9 Questions to Ask Before You Hire Anyone to Build Your Website

Nine questions, and the answers tell you more than any portfolio will. Ask them of every studio you are considering, including us. A portfolio shows the best work someone has ever done; these questions show how they will behave when your project is halfway built and something goes wrong.

Each one below has a good answer and a bad answer. The bad answers are not always dishonest — sometimes they just mean the studio works differently than suits you. Either way, you want to know before signing.

1. Who owns the code, the domain and the accounts?

Good answer: You do, all of it, without qualification. The code goes to a repository in your name, the domain is registered to you, and every account — hosting, analytics, ads — is yours with the studio added as a manager.

Bad answer: Anything with a "well." Domains registered in an agency's name are the most common way businesses get trapped, because leaving means negotiating for your own address.

Ask it first. If the answer is wrong, nothing else matters.

2. Is this a fixed price or an estimate?

Good answer: Fixed, agreed before work starts, in a currency that holds its value.

Bad answer: An estimate with no ceiling. That structure puts every estimating mistake on you — including time spent solving problems the studio created — and removes any incentive to work efficiently.

If it is an estimate, the follow-up is: what happens when it is exceeded, and who pays? The full comparison is here.

3. Who is actually doing the work?

Good answer: Either "the people on this call" or a clear, named explanation of who builds and how they get briefed.

Bad answer: Vagueness, or discovering after signing that the person who understood your business has moved to the next sale.

Neither model is wrong. Larger studios hand off successfully all the time. But a hand-off is where understanding gets lost, and you should know whether there is one.

4. What happens if I want to leave?

Good answer: You take everything and nothing stops working.

Bad answer: Anything involving a migration fee, a proprietary system, or a platform only they can maintain.

Ask it plainly, early, while you are still a prospect and they are still being accommodating. A surprising amount of agency work is built so that leaving means starting over — and that is a cost you pay later without ever seeing it quoted.

5. What is the launch date, and what happens if it moves?

Good answer: A specific date, with the conditions it depends on stated — usually that content and feedback come back within agreed windows.

Bad answer: No date, or a date with no conditions attached. The second is worse, because it will slip and nobody will have agreed what that means.

A studio that will not commit to a date usually cannot predict its own capacity, which means your project is competing with others you cannot see.

6. Is copywriting included?

Good answer: A clear yes for a named number of pages, or a clear no with a price if you want it.

Bad answer: Silence. Unless writing is explicitly named, the assumption is that you are supplying it — and that assumption surfaces in week four when the design is done and there is nothing to put in it.

Content is the most common reason launches slip, and it slips on the client's side far more often than the studio's. More on the costs that don't appear in quotes.

7. How do changes work after launch?

Good answer: A stated turnaround and a stated price — included in a care plan, or billed at a known rate.

Bad answer: "Just email us." That is fine until you need something changed the day before a campaign and discover there is a queue and a rate nobody mentioned.

Ask what a small text edit costs and how fast it happens. The answer tells you what the relationship looks like after the invoice is paid.

8. What would you talk me out of?

This one has no scripted answer, which is why it is useful.

Good answer: Something specific. A studio that has been doing this a while has opinions about what businesses waste money on, and will tell you if you ask.

Bad answer: "Nothing, we can build whatever you need." That is a sales response. Everyone should be able to name something they think is usually a bad idea.

9. Can you guarantee I'll rank on Google?

Good answer: No, with reasons — rankings depend on competitors, domain age, links and Google's own decisions, none of which any agency controls. What can be guaranteed is the work.

Bad answer: Yes.

This is the clearest single filter in the list. Anyone promising a position is either guessing or promising a phrase nobody searches, and charging you for it either way.

How should you weigh the answers?

Do not score them. Look for the pattern.

A studio that answers all nine plainly, including the uncomfortable ones, has thought about the relationship past the invoice. A studio that hedges on ownership and leaving has thought about it too, and reached a different conclusion.

The other thing worth doing: ask for a site they built two years ago rather than two months ago. Run it through PageSpeed Insights. Check whether it is still maintained. Anyone can ship something good; the question is whether it stays good once the invoice is paid.

Where to go next

What a custom website actually costs covers what drives the number, and our own answers to most of these questions are published rather than saved for a call — including ownership, pricing, who does the work and what happens if you leave.

What we actually do is three things, and how a website build works covers scope, price and timeline before anyone asks you for a decision.

If you want to try the nine on us, the call is free and we would rather you asked.