How to check a web design company before you sign anything

1. Ask which sites in the portfolio they actually built, and which they only redesigned.
2. Open two of those sites on your own phone and use them as a customer would.
3. Ask who writes the code, in-house or subcontracted, and where that person sits.
4. Get in writing who owns the code, the content and the admin access after launch.
5. Check whether the quote is a fixed price for a defined scope, a day rate, or open-ended.
6. Ask what happens to the invoice and the date when the project slips, and who tells you.
7. Ask what is not included, and read that list twice.
8. Ask how the site will be measured after launch, and what the report contains.
9. Ask to speak to a client whose project resembles yours.

Do not judge the screenshots. Open the live sites on a phone and do what a customer would: find a price, find a phone number, send an enquiry, complete a purchase.

Then ask which part of each project was theirs. Zelviro, in our own portfolio, is a store with more than thirteen thousand products and marketplace syncing behind it. Consulting Staff was a move off WordPress onto a platform with its own CMS. CJM Bathrooms is an Irish renovation business whose existing reviews had to survive the move. Three different jobs, and a company good at one is not automatically good at the next.

Ask for a project with the same mechanics as yours. A restaurant site and a booking system are not the same brief.

Two separate questions, and both get vague answers.

Who writes it: an in-house team, a freelancer, or a subcontractor the company will not name. Any of those can work, but you should know before you sign rather than after something breaks.

Who owns it: the code, the content, the domain, the hosting account and the admin logins should be yours the moment the project is paid. If moving to another supplier means rebuilding from nothing, the price on the quote is not the real price. Ask for the ownership clause in writing before sign-off.

One distinction is worth a sentence: design and development are different jobs, and how they are split changes what you get. We have written that comparison out separately in our guide to bespoke web design versus WordPress.

A fixed price for a defined scope tells you the figure before work starts. A day rate tells you nothing about the total: two suppliers on the same rate can spend thirty days or ninety on the same site.

An open-ended quote is the one to be careful with. If the document lists deliverables without a scope or a date, the first invoice is a negotiation.

Check the last line of the quote too. Nothing is added to our figure.

Every project slips at some point. What matters is who tells you and when.

Ask three things: what the delivery date on the quote assumes from you, what happens to the date if your content arrives late, and whether you are told the week it slips or the week before launch.

Content is the usual cause. If copy, photos and approvals sit with one busy person on your side, plan for that rather than discovering it in week six.

Graphic design and web design overlap, but they answer to different things. A logo, a colour system and a typeface are brand work. A website has to carry that and also load quickly, work under a thumb, and get a stranger to an enquiry form.

If your brand already exists, ask how the company will apply it rather than replace it. MTS GlobalSun is an example from our own work where the identity, the site and the search work were handled together, which is the cheaper order when both are being built at once.

If a supplier only shows you visuals, ask what the site is meant to achieve and how they will know whether it did.

The same nine checks apply. Ask what is being changed, ask to see the reporting, and ask whether the data comes from your own Search Console or a dashboard only they can open.

One answer disqualifies a supplier immediately: a promise of a specific position in Google. Nobody controls that. A written scope, a monthly report and a measurable target with a date are what an honest answer looks like. We have set the SEO version of this out in our guide to choosing a web design agency.

Most lists you find for this search are paid placements, an agency's own article with itself at the top, or a directory charging for the entry. None of those tests whether the company can deliver your project.

That is why this page carries no ranking. A shortlist built from the checks above, with quotes you can compare, beats any published order of names.

Send the same brief to everyone: what the business does, what the site has to achieve, the pages you think you need, the features that are not optional, who supplies copy and photography, your deadline, and your budget range.

Naming a budget does not get you overcharged. It stops you receiving three quotes answering three different questions.

If the supplier is outside the UK, ask about working hours, the language calls are held in, and how a contract works across borders. Our own answers sit on the page about working with a European web design agency.

Who will be working on this, and will I speak to them or to an account manager?

What is not included in this price?

What do you need from me, and by when, for the date to hold?

What happens if I want to leave after launch?

Which project in your portfolio is closest to mine, and can I ring that client?

To run these questions past us, email [email protected] or call +40 770 129 502. We answer in writing, including where the answer is no.