/ Project Handbook

Transferring Plan Ownership to a Partner

Here is the process for the Special Projects Team to develop a site (for sites hosted on WordPress.com) and after launch, transfer the ongoing plan billings to the partner:

  • The partner should create their own WordPress.com account (or have an existing one) that is a user on the site.
  • During development, both the site and plan should be owned by the user a8cteam51.
  • The partner’s account should have an active/valid billing instrument (eg: credit card) associated with it.
  • After the site launch, we should transfer plan ownership from a8cteam51 to the partner’s WordPress.com user.
    • This can become somewhat complicated if an Automattic for Agencies (A4A) license is associated with the site. If that is the case, the A4A license needs to be removed and a traditional WordPress.com plan needs to be associated.

Note: Ensure that ‘Accept a gift subscription’ is disabled before reducing the expiration date and transferring the hosting plan to the partner. If this step is not taken, a banner will display on the front end prompting visitors to pay for (‘gift’) the hosting. You can find that setting by going to WordPress.com hosting settings page (e.g., https://wordpress.com/sites/example.com/settings).

Determining if Your Site is an A4A Site

If you’ve recently created the site using the team CLI, the site could likely be an A4A site. You can tell if it’s an A4A site by looking for the A4A flag on the Store Admin (the expiration date will likely also be 100 years in the future):

███████████████

If the Site is Not an A4A site

If a site is not an A4A site, the process for transferring the plan is simple:

  1. Ensure the partner is added to the site as an admin. 
  2. Log into Store Admin for a8cteam51 user.
  3. Search for the site you’re looking to transfer. 
  4. Click on the drop-down box under “Transfer”.
  5. Select the partner’s WordPress.com account.
  6. Click “Move”.

The plan will move over to the partner’s account, and you’re done! 

If the Site is an A4A Site

The process for transferring the plan to the user is a bit more complicated. You’ll still need to have the partner added as an admin on the site, but clicking “Move” won’t have any affect in the Store Admin. 

  1. Add the partner to the site as an admin.
  2. Remove the A4A business plan from the site manually using ███████████████.
    • Note: to find the Agency ID, you’ll click on MC Agency in ███████████████.
    • The Agency ID for our team is ███████████████.
  3. Log into Store Admin for a8cteam51 user.
  4. Search for the site you’re looking to transfer. 
  5. Add a Business plan to the site manually from the SA.
  6. Click on the drop-down box under “Transfer”
  7. Select the partner’s WordPress.com account.
  8. Click “Move”.

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