GoDaddy Delegate Access: How to Give Your Web Designer Access Without Your Password
Every project I start includes some version of the same email: can you get me access to your domain? And about half the time, the reply has a username and password typed straight into it.
I get why. It's the fastest thing to do, and nobody ever showed you another option. But GoDaddy built one, it's free, and it takes about two minutes. It's called Delegate Access, and once you've used it you won't go back to sending logins.
Why you shouldn't just send the password
Email and text messages aren't a vault. That message lives in your sent folder, in their inbox, on both of your phones, and in whatever backup either of you runs. It's still there in three years when neither of you remembers the project.
Your GoDaddy login is also usually bigger than the one thing you're trying to share. For a lot of small businesses, that single account holds the domain, the business email, sometimes the hosting, and a credit card on file. Handing over the password hands over all of it, whether you meant to or not.
Then there's the practical annoyance. If you have two-factor authentication turned on, and you should, sharing a password means texting verification codes back and forth every time your designer needs to log in. Delegate Access skips that problem completely, because they're signing in as themselves.
And when the work is done, a shared password means changing it. Which means updating it everywhere else you used it, because it's on file in four other places you've forgotten about.
What Delegate Access actually does
Your designer signs in to their own GoDaddy account, then switches into yours. Three things follow from that.
They never learn your password. Nothing to change later, nothing sitting in an inbox.
You choose how much they can touch. There are four levels, and the differences matter more than you'd expect.
You can cut it off in about ten seconds. One screen, one click, done.
The screen has two halves. On the left, accounts other people have given you access to. On the right, people you've given access to yours. Everything below happens on the right.
Which permission level to pick
This is the part worth slowing down for. GoDaddy lists the levels most permissive first, so the top option is the one you're least likely to want.
Products, Domains, & Purchase. They can manage everything in the account and buy new products using the credit cards saved on your profile. GoDaddy is clear that they can't view or change the card itself, which is worth something, but they can still spend on it.
Products & Domains. Manage products and domains, no purchasing.
Domains Only. Manage specific domains that you pick one by one. Nothing else in the account.
Account Connection Only. Keeps the two accounts linked with no access to anything at all. This one doesn't show up on the invitation form, only afterward, and it's more useful than it sounds. More on that below.
Give a web designer Domains Only. It covers what a normal website project actually needs: DNS records, nameservers, pointing your domain at a new site. And because you choose the individual domains, a designer working on one of your three domains gets access to that one.
The reason to skip Products & Domains isn't paranoia, it's that "products" in a GoDaddy account is a bigger category than most owners realize. If your business email or your hosting sits in that same account, Products & Domains covers those too. Domains Only doesn't.
Skip the purchase level entirely. If something genuinely needs to be bought, buy it yourself while your designer tells you which button to press. A card on file plus purchase permission is how people end up with a charge they didn't know they'd approved.
One honest exception: if your designer is managing your GoDaddy email or hosting as part of the job, Products & Domains is the right answer and Domains Only will just block them. Grant what the work requires, then drop it back down when the work is done.
How to invite a delegate
- Sign in to your GoDaddy account.
- Open the Account Settings menu.
- Choose Delegate Access.
- On the right, under "People who can access my account," click Invite to Access.
- Enter your designer's name and email address, pick Domains Only, and click Invite.
They'll get an email and accept from there. One thing that trips people up: accepting requires a GoDaddy account of their own. Anyone who builds websites for a living will already have one, so this is usually a non-issue, but it's why the invitation sometimes appears to go nowhere for a few minutes.
GoDaddy also supports the reverse, where your designer sends you the request and your part is approving an email you're expecting. When a client asks me for the shortest possible path, that's the one I use.
How to change or remove access
Click the person's name under "People who can access my account" and you get their access level with a Save button, plus a Delete link underneath.
Delete removes them completely. It takes effect right away, and you don't have to change your password to make it stick.
Account Connection Only is the option worth knowing about. It keeps the two accounts linked while giving access to nothing, so turning access back on next time is one radio button instead of a fresh invitation and another round of email. For a designer you work with once or twice a year, that's the setting I'd park them at between projects.
Either way, do something at the end of every project, including with people you like. It isn't an accusation. It's the same reason you get a key back from a contractor after the remodel. You should be able to say who has access to your domain at any given moment without digging through old email to reconstruct it.
I ask clients to move me to Account Connection Only when a one-time build wraps up. If we're working together on an ongoing plan, I stay where I am, because I'm the one keeping the site current.
What a delegate can't do
Worth being clear about, because this is the part that makes people nervous:
- They never see your password, and they never need a two-factor code from you.
- At Domains Only, they can't touch anything in the account except the domains you selected.
- Even at the purchase level, GoDaddy blocks them from viewing or modifying your saved payment information.
- Delegate Access doesn't transfer ownership. You're still the registrant, the domain is still in your account, and your name is still on it.
- Removing them removes their access completely. There's no leftover key.
If your domain isn't at GoDaddy
Namecheap and Network Solutions both have this same feature, and they both call it Delegate Access, so the steps above will feel familiar. Squarespace, Cloudflare, and most of the smaller registrars handle it differently, and a few don't offer it at all.
If you're not sure which company your domain is actually registered with, that's normal. A lot of owners bought a domain nine years ago through whoever built their first website and have never logged in since.
The short version
Sending your GoDaddy password to a designer is the kind of thing that seems harmless right up until it isn't. The alternative is two minutes of clicking, gives them exactly what they need and nothing else, keeps your name on your domain, and ends the moment you want it to.
If you're working with me, this is part of how we start, and I'll walk you through it on a call if you'd rather not do it alone. If you're working with someone else, send them this page. Any designer worth hiring will be relieved you asked.
Verified against GoDaddy's account settings on August 6, 2026. GoDaddy moves this screen around every so often. If your menu doesn't match, search GoDaddy's help center for "delegate access" and you'll land in the right place.