How to choose a web design company: the checks to make before you sign

How do I choose a web design company?

You have three quotes for a new website, and they differ on price, on the pages included and on who writes the words. Choosing well comes down to checking every company the same way, in this order:

1. Write down what the site has to do: the enquiries it should bring in, the pages you expect, what the old site does that must keep working, and what you can write or photograph yourself.
2. Shortlist three companies: enough to compare, few enough to check properly.
3. Look at their live work: sites they built that are online now, ideally in a field near yours.
4. Call their past clients: two for each company, picked by you from the portfolio where you can.
5. Send everyone the same questions: in writing, so the answers line up side by side.
6. Read the contract before you compare prices: scope, rounds of changes, what you will own, what they run for you, and what happens after launch or if you leave.

Everything else depends on the written brief in step 1. Without it, each company quotes for a different site, and the quotes can’t be compared.

Where should you look for web design companies?

Four places are worth searching:

• Referrals: ask businesses whose sites you like who built them, and whether they’d hire that company again.
• Footer credits: some sites name their builder at the foot of the page, which leads you from work you like to whoever made it.
• Directories: Clutch, DesignRush and GoodFirms publish ranked lists of web design companies. Read how each one orders its lists before you treat the order as a verdict.
• Search: a search for web designers near you shows who’s local, and each company’s own site is the first sample of its work.

Treat one source with care: the unsolicited email. Google’s advice on hiring search help warns about SEO firms, web consultants and agencies that email you out of the blue (June 2026). An offer that arrives that way tells you nothing about the work.

How do I check a web designer’s portfolio?

A portfolio page shows what a company wants you to see. Its live sites show what it built. Pick three or four from each company and check them yourself:

• Open them on your phone: text should read without zooming, buttons should be easy to tap, and nothing should jump around as the page loads.
• Run one through PageSpeed Insights: Google’s free test reports Core Web Vitals. Google’s marks for a good experience are the main content loading within 2.5 seconds, a response to input in under 200 milliseconds and a layout shift score under 0.1 (December 2025).
• Read the first lines: a planned site says what the business does, for whom and where, before anything else. A slogan with nothing under it suggests nobody planned the words.
• Ask who did which parts: a site in a portfolio may have had its design from one firm, its words from the client and its build from someone else.

Google says Core Web Vitals are used by its ranking systems, and also that it always seeks to show the most relevant content, even when page experience is weak (September 2026). Speed won’t make up for a page that doesn’t answer the question, so weigh it alongside the words, not above them.

How do I check references and reviews?

Ask each company for two or three past clients, then call them. An email gets a polite reply, and a call gets the detail. Five questions are worth asking:

• What went wrong: every project hits a problem, and the useful answer is how the company handled it.
• Whether the bill matched the quote: and if it didn’t, what the extra was for.
• How changes worked: who asked for them, how they were priced and how quickly they were made.
• What happened after launch: who fixes things now, and how fast they reply.
• Whether they’d hire the company again: for the next site, or for more work on this one.

Read online reviews with the rules in mind. The FTC’s final rule on consumer reviews and testimonials took effect on October 21, 2024. It bans false reviews and testimonials, paying for reviews on condition that they say something positive or negative, reviews from a company’s own managers or staff without disclosure, review sites a company controls presented as independent, and using threats or intimidation to prevent or remove negative reviews. A page of glowing quotes without names proves little. A named client who takes your call proves more.

What questions should I ask a web design company?

Send these to every company on your list, in writing, and keep the answers side by side:

• Who does the work: the people on the sales call, or someone else? Ask whether any part is passed to a subcontractor.
• How many rounds of changes are included: and what a change costs once they’re used up.
• What happens to the old site’s pages: on a rebuild, Google’s site-move guidance is to map each old URL to its new one with permanent redirects, such as 301 or 308, kept as long as possible and generally for at least a year (August 2026). Ask who checks those redirects after launch, since Google warns that rankings can swing for a while as it processes a move.
• Which accessibility standard they build to: WCAG 2.2, a W3C Recommendation first published in October 2023 and last updated in December 2024, sets three levels, A, AA and AAA. Ask which level they work to and how they test, by hand as well as with tools.
• What you can edit yourself: which changes you can make without them, and how.
• What the site costs to run: hosting, the domain, any paid software and any monthly plan, every year after launch, and what each one covers.

One more question belongs in the contract rather than the email: what you will own when the work ends.

What do you own when the project ends?

What the contract says. Under US copyright law, the copyright in a work initially belongs to its author, the person who created it (U.S. Copyright Office, Circular 1, revised September 2021), so paying for a site doesn’t settle what you own at the end. Get three answers in writing before you sign:

• What you own: your domain at the least, registered to you on a registrar account you control, with the agency added only if it needs access.
• What the agency builds and runs for you: the site, its hosting and analytics and the monthly upkeep, and whose account each one sits on.
• What happens if you leave: the notice either side gives, and what you get when the work ends.

Search Console needs the same care: Google’s advice on hiring an SEO is to grant only read access during an audit, and it reminds you that you’re responsible for what any company you hire does to your site (June 2026). This is general information, not legal advice.

What are the red flags when hiring a web designer?

Any one of these is a reason to slow down:

• A promise about rankings: no designer controls where Google puts a site. Google’s page on hiring an SEO leaves no room for doubt, “No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google,” and says to look elsewhere if a firm claims otherwise (June 2026).
• An accessibility plug-in sold as the whole answer: ADA.gov says automated checkers and overlays can be helpful tools, but a clean report doesn’t necessarily mean a site is accessible, and that pairing a check by hand with the automated tools can give a better sense of a site’s accessibility (March 2022). In April 2025 the FTC finalized an order requiring accessiBe, which the FTC said had claimed its plug-in could make any website meet WCAG, to pay $1 million, and barring it from making that claim about its automated products without evidence.
• No written scope: a quote without a page list, a change policy and what happens after launch can’t be compared or held to.
• A price before any questions: a company that quotes before asking what the site must do is quoting a template.
• Pressure to sign: a discount that expires in days is a sales tactic, not a reason to choose a designer.

Why hire a web designer at all?

A website builder gets a site online, and for some businesses that’s enough. If your work comes from referrals and the site only has to confirm you exist, a builder’s template with your details, photos and a contact form may do the job.

A designer is worth hiring when the site has to bring in work. Most of that work is out of sight:

• Research: what buyers search for, and which pages competitors earn their visits with.
• A page plan: one page per service or question, built from that research.
• Words: copy that answers buyers’ questions in their terms, near the top of each page.
• The build: fast pages that work on every phone, with structured data for search.
• The launch: redirects from old addresses on a rebuild, and analytics and Search Console connected from day one.

The test: if new customers find you by searching, the site is doing sales work, and planning it is worth paying for.

How do you compare quotes from web design companies?

Lay the quotes side by side and compare what each one includes before you compare totals:

A lower quote that leaves out the words or the redirects is a quote for a smaller job. The market’s ranges by level of business are in website design cost, and running costs come on top of any build.

Our web design work covers the research and page plan, the words, the design and images, the build on Astro or Next.js, and the launch, with redirects on a rebuild and analytics, Search Console and Bing connected. Your domain and the material you give us stay yours, and we design, build, host and run the site for you. What we leave out: sites on WordPress, Shopify or Webflow, hosting on your own server, and a logo designed on its own. If a website builder fits your business better, we’ll tell you. Put this guide’s questions to us on a 15-minute call, and judge our answers the way you’d judge anyone else’s.