A website has to work on a phone first (Pew Research's 2026 fact sheet finds 91% of US adults own one), load fast, be found in search and turn a visitor into an inquiry. A web design company is chosen on its ability to deliver those four things, not on how its own homepage looks.
This article is part of our web design guides. The platform-specific cost questions are covered in how much a WordPress website costs, and the wider software question in how much custom software costs.
Why the portfolio and the price are not enough
A portfolio shows what a company can make look good in a screenshot. It does not show whether the site loads in two seconds on a phone, whether it ranks for anything, whether it converts, or whether it still works a year later. Price tells you even less, because two quotes for "a ten-page business website" can describe entirely different amounts of work.
The ten checks below are the things that predict a good outcome. Use them on every company you shortlist, including the one a friend recommended.
1. Check live sites it built, on your phone, today
Ask for five live sites the company built in the last two years, open each on your phone, and use them as a customer would: find a service, read a page, fill a form. Note speed, clarity and whether anything is broken. Then ask which of those sites the company still maintains. A portfolio of launches tells you less than a list of sites that are still healthy.
2. Ask for the process in writing
A good web design company can describe its process from the first call to the first month after launch: discovery (your goals, users, content and competitors), structure and wireframes, visual design, content, build, testing on real devices, launch, and support. Ask what you must provide at each step and when. A company that cannot write its process down cannot price it reliably either. Our sibling guide on the website development process covers the stages in detail once it is published.
3. Test speed and stability on its own work
Run two or three of its live sites through a free page-speed tool and compare them with Google's Core Web Vitals thresholds. Google's web.dev says a good experience means Largest Contentful Paint within 2.5 seconds, Interaction to Next Paint of 200 milliseconds or less, and Cumulative Layout Shift of 0.1 or less, measured at the 75th percentile of page loads (page updated 31 October 2024). A company whose recent sites miss those marks will build you one that misses them too.
4. Ask how it handles search and content
A website nobody finds is a brochure in a drawer. Ask how the company plans the pages around what your buyers search, how it writes titles and descriptions, how it handles redirects if you are replacing an old site, and whether it writes the content or expects you to. Google's own guidance on hiring an SEO applies here: ask what results they expect and in what timeframe, and treat any promised ranking as a warning. Our SEO services page shows how search and design should be planned together.
5. Ask who does the work, and where
Ask whether the designers and developers are the company's own people or subcontractors, where they sit, and who will be your single point of contact. Location shapes price more than anything else: Clutch's web developers pricing page (updated 21 September 2026, from verified client reviews) lists average hourly costs of $100 to $149 in the USA, Canada and Australia, $50 to $99 in Poland, $25 to $49 in the Philippines, Ukraine, Spain and Mexico, and under $25 in India. Where the team sits is not a quality signal in either direction; the live work is. Our own delivery team is in India, and we say so plainly.
6. Confirm what you will own
Domain, hosting account, source code, theme and plugins, content, images, analytics and search accounts: all in your name from day one, with the logins held by you. Ask whether the company uses a proprietary platform you cannot leave, and what happens to the site if you stop working together. Ownership written into the contract is the check most owners skip and most regret.
7. Understand what the price includes
Ask for the quote as a list: discovery, design, number of page templates, content writing, images, build, forms and integrations, testing, launch, training and the first month of support, each with its fee. Ask what is excluded and what hosting, licenses and maintenance cost each year. For scale, Clutch puts the average web development agency project at $66,499.09 over about 9 months, with most listed firms at $25 to $49 an hour; averages are pulled up by large builds, and a ten-page business site costs far less. Market estimates, not our prices; we publish no rate card and scope each site with a fee per deliverable.
8. Ask how the site is maintained after launch
A site needs updates, backups, security patches, speed checks and small changes every month. Ask who does that, what it costs, how fast a problem is fixed, and whether you can make simple edits yourself. A company that disappears at launch leaves you with a site that decays. If the site runs on WordPress, our WordPress development page describes the maintenance routine we use.
9. Call a reference who is a year in
Ask for a client whose site launched twelve months ago or more, and call them. Ask what went wrong, how it was handled, whether the site still performs and whether they would hire the company again. A reference from last month tells you about the launch; a reference from last year tells you about the company.
10. Check that everything is explained in plain words
If a proposal is full of terms you do not understand, ask for them to be explained, and judge the answer. A company that can explain hosting, caching, structured data and redirects to an owner in plain English will also explain its invoices and its decisions. Secrecy or jargon used as a shield is a warning sign in design as it is in SEO.
Questions to ask a web design company before you sign
Take this list into every meeting:
- Which five live sites did you build in the last two years, and which do you still maintain?
- What is your process, step by step, and what do you need from me at each step?
- What speed and Core Web Vitals targets do you build to, and how do you test them?
- How will you plan the pages around what my buyers search, and who writes the content?
- Who exactly will work on my site, where are they, and who is my contact?
- What will I own, in whose name, and what happens if we part ways?
- What does the price include and exclude, and what does the site cost each year to run?
- How is the site maintained after launch, and how fast are problems fixed?
- Can I speak to a client whose site is a year old?
Red flags when choosing a web design company
Walk away from:
- A promised ranking or a promised traffic figure. Nobody controls search results.
- A proprietary platform you cannot leave, or logins the company keeps.
- No live sites, or sites that are slow on a phone.
- A single price with no breakdown, or a price far below everyone else's for the same scope.
- No process, no timeline, no named contact.
- A design-first pitch that never mentions search, speed or conversion.
Platform fit: WordPress, Shopify or custom
Choose the company after the platform, not before. A content-led business site usually suits WordPress; an online store usually suits Shopify or another commerce platform; a product with unusual logic may need a custom build. Ask each company which platforms it builds on and why it recommends one for you. Our WordPress, Shopify and ecommerce website design pages explain how we choose, and our comparison of WordPress development companies shows how platform specialists differ.
Conclusion
Choosing a web design company is choosing who will build the one piece of marketing every prospect sees. Judge the live work on your phone, the written process, speed against Google's thresholds, the approach to search, the people and their location, what you will own, what the price includes, the maintenance plan, a year-old reference and plain explanations. Then compare proposals line by line.
PromotEdge International is an international strategy, technology, marketing and design company, and our delivery team is in India. Our web design services are scoped with a fee per deliverable, built to Google's speed thresholds and planned with search from the first call; we publish no rate card.
Facts we rely on: see our company facts for what we state about ourselves and where each fact comes from.