What happens if the agency disappears? What do I actually own?
This is the question to ask before signing, not after. Get it in writing: which accounts sit in your name, what you can export, and what keeps running if the agency stops answering the phone.
The answer varies wildly between providers, which is exactly why it needs to be asked out loud and in writing before any money moves. Prefer month to month arrangements over long contracts until an agency has earned better, and prefer setups built on accounts you control rather than accounts held under theirs.
If the answers to those questions are vague, that tells you something about the agency too, well before anything goes wrong. A named list of every account, every login and every file, in your name, on the day you would go, is not an unreasonable thing to ask for.
Ask the last provider you tried, if you have one, the same three questions in reverse: did you get login access, did you see reports, could you tell what you were paying for. A good operator can answer all three before you finish asking.
Most failed AI attempts share one cause worth naming plainly: somebody built one piece without understanding how the whole business connects, so the tool sat there doing nothing useful. Before paying much, ask to see it working on your actual business, not a demo built for someone else's.
Keep a simple written record of every account opened for your business and who holds the login, updated as you go rather than reconstructed later from memory. It takes minutes to maintain and could save weeks if a provider relationship ever ends badly.
The best time to ask every one of these questions is before you sign, while you still have the leverage of not yet being a paying customer. It gets noticeably harder to ask once the relationship, and the monthly invoice, is already running.
A Three Fixes report includes exactly this: the questions worth asking any agency before you sign, with what a fair answer sounds like for a business your size.
The way in
Not sure where to start with AI in your business?
This page answers one question. Give our AI 15 minutes and get a starting plan written from your week: where AI could help, the first steps you can take this week, what agencies will try and sell you, what they usually charge, and the questions to keep them honest.
Show me where to startA$99, once. An AI writes it from your answers. We don't sell anything else.
Want to look around first? Read a full example report, or see every question we answer.