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What questions should I ask a web design agency before signing a contract?
Most bad website projects were predictable from the first meeting. These are the questions that would have predicted them — and the answers worth walking away from.
Short answer
Ask five things before signing: who owns the site and the domain, what happens after launch, who actually does the work, what is explicitly not included, and how a site with existing rankings will be migrated. Any agency that cannot answer those plainly and in writing is telling you something useful.
On this page
01What should I look for when hiring a web design agency?
Not a portfolio. Everyone's portfolio is their best six projects. Look instead for evidence of the things that determine whether your project goes well.
- Work in your situation, not your industry. A studio that has migrated a ranking site is more relevant than one that has built a prettier clinic site.
- Clients who stayed. Retention is the single most informative number an agency can give you.
- Willingness to say no. An agency that agrees to everything in the first meeting has not understood the project yet.
- Named reviews. Attributed to a real person at a real company, ideally on a platform they do not control.
- Someone who asks about your business before your website. If the first meeting is about page count rather than how you get customers, that tells you what the project will be about.
02The five questions that actually matter
- Who owns the website, the content, and the domain when we are done?
- The only acceptable answer is that you do, in writing. Some agencies retain the domain or build on a proprietary platform you cannot leave. This is the question most worth asking first, and the one most often skipped.
- What happens after launch, and what does the first year cost?
- A quote that ends at launch is half a quote. Ask about hosting, updates, security, backups, support hours and response times. Ask what a small text edit costs and how long it takes.
- Who is doing the work?
- Whether it is the person in the room, an internal team, or a subcontractor you will never meet. Any of those can be fine; not knowing which is not.
- What is explicitly not included?
- Ask for it in writing. Copywriting, photography, migration, training, and post-launch edits are the five that most often turn out to be extra.
- My site currently ranks. How will you protect that?
- You want to hear about a URL export, a redirect map, and 301 redirects before launch. "We will be careful" is not an answer. This one question predicts more redesign disasters than the other four combined.
03Answers that should end the conversation
- "We guarantee first place on Google." Nobody can. Google says so explicitly. An agency that promises this is either uninformed or dishonest.
- "You do not need to worry about the technical side." You are about to spend real money on an asset you will own. Vagueness here is a choice.
- "We will keep the domain in our account for convenience." No.
- "Accessibility is not really required for a business like yours." Incorrect — the ADA.gov guidance addresses businesses open to the public directly.
- An estimate with no scope attached. A number without a line-item list is a number that will change.
- Pressure to sign in the meeting. A discount that expires today is a sales tactic, not a price.
04What should I bring to the first meeting?
- Your current site, and what specifically frustrates you about it
- Two or three competitor sites, and what you envy about each
- The single action you most want a visitor to take
- Your realistic budget range — withholding it wastes both parties' time and produces a proposal aimed at the wrong project
- Any hard deadline, and what drives it
- Whoever else has to approve the final decision
A good agency will use all six to tell you what to skip, not just what to buy.
Common questions
Should I get multiple quotes?
Yes, and compare line items rather than totals. Three quotes for "a website" are three quotes for three different projects unless you have made the scope identical.
Is a cheaper quote a red flag?
Not by itself. It is usually a smaller scope. The question is which parts are missing, and whether you will need them anyway in six months.
What should be in the contract?
Deliverables, timeline, payment schedule, revision rounds, ownership of the work and domain, what happens if either party walks away, and what post-launch support costs.
How do I check an agency is real?
Look for a physical address, a phone number a human answers, named reviews on a platform they do not control, and a client you can actually contact.