Townsquare Interactive is headquartered in Charlotte and, by its own numbers, serves tens of thousands of small businesses. Its BBB customer reviews describe the same experience over and over: cancel, and you get your text and photos — not the website. If you're reading this, you probably already know. This page is the plain-English version of what to do about it, from someone who builds sites you own.
None of this is my opinion of the company; it's what its customers have written publicly, mainly on the Better Business Bureau profile for Townsquare Interactive's Charlotte office. The patterns that come up most:
The model isn't illegal and plenty of customers are fine with it. The problem is that most people don't find out which kind of customer they are until the day they try to leave. If your agreement says content-only, this page is about making the leaving cheap.
Do these in order, and do them before you send the cancellation. Every one is reversible while you're still a customer and painful afterward.
If any of those turns up a problem you can't solve by asking nicely, the ownership article walks through the recovery paths for each.
I'm one person in Charlotte who builds websites for local businesses. The difference isn't a better sales pitch; it's the terms, and they're published:
Three-year math, since nobody else will do it for you: a simple site from me is $1,500 + 36 × $100 = $5,100, and you own it. A subscription site at the all-in figures reviewers report is $16,000–32,000, and at the end you own a folder of text. The full comparison with the market numbers is on the blog.
That's the most common situation, and it's exactly what the $450 Website & Search Audit is for. I inventory what you own and what you don't — domain, site, Google profile, analytics — and give you a written, prioritized list of how to get each one back and what the rebuild would involve. If you hire me for the build, the $450 comes off the bill. If the audit says "you're fine, here's the one login you're missing," that's a perfectly good $450 outcome too.
Read your agreement — that's the only authoritative answer. What reviewers on Townsquare's BBB profile report, repeatedly, is that they received their content (text and images) on cancellation but not the website itself. If that's what your agreement says too, plan on rebuilding, and make sure you get your content export before your access ends.
Check, don't assume. Look the domain up on a WHOIS service or log into the registrar where you think it lives. If it's registered in your name in an account you can log into, you're fine. If it's in someone else's account, ask in writing for it to be transferred to a registrar account in your name before you cancel anything — the domain is the single most important thing to secure.
Open your Google Business Profile and check who holds the Owner role. If it's you, nothing changes when you leave any vendor. If a provider is the sole Owner, request an ownership transfer in writing now; Google also has an ownership-request process if the current owner doesn't respond. Your reviews live on the profile, so the profile is what you're protecting.
In writing, with a date, keeping a copy. Before you send it: export your content, confirm you control the domain, confirm you own your Google profile, and download anything else you'll want (analytics, email lists). Reviewers describe cancellation as harder than it should be, so the paper trail matters. Don't let the old site go dark before the new one is live.
From me, $1,500 for a simple site or $3,500 with booking and lead capture, plus $100 or $175 a month to keep it running — published, itemized, no setup fee. Over three years that's $5,100 or $9,800, and you own the site the whole time. Compare that to whatever you've paid so far, and what you'll own at the end of it.
Usually not the files themselves, but the look is yours to describe and I can build something in the same spirit — or better, since a new build gets structured for Google and AI search from day one. Your logo, photos, and text come with you; that's what the content export is for.
Not if the switch is done properly: same domain, every old page redirected to its new equivalent, Google Business Profile untouched. Rankings drop when a site moves domains or lets old URLs die. If your current site is on a domain you don't control, that's the harder case — and the reason to secure the domain before anything else.
No. It's a web designer explaining how ownership works and what other customers have publicly reported. Your agreement is the document that governs your situation; if there's real money at stake, a lawyer's hour is cheap.
The $450 audit inventories your domain, site, and Google profile and tells you the shortest path out. Or skip it and start the build — the terms are the same either way.
Lucas