Choosing a web designer feels like it should come down to their work. You look at a few portfolios, pick the one whose sites you like most, and hope the same person shows up for yours.
The trouble is that a portfolio only proves someone made something attractive once. It says nothing about how they run a project, what happens when you disagree, or whether the site will still make sense to you in two years.
Hiring is a bit like tasting one dish and booking the caterer for a wedding. The dish was excellent. It tells you almost nothing about whether four hundred plates will arrive warm and on time.
These seven questions cover the gap. Ask them in one call. The answers matter less than how readily they come.
What is not included in this quote?
Ask this first, because the difference between two quotes is nearly always hiding here rather than in the work itself.
Copywriting, photography, hosting, the first year of updates, changes after launch, a second round of revisions. Any of these can sit inside a quote or outside it, and a cheaper number very often means more of them are outside.
You are not looking for a quote with nothing excluded. That does not exist. You are looking for someone who can tell you the list without checking.
Who owns everything when this is finished?
The right answer is that you do, and it should arrive without hesitation.
Your domain, your hosting account, the code, the editable design files. It is completely fine for a studio to manage those for you. It is not fine for them to own them, and businesses discover the difference years later at the worst possible moment.
If this answer is vague, stop there. Nothing else on the list matters as much.
What will you need from me, and when?
Almost every website that runs late runs late for the same reason, and it is not the designer.
It is content. The words, the photographs, the product details, the sign off that sat in someone’s inbox for three weeks. A designer who has run real projects will answer this immediately and specifically, because they have been held up by it before.
If the answer is a shrug, the timeline you have been given is decoration.
Can I see three sites you have built, live?
Not screenshots. Live addresses you can open, click through, and load on your phone while you are sitting there.
Then check two things a portfolio image cannot show you. Does it load quickly on mobile data rather than office wifi? And is the site still standing, or has the client since replaced it? Work that clients keep is a stronger signal than work that photographs well.
What happens six months after launch?
You want to know what a small change costs and how quickly it happens.
A page needs updating. A form stops sending. You want to add a service. This is the ordinary life of a website and it is the part most quotes are silent about.
Ask for a number and a response time. “We will look after you” is not either of those things.
How do you decide what goes on each page?
This one separates a designer from a decorator, and it is the question I would keep if I could only ask one.
Listen for whether the answer is about your customers or about layouts. Someone who talks about what a visitor needs to understand before they get in touch is designing for your business. Someone who talks about sections and sliders is arranging furniture.
Both can produce a good looking site. Only one reliably produces enquiries.
What would you tell me not to spend money on?
The best question on the list, and the one nobody asks.
Anyone who has done this work honestly has an opinion about what small businesses waste money on. A custom booking system for four appointments a month. A blog nobody has time to write. An animation that costs a week and achieves nothing.
If someone cannot name a single thing you should skip, they are selling rather than advising. Someone willing to talk you out of spending is worth trusting about the things you should spend on.
What if the answers are good but the price is high?
Then you have a decision to make with real information, which is the whole point of asking.
A higher quote from someone who answered all seven clearly is usually a better purchase than a lower one from someone who answered three. Not always. But the cheaper quote often turns out to include less than you assumed, and the gap appears later as extras rather than up front as honesty.
What you are really buying at this stage is not a website. It is a working relationship with someone who will make a few hundred small decisions on your behalf over the next two months.
These seven questions tell you what kind of decisions those are likely to be.
Happy to answer all seven before you ask. Tell us what you are working on and we will come back with a written scope, including what we think you should skip.
