent on a website instead of your business. Most owners put changes off instead, and the site drifts out of date. With Humfrid, there’s no editor to come back to: you text the change.

Will the person who built my website update it?

Sometimes, on their schedule. Web developers create and maintain websites, but the person who built yours may have moved on to other clients, changed jobs or stopped answering. Each change becomes an email, a wait and an invoice.

Check one thing either way: whose name is on your web address. ICANN, which oversees domain names, warns that a developer you hired may have registered the domain name using their own contact details. If that’s the case, the person you’re waiting on also holds your address. Our post on whether you own your website walks through it.

Should I hire a freelancer to update my website?

A freelancer is one person you pay by the job or the hour. The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts 18% of web developers as self-employed. You still wait for a reply, you still send logins to someone new, and every change is billed. Web developers’ median pay is nearly twice the median wage for all U.S. workers (May 2025), and a freelancer’s rate also has to cover their own costs.

What about an agency on a monthly retainer?

A retainer is a monthly agreement for a set amount of work. It means a sales call, a contract and a ticket or an email for each change, handled when the team gets to it. Ask what the term is and how to end it before you sign, and if the agency registered your domain, leaving means getting your address back first.

How do the options compare?

	Each small change	Waiting	Login and password	Your web address	Leaving
Yourself in an editor	Your evening	Until you find a free evening	Yours to keep track of	Wherever you registered it	Moving the site is your job
Whoever built it	An email and a bill	Until they reply	Often theirs	Check: it may be in their name	Depends on what you agreed
A freelancer	Billed by the job or hour	Until they’re free	Shared with them	Check whose name it’s in	Find the next person
An agency on retainer	A ticket, within the retainer	Until the team gets to it	Theirs or shared	Check whose name it’s in	Whatever the contract says
Humfrid	One text	No ticket, no appointment	None	Your .com, in your name	Cancel by text, no fee

What if I don’t have the login or don’t know who built my site?

Start with your web address, because whoever holds it holds the keys.

1. Look it up. Type your address into ICANN’s lookup tool. ICANN says you can always determine the current registrar of your domain name this way. Write down the registrar’s name.
2. Check whose name is on it. A domain name registrant is an individual or entity who registers a domain name. ICANN’s advice is to check with your registrar to see who the Registrant of record is. Personal details may show as redacted.
3. Try to log in at the registrar. Use its password reset with your business email. If the reset goes to someone else’s inbox, you’ve found who holds your address.
4. Ask for it in writing. Ask the registrant to change the record to your name and email. ICANN says it is your right to transfer your domain name registrations between registrars, and once it’s in your name, your registrar must provide you with the AuthInfo code within five (5) calendar days of your request. That’s the code you need to move it.
5. Look for the builder. Old invoices, emails and the bottom of your site’s pages may name who built it.

Once the address is yours, you’re free to choose who keeps the site current, and Humfrid can build your new site at that same address.

Will Humfrid text me all the time?

No. You hear about your next step, a post idea or your weekly report, or when something happens on your website. If you don’t answer, it stops, and there are no sales texts. You text when something changes, and the rest of the time your website just stays right.

Text Humfrid your business name, and you’ll see your website within a day.