Too many of our first meetings start the same way. The owner slides a laptop across and says, "Our last designer stopped answering, and the domain is registered in his name." The site still works. Nobody can log in to change it.
Knowing how to choose a web design company comes down to a few hard questions asked before any money moves. Pick a company that registers the domain and hosting in your name, puts scope and extra costs in writing, has more than one person who can work on your site, and can explain how they build and support it. Then verify their business registration, address and reviews yourself.
The rest of this page is the long version: the questions we'd want a client to put to us, and what honest and evasive answers sound like.
11 questions to ask a web designer before you pay a deposit
Send these by email. Written answers are easier to compare, and how quickly and plainly a company replies is a fair preview of their support.
1. Whose name will the domain be registered in?
A good answer sounds like: "Yours. If you already have it, we'll just point it. If we register it, it goes in your company name and we'll send you the WHOIS lookup to check."
A red flag sounds like: "Don't worry about that, we handle all the technical stuff." We've written a whole piece on who actually owns your website. This question causes more grief than any other.
2. If we part ways, what do I walk away with?
A good answer: the site files, a database export, admin logins, and your Google and Meta ad accounts, which should have been in your name from day one.
A red flag: "The design is our intellectual property," or a platform that can't be exported.
3. Can I see three live sites you built in the last 18 months?
Live, not screenshots. Open them on your phone, on mobile data, and fill in a contact form.
A good answer: links, right away, and a name you can call.
A red flag: a Behance page of mock-ups, or "our clients prefer confidentiality" for every single project.
4. Who will actually work on my site, and what happens when they're away?
A talented freelancer can build you a lovely site. The problem shows up over the holidays, or when they take a full-time job. If your site brings in leads daily, one person is a single point of failure.
A good answer: "A designer and a developer build it, a projects manager runs the timeline, and support is a team."
A red flag: "It's me, but I'm always available." Nobody is always available.
5. Who manages the server, and where is it?
Plenty of small agencies resell shared hosting and call the host when something breaks. Fine, until it's 9pm and your checkout is down.
A good answer: "Our own team runs the servers. Here's our uptime record and how we handle backups."
A red flag: they don't know which company hosts your site, or they go quiet when you ask about backups.
6. What's in the written scope, and what costs extra?
Page count, revision rounds, who writes the copy, yearly plugin licenses, hosting and domain. All in writing, with any sales tax shown separately.
A good answer: published prices and a list of exclusions you didn't have to ask for.
A red flag: a single number in a text message.
7. What exactly is included for SEO at launch?
A good answer names things: Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools in your name, 301 redirects from old URLs, schema markup, form and call tracking.
A red flag: "We guarantee page one." Google's own guidance says plainly that no one can guarantee a number one ranking.
8. What happens if something breaks six months after launch, and how fast do you reply?
A good answer: "If it breaks because of our code or our build, we fix it for free. Anything else, we quote first. We reply within one business day."
A red flag: an hourly support rate and nothing about who pays for their own mistakes.
9. Who do I pay, and can I verify you?
A good answer: a registered business, a proper invoice in the company's name, a physical address, and a deposit that isn't 100%.
A red flag: payment into a personal account, or an address that turns out to be a PO box.
10. For an online store: how will you connect and test payments?
Payment gateways fail quietly. On one store we took over, customers were paying successfully, but orders never marked as paid because the payment notification check was failing silently. The money arrived. The system didn't know.
A good answer: "We run a real low-value transaction on the live gateway, check the order status updates, then refund it."
A red flag: "The plugin handles all that."
11. How do you use AI, and who checks what it writes?
Almost nobody asks this yet, so it gets its own section.
The question nobody asks yet: how does the agency use AI?
Assume any agency you speak to uses AI tools, mentioned or not. We do, daily, for drafting code, debugging, testing and research. The real question is whether an experienced person reads and understands what the tool produced before it goes near your customers' data.
Veracode's Spring 2026 update to its GenAI code security research tested more than 150 AI models on coding tasks and found that 45% of the generated code contained known security flaws when the model wasn't specifically told to write secure code. On cross-site scripting, a common attack through web forms, only 15% of samples were secure. Working code and safe code are different things.
So ask two follow-ups:
- "Who reviews AI-generated code before it goes live, and what do they check for?"
- "If I point at any feature on my site, can your developer explain how it works?"
A good answer is specific: a named developer reviews everything, with extra care on logins, payments and customer data. A red flag is pride in speed alone ("we built this in an afternoon") or a shrug when you ask what a piece of code does. We've unpacked the difference in AI-assisted development versus vibe coding.
Here's why we're fussy. On one e-commerce site we audited, leftover debug scripts in the web root were showing the live database password to anyone who guessed the URL. The file meant to keep secrets out of version control had been named gitignore instead of .gitignore. One missing dot, so it was silently ignored. A person reading the folder caught it. No tool did.
Web designer red flags you can check before the first meeting
None of these need technical knowledge. Half an hour and a browser will do.
- No live portfolio. No clickable client sites usually means few clients.
- No verifiable business details. Look the company up in the official business registry where it says it's registered. For a US company, that's the business entity search run by its state's Secretary of State. Then put their street address into Google Maps.
- Your domain is already registered to them. A WHOIS lookup shows you.
- No written scope, or a quote that fits on one line.
- A one-person operation with no named backup.
- Post-launch support described as "we'll take care of you."
- A price that's too good. A "custom" site for the price of a monthly phone bill is a template with your logo on it, or it's paid for through a monthly fee you can't leave.
One flag isn't fatal. Three together is a pattern.
How to compare web design quotes like-for-like
The cheapest quote often just leaves out what the others included. Line them up against the same list before comparing totals.
| Check this | Why it changes the real price |
|---|---|
| Number of pages and templates | "Up to 5 pages" and "up to 14 pages" aren't the same project. |
| Who writes the copy | Writing from scratch is often extra, and it's the part that most often delays launch. |
| Hosting and domain | Included for a year, or billed monthly from day one? |
| Paid plugins and licenses | Some renew every year. Ask for the list. |
| SEO setup | Search Console, redirects and tracking, or just "SEO friendly"? |
| Revision rounds | Two defined rounds is normal. "Unlimited" usually means undefined. |
| Ownership | Domain, files and ad accounts in your name, in writing. |
| Sales tax | Does it apply, and is it in the figure? The rules vary by state. |
We publish ours. See our packages and USD pricing, with what each one includes listed next to the price. You may find cheaper. The point is that you can compare.
How to check a web design agency's reviews properly
A star rating alone tells you very little. Start with Google reviews and sort by newest. BrightLocal's Local Consumer Review Survey 2026 found that 74% of consumers look for reviews from the last three months. The logic applies to agencies too: glowing reviews from 2021 and nothing since means something changed.
Then read the replies, especially to the bad reviews. A calm, specific reply is worth more than five extra stars. A defensive one shows you how your own disagreement would go.
Look for a warning banner on the profile too. Google says it may block new reviews and show a notice that fake reviews were removed on profiles caught breaking its fake engagement policy.
Check a second, independent review platform too, less for the score than for how complaints were handled. We sit at 4.9 stars on Google after more than 2,000 websites, and we learn most from the few reviews that aren't five stars.
Does it matter where the web design company is based?
Less than it used to. Most projects, ours included, run on email and video calls, and we've built websites for businesses in 8 countries. Meeting face to face at the start is a bonus, not a requirement.
What does matter is whether the company can answer four practical questions, wherever its desks are.
First, privacy. If your site collects inquiries or customer details, the company hosting and maintaining it handles that information for you. US privacy laws such as the CCPA/CPRA expect the businesses they cover to have a written contract with any service provider that handles personal information. Ask whether security measures and breach notification are written into the agreement. A good agency should raise this unprompted.
Second, payments. Stripe, PayPal, Square and Authorize.net each have their own quirks with notifications and test modes. Someone who has set up your processor before finds the problems before your customers do.
Third, hosting. Ask where the server is and how the site performs for visitors where your customers are. Fourth, support hours: when something breaks at 10am on a Tuesday your time, find out who is at a desk and how fast they reply.
After more than ten years of this, the pattern is simple. The websites that cause real trouble were rarely built badly on purpose. They were built by someone who couldn't answer these questions and was never asked them. Ask. Put the answers side by side. The right company usually becomes obvious.
If you've got two or three quotes on your desk and want an honest second opinion on what's missing from them, send them to us. We'll tell you what we'd question, even if one of the others turns out to be a good deal.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a professional website cost?
Prices vary widely between agencies, which is why we publish ours: see our packages and USD pricing. Online stores cost more than brochure sites. Compare quotes line by line, because the differences hide in what's excluded.
Should I hire a freelancer or a web design agency?
A freelancer can be a good fit for a simple brochure site where a week of downtime wouldn't hurt. If your site brings in leads or sales every day, an agency with several people who can work on it is safer.
Who should own the domain name for my business website?
Your business should. The domain should be registered in your company's name with your email as the contact, and you should have your own login to the registrar or hosting account. You can check the current registrant with a WHOIS lookup.
What questions should I ask a web designer before hiring them?
Ask whose name the domain goes in, what you get if you part ways, who works on the site and who covers when they're away, what's in the written scope, how they test payments, and how they use AI and who reviews the code.
How long does it take to build a business website?
For a typical business site of 8 to 25 pages, three to six weeks is realistic once the agency has all your content. Most delays come from waiting on copy, photos and approvals, so ask what the agency needs from you and by when.